Worse still is the thought of him slumping over in the snow, veins darkening with poison, all the color bled out of his face. If I imagine him dying here, cold and alone, my throat closes almost painfully.
I wrap his wound.
Still, I’m not sure why I bother with the makeshift bandage. By the look of the snow and the cluster of storm clouds overhead, Kaleva will kill us before anything else can.
With every step we take farther north, the trees grow taller and taller, their trunks as wide as houses. The lowest layer of branches is so far from the sun that most of the wood has turned brittle and dead, desiccated needles heaped on the forest floor. But above, where the trees touch the sky, the needles are a heady green, lush with water and light and vibrant against the pale snow.
Any one of these trees could be the tree of life, and the turul could be hidden among the rimy foliage. But I can’t see anything except the snow falling in dense white sheets. When I glance over my shoulder I can’t see Gáspár either, just the blur of his suba, like a coal-blackened handprint on a windowpane. If he’s still bleeding, the storm has covered any trace of it.
Soon the horses are pawing the ground and whinnying obstinately. We slip off our mounts and lead them through the forest on foot until we come upon a tree as thick around as Virág’s hut, the wood porous and termite-pocked, smelling damply of rot. Fronds of moss dangle from the coiled roots, and lichen crawls up the trunk, the pale color of old lace. We usher our horses into the hollow space where its roots have cleaved apart, and Gáspár ties their reins to a bulbous, sturdy branch.
“We’ve lost so much time already,” he says, frowning.
My voice rises over the baying wind. “You’re welcome to keep going on your own. I’ll return to dig you out come springtime.”
Gáspár makes a face, but he doesn’t protest. We trudge farther into the forest in search of shelter, finally pausing at the base of another tree. Its labyrinth of roots stretches over a hollow between the trunk and the earth, with just enough space for two bodies. I pause before the crevice, pulling my wolf cloak tighter around me.
Until now I’ve not touched him except to shake his hand to inaugurate our uneasy bargain, or to examine his wound. The prospect of being so close to him makes my stomach knot—especially because I know he’s still bridling from the indignity of needing me to wrap his cut. I slip through the slender gap in the roots, loosing clods of dirt. I crawl under the tree and pull my knees to my chest. Gáspár stands outside, the wind carding roughly through his suba, unmoving. His lips are thinned and pale. For a brief moment I wonder if he’s stubborn enough to stand out there all night, waiting for the snow to bury him. Then he slides between the roots and crouches in the hollow beside me.
There’s scarcely room to move once we’re both inside. His shoulder is pressed firmly against mine, the heat of his body bleeding through his suba and my wolf cloak. I can feel each tense of his muscles as his fingers curl and uncurl, jaw clenching. Our cold breath mingles in the small, dark space.
Gáspár’s face is drawn, throat bobbing. I wonder for a second time if he’s ever been this close to a woman who wasn’t a wolf-girl, but I decide not to needle him about it, since he is already glowering. Outside, the wind shakes the branches with a ferocious howl.
“Who could live in a place like this?” he murmurs, almost to himself.
I don’t know of anyone who makes their home so far north except the Juvvi, who herd reindeer and build fishing lodges along the ragged Kalevan coastline. But I don’t mention the Juvvi to Gáspár. When his great-grandfather, Bárány Tódor, conquered Kaleva, he made it his mission to subdue the Juvvi. Virág says that he captured one of their tribal leaders, a woman named Rasdi, and confined her in a prison until she ate her own feet. Remembering the story makes my skin prickle with anger.
“You say that Patritians consider killing to be a sin.” I keep my voice even, struggling not to think of his body flush against my own. “But your Patritian kings slaughtered thousands, not caring about their own souls or the souls of their victims.”
Gáspár’s eye narrows. “Those were pagans who refused to bend the knee to the king and swear themselves to the Prinkepatrios. Kajetán was a Patritian. He could have repented.”
“He wasn’t going to repent,” I say, mouth puckering around the word. “And you say that it isn’t your right to choose whether a man deserves to die, but you did choose. You decided that I should live instead of Kajetán.”