Yeva’s father began making forays into the surrounding forest, learning the woods again. He’d taught Yeva that the key to being a good hunter was not to track a creature through the forest but to know the forest so well it was like tracking your prey through your own home. He rarely came back with much those early days, but he made imminent plans for trips deeper into the woods.
Yeva begged him to let her come along.
“You’re not a child anymore,” said her father with a sigh. “When I’ve paid my debts we’ll move back to town. By that time, I fear, you’ll have gone so wild that the confines of civilization will break your heart.”
“Please,” was all Yeva could think of to say. She had no argument against it—even years after the last time they had been hunting together, she still longed for the dark, cold cathedral of the wood.
He shook his head. “I won’t be persuaded on this, Yeva.” She still flinched to hear the use of her proper name from her father. “Besides, if you come with me, Doe-Eyes will try to follow, and you know she can’t weather this cold.”
And so he left her behind, traveling deeper and deeper into the forest each time with Pelei at his side. Sometimes he was gone two or three days, leaving Yeva and her sisters, and Albe, alone in the house. Yeva kept to her bed by the fireplace. Doe-Eyes would have whined and cried all night, unable to climb the ladder to the loft, had Yeva taken over her father’s room in his absence.
It was during one of her father’s excursions that they received their first visitor to the cabin, on an afternoon full of pale, cold sunlight. Yeva and Lena were blocking up the gaps in the timbers of the floor and the walls with clay, while Asenka sat by the hearth, mending one of their father’s shirts. Doe-Eyes was executing a circuit around the house, as she did every hour or so, alert for Pelei’s return. But instead of the perk of her ears and frantic lash of her tail that heralded his arrival, she went rigid, nose pointed toward the door and tail unmoving.
Yeva paused, her eyes on the dog. “Albe, is someone outside?”
The servant’s head peeked out from the edge of the loft, where he was tidying. “I don’t hear anyone, miss.”
Yeva put a hand on Doe-Eyes’s shoulder and found the muscles there solid as rock. “Could you please check?”
Albe slid down the ladder to land with a solid thunk on the floor. He opened the door a crack, peering out across the gleaming snow. “There is someone coming, miss,” he said, surprised.
Lena dropped her bowl of mud, sloshing some of it on the floor. “Radak,” she whispered, glancing first at Yeva and then over at Asenka, who had stopped mending and was staring back at her sister. “It has to be. Oh, what if he’s come to break our engagement?”
“He hasn’t,” said Yeva firmly. “He wouldn’t. And if that was his intention, he would hardly travel three days for it, he would just never come at all.”
“It isn’t your young man, miss,” said Albe. Yeva regretted having spoken—now each day that Radak didn’t come, Lena would be more convinced he never would.
Albe stepped into the gap of the door, straightening his shoulders. “Welcome, sir. May I help you?” He spoke to someone Yeva couldn’t see, his form silhouetted by the blinding light off the snow behind him.
“Is this Tvertko’s new house?” asked the visitor. “I’ve come to see him—and his daughter.”
Albe stepped back, allowing the man inside. As soon as the door closed behind him and shut out the daylight, his features became clear. It was a young man, perhaps five or six years Yeva’s senior, with dark hair and an easy smile. He had friendly hazel eyes that cast over the room, going first to Asenka at the fireplace and then to Lena by the wall, and then to Yeva. And there his eyes stayed. There was a gasp from the hearth, and Yeva turned to see that Asenka had gone white, staring at the man in the doorway.
It was Solmir.
BEAST
Something comes.
A man and a beast, moving slowly, scanning the ground. We watch from only a few feet away—we know how to disguise our scent from the canine. The man is surefooted and strong, if old for his kind, and we watch with interest. Something about him is familiar; we have encountered him before.
Yes, we know him. He would not have been the first hunter we turned to our purposes but he was the most promising. We were so certain he would be our salvation, until one day he vanished and never returned to the wood. It was years ago—or weeks? Perhaps generations. His hair has changed and his face has grown lines, but he walks with the same knowledge of the lifeblood of the wood.
We growl, the sound blending with the wind and the groaning of the trees under their weight of snow. We are patient. We still remember our plan.
As the man makes his way through the forest, the dog blowing steam at his side, we move on silent paws to follow.
THREE
YEVA STOOD ROOTED TO the spot, staring at Asenka as she stared at Solmir. Yeva was closest to the door, and knew she ought to greet him properly, but she felt that if she looked at him everything would unravel.
Finally Lena stepped forward, smoothing down her skirts as if they were made from fine silk, and not mud-spattered wool. “Welcome, sir!” she said, brushing past Yeva and holding her arms out for Solmir’s heavy cloak. “Please forgive us, you’re the first visitor we’ve had since we moved.”
Solmir let her remove his cloak with a murmur of thanks, glancing at her briefly before shifting his gaze back to Yeva. “I apologize for not sending word, but by the time a messenger arrived and returned, it would be a week gone at least. I have a room at the inn some leagues back—I can return another time if I’m inconveniencing you.”
“Of course not,” said Lena. “You must be cold. Please, sit here by the fire.” She pulled one of the chairs from the table over to the hearth, placing it nearer to Asenka’s than was necessary. Asenka, whose white face had gone red as she twisted her hands together in her lap, flashed Yeva a look of alarm.
Solmir shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Actually, I don’t have much time. Your father is not at home?”
Lena shook her head. “He is hunting,” she explained, one hand still on the back of the chair, as if hoping to usher him there by willpower alone.
His face fell a little. “Well, I will have to come back another time to speak with him—but that wasn’t my sole purpose.” Solmir had dropped his gaze to the floor, as if he might find his next words written there.
“Yes?” said Lena expectantly, the hand on the back of the chair creeping over to rest on Asenka’s shoulder.
“I—had hoped to be able to speak with Yeva.” His eyes flicked up, meeting Yeva’s before she looked away, startled. “Alone.”
Heart straining against her rib cage, Yeva could not help but look at her sisters. Lena’s face was blank, confused . . . but Asenka understood. Her lips parted, but no sound emerged; the flush of nervous excitement warming her face fled; her hands went still in her lap. She caught Yeva’s eye, and after a long, heavy second, the corners of her mouth turned up in a smile.
Unable to stand it any longer, Yeva darted forward, fumbling for the latch of the door. “As you can see,” she said harshly, “we have only the one room aside from the bedrooms. I will speak with you outside, if you please.”