“And tell me,” I say, feeling something hot rise in my throat, “how is the new council faring?”
This king’s council is not like the last. There are still the four counts, one from each region （though Gáspár has replaced poor dead Korhonen, and exiled scheming Reményi） and a recently appointed érsek, who is young and vital and sharp-eyed, with none of his predecessor’s cloaked wickedness. But now there are other members, too, chosen to represent Régország’s smaller factions. Factions that live in the icy fringes of the Far North, or in the dark belly of the woods.
“Well, Tuula and Szabín have started their journey toward the capital,” he says. “And we’ve fished half the river clean in preparation for hosting the bear. The Yehuli have held their own debates for weeks, finishing in a small election, to choose their representative. It should please you to know that Zsigmond’s arguments won out.”
The thought floods me with such joy that I laugh, heady with relief. In my absence, my father will have a new way to fill his days, sitting on the council of the king, and perhaps even a woman to come home to at night. “Batya will be pleased.”
“She’s already sent a basket of bread to the palace, in gratitude.” Gáspár’s smile is gentle, eye pooling with moonlight. “Now we’re only waiting for our last.”
In a way it was like being cast out again, when all of Keszi voted for me to be their voice on the king’s council. Perhaps still some of them only relished the idea of me spending so many weeks gone in the capital. But most, I think, have given up their old cruelties, as I have abandoned my perverse grudges. Some of the girls who tormented me are mothers now, and when I pass by them running after their daughters or showing their sons how to weave, I see that they don’t pull their children away from me. I see that they are teaching their children to be kinder, even if sometimes their lips still twitch with the beginnings of a slur, or the scarcely fettered desire to scowl.
“Did you worry I might not come,” I ask, “if you didn’t bring me?”
“Of course not,” he says. “I didn’t want you to go through the woods alone.”
We have crossed so many miles together, only to end up back here. When our eyes first met at the edge of Keszi, me costumed in my lying wolf cloak, and him burdened by his Woodsman’s suba, I could not have guessed that our journeys would bring us to this place again, the very same spot in the clearing, with so many new words blooming inside us.
“One day when I come for our council meetings,” I begin carefully, “you will have a new bride. You must.”
A shadow casts across his face. There is that blade sharpening over our heads, counting down the moments to its fall. I have tried not to think of it, during the days that I waited for him here, my skin singing with anticipation. I will try not to think of it during the nights we spend together in my new hut, or on our journey back to Király Szek. But I think I must say it now, or else choke on the swallowed pain.
To my surprise, Gáspár only lifts a shoulder. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. If the king has no true-born son, the crown will fall to a brother, a cousin, an uncle. The line of succession is more like a long thread that spirals across our family tree. I can always name another heir.”
It is enough for me to hold on to, hope as thin as the knife’s edge hanging above us. I will grasp it even if it cuts me; I will keep it from falling. When winter is one long haze of white, snow weighing down your roof and the cold lining your marrow, it is the dream of a green, bright spring that keeps you from despair. I kiss him just once, on the left side of his faintly smiling mouth.
“There’s one more thing,” he says, and reaches into the folds of his cloak. “From Zsigmond.”
He hands me a package wrapped in brown muslin and looped with twine. I loosen the bindings and peel back the cloth to see a thick scroll of parchment, a large inkwell, and two fine feather quills. The sight of them makes my chest swell and, unbidden, tears leap to my eyes.
“Thank you,” I say.
“I only brought them,” Gáspár says. “When we get to Király Szek, you can thank Zsigmond yourself.”
I grip the quill tightly in my fingers, still warm with the heat of Gáspár’s hand. Virág has gathered another audience by the fire, all the men and women who haven’t retired already to their huts. The Woodsmen stand by their horses, faces grim with uncertainty.