Canticle [Historical M/M Romantasy]

Sergei knew something terrible had happened when the cold shook him awake.

A cold like that — one so sharp and so sudden that it could wake up a man like him, a man who was used to taking everything the forest could spit at him — wasn't normal. Wasn't right. Sergei pushed himself up onto his elbows, drawing his furs tight around his ears and scratching at his neck. He should have known this was bound to happen. Every time he had to shave off his beard, bad luck swooped down on him like a hawk. It'd been two weeks since he'd shaved; the bad luck was well overdue.

The hearth across the room was dead and cold, like he'd forgotten to tend the fire before rolling into bed. He'd had a drink or two last night, true, but he hadn't been that drunk. Sergei held his breath and listened. It was hard to hear anything over the wind shrieking outside. But he didn't think he heard anything else yelling, either out in the forest or in the sleeping rectory below him.

Or maybe not sleeping. There was a sharp bang on his door, loud enough to make him bolt upright. But it was only the one, followed by an expectant silence. Sergei hauled himself out of bed, taking a fur with him, wrapping it over his head and shoulders like someone's grandma instead of finding his coat. Though he did stop to cram his feet into his good boots before answering the knock. On a night like that, cold and dark and heavy with waiting, a man needed to keep his priorities straight.

Sergei waved aside the magic of the protection charms hung around the door and cracked it open. He was lucky they hadn't been snapped clean off the frame and shattered, considering who was waiting for him on the other side. Vera Ivanova. Not Mother Vera to him, and not in a million years Verunya or Verochka. When dealing with someone like her, it was important to always remember where you stood.

"Get up and do your work," she hissed at him, her dark, sharp eyes narrowed and glinting in the light of the fat candle she held in one hand. "The fires have been out a half hour already."

"That's a job for Mother Anna."

Sergei winced even as he said the words. Stupid, he was still half asleep. But the jab he got in the foot when Vera Ivanova brought her cane down onto it was enough to wake him all the way up.

"We're not wasting our magic fighting this," she said, waving her cane around at the heavy dark that filled the narrow hallway behind her.

Sergei stuck his head out past the doorframe and drew in a deep, long breath. Something was off. There was a touch of iron in the air, a whiff of something rotten. Like someone had killed an animal and not bothered to dress the carcass before hauling it in from the forest. He'd only smelled that a few times before in his life. It'd never ended well.

"Go do your work," Vera Ivanova repeated, her cane lifted alongside her candle, a promise more than a threat. "We've already done ours."

Sergei drew the fur tight under his chin — it'd be warm enough as long as he didn't go out into the forest, and he wasn't stupid enough to try that. He could hear ice chattering against the walls of the rectory. Already, the fifth straight night of snow. He should have known something like this was bound to happen when the storm hadn't broken after the third night. Shuffling out into the hall in his nightshirt and boots, Sergei paused to shut his door behind him and wave the protective charms back on. Vera Ivanova scoffed, but didn't budge from his side.

"Maybe it'd be better if you all went over to the church," Sergei said to her, clumping miserably down the long, narrow upstairs hallway. It was colder out there than it'd been in his room. Another bad sign. "Nadenka at least, even if you all can take care of yourselves."

"Mind your own business," Vera Ivanova grumbled as she went on ahead of him, silent and swift even as she leaned on her cane. She was out of sight down the steps at the end of the hall before Sergei could make it halfway there. But he knew she'd be back for him if he dragged his feet too long.

There was no tricking her, no worming out of anything. Which made Sergei wonder, as he fumbled blindly down the steps without Vera Ivanova's candle to guide him, why she had bothered waking him up in the first place. Probably just to send him to the back door as bait to tease out whatever was waiting in the dark outside, so that she could judge whether it was bad enough for the Mothers to spend their magic on it. Or maybe she respected him, just a little.

Vera Ivanova always said that dealing with spirits like they were people was a waste of time. But he was the one going downstairs to talk with the night first, not her.

Things were brighter down on the second floor of the rectory. Everyone was awake and had come out to see what was going on, or had been summoned and dismissed already by Vera Ivanova while Sergei had been banging his elbows and knees in the dark confines of the stairwell. The fact that they all had candles in hand made Sergei think it was the latter. In dark like that, dark that curled and watched and gnashed its teeth, the candles could only be Mother Anna's work.

Mother Irina's room was the closest to the stairwell; she was the oldest, though she didn't look it. She'd let her long golden hair down for the night, her cheeks rosy and full despite the cold and the crusts of black bread and watery soup they'd all been suffering on since the storm had started, scenting the air like a wolf and grinning like one too. When Sergei walked past her door, he thought he could smell feathers along with iron and rot.

"She's come for you," Mother Irina said, in her musical, whispery voice that always sent a shiver down Sergei's spine. He'd tried his luck with most kinds of women over the last hundred years, but even he had known better than to try with her.

"Has she?" Sergei asked, without looking over at Mother Irina again. On a night like that, Sergei knew he wouldn't like what he'd catch sight of if he looked too hard.

"Oh, yes. But not for you. It'll be fine, Seryozhka. Bring up some kasha from the kitchen when you come back, will you? I think we all should have a little supper."

He'd never once seen Mother Irina eat kasha in his life. Better not to play riddles with one spirit on his way to deal with another. Sergi continued on.

Next down the hall was Mother Yelena — though Sergei greeted her like usual, he knew better than to wait for her to greet him in return. Once she'd gotten a good look at the dark out in the hall, she'd forgotten all about bed and gone straight to work. She had one of her little notebooks held up against the doorframe and was scribbling something down in it, fast.

And then, Mother Anna. She was second to last along the hall, her door across from Vera Ivanova's. Even before he reached her door, her long nose was peeking around its corner, her eyes like coals in the glow from her candle, the fattest of them all.

"Father! Good to see you," she said, her voice low, gravelly, caught somewhere between a cough and a chuckle.

"What do you think of all this?" Sergei asked her, sticking out his hand. She was the only one he could rely on for a straight answer. And for a spare candle, which she pressed into his palm as she crept out into the hall. He got the thinnest candle, as usual. As good of an excuse as any to dash back upstairs if things went bad.

"Me? What would an old woman know about all this magic?" She waved her hand dismissively, then went back to clutching at her shawl. Only once he had the candle in hand did Sergei see the small, grave face peeking out around from behind Mother Anna's skirts. "And don't go bothering Nadenka about it either. A girl's job is to stay back and wait, not go poking her nose into everything."

Sergei sighed. Sometimes he thought all the women had to be sick of him, were itching for a way to kill him off and replace him with some half-blind idiot priest from the city who wouldn't notice the way all of them were strange. But that was the cold and his tiredness speaking more than reason. If any of the Mothers had wanted to get rid of him, they were all more than capable of doing it themselves, without getting some big spirit involved.

"Is it really a spirit, Father?" Nadia asked, still hiding behind Mother Anna. She didn't look afraid. Only sensible, and cautious. And far too serious for a girl her age.

"I won't know until I go look," Sergei said, scratching at the scraggly bits of beard that'd grown back in on his neck with one hand and holding the candle up high with the other. The dark and the cold weren't chased away by the candle. It just took a grudging step back, waiting for its flame to die so that it could snap back in on him. Not a normal dark at all. And the stink of iron and rot was getting worse the closer he got to the stairs that led down to the rectory's kitchen.

"Then go look. Shoo!"

Father Sergei jumped at the voice, at Vera Ivanova smacking him between his shoulder blades with her cane. Beside him, Mother Anna cackled. And Nadia turned her grave, pinched little face toward Vera Ivanova behind him, not approving of her smacking any more than she did his slacking or Mother Anna's laughing. "It's very cold," the girl said, when the two older women refused to do anything other than stare at Sergei.

"I'm going, I'm going," Sergei grumbled, waving them all off. "But if I don't come back, you're on your own, remember."

Nadia had a point. Things weren't getting any better. And it was up to the man of the place to fix it. Even if the Mothers all thought he wasn't good for much more than bait.

Sergei took the stairs down to the ground floor two by two now that he had some light to make his way with. But even with the candle, which he could feel Mother Anna's blessing working on, the dark was slow in getting out of his way. He skirted through the kitchen with its cold, dead stove to the rectory's back door.

He checked the charms strung all around the back door, both with his eyes and his senses. They were all covered in frost, but the magic on them still held. Crossing himself three times, Sergei slid back the cover over the tiny window cut high up in the thick door, peering out into the night.

It was pitch black out on the back steps that led down into the garden behind the rectory. The light from the candle and the snow and ice coating the tiny square of glass weren't helping anything. It was stupid, very stupid, but he'd have to risk it if he wanted to see anything without going out into the storm. Mumbling a small spell first, he blew out the candle Mother Anna had given him.

The dark and the cold hurried into the gap. Sergei could feel it tugging at his own magic, making his hair and his sad new beard stand on end. But Sergei bore up under it, stared out into the dark, and waited for his eyes to adjust.

They didn't. It wasn't the right kind of dark for that, the kind that would give up its secrets if you were patient with it. But he kept watching. And listening, his ears straining to hear anything over the howling, constant wind.

At first, Sergei thought his eyes and ears were playing tricks on him, his fears coming to life out in the dark to taunt him. At the edge of where he knew the forest had to be, tiny, cold white lights picked their way out of the darkness in pairs. A whole line of them, marching along from left to right. Thirteen pairs, thirteen dead. Over the screech of the wind, he finally heard it: the great, heavy breathing of something that had been ordered through the storm though it hungered to return to its roost.

Then there was a single bang, a single knock, and all the protection charms hung around the back door shattered. Sergei was a man, but he wasn't an idiot. He jumped back from the door and screamed.

The stove roared back to life in the corner of the kitchen with a great belch of smoke. And the candle he'd dropped in his fright lit itself too. Sergei snatched it up just before the flame caught on the cloaks hung beside the door.

Somehow the cold had gotten worse, and so had that dead iron stink. Sergei crossed himself three times again. He knew that kind of magic wouldn't do any good against what had to be waiting for him on his doorstep, but it was worth a try. He mumbled the rules under his breath as the thought of what to do. Before dealing with a spirit like that, it was always good to double-check them.

"No questions. No bargaining. No arguing. Just listen. You can't get anything out of her she doesn't want to give—"

Another knock on the door, vicious enough to rattle the whole rectory. Sergei didn't have time to get to the last rule because he didn't want to break it. Never keep her waiting, not when she came looking for you.

Sergei clawed open the back door, holding Mother Anna's candle high and firm like a talisman, and peered out into the storm.

The snow had to be up to his waist by then. But the back steps were clear, as if they'd just been swept. A short, hunched over figure was waiting for him on the second step from the top, its face hidden in a gray shawl that had a weird golden sheen to it. From the hair of a hundred maidens who had forgotten the rule against making deals. It held a bundle to its sunken chest with one arm, its other bony hand wrapped around the handle of the broom it leaned against.

Playing dumb wouldn't save him, but it couldn't hurt. "Grandmother! You shouldn't be out on a night like this."

The voice that came from beneath the shawl made Sergei feel like he was about to throw up all over the place. "Sergei Denisovich. I have a thing for you."

"You do? How lucky I am! But you really should get out of the snow, grandmother. It's not good for a woman your age." Sergei felt like the most unlucky man in the world. At least he was smart enough not to invite her in. But he didn't know how to get her to go away either.

The figure on the second step from the top didn't come any closer. But she reached out her arm, holding the bundle out to him. Sergei was stupid, let his reflexes get the better of him. He reached out and took it rather than letting it fall onto the top step.

"Thirteen years," she said, her voice making Sergei's spine feel like it'd gone to jelly. Sergei didn't dare look down at what she'd handed him. He kept his eyes locked on the broom in her other hand. Whatever it was she'd cursed him with, it was burning hot.

"Thirteen years…" It figured it'd be something like that, that even her blessing would be wrapped up in bad luck.

"Thirteen years, and not a day more. That's how long I'll give you my protection. I made a bargain I need to keep."

"How generous of you, grandmother." Sergei watched with mounting terror as the figure waved the gnarled, skeleton hand that'd been clutching the bundle. Two things clanked down onto the front steps, but Sergei still didn't dare look away from her broom.

"His mother was the last witch in the north. Nadhezda Moroz. These are her swords, Snow and Sun. Even an idiot like you should be able to keep that straight long enough to tell him. She died fighting those beasts from the other world with him hanging half out of her. You'll teach him to do the same. Thirteen years. And not a minute more."

Before Sergei could force his half-frozen lips to move, the figure on the second step vanished. And so did the thirteen pairs of lights still gleaming off in the forest.

Sergei thumped down onto his ass on the threshold, all the courage and the strength going out of him. Muttering the oldest prayer he could remember under his breath, he yanked the sackcloth away from whatever was wrapped up in the bundle he'd taken from her. Like an idiot.

A baby. It stared up at him with wide, unblinking red eyes for just a heartbeat before it started screaming. Sergei cursed and shook his head as he took in the rest of the details: the scraggly, chicken wings stuck to its back with blood and gunk, its giant hands grasping for his beard. Sergei looked a bit harder. A boy, like she had said.

That was the only bit of luck in all of it. A boy, not another girl. Sergei already had more women on his hands than he knew what to do with.

Sergei scooted himself back into the rectory and kicked the door shut. No one would be coming to the church looking for swords during a blizzard. No one he was willing to deal with, anyway. He'd had enough for one night. Sergei raised his voice to a yell to be heard over the wind, looking back over his shoulder toward the stairs as the boy screamed on.

"Mother Anna! Where did you hide the last of the milk?"

- - -

"Light a candle while you're down there and bring it to the kitchen. You'll need it to see by."

K'aekniv jumped, banging the back of his head into the edge of the fireplace as he hurried to sit up. He cursed. That was the third time today, and the sun wasn't even up yet.

"Nadenka! Look! I'm working!"

It was obvious, K'aekniv thought. He'd started to sweat pretty good by the time Mother Vera chased him down to the second floor. It made all the ash stick to him, made him look like something fierce and wild. And like his beard had finally started to come in.

But Nadia wasn't impressed. It was the same as always — her little hands balled into fists on her wide hips, glaring down at him like he'd just shit in her breakfast. And her bright red little mouth was locked in a scowl fit to freeze a man's blood, if he wasn't used to it.

After almost thirteen years, K'aekniv was very used to it.

"Don't you Nadenka me!" She took one of her hands off her hips and whipped something out of the pocket of her apron, something that really did make his blood turn to ice. And not in the good way. A little black book with worn edges. "You're learning your letters this winter, whether you want to or not."

"Come on!" K'aekniv groaned, throwing up his hands. He forgot he was still halfway inside the fireplace. Those got banged into the mantle too. K'aekniv sucked on his stinging fingers until Nadia came at him with the book and he hid them in the sleeves of the cassock Father Sergei had given him.

"I can learn letters any time," K'aekniv continued, when Nadia didn't let up. "It's cold! The Mothers will freeze if I don't start the fires!"

It really was cold. And Nadia's dress was thin from too many washings. Sneaking a peek wouldn't hurt any. Not if he was careful, and not if he—

Again, the book came for him. K'aekniv snapped his eyes up toward Mother Vera's sour old face tucked away in the darkness of her armchair before he could get smacked with it. "Mother Vera said I had to light all the fires."

For once, having Mother Vera after him first thing in the morning might pay off. Mother Vera nodded when Nadia turned on her heel to glare at her. "He has the magic for it. The boy needs to do some honest work."

"Mother Anna has the magic for it too!" Nadia shouted. And stamped one of her strong little feet in its boot with all the fancy buttons along the side.

"Like I said, he needs to do some honest work," Mother Vera said, taking one hand out from under her blanket and waving it at Nadia. And at the cane propped next to her chair. Nadia was a fighter, true, but she was the smartest woman K'aekniv had ever met. She knew when she was beat. Nadia put her book back in her apron and headed for the door.

Mother Vera might have been smarter, maybe. But the Mothers weren't really women. They were more like the sea, or the north wind, or the hot summer sun that'd decided to look like a woman for a while for fun. Completely different things.

"He needs to learn his letters," Nadia grumbled as she stormed off toward the door. "I'm not going to have him never learning to read just because you all won't do your chores."

Mother Vera made a snorting noise like an elk getting ready to charge as Nadia shut the door after herself. Careful, not slamming it. She was smart, after all, even if she was mad at everyone right then. "You can go find her after you're done with the fires," she said, turning one sharp eye K'aekniv's way as she tucked her hand back under her blankets. "And after you've finished with the firewood. Learning to read...girl's never had any sense. That thick head of yours was never meant for reading."

K'aekniv shrugged his wings, the world going hazy with all the ash that came off them. "You're right, Mother Vera. You always are."

"Don't try to butter me up," she scoffed, as she put her feet back up on her footstool. "Now you're sweeping my room too. I've told you twenty times to not go putting your wings in the fireplace."

K'aekniv sighed. There was no softening Mother Vera, no way to trick her. Not unless Mother Anna was around, and she'd already headed downstairs. Trying only got you more work. He should have known better.

And he was shit at sweeping too, not like starting fires. But anything was better than Nadia's tiny book full of tiny letters.

- - -

The book came for him again an hour after dawn.

"Nadia! I can't!"

K'aekniv would have said more if he could have sucked in more air. But he'd been splitting wood since before the sun was up, and even he got winded after a while, though the Mothers always said there was no stopping him from talking. He thumped down onto the chopping block, letting the axe fall into the snow. Nadia stepped back fast to keep its handle from landing on her toes.

"You can," she insisted. All K'aekniv could see of her under her cloak was her scowl and her soft little hands, passing the book back and forth as she argued with him. Maybe the book was possessed by some spirit. Even when she was in a bad mood, Nadia usually didn't argue so much. "You just don't want to."

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Using her plain name instead of the friendly one had softened her a little, had made her see that he was serious. That scowl wasn't so sharp now. K'aekniv tried to use it to his advantage once he got his breath back. "Look. Maybe you were right about the fires. Mother Anna can do it herself. But who else can do this?"

Splitting wood was boring, but it was the good kind of boring. He didn't have to think or worry about anything; it was easy to sing along while he was working once he found his rhythm. All that was left was the good kind of sting from muscles working hard and pride as the pile of firewood grew taller and taller. K'aekniv waved a hand at it to prove his point to Nadia — it was as tall as he was now, both sideways and up and down.

When Nadia didn't reply right away, K'aekniv thought he might have finally escaped the book. Then he saw that her big, pale eyes were looking out into the forest beyond the garden rather than at him. K'aekniv turned on the chopping block to look.

Mother Irina was waiting for him off in the treeline, as bright and happy as ever. She could walk on top of the snow. But the elk she'd dragged in had sunk down deep into it. There was only a little blood, both on the snow and on her chin. She must have dressed it right after catching it.

"She'd only have to lift one finger to do it," Nadia said, jerking her chin at Mother Irina. But the book disappeared into her cloak along with her hands.

"Nivushka, come help me get dinner ready," Mother Irina called out, ignoring Nadia.

"After the wood," K'aekniv said, waving her off as he got back to his feet. It was always something with the Mothers. But it made him feel good to help, even with things they could do themselves. Made him feel like he was important, like he was becoming a man. Father Sergei handled the spirits that came with living deep in the forest. And he did the hard work, knocked down trees and hauled water from the well and picked rocks from the garden. All he needed now was a beard as long and thick as Father Sergei's to prove that he'd made it.

"If you could kill it and dress it, you can butcher it yourself," Nadia called back. Her lips were all curled up now, like she'd smelled something rotten.

"But I'm so tired, Nadenka," Mother Irina said, sliding over the snow like a waterbug skating across a pond until she got to the path to the outhouse. "Elk are hard to find these days. The forest doesn't want to share them."

"You don't look tired to me. And he's been chopping wood all morning! Now you want him to chop that up too?"

Mother Irina turned her sweet smile on him, as K'aekniv picked up his axe and started in on the last couple of logs. "Are you tired, Nivushka?"

He wasn't tried. K'aekniv felt awake for the first time that morning, the blood hammering in his ears and his wings flared out to keep his balance as he brought the axe down. And to help cool off a little. He'd worked up a real sweat, had needed to take off the cassock. He'd only left his drawers on for the sake of the ladies, like Father Sergei always told him to. "I can keep going. Just let me finish this first."

"This is ridiculous," Nadia muttered as she turned around and stomped off back up the rectory steps. "He's not some animal. He's a person. He needs to learn."

K'aekniv didn't think he was meant to hear those words. But they still reached him, carried on by the same hard wind that kept stealing feathers from his wings. They made him lose his concentration; the axe flew out of his sweating palms. Mother Irina caught it without giving it a second glance, handing it back to him.

"She means well, our Nadenka," she said, in her whispery, tinkling voice. Like tiny icicles dropping off the eaves and clattering against the rectory's siding, or the church bell still echoing on, so soft he could barely hear it, long after it'd rung. "But she doesn't understand what it's like to be one of us. She needs words to make her way. All we need is our teeth."

All K'aekniv could do was shrug. Laughing, Mother Irina reached out and tucked the bits of hair that had fallen into his face behind his ears, with her hands that were as cold as the snow around K'aekniv's ankles. "Be a good boy and I'll take you flying after we butcher the elk. You need to stretch your wings more or they won't keep up with the rest of you."

K'aekniv was shit at flying, just like he was shit at sweeping. But anything was better than Nadia's little black book.

- - -

Afternoon came fast, and Nadia came back too. Lucky for him, Mother Yelena and Mother Anna had found him first.

"You can't be serious!"

"God can't see our prayers if the windows are dirty," Mother Anna said to Nadia, lying on her back in one of the pews K'aekniv had shoved to the side, sucking on her pipe.

"He listens to those, He doesn't watch for them," Nadia spat back, glaring down at Mother Yelena scratching some big magic symbol onto the church floor. "I expected better from you, Yelena. You of all people know how important it is to read."

Mother Yelena didn't look up from her own little black book, still drawing and drawing in circles on the worn stone floor with a stick of something gray and crumbly. "There are thinking mages, and there are feeling mages. He's a feeling mage," she said, gesturing with one hand at where K'aekniv was spread out wide in one of the tall church windows, toes wobbling on the sill and his free hand reaching high to scrub at the top bits of glass no one had cleaned in years.

"You're right," Mother Anna cut in, before Nadia could argue with her. "And there's no spell for keeping the wash water from freezing. That's feeling magic, not thinking. He'll use it more often than your letters."

It really was a pain, keeping the water from turning to ice on the glass. He had to keep switching hands as he scrubbed, making the rag almost too hot to touch, then scrubbing until it cooled off and he had to switch back again. Having to climb up and down and heat and re-heat the bucket of water was even worse.

"You can do it yourself," Nadia said, her nose wrinkling at the smell of the smoke from Mother Anna's pipe as she blew shapes out past her thin lips. "You have the magic. Besides, no one's washed those windows the whole time I've been here!"

Mother Anna recrossed her feet atop the stack of hymnals she had them propped on. "No time like now to start. Maybe that's why we've had such bad luck lately. God needs to see us."

"You're one to talk. You sleep through every liturgy."

Nadia was right. Mother Anna did sleep through every liturgy Father Sergei was around for. Even when Mother Vera pinched her and complained. But Mother Anna still had the best luck of any person K'aekniv knew. She always said it wasn't what you did in church that won you God's favor, but what you did in between. Showing up was good enough to show Him that you remembered the rules.

"You're in the way," Mother Yelena said, poking at one of Nadia's little boots with all the pretty buttons. "If you get caught in the circle, I'm not to blame for what happens to you."

"Why did you make him move all the pews? Just so you could do more of your magic?" Nadia asked. But she got out of Mother Yelena's magic circle anyway. Nadia was smart, after all. And Mother Yelena's magic could take all the skin off a person with just one tiny little letter.

"He's washing the floor after he's done with the windows," Mother Anna answered for Yelena, who went right back to work. "Been years since we've scrubbed that right too."

That finally got Nadia to give up, to throw up her hands and put away her book. For a second, K'aekniv thought she was going to do something more, storm over and kick his bucket, or yank the hymnals out from underneath Mother Anna's feet, or smudge Mother Yelena's magic writing. But she didn't. She just crossed her arms over her chest — too bad, she puffed it out big when she got really mad — and glared at all of them as she thought about what to do.

"I'll make a bargain with you," Nadia said, finally.

Mother Yelena ignored her. But Mother Anna perked right up, just like a flower after a good soaking. Or like a hawk that'd spotted a mouse moving in the field. "Let's hear it."

K'aekniv wanted to hop down out of the window and save her. But Nadia was smart. She had to remember the rules for dealing with the Mothers, the same ones Father Sergei taught him for dealing with spirits. The first rule, the one Father Sergei had taught him before leading him out into the forest for the first time, was to never make bargains with any of them until you knew what you were dealing with. Mother Anna was the biggest cheater K'aekniv had ever seen.

"He'll finish the windows and floors. But after that, no more. You've all had your turn. I should get mine too."

Mother Anna spoke before K'aekniv could do more than open his mouth. "Deal. I'll come get you when he's dumping out the washwater, even."

As Nadia walked off, her pretty red lips curled up in a smile as she felt for her little black book in her apron, K'aekniv let himself fall out of the window with an exhausted curse. He lay on his back and stared up at the face of the Savior one of the Mothers had painted up in the rafters, wondering if Mother Anna was right about the windows being too dirty for God to see their prayers. The floor was cool, at least. He'd been sweating for hours indoors by then.

"Don't be sad, Nivushka," Mother Anna said with one of her croaking laughs, like some frog talking to itself out in the bog. "It's less of a headache than her letters, I promise."

Since it was Mother Anna promising him, he knew it had to be true. She never lied, technically. But it didn't make him feel any better about things. K'aekniv counted on his fingers. Two rooms on the third floor of the rectory, six on the second, and three on the ground. Each with at least one window, and no one had scrubbed Father Sergei's floor since the last time Soshya had stolen him three summers ago.

He'd be washing until his beard came in for sure.

- - -

"This is stupid!"

For once, K'aekniv agreed with Nadia. But Mother Anna had been right too. Even if crawling and reaching all over the place made his back ache, it was better than Nadia's book. He could deal with his back hurting. There was no way to get his head to stop hurting once it started, not unless Mother Anna or Father Sergei let him take a sip from their flasks.

"You made the bargain, Nadenka," K'aekniv said, pausing to call more ice into his wash bucket. Then he melted it with his other hand. Draining his magic was less of a pain than running out back to the well again and again.

That time, Nadia couldn't stop herself. She kicked his wash bucket out the kitchen door he'd left propped open to keep himself from dying while he scrubbed by the stove. He'd wasted his magic, true, but at least he got to see all that strength Nadia kept hidden. K'aekniv heard the bucket clank against the trunk of a tree clear on the other side of the back garden. "I didn't make a bargain!" she bellowed at him. "You just don't want to work!"

K'aekniv sat back on his heels, scratching at an itch beneath his chin with the scrub brush. His beard would be coming in any week now, he was sure of it. "I've been working all day," he finally said. Nadia was scowling down at him with her hands on her hips again; she expected an answer. And like Father Sergei had taught him, it was always best to tell the truth when the Mothers or a spirit was angry at you.

Maybe that wasn't the right rule for dealing with Nadia. The set of her jaw had changed, and her eyes had gone shiny. It made something in K'aekniv's chest hurt even more than his back. "Is this all you want from life? Really? Washing floors and cutting wood?"

There were a hundred things K'aekniv wanted from life. He wanted to go on more rambles with Father Sergei, wanted to see the big cities down where the sea never froze. He wanted his beard to grow in. He wanted Nadia to look at him the same way the girls in the village did when they touched his wings for good luck. But right now Nadia was almost crying, and he'd only seen her cry once in his whole life.

K'aekniv didn't want to see Nadia cry again.

He shrugged his wings and hauled himself up onto his feet. Even though he was still growing, he had to hunch over a little to look her in the eye. "All right. Maybe kicking the bucket counts as breaking the deal." Spirits could be funny like that; sometimes they left you a way to escape if you were smart enough to know all the rules about them instead of just the big ones. And Mother Anna was as good as a spirit, like Father Sergei always said.

"Don't give me that nonsense," Nadia said, taking her little black book from her apron pocket. But that shine was gone from her eyes, her red mouth hard and fierce as she flipped through it. "Light a candle from the stove and come up to the study."

K'aekniv did as he was told, just as he had since Mother Vera had found him before dawn. And before he knew it, he was stuck sitting on a footstool in Father Sergei's study in front of the fire while Nadia sat across the hearth from him in Father Sergei's chair. The little black book was in his hands, while Nadia held up a bigger one she'd taken down from the bookshelf. She pointed at a big letter in the middle of some page.

"Let's start at the beginning," she said. She'd calmed down now, looked as happy as a cat curled up next to the fire with a book in hand and ready to teach.

K'aekniv only heard the first few words. He was too busy staring at how nice the glow from the fireplace looked on her dark hair, how it put some color in her cheeks, to listen. Until she kicked his shin to get his attention. Soft, not hard. "Your turn. Read aloud."

K'aekniv looked down at the book. He tried to follow the letters, like Nadia did with her finger, but they danced around in the light from the fire. Maybe he'd been right about the book being possessed.

"Ah...angel..." She'd been saying something about them, hadn't she? Or maybe she'd been talking about the city...

Or maybe washing the windows had done some good, and God could see his prayers now. Father Sergei banged his way into the study, hitting an elbow on the door frame and cursing as he tried to get both himself and an armful of firewood inside without dropping anything. "There you are, Nivushka!" he called out. "I needed to talk to you."

"He's busy," Nadia snapped, waving her book at K'aekniv instead of kicking him that time. The book was worse. "Come on. We can get through one letter at least. Now, what were you saying?"

"No time," Father Sergei said, saving him again after he put down his wood beside the fire. "You should know better, Nadenka. If you want to teach him something before he leaves, just tell him instead of making him read it."

K'aekniv nodded along, closing the little black book and holding it out to Nadia. But she wasn't looking at him anymore. She was staring at Father Sergei. "Before he leaves?"

"In three days, it will be thirteen years since you came here," Father Sergei said to him, sitting down between them on the small carpet from the south in front of the fire. He was settling in for a story, K'aekniv could tell. Smoothing down his cassock and stroking his beard, gray now, but full all the way down to the middle of his chest. His hair went even longer, loose and wild around his shoulders. K'aekniv wondered if he'd get to do the same with his once his thirteen years had come. The Mothers wouldn't let him; his hair ended up on fire too often when he let it go free like Father Sergei did.

Father Sergei looked like he was thinking hard, trying to decide what more to say. That wasn't like him. And Nadia looked even worse. She'd hidden herself far back in Father Sergei's chair, squeezing her big book so hard her knuckles had gone white. K'aekniv tried to cheer them both up. "We'll have a feast! Mother Irina just brought in that elk. We could make the walk to the village too, if the weather's good."

Though Father Sergei smiled, something in it looked wrong to K'aekniv. And when he reached out to give him a friendly smack on the leg, his hand looked two times smaller than K'aekniv remembered. "Of course we'll have a feast, Nivushka. You have to have one before you go anywhere. To keep up your strength."

"He's still a boy," Nadia said, in a too small voice that made K'aekniv feel strange, just like Father Sergei's too small hand did. "We can't just..."

"But look at how big and strong you are now!" Father Sergei said, his voice too loud. Maybe to make up for how Nadia's was too small. "You could pick me up and throw me all the way from here into the sea. And the Mothers all agree, you're the strongest man they've ever seen. Lifting three pews at a time, carrying a whole elk like it's nothing...so let me tell you a story about where the strong men go to get even stronger, Nivushka, Nadenka. It'll make you feel better about things, I promise."

That was the first time K'aekniv could remember Father Sergei or the Mothers ever calling him a man. He couldn't keep from puffing up a little as he leaned forward on his stool to get closer. But across the fireplace, Nadia still looked afraid. Hopefully Father Sergei was right and the story would make her feel better.

Father Sergei took up stroking his beard again as he began. "A long, long time ago, a thousand years before there was any tsar here, when there were more spirits around than people, a city fell down from the sky into the middle of the forest. And in that city, there lived a demon tsar more powerful than anyone had ever seen."

- - -

When K'aekniv sat around the kitchen table in silence with Father Sergei and Nadia and all the Mothers, he felt more restless than he ever had before. He wasn't leaving with Father Sergei on one of his usual rambles. That time, he was going alone.

He knew the quiet was important, that the domovoy and the kikimora and the bannik would throw bad luck after him if he didn't stay silent and still, but K'aekniv couldn't keep himself from moving around a little. His wings felt weird and cold, like they always did every time Mother Irina helped him oil them; he puffed up his feathers to take the edge off. He tugged at the sleeves of his new cassock. Mother Yelena had set her magic to sew him his own instead of letting him walk off in one of Father Sergei's old ones that were a hand too short in the arms and at the bottom.

Across the table, Mother Vera nodded at Mother Anna. She leaned over and blew out the candle in the middle of it. Then, still quiet as a mouse, they all got up and went out into the yard in front of the church.

K'aekniv had needed to find two packs to carry all the things the Mothers and Nadia decided he needed to take with him. One on each shoulder, each one bumping against the swords he'd loaded onto his back first. They kept poking at the base of his wings where they crossed beneath them. Father Sergei said the skin there would get hard soon, that he wouldn't notice it. Mother Vera had said that she could change the way they hung, but K'aekniv had told her it was fine.

That was the way his mother must have worn them. And if she was as strong as the Mothers, K'aekniv didn't want to risk having her spirit come after him for changing the way she liked to wear them. The way she'd left them to him, thirteen years ago, before he could remember anything.

At least it was a good day for walking. It'd gone colder than before, and it hadn't snowed in a few days, so the going would be easy. Everyone was bundled up in their thickest cloaks and furs. Except for him. K'aekniv knew he'd get too hot soon from walking to bear anything more than the cassock. So he'd packed his furs up too, for later. For nighttime, when he had to find somewhere along the road to sleep.

Mother Anna came for him first. She reached up, and instead of making her work for it, K'aekniv leaned down to meet her. She grabbed hold of his cheeks and pinched the blood back into them. Her croaking bullfrog laugh was the same, even if it didn't go all the way to her eyes. "You'll be taller than the trees by the time you come back, Nivushka, I'm sure," she said, as she let go. From underneath her cloak, she pulled a fat candle out of her apron and gave it to him. "Listen to how it burns so that you can make your own once you get to the city."

Mother Vera didn't embrace him, didn't touch his wings or his cheeks. But she nodded her approval after she'd looked him over and handed over a metal cup to hang off the strap of his pack. "I've been teaching you how to boil water for eight years now," she said, waving him off with one hand as she leaned on her cane with the other. "If you can't get it right with that, you're hopeless."

Mother Irina didn't speak to him. She didn't need to. She plucked a feather from his right-hand wing, and K'aekniv did his best not to yelp. Then she pulled one of her own out of her hair to replace it. Hers was longer, thin and sharp, as gold as the dawn. Mother Irina leaned up and kissed him on both cheeks as she hid the feather in among his own.

"Use your head before you use these," Mother Yelena said, taking a bundle of papers out of her sleeve. She always kept her written spells close to her body, skin on skin, to make their magic stronger. "No reading. Just rip them. You'll know when you need to use thinking magic instead of feeling magic to deal with something." She took her own thing from him too, just like Mother Irina. A bit of his hair that had fallen out of place. She cut it off with a silver knife, hiding both away back up her sleeve when she was done.

Then there was just Nadia. Nadia who looked so cold and so small in the sea of snow that covered the church yard. But her eyes were bright and firm as she stared up at him, her hands balled into fists on her wide hips, the same as she always did when she'd made up her mind about something. And her pretty red lips were all drawn up into a smile, even if it looked sad around the edges. "I've got a job for you," she said, taking one hand off her hips to reach into her apron underneath her cloak.

"Nadenka, I..."

Before K'aekniv could think of anything to say, she'd taken that little black book of hers out and pressed it into his hand. "By the time you get back," Nadia continued, "I expect you to have learned to read and write all your letters. If you haven't, it's the first thing I'm making you do."

K'aekniv could feel himself grinning as he took Nadia by both shoulders. "I'll learn the whole book! You'll see, Nadenka. By the time I come back, I'll be even smarter than you."

They both knew he would never be as smart as she was. But she laughed anyway, and kissed him on both cheeks. It made his chest go tight, made the heat rise in it, made him feel strong. K'aekniv didn't know if there would be anyone in the city who'd be able to teach him letters. But by the time he got back, K'aekniv was sure his beard would have come in. And he'd have gotten bigger, and stronger, and have made enough gold to buy anything Nadia and the Mothers could ever want. A different pair of pretty boots with buttons all up the side for every day of the week. And a dress to wear on Sundays that matched her red lips and pale eyes, better than the dresses the women in the village made for their weddings.

Then Nadia would see that he didn't need to know his letters before he could provide.

As soon as he let go of Nadia's shoulders, Father Sergei took him by the arm, leading him over toward the path through the forest to the road that went in from the sea to the village. He had nothing more to give K'aekniv. Just his words, which were worth more than any talisman or charm. "Go a little south, then a little west. Go back and forth, day by day. South, then west. If you get to a sea and it's iced over, it's not the right one. The one by the demon city never freezes. And remember what I told you about how I made it to the south. Talking to someone is better than any map. Maps, you never know if they're right or wrong. But if you ask someone, you'll be able to tell from their face whether they know or not."

They stood together at the end of the path, looking out into the forest. In silence again, just for a few seconds. Then Father Sergei slapped him on the back, laughing through his thick beard that had iced over near his mouth from his breath. "And don't forget that the people in the city don't know what to do with people with wings! Stay off the road by them until you get to the demon city. It'll keep you out of trouble. Though sometimes it's only when you get into trouble that you find the best people. Remember that too."

K'aekniv heard him walk away. The fire burned hot in his chest. Everything inside of him wanted to look back, wanted to wave to Father Sergei and the Mothers, to Nadia, to promise that when he came back, everyone's life would be easy. But he remembered what Father Sergei had told him the first time they'd gone out together == looking back would only invite bad luck to come along with him.

Lifting his packs up higher on his shoulders, K'aekniv set off into the forest to seek their fortune.

- - -

The sweat ran down K'aekniv's head as he worked, dripping off the end of his nose and streaking down his cheeks that were still bare. It made his vision blurry. But he held the knife straight, and he carved each letter carefully, so straight that he was sure that Nadia would have been proud, if only she could have seen him.

It was the only pride he had left, remembering the letters that made up Nadia's name. It was the only thing he'd been able to bring back to her. The bag of coins he'd saved had been stolen while he'd been off fighting. They hadn't been enough to protect all of them anyway.

He'd known from the smell of smoke on the air when he ran up the path through the forest that he'd come too late. And though he had nothing much to be proud of in himself, at least he could be proud of the rest of them. He could spot each of their work in the churchyard as clear as if they'd been standing beside it, welcoming him home.

Nine men torn to pieces by Mother Irina's talons before they'd taken her down with the spears they'd brought along just for her. Six with arms and legs pulled off by Mother Irina's spell papers, the ripped apart halves of them blown away on the wind off the sea. A pair drowned where they stood by Mother Vera and another pair burned to ash right next to them, because Mother Vera and Mother Anna were always together.

K'aekniv had found the biggest of all the men S'kanyk had sent face down in the garden with a cleaver from the kitchen in the back of his head. Because even if her magic wasn't strong, Nadia was.

There hadn't been much left of Father Sergei to bury when K'aekniv found him in the church. But there hadn't been much more than ears and fingers left of the men who'd finally beat him either.

K'aekniv didn't know who the five boys he'd found in the kitchen were. Only that S'kanyk's men had needed to fight past Nadia to get to them. The boys were so young they might not have even been born when K'aekniv had left. But he buried them too, to make sure no animal got to them before he could find out.

Once K'aekniv had finished carving the last letter into Nadia's marker, he dropped the knife and slapped at his pockets. He'd had at least a copper to give to all the rest of them. But the big silver coin he'd been saving for Nadia, it wasn't what he'd thought it was by feel. It was one of the trick ones that he used to get free pints at the tavern. Everything else in his pockets wasn't worth anything at all. Bits of string and buttons and smooth pebbles, because Father Sergei always said it was better to pick something up and not need it instead of needing it and leaving it behind on the ground.

He didn't even have a penny left to give Nadia. All he had was himself. And he hadn't been strong enough to do anything in the end.

K'aekniv didn't even know he'd started pounding the sides of his head, that he was cursing and crying, until a cold hand, too big and too strong and too thin, caught one of his wrists. A big gold coin, just as cold as the hand's fingers, pressed into his palm.

"...consider it...an advance on the next contract."

Gulping down his cries and his curses, K'aekniv put the coin on the crossbar of Nadia's marker. Then he made himself look down the row of them, at all the work he'd done. Five other markers. It'd taken him three or four tries to get the other names right. Sitting back on his heels, K'aekniv turned to face Nadia's marker, the tears coming back into his eyes even though he was fighting them with all the strength he had left.

Again, he felt the cold hand. That time on his shoulder. Too careful, too light.

Who was he even being strong for? Who was left to see him cry?

He couldn't stand looking at all of it. Instead, he looked up at Genesis. At least he'd finally decided to come and try to be nice. Ever since they'd got to the church, he'd just been standing far away and watching without saying anything. Except to tell him when he'd gotten one of the letters on the markers wrong.

K'aekniv decided he couldn't stand looking at his cold face either. He whipped an arm out, grabbed hold of Genesis around the middle, and let himself cry like the boy he was into his weird, orange-smelling coat.

Genesis didn't try to get away for once. He just held still, not even breathing. But when he decided to say something, it was the same as usual. Half the things Genesis said never made sense to K'aekniv, no matter what language he said them in.

"This...was your k'asrat. And your...nis'yk."

"Fucking S'kanyk!" K'aekniv bellowed into his coat. "I'll kill him! I'll kill all of them!"

K'aekniv felt one of his cold hands come to rest on top of his head. A little softer than normal, maybe.

"...yes. We will."