“They’re more than just statues,” Nándor says, turning to me. “A piece of the stone has been hollowed out, and the remains of our kings are kept inside. We have King Géza’s finger bones, and a lock of King Tódor’s hair. We even have King István’s right eye. The blessing of the Prinkepatrios keeps them from decaying, and our prayers are channeled through these vessels, their power multiplied a thousandfold.”
I don’t know how he can believe such a thing—that there’s power in the hair and bones of some long-dead saints. But King János has proven that magic thrums in the veins of every wolf-girl, diffused down to even her fingernails. Perhaps their saints are no different, though Nándor is the first to call it power.
“You ought to make a crown out of your old kings’ fingernails,” I say, “since you Patritians are so keen on worshipping dead things.”
Nándor gives an airy laugh that makes my stomach turn. “You must accustom yourself to worshipping them, too, now that you’ve knelt for my father.”
“I’d sooner swallow your dead saint’s knucklebone,” I say, giving a laugh of my own, but really I am thinking of Peti. I am thinking of király és szentség, the words stitching themselves into the fabric of mind. The memory of Zsigmond’s magic surges up in reply, as if hastily summoned. What would happen if I learned to write those words on parchment, and then blotted them out with my thumb? Would that erase the truth of them too?
“How very ferocious of you,” Nándor says loftily. His eyes, in this moment, are perfect mirrors of Katalin’s: gleaming, gloating. “You may be oath-bound to my father, but I’d caution you against forgetting what you are. A pagan girl, a long way from home, alone in a city of Patritian peasants and soldiers, with Woodsmen around every corner and down every long hall at night. The Patrifaith has lived here long before you, and it will live here long after. You are nothing, wolf-girl, scarcely even worth the mess of killing.”
He wants to frighten me, but he doesn’t know that I’ve spent all my life under threat of cold blue fire.
“I don’t believe you,” I say, meeting his gaze. “You say that I’m nothing, but you’ve already gone to the effort of trying to make me fear for my life. Did the érsek put these words in your mouth, too, or did you contrive them all on your own? Either way, you could have left me to my own quiet demise, to flounder and fail, but you’ve chosen to try and terrify me instead, the way you tortured my father—”
I stop abruptly, my chest seizing. I have made a terrible mistake. Confusion clouds over Nándor’s face, and then clears with triumphant revelation.
“Your father,” he echoes, clucking his tongue. “I did wonder why you seemed to care so much about the fate of that Yehuli man.”
It is the closest I have come to killing him, the possibility so clear and bright in my mind, like staring wide-eyed at a cloudless sun. I know I’ll only damn the Yehuli, and Zsigmond, further if I do, but I can scarcely believe the stupid looseness of my tongue. I have handed Nándor a polished, whetted blade. ?rd?g’s threads twitch, my fingers aching to wrap themselves around his delicate wrist. I know he can see the stricken look on my face, the way I have stilled like a prey animal.
Before I can reply, the sound of wood meeting metal re verberates through the courtyard. I hurry toward the noise, Nándor at my heels, and we turn around the barbican into another, smaller courtyard, closed on three sides by the castle walls. Archery targets are so stuck full of arrows, they look like wounded martyrs. Gáspár stands in the center of the square, clutching a wooden sword. His younger half-brother, the one with beechwood hair, holds his own play sword loosely in one hand.
“Use your right hand, Matyi,” Gáspár says. “And lead with your right foot.”
The boy switches his sword to the other hand, brow furrowing. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I think it will be quite a long time before you’re capable of that,” Gáspár says. An easy smile comes across his face, cheek feathering with a small dimple. The gentleness of it roots me to the ground, my stomach turning over on itself. I left any trace of that gentleness on the ice, back in Kaleva, or in the woods of Szarvasvár girded by a copse of willow trees. A pulse of anger returns in its place: Gáspár was ready to watch me die.
But I have survived, and now when Gáspár sees me, his smile vanishes as if it’s been swept away by the wind. His eye runs up and down me, taking in my dress with its torn sleeves and too-tight bodice. I wonder if he will react to the visceral wrongness of it, the way I would shudder at seeing him in a wolf cloak, but he only goes red and turns his face away, and I try to convince myself that I am better off without him and his flustered, prayerful blushing. If my bruise still lingers on his throat, I can’t see it—he has buttoned his dolman all the way up to his chin.