“The myth of the turul is the origin of our seeing magic,” I say to Gáspár, swallowing the bitterness of the memory. “The magic of Isten made manifest. Is that the power the king craves?”
“He’s convinced that it’s the only way he’ll ever defeat Merzan. With its magic”—his mouth twists around the word—“he could see their every move before they made it. Which route their soldiers will take, how to ambush them on the way. The location of their supply line and where best to cut it. My father would know their war strategy before the bey even picked up his quill to write the missive.”
Thinking of the turul that way, as a weapon in the king’s bloody war, makes my stomach chill. Even worse when I realize what it means for Keszi. “That’s why he wanted a seer.”
Gáspár nods, and I watch his brow furrow faintly with disgust. It’s holy disgust, which their god commands them to feel whenever they speak of pagan myths or the potential utility of wolf-girls. “He believes the powers of a seer might be able to keep the Merzani army at bay until he finds the turul.”
Anger laces through my veins with such a force that it shocks me, even now. That ancient memory and any comfort it held winnows away, something black curling its edges. “The king makes a good show of hating the pagans, all while craving our heathen magic. He’s a hypocrite.”
Gáspár is looking down at his wound. Blood is trickling along the hem of his dolman, and his one eye is trained on it with a sort of helplessness that coaxes a drop of pity from me. I banish it as quickly as I can.
“Yes,” Gáspár says finally. “He prays every day that Godfather Life will forgive him for his duplicity.”
Up until now, he has spoken only of Bárány János as the king, the great feared ruler of Régország whose hands are dark with pagan blood. But now he speaks of Bárány János as his father—a man who is not beyond redemption. It shouldn’t move me. It should make me want to put the knife through his good eye. Instead, my chest tightens.
Gáspár is still looking down at his wound, and at that moment it strikes me, what he plans to do. “That’s why you’re not going to Keszi. You’re going to help me find the turul.”
This time, I can only give a mirthless laugh.
“I thought you were a clever soldier,” I say. “But it turns out you’re just a stupid prince.”
“I know where it is,” he says with such a petty, wretched stubbornness that if it were anyone else, I might have liked him for it. If he were anyone but a Woodsman. “It’s in Kaleva.”
I scoff. “And what makes you so certain?”
“Because the Woodsmen have been searching the other regions for months and haven’t found even a trace of it. It has to be in Kaleva.”
So that’s what the Woodsmen are doing when they’re not slaughtering the monsters of Ezer Szem or ripping us wolf-girls from our village—chasing after mythical creatures that they aren’t supposed to believe in. I wonder how they manage to keep their faith in spite of it, how they aren’t swallowed up by the king’s ungraceful artifice. Something deeper than material reward or mortal glory must be driving them, or else the king would have more to worry about than the Merzani army. Gáspár is staring narrow-eyed at me, a challenge in his gaze.
“That’s the stupidest logic I’ve ever heard,” I say at last.
Gáspár’s shoulders rise around his ears. “What would you know? A wolf-girl from a tiny village, who’s never set foot outside Ezer Szem—”
“More than a pampered, one-eyed prince,” I cut in. “For starters, you don’t know the turul is in Kaleva. Just because some inept Woodsmen can’t find it in those other places doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Besides that, you’ll arrive in Kaleva just as winter sets in. Your archer is dead, and if you’re as incompetent with a bow and arrow as you are with that ax, I don’t expect you’ll survive very long.”
A wind sweeps in from the lake, and my damp hair ripples across my face. Gáspár stares and stares as his suba ruffles like a raven’s black feathers, looking smaller somehow, even though he must be a head taller than me.
“Is there nothing you wouldn’t do for your own father?”
His question is a blow to the back. For a moment, out of pure, breathless spite, I reconsider my decision to kill him.