Page 27 of The Bone Doll
Syra stared at him for a long moment. She knew Viktor admired the heroes in his stories and wanted to emulate them. But this… He had fashioned an entire charade so that shelikedhim,wantedhim back. When heknewhe was taking her prisoner. When heknewshe should hate him. The necklace snapped, the beads falling to the floor.
Viktor knelt to pick them up.
“I can’t trust you,” she said.
“Syra, please,” he whispered, refusing to meet her gaze.
“Leave.” Her voice broke. “Leave.I’ll deal with theleshyand your father myself. Go … do whatever it is you actually do when you aren’t lying. Because I never want to see you again.”
Chapter 18
The Green Man
Syra slumped onto the bed, scrubbing at her wet cheeks. She was a fool. How did she not realize that Viktor was seducing her? The glass beads spread all over the floor. He had even said that necklace was a bribe, and she had forgotten about it just because she liked his kisses. She groaned and wished she could claw her own heart out. Maybe that would stop the pain.
While she was sniveling like a broken-hearted teenage girl, the door swung open. Lord Igor Sviatopolkovich strode in, a smug grin twisting his features, followed by a slew of guards. He stopped before the bed and crossed his arms in front of his barrel-like chest.
“It looks like my son had the balls to end it with you,” he said. “A Ruthenian lord really is too good for a tundra bitch. ButIstill have need of you, and I won’t even degrade myself by fucking you.”
She fisted the covers, glaring at him.
“My son says you – or that little figurine of yours – has magic,” Igor said. “And I need help with theleshytrying to tear down my house.”
“I’ll send him deep into the forest,” Syra said.
“No, no, no.” The lord wagged a finger. “You will bind him to another one of your figurines. And if you can’t do that, you’ll control it yourself. You and theleshycan be my little pets. Itwill be wonderful to control what grows where, and always have perfect hunts.”
“You don’t want the Bone Doll here,” she said. “It’s–”
“But I do,” he insisted. He gestured to the guards. “And all these lovely men are here to make sure that you ensnare theleshy, just as I want, and return to me.”
Three guards strode forward. Two grabbed her arms and hauled her off the bed, while the third pressed a knife into her lower back. Syra trembled but not from fear. Anger burned in her stomach.
“Take the girl into the forest,” Igor ordered. “And make sure she returns.”
They marched her out of the dining room and through the manor’s maze-like corridors. The Bone Doll reverberated in her belt purse, as angry as she was. Shadows and creeping vines reached out to meet her; the guards hacked the latter away. A soft mist climbed up from the loam below their feet, obscuring the forest floor. And they kept walking her deeper and deeper in until she could no longer see the sky above.
Finally, the guards let her go with a hard shove. Syra almost lost her footing but caught herself. Stepping hurriedly away from them, she drew the Bone Doll, her knuckles turning white as she gripped it. It was painfully hot against her skin, but she didn’t let go. It had saved her from that screamer; hopefully it would protect her here. She looked around slowly. The fog began to twist tightly around her, turning the forest almost black. The nearby owl went silent.
I don’t want to do this…
Then, she heard choking. Thick vines wrapped around the guard’s throats. Their faces turned redder and redder as they kicked out against the loam. But the vines did not unrelent. The guard on the left dropped, limp and purple-faced. A few moments later, the vines dropped the second corpse and thethird. The other guards, further behind, backtracked hurriedly until she could neither see nor hear them.
In her fingers, the Bone Doll glowed blue.
A figure emerged from the forest.
Her eyes widened as it moved forward into the moonlight. It was a man who seemed nearly as tall and thick as an oak tree. He wore a long, green caftan over matching trousers. But he seemed to misunderstand buttons: the front of his caftan was twisted and pinched from his attempts to put buttons in the wrong holes. And when Syra stopped trying to understand his odd dressing habits, she noticed the shining and sharpened antlers that grew from above his ears.
“Who are you?” she demanded as the Bone Doll went dark, cold. “What are you?”
“I am the trees, I am the moss, I am the lianas that crisscross,” the creature said in a voice as deep and dark as the underworld. “I am the lord of the golden wood, the soul of the birch forest.”
“You are theleshy,” she said.
“You are a woman far from home,” he replied. “And you carry a creature from far away.”
“The bones of a sky spirit,” she said.
