“The turul,” I say slowly, trying not to think of Virág as I do. “You think it will give your father the power to subdue Nándor? To end the war, even?”
Gáspár nods. His jaw is set, and he’s staring at me with a flint-eyed intensity that seems to startle us both when I finally meet his gaze.
“Fine.” My fingers clench around the coin in my pocket. “I’ll go with you. I’ll help you find the turul. But you have to do something for me too.”
“If you help me find the turul, you’re free to return to Keszi, unharmed.”
I shake my head. It’s not enough. “And no one will be punished for my deception.”
“Fine,” Gáspár echoes.
“One more thing,” I say, even as my pulse quickens. “I want to know what the king does, with the girls and women that he takes.”
Gáspár blinks at me, nose flaring with the beginnings of a protest. His lips part, then close again. It’s several moments before he moves at all, but when he does, it’s to hold out his hand.
“All right, wolf-girl,” he says. “You have a deal. No harm will come to you or to your village. And when we find the turul, I’ll tell you what happens to the pagan women who are brought to the capital.”
I have to let go of the coin to take his hand. His grip is firm, and his gloves are soft to the touch. Someone must have slaughtered a newborn calf to make gloves so soft. When I pull my hand away, there’s blood crusted into the creases of my palm.
“You’re going to follow Peti to his grave if you don’t cover your wound,” I say, my voice odd-sounding. I don’t want him to mistake my practical scrutiny for genuine concern.
Gáspár looks down at the trio of gashed lines on his side, then back up at me. “Are you a healer after all?”
“No,” I tell him, trying not to flush at another reminder of my inadequacy. “But my—Virág taught me how to dress a wound.”
He raises his shoulders with a sudden inhale, fast and sharp. “You could have helped us dress Peti’s, then. You could have saved him.”
What little camaraderie I might have felt puddles out of me. “Why would I have helped to save the life of a man who tried to kill me? And if you didn’t want him to die, you shouldn’t have cut off his arm!”
“The punishment had to be levied for treason,” Gáspár says, voice low.
“All your grave proclamations make you sound like Virág,” I snap. “Do you enjoy being as dramatic as a hundred-year-old pagan hag? You could have cut off his head, instead. At least then he wouldn’t have suffered, and I wouldn’t have had to watch it.”
A beat of silence passes between us. Gáspár takes a step forward, and I wonder for a moment if I have given him enough reason to forget our bargain and put a blade through my back anyway.
He stops himself before he reaches me, fingers curling to a fist. “You don’t understand, wolf-girl. Taking Peti’s arm was a mercy, to spare both his soul and mine. Now he must face the judgment of the Prinkepatrios for his crime, and my soul is blackened with his death.”
I stare up at him, openmouthed. “So it’s the fate of your own soul that has you so troubled? You’d rather make a man suffer than bear the guilt of killing him? You’re right—you won’t survive a day in Kaleva without me.”
“Killing is a mortal sin, especially killing a man of the Patrifaith.” Gáspár’s eye is thin as the mark of an arrowhead. “Better to wound than to kill, and better to suffer than to die before confession. Peti will never be absolved, and the Prinkepatrios will punish him in the afterlife.”
I choke down a noise of derision. “But the Prinkepatrios has no compunctions about kidnapping wolf-girls. And binding me to a dying man, making me hear every gasp of his pain—more cruelty that doesn’t require absolution.”
“That was Ferkó’s idea,” Gáspár says, gaze lowering. “Not mine.”
“Then you’re cruel and gutless.” My face is hot. “Do you always let your men guide the swing of your ax?”
“Not anymore,” Gáspár says shortly. “They’re dead now.”
Something sinks in my belly with the heaviness of a stone. Ferkó and Imre lie by the fire, their bodies cradled in a sepulcher of blood-damp grass. The mist over the water has cleared, and there are little blades of moonlight rippled across its surface, turning it silver and bright as a mirror. From where I stand, it seems inconceivable that anyone could call the lake Black.