NEXT MOMENT, VASYA HEARD Solovey’s ringing neigh, and then Sasha came splashing off the horse’s back into the half-melted snow. Her brother pulled both her and Marya into a tight embrace and Solovey snuffled gladly over all of them. Sasha smelled of blood and soot. Vasya hugged her brother, stroked Solovey’s nose, and then drew away, swaying on her feet. If she allowed herself weakness now, she knew she would never gather her strength again in time, and she was thinking furiously…
Sasha picked up Marya, set her on Solovey’s back, and turned back to Vasya.
“Little sister,” said Sasha. “We must go. Moscow is burning.”
Dmitrii came galloping up. He looked down at Vasya an instant, her long plait, her bruised face. Something chilled and darkened in his face. But all he said was, “Get them out, Sasha. There is no time.”
Vasya made no move to get onto Solovey’s back. “Olya?” she asked her brother.
“I will go find her,” said Sasha. “You must get on Solovey. Ride out of the city with Marya. There is no time. The fire is coming.”
Over the bustle in the Grand Prince’s dooryard, beyond his walls, Vasya heard the thick cries of people in the city as they gathered what they could and fled.
“Get her up,” said Dmitrii. “Get them out.” He rode off, calling more orders.
Into the shadows, Vasya whispered, “Can you hear me, Morozko?”
Silence.
Outside Dmitrii’s walls, the wind wrapped like a river around the city, whipping the flames higher. She remembered Morozko’s voice. Only if you are dying, he had said. Nothing could keep me from you then. I am Death, and I come to all when they die.
Before Vasya could think twice; before she could talk herself out of it, she pulled off her own cloak, reached up, and cast it around Marya’s drooping shoulders.
“Vasya,” said her brother. “Vasya, what are you—?”
She didn’t hear the rest. “Solovey,” she said to the horse. “Keep them safe.”
The horse bowed his great head. Let me go with you, Vasya, he said, but she only laid a cheek against his nose.
Then she was running out the ruined gate, and toward the burning.
THE STREETS WERE CHOKED with people, most of them going the opposite way. But Vasya was light in the snow, unencumbered with a cloak, and running downhill. She moved quickly.
Twice someone tried to tell her she was going in the wrong direction, and once a man seized her by the arm and tried to shout sense into her ear.
She wrenched herself loose and ran on.
The smoke thickened. The people in the streets grew more panicked. The fire loomed over them; it seemed to fill the world.
Vasya began to cough. Her head swam, her throat swelled. Her mouth was dust-dry. There, finally, was Olga’s palace, above her in the red darkness. Fire raged—one street beyond? Two? She couldn’t tell. Olga’s gates were open, and someone was shouting orders within. A stream of people poured out. Had her sister been carried away already? She breathed a prayer for Olga, then ran on past the palace, into the inferno.
Smoke. She breathed it in. It was her whole world. The streets were empty now. The heat was unbearable. She tried to run on, but found she had fallen to her knees, coughing. She couldn’t get enough air. Get up. She staggered on. Her face was blistering. What was she doing? Her ribs hurt.
Then she couldn’t run anymore. She fell into the slush. Blackness gathered before her eyes…
Moscow disappeared. She was in a nighttime forest: stars and trees, grayness and bitter dark.
Death stood before her.
“I found you,” she said, forcing the words past lips gone numb. She was kneeling there in the snow, in the forest beyond life, and found that she could not rise.
His mouth twisted. “You are dying.” His step did not mark the snow; the light, cold wind did not stir his hair. “You are a fool, Vasilisa Petrovna,” he added.
“Moscow is burning,” she whispered. Her lips and tongue would barely obey her. “It was my fault. I freed the firebird. But Midnight—Midnight said you could put the fire out.”
“Not any longer. I put too much of myself in the jewel, and that is destroyed.” He said this in a voice without feeling. But he drew her standing, roughly. Somewhere around her she sensed the fire; knew her skin was blistering, that she was nearly smothered from the smoke.
“Vasya,” he said. Was that despair in his voice? “This is foolish. I can do nothing. You must go back. You cannot be here. Go back. Run. Live.”
She could barely hear him. “Not alone,” she managed. “If I go back, you are coming with me. You are going to put the fire out.”
“Impossible,” she thought he said.
She wasn’t listening. Her strength was nearly gone. The heat, the burning city, were nearly gone. She was, she realized, about to die.
How had she dragged Olga back from this place? Love, rage, determination.
She wound both her bloody, weakening hands in his robe, breathing the smell of cold water and pine. Of freedom in the trackless moonlight. She thought of her father, whom she had not saved. She thought of others, whom she still could. “Midnight—” she began. She had to gasp between words. “Midnight said you loved me.”
“Love?” he retorted. “How? I am a demon and a nightmare; I die every spring, and I will live forever.”
She waited.
“But yes,” he said wearily. “As I could, I loved you. Now will you go? Live.”
“I, too,” she said. “In a childish way, as girls love heroes that come in the night, I loved you. So come back with me now, and end this.” She seized his hands and pulled with her last remaining strength—with all the passion and anger and love she had—and dragged them both back into the inferno that was Moscow.
They lay tangled on the ground in slush growing hot, and the fire was almost upon them. He blinked in the red light, perfectly still. In his face was pure shock.
“Call the snow,” Vasya shouted into his ear, over the roar. “You are here. Moscow is burning. Call the snow.”
He seemed hardly to hear her. He raised his eyes to the world about them, with wonder and a touch of fear. His hands were still on hers; they were colder than any living man’s.
Vasya wanted to scream, with fear and with urgency. She struck him hard across the face. “Hear me! You are the winter-king. Call the snow!” She reached a hand behind his head and kissed him, bit his lip, smeared her blood on his face, willing him to be real and alive and strong enough for magic.
“If these were ever your people,” she breathed into his ear, “save them.”
His eyes found hers and a little awareness came back into his face. He got to his feet, but slowly, as though moving underwater. He was holding tight to her hand. She had the idea that her grip was the only thing keeping him there.