Zima recognized the stiffness of her posture and the twitch in her hands. It was the look of prey that knows it’s being watched.
The human called out some words in her language. Her voice quivered, bouncing through the darkness like a bird searching for its lost chick.
There was nothing to do but attack the human, noiselessly. It was now or never.
But then the human made a sound. A whimper.
The girl was frightened. But humans didn’t feel fear—they always attacked first.
Kill them, before they kill you. Grom’s words rang in her ears and threaded through her thoughts, roots buried inside her and holding on tight.
Zima set her jaw. She had to do this to protect her family. Keeping them safe was as vital as the blood that thrummed in her throat. She readied her legs to leap.
A howl pierced the air. Leto, calling for Grom, giving Zima’s location.
The girl whipped around at the sound. Her eyes grew wide as they caught sight of Zima with her bared fangs and taut tail.
Their eyes locked for a moment.
Kill them, before they kill you.
The girl blinked. She took a step back. And another. She glanced behind her at the path.
This girl wasn’t preparing to attack, she was preparing to flee.
That wasn’t right. Humans were dangerous, but this human wasn’t trying to fight.
When Grom had uttered the words, Zima had imagined herself staring down the shaft of an arrow, bravely leaping to attack a hunter before he could release the string. Killing a human that had no weapons, made no move to attack…surely this wasn’t what Grom meant?
A thought flickered in Zima’s mind, burning bright before she had a chance to snuff it out: she didn’t have to kill the girl. She could leave, and the girl wouldn’t follow.
Zima closed her mouth and straightened her ears. Finally, she scrambled away, back around the boulder.
The girl’s quick breaths formed a panicked rhythm.
Suddenly shame washed over Zima. What was she doing? She’d given herself away, failed to kill the girl, and was now hiding like some sort of twitchy little rabbit. And Leto and Grom would arrive at any moment.
There was still time to do it. She peeked around the boulder. The girl met her eyes.
And then the girl smiled. Not a sinister, cruel smile. It was alight with kindness. She lifted a little hand and waved it.
Zima ducked behind the rock. She couldn’t bring herself to do it, not now that she’d looked in the girl’s eyes and seen no hint of the threat that Grom had assured her she’d find. Keeping motionless, she listened for the girl’s breathing. After some minutes there was a rustle of movement, and soft footsteps pattered away from the clearing.
For what seemed like an age, Zima sat there, too afraid to move. What had she done? She’d put compassion for a human above the safety of her pack. She’d let a human wander free in the middle of the forest. Her mind raced, her stomach heavy with embarrassment and shame. It took her a moment to notice that a new smell had seeped into the clearing.
It was the stink of magic, of the witch she’d detected just before. It filled her nose and throat, making her gag.
Her chest tightened. She had to get away from this place.
The witch Baba Yaga peered through the trees, watching the young wolf. Of all the wolves she’d seen, this was the first to step away from an attack. She could see the conflict in the bristle of the wolf’s fur. The tension straining the muscles of her legs. The wolf wanted to do something, to attack the little human girl, but she chose not to.
That was exactly what Baba Yaga needed. The gray wolf…a wolf who wouldn’t put up a fight.
Nadya crept away from the clearing, her mind buzzing like a swarm of bees. She’d met another wolf, been close enough to smell the pine needles clinging to its silvery fur. The thought sent a shiver of excitement down to her toes. And in that moment the wolf had backed away from her.
The others were wrong. She could navigate the forest on her own. Ignoring the nervous trembling still dancing along her fingers, she reached into the little bag tucked into the folds of her skirts and tugged out a crumpled sheet of paper. Dirt-colored lines were scratched across its surface—a smudge to indicate a familiar cluster of trees, a squiggle to signify a stream. Laying the paper on the ground, she licked a finger and pressed it into the dirt. Carefully she used the tip to draw a little wolf with pointed ears and a bushy tail. Wolves moved around, she knew that, but it was helpful to know where she’d spotted one.
There was still a lot missing, but every day she ventured farther into the forest, every day added a little more to it. It didn’t matter what the others said about the dangers of the forest—she knew how to navigate them. And when the day came when she finally left the orphanage, no one would follow her. They’d be too scared to enter the forest themselves to chase her down.
She sat, adding the new features she’d spotted that day to her map, taking care to mark poisonous plants and places where the earth fell away into craggy chasms—sudden holes in the ground that would trick an unwary traveler.
Her lips pressed into a hard smile.
No one knew the forest like she did.
She was so close to being ready. She could feel it. Soon she could leave the village for good.
When the light grew too dim to continue, she stood and brushed herself off. Katerina would be sure to notice the dirt smudges on her dress—nothing escaped those large eyes. Oh well, soon Katerina would be off to the castle in the north, living her new perfect life as the perfect bride of the tsar, and Nadya would be on her own in the forest, making her way to the great road that led south to the city and a new life.
The paper fluttered as she held it up, trying to snatch enough slivers of fading sunlight to see where she was. Was she near the sheer rock face? No. The dried-out stream? No again.
She made her way down a slope, placing each foot in its woven bark shoes carefully so as not to slide on the loose rocks. Her foot twisted as she neared the bottom and she lost her balance, her arms flailing before managing to snatch hold of a tree’s branch. Her heart jumped. She had nearly fallen into one of the great openings in the ground. Little pebbles slipped out from under her feet and tumbled into the crevice, clinking against its stone walls.
Her hands burned. She released the branch and stumbled away, examining her palms. Deep red marks crossed her hands. They stung, but she didn’t have time to worry. She checked her map again. Had she seen this crevice before? It was hard to tell in the dim light.
Her pulse was pounding louder in her ears, trying to drown out the frogs and crickets that were beginning their nightly chorus.