Page 29 of The Bone Doll
“You walked farther than you think,” she said.
Viktor sat silently, then, unsure of what to say. Theshchiwas better than any of the food his family served; and it wasn’t soured by his family’s presence. His guilt only seemed to make him hungrier, and he finished it quicker than was polite. The woman didn’t offer him more.
“You betrayed someone,” she said, not looking up from her needlework.
Viktor flinched. “How do you know?”
“Your guilt is written in your eyes and draped like a cloak around your shoulders.” She stabbed her needle into the ratty fabric with a certain cruel efficiency. “Did you lie to them out of love or cowardice?”
He swallowed. And though he wanted to get up and leave, his legs stayed rooted to the chair he sat in.
“You want to be like Dobrynya in the fairytales,” she said. “But you are thezmey, stealing and burning whatever you see.”
Thezmey. A scaly, slithering, greedy thing. Perhaps a hero should come along and slay him.
Setting aside her needlework, the old woman slipped her withered hand into her apron pocket and pulled out a flat piece of glass. She settled in the palm of her hand and stared at it as though it were a mirror, though Viktor was certain all she could see was her palm.
“When you leave me, be careful which road you choose,” she said. “In one direction is your fate. In another, your destiny.”
Viktor scowled, standing. “Both paths lead to the same place?”
“The gods twist your fate from many fibers into a great rope,” she said. “You can change what the threads are made of.”
“Which way is which?”
She smiled and shook her head.
His skin prickled, and her magic finally released him. He jumped from his stool and backed towards the door. Then through it. He climbed down the front steps and trotted through the flock of chickens. The old woman didn’t follow.
He glanced back.
The house on stilts, its yard, and the chickens were gone. Only trees and thorn bushes remained. The hairs on the back of Viktor’s neck stiffened as he wondered if the woman and her house had been there at all. But the smell of horseradish and burning pinewood remained. Shaking himself, he turned away again, the forest shrinking closer. What did it matter if the woman was real or a trick of his desperate mind? Maybe if she was a spirit, she should have eaten him or taken him captive. Then, Syra would never see him again – and Viktor wouldn’t have to walk away himself.
Just as he thought of her, a bright blue light flickered across the sky. He turned, his guts twisting. In the north, that bright blue light shone upward through the trees and into the sky.
“Syra,” he whispered.
Chapter 20
A Bargain Made
Viktor ran until his legs gave out. And then he crawled, following the blue light through thorny underbrush and over twisted roots, until he found the bodies of his father’s armsmen. Their necks were snapped, their faces purple and blue. Scrambling past them, he found Syra, her body hanging limply from a liana. Her eyes and mouth were open, pale blue light pouring from them like waterfalls. Dark spots floated in Viktor’s vision. He reached forward and found not Syra but a caftan made from soft leaves and coarse bark.
Theleshyturned. He was half-man, half-forest with fury carved into his wooden face. “She came to imprison me.”
Viktor’s muscles tightened, telling him to run. But he was too tired. And he would not leave Syra again. “It’s my fault. I brought her here.”
“She agreed.”
Viktor swung his arm backwards towards where the armsmen were. “The guards forced her.”
“They are dead.”
The vine around her throat shifted. Viktor’s vision blurred, his breathing rasped. If Syra died, he’d never forgive himself. “Please! Please, let her go. I lied to her. I didn’t tell her that she was supposed to control you.”
“She would chain me like she chains that sky spirit. But I will not be held.”
“Let her go,” Viktor begged. “Take me instead. I brought her here. I lied because I knew she wouldn’t do it until she was forced. Spare her. And– And– Kill me instead.”
