Set me free.
Solovey scraped the floor uneasily. Yes. Let us go, he said. Let us go into the forest—this is no place for us.
“No,” she echoed. “This is no place for us. But we must bide awhile. There are debts to pay.” She cut the hobbles from about the stallion’s feet.
Free me, said the golden mare again. Vasya rose slowly. The mare was watching them with an eye like molten gold. Power, barely contained, seemed to roil under her skin.
Vasya, said Solovey uneasily.
Vasya barely heard. She was staring into the mare’s eye, like the pale heart of a fire, and she took one step, then another. Behind her Solovey squealed. Vasya!
The mare mouthed her foamy, golden bit and looked straight back at Vasya. Vasya realized that she was afraid of this horse, when she had never been afraid of a horse in her life.
Perhaps it was that, more than anything else—a revulsion to fear that she should not have felt—that made Vasya reach out, seize a golden buckle, and wrench the bridle from the mare’s head.
The mare froze. Vasya froze. Solovey froze. It seemed the world hung still in its skies. “What are you?” she whispered to the mare.
The mare bent her head—slowly, it seemed, so slowly—to touch the discarded heap of gold, and then raised her head to touch Vasya’s cheek with her nose.
Her flesh was burning hot, and Vasya jerked back with a gasp. When she put a hand to her face, she felt a blister rising.
Then the world moved again; behind her Solovey was rearing. Vasya, get back.
The mare flung her head up. Vasya backed away. The mare reared, and Vasya thought her heart would stop with the fearful beauty of it. She felt a blast of heat on her face, and her breath stilled in her throat. I was foaled, Solovey had told her once. Or perhaps I was hatched. She backed up until she could feel Solovey’s breath on her back, until she could fumble away the bars of his stall, never taking her eyes off the golden mare—mare?
Nightingale, Vasya thought. Solovey means nightingale.
Were there not others, then? Horses that were— This mare…No. Not a mare. Not a mare at all. For before Vasya’s eyes, the rearing horse became a golden bird, greater than any bird Vasya had ever seen, with wings of flame, blue and orange and scarlet.
“Zhar Ptitsa,” Vasya said, tasting the words as though she had never sat at Dunya’s feet hearing tales of the firebird.
The beating of the bird’s wings fanned scorching heat onto her face, and the edges of her feathers were exactly like flames, streaming smoke. Solovey shrilled a cry that was half fear and half triumph. All around, horses squealed and kicked in their fright.
The heat rippled and steamed in the winter air. The firebird broke the bars of the stall as though they were twigs and hurled herself up, up toward the roof, dripping sparks like rain. The roof was no barrier. The bird tore through it, trailing light. Up and up she went, bright as a sun, so that the night became day. Somewhere in the dooryard, Vasya heard a roar of rage.
She watched the bird go, lips parted, wondering, terrified, silent. The firebird had left a trail of flames that were already catching in the hay. A finger of fire raced up a tinder-dry post and a new heat scorched Vasya’s burned cheek.
All around, flames began to rise, and bitter smoke, shockingly fast.
With a cry, Vasya recalled herself and ran to free the horses. For a moment she thought she saw the small, hay-colored stable-spirit beside her, and it hissed, “Idiot girl, to free the firebird!” Then it was gone, opening stall-doors even faster than she.
Some of the grooms had run already, leaving the doors gaping open; the breezes whispered in to fan the flames. Others, bewildered but afraid for their charges, ran to help with the horses, indistinct shapes in the smoke. Vasya and Solovey, the grooms, and the little vazila began pulling the terrified horses out. The smoke choked them all, and more than once Vasya was nearly trampled.
At length, Vasya came to her own Zima, taken into the Grand Prince’s stable and now rearing panicked in a stall. Vasya dodged the flying hooves, yanked away the bars of her stall. “Get out,” she told her, fiercely. “That way. Go!” The order and a slap on the quarters sent the scared filly running for the door.
Solovey appeared at Vasya’s shoulder. Flames all around them now, spinning like spring dancers. The heat scorched her face. For an instant Vasya thought she saw Morozko, dressed in black.
Solovey squealed when a burning straw struck his flank. Vasya, we must get out.
Not every horse had been freed; she could hear the cries of the few remaining, lost in the flames.
“No! They will—” But her protest died unfinished.
The shriek of a familiar voice had sounded from the dooryard.
25.
The Girl in the Tower
Vasya threw herself onto Solovey and he galloped out of the barn, while the flames snapped wolflike at their heels. They emerged into some lurid parody of daylight; flames from the burning barn cast a hellish glow over dooryard and lights shone from every part of Dmitrii’s palace.
There was a pitched battle in the dooryard, and a roaring like a riot above. She couldn’t see her brother—but Vasya could hardly tell friend from foe in the wicked light.
Long cracks had appeared in the main gate; it would not hold much longer. Slaves ran with buckets and wet blankets to put out the flames; half the guardsmen were helping them now. Fire was just as great a danger as arrows, in a city made all of wood.
Then that half-familiar shriek came again. The light from the burning barn threw the whole yard into flickering relief, and she saw Konstantin Nikonovich creeping along the inner wall.
What is he doing here? Vasya wondered. At first she felt nothing but surprise.
Then she saw with horror that the priest clutched a child by one wrist. The girl had no cloak, no kerchief, no boots. She was shivering miserably.
“Aunt Vasya!” she shrilled, in a voice Vasya knew. “Aunt Vasya!” Her voice sailed clear through the sweltering air. “Let me go!”
“Masha!” Vasya cried in disbelief. A child? A prince’s daughter? Here?
Then she saw Kasyan Lutovich. He was running down into the dooryard, mouth open with mingled rage and triumph. He leaped bareback onto one of the escaped horses, wheeled, and came galloping along the wall, heedless of arrows.
For a breath, Vasya did not understand.
In that moment, with a perfectly timed movement, Kasyan overtook Konstantin, snatched the girl, and flung her facedown on the horse’s sweating shoulder.