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Chapter Text

Six Months of Summer

I

I am the Staryk lord. I have been these many winters past, ever since I won the throne from the one before me, who grew too complacent and feeble to maintain it. He grew sloppy as ice melt in the summer, only deserving of being washed downstream and into the dark. He allowed himself to become indebted to me, captain of his soldiers, and up the ranks I progressed until he had no other token to give me in exchange for all I offered him but the throne itself.

I have never doubted my actions in this matter; the lands of winter have been safe under my rule, and I have sacrificed much of my own safety and comfort to ensure the same for my people. It is what I owe them in fair compensation for their loyalty to me.

As the Staryk lord, I must be careful never to be vulnerable in the way my predecessor was. All special favors, if not avoided entirely, are fairly repaid immediately. Gifts, already in poor taste among our kind, are unthinkable to me. I grant no person access to me in a way that another would not have as easily. Until my lady, none ever dared—or had the right to dare—ask me to share a private table with them. My life was given equally, for all gave equally to maintain me in the place I held.

Loneliness is an inevitable inheritance of my position. Yet for the Staryk, loneliness has not the same melancholy aspect for us as it does for mortals. Though many Staryk mate and reproduce, true marriages of affection—to say nothing of love—are rare. Most evenings I sit alone, enjoying the quiet of my own mind after the demands placed on it by so many, and reflect on the deeds of the day in perfect complacency and silence. My own company is pleasant, and few are the times I have been troubled by useless pangs of conscience. Fear I have known, since Chernobog wrested his own way to power in the mortal realm and caused so much trouble in mine, but it was a balm to my pride that none knew of that fear save myself.

Now Chernobog is cast down, his corrosive evil removed from both my lands of winter and the mortal realm. My mountain, my kingdom, is safe again. And though I was instrumental in delivering safety back to my people, it stings unbearably that my hand was not the one that dealt the final blow. Perhaps 'stings' is a strong word. It does not wound me. It...irritates. Rankles. Disturbs my peace, which once was so untroubled, smooth and flawless as a fresh blanket of deep snow. Yet as I sit, night after night, alone, thinking of the debt I owe, I am not upset. Rather, I am intrigued.

'Open-Handed' is the name my lady has been given. Given by her bondsmen, who are the only ones who might address her so without any vicious irony poisoning their tongues as they utter it. It is a name that, among the Staryk, should only ever attract mockery. The idea that one could give, with an open hand, and not try to grasp first for anything with the other, is not only foolish, but insulting.

A Staryk owes no one anything, save for the first and deepest bonds between parent and child. A mother owes her child its life, if she can bring it to birth. A father owes his child its name, once it is born. After those unspoken promises have been fulfilled, all else is a negotiation. A bargain. And those who rise highest in Staryk society are those who make the most of every opportunity. Generosity is not a quality we hold in any esteem, for it carries an unspoken presumption that the receiving party is incapable of offering fair return.

But such a name suits my lady, who showers her favors and thanks among those whose service to her is too slight to bear such recompense. It is a name I ought to use now, for I have lost the right to call her what I cannot help but name her in my mind. She is truly not 'my' lady any longer. Nor is she my Queen. She won her freedom from me, then won respect among my people, by the very nature of her open hand and open heart.

Strange, that she should give so much of herself in some instances, yet withhold herself so stubbornly in others. I have no right to make a claim on her, so I say nothing. Do nothing. I watch her spend her smiles and fritter her favors on others, and know that I myself have lost the right to benefit from her open hand. Thrice I insulted her, underestimated her worth, took advantage of her ignorance of my kind. I would have killed her without ever knowing her, and that knowledge is almost as painful as walking barefoot over the coals that bound me beneath the city of Visnya. Coals I should never have managed to cross had not my lady set me free.

She owes me nothing. That she labors by my side, shares the privations of my people, brings her own strange, precise methods to codify and manage the ineffable magic of my kingdom...if I did not know of her generous nature before this, I would be in a fury from dawn till dusk, wondering what price she would set on the effort she expends so tirelessly on our behalf. She asks for nothing. I give her what I can, no longer thinking to buy her cheap for gifts so dear.

There is only one thing I can offer her in return for all she has done. Yet it is an exchange she has already refused from me, fought to free herself from. I dare not offer it again, however much I—

I should call her Open-Handed. Yet that is not the name my heart whispers in the chill purple twilight near every evening, when the heavy clouds overhead seem to thin to gossamer, allowing faint starlight, cold and pure as the jewels of my hoard, to glitter on the veins of gold she poured into the wounds of the crystal mountain.

I try to keep the name—her true name—from my mind. It was stolen, though I did not think so at the time—for nothing she had was, to my mind, worth stealing—taken from the mouths of her parents as I watched their house one night, desperate to know if this peasant girl had the gift she boasted so loudly of. I sneered at it, at them, so foolishly squandering the power of their true names, not appreciating then what it was to feel so safe with another that you could give them your heart and trust them not to hold you ransom for all that you had in return.

Among the Staryk, one's name is everything. And unless one seeks to share everything, it is never otherwise given away. I have never desired to give my name to anyone, nor be burdened in that manner myself. Even had I married among the Staryk, one of the noblewomen most acceptable to me before my lady, I would never have been tempted to give her my name.

For all these reasons, I try not to think of my lady's name. She did not give it to me as a wife would give it to her husband, whispered into his ear once, a gem to prize above all others, bought only with the price of his own name returned. Some nights, I imagine this is how I had heard it from her, wound in the silks around her bed, a soft cocoon enclosing us together so all I might hear is the soft murmur of her voice, dropping the name, sweet as honey, on my tongue. Some nights, I long to know how her flesh, warm and soft, yielding where Staryk skin never does, would feel under my lips as I whisper my name in return, unspoken since my father placed it deep within me.

These thoughts, these dreams, are unworthy of me. Still I have them, feeling myself grow weaker and more shameless with each vision, tempted almost beyond restraint to ask her the gift of her name once more. She would give it, I think. Well, perhaps not. With her bondsmen she is generous enough, not thinking to ask for anything other than their duties would require them to fulfill regardless. With me...but I cannot be irritated that she has learned her lessons well at my hands. Hands which were crueler and colder than they ought to have been. She does ask payment of me now, even in a gently mocking way.

What will you give me for this? How much can I ask in return for that?

I have taken to answering her: Ask, my lady, and I will give it you.

She never asks for more than a trifle. Enough to fill the form of Staryk barter, but never to drive a hard bargain, or even a fair one. She won my kingdom with her bravery against Chernobog, to say nothing of her victory in restoring the mountain. She won me, had I not been hers by rights already.

Does she know it? Perhaps. But if she does...why does she not ask for it?

For the first time, I wonder at my own worth. Does my lady see enough value in me to consider her hand a worthwhile exchange for all that I am? Would she want my name if I gave it her for safekeeping? Would she give me her own, to whisper to her, close enough that none should ever hear?

These questions are futile, for it is not for me to answer them. Nor is it my right to ask. Putting them from my mind is difficult, but it must be done. There are other, practical matters to think of.

It has been a month. A month of summer, a hard month always, even in a year without war. It took a week to bury the dead with all the proper rites, harvesting enough fruits to plant in the hearts of all our fallen soldiers. Those trees have grown, but it will be months before they bear anything to sustain those who remain.

The Staryk do not complain; we are not so brittle, never so weak. Yet resentment runs deep in our cold hearts, and I know this is a dangerous time for me. Did I win a victory for my people? Yes. But, it could be argued—and undoubtedly will be, by some—that my own actions precipitated this conflict, and all these deaths. My lady almost bargained me to my death. Could I have ignored what I owed her, avoided her clever trap? No.

But such reasoning will not matter to some, and they might lead those whose hearts are shattered and whose stomachs are empty and whose children are frightened into forgetting what they owe me.

Again and again, I return to the thought: I am indebted beyond anything to my lady. She has returned, given validation to all the choices I have made—those foolish and those sincere—and, without bargaining, she has accepted all the responsibilities a Staryk queen would have. The Staryk value actions over words; doing a thing proves a thing in a way that speaking never does. In acting like a queen, my lady becomes one.

But she does not wish to be one. At the end of this summer, she will leave. I will have no claim to hold her, no right to ask her return.

As I think on all this, I find my thoughts disordered. Surely, the most important thing about my lady's choices are how they will affect my position? Without her, my reign may destabilize. I will have to fear the vulnerability of trade with those who, seven years prior, would not have dared approach me with their paltry bargains. Perhaps I, too, will become flotsam on the river, floating into the dark, unable to grasp for safety to either side.

But these thoughts are not the ones that most trouble me. What troubles me is knowing that one day, I will leave my chambers and walk among my people, and not find my lady anywhere. I will search for her brown hair, curling irrepressibly against her hollowed cheek, and only glimpse it in my imagination. She will not be the seat she favors in the grove, nor walking with her bondsmen, nor will her soft voice echo through my halls as she sings her blessings over the trees and flowers.

I will be alone, wondering what I could have done to be otherwise. I will regret my choices. I will miss my lady, my Mir—

Chapter Text

II

I'd had no time to think what it meant, spending six months away from my family. When the Staryk lord held his hand out and told me I wouldn't be able to return until winter, so many fears had been jamming my mind, like ice shards clogging a river when it breaks up in spring, that I hadn't been able to think about what it would be, to miss my mother and father. The only certainty I'd held to was that I had to stop Chernobog. If I didn't, my books would never balance again; my ledger would never be clean. Nothing mattered in comparison with that.

My books are clean now. I picture every number in my mind's eye, see debits and credits scrolling down the page, each one accounting with the other. I have nothing to feel guilty for, no debts to discharge. Now that I have time to feel my loneliness, to miss my parents, or to feel myself cheated or angry that they have been taken from me yet again by forces I am not responsible for nor capable of controlling, I find that I don't. The space where my anger burned in me for so long, like a dry dead tree burning from the inside out in a summer wildfire, has guttered out. There is nothing left inside me to fuel that fury. For the first time in a long time, I am at peace with myself and the world.

A snowball bursts across my face, fine powdery snow flying up my nose. I squeal and sneeze, Rebekah's laughter silvery in my ears, crackling like fine icicles. Flek's laughter is fainter; she is nervous still of me, and turns to scold her daughter. My snowball flies wide, and catches her on the small of the back. Flek gasps, Rebekah shrieks with laughter, and then the battle is truly joined.

Flek knocks loose snow from the branches of the trees above us and scoops it in her long-fingered hands, tossing one snowball to her daughter as they stalk towards me through the grove. I retreat, boots slipping under my running footsteps, finding safety at last behind a row of bushes, their tulip-shaped flowers perfect cups to grab my own snowball from. I cock my arm back and warn them, “Not another step!”

It's strange to hear my voice, so strict and dour lately, break on a giggle at the last word. And then I keep laughing, because Rebekah and Flek are laughing and it feels good to laugh, it feels good to let go after so many weeks of terror and pain and exhaustion. Because we are safe. We are safe, and alive, and happy. We can make each other happy, here, now, with something as simple as a packed handful of snow.

My people's history is full of stories like this, of tiny lights in the darkness, of laughter in the face of fear, in a mouthful of bread keeping hunger at bay. Little things. Insignificant things. Things just enough to light a room, grow a smile, fill a stomach. My family had that, at least, when we had nothing else. And now, I can appreciate what that means, to be a part of making that magic, even when I have nothing else to give.

We tire out quickly, our arms warm and aching, snow powdering lace veils over our hair, embroidering the soft fabric of our tunics. Rebekah's fine skin thins out; I can see the ice melt running through her veins. Flek swoops her up in her arms, her cold leeching into her daughter's skin, and Rebekah smiles at her mother, blinking lazily through frost-rimed lashes. How many times did my own mother hold me so? Warming me through her own skin, with the hot blood running through her heart, blood she'd shared with me when she made me?

I watch them, missing my mother, but it's a perfunctory feeling. My mother's love hasn't disappeared; it warms me still, no matter how far apart we are.

“Do the Staryk do anything for fun?” the question is out of my mouth before I know I even have it. Flek's eyebrows raise, the flat planes of her face disassembling for a moment in her confusion.

“I—I do not know, my lady,” she says, “I am still learning the ways of nobility, myself.”

“Not nobility,” I reply, unsure whether I would still be counted among them myself, anyway. I am no longer married—at least, I don't think I am. “What I mean is,” I have to pause to put my thoughts together, as it occurs to me that this, this little snowball fight, has been the closest thing to fun I have experienced yet among the Staryk.

“My people celebrate in many ways. We sing, we dance, we play games, tell stories and jokes. If I were with my family, I would know what to do to celebrate a victory like the one over Chernobog. What do the Staryk do to enjoy themselves?”

“When,” Flek pauses, rocking Rebekah gently in her arms, “when my mother lived, we would tell stories too. She and I played shakhmaty, just as I am teaching this little one.” Rebekah's smile spreads as her mother presses their foreheads together. “We dance, sometimes. The nobility too, for I have often helped prepare the feast tables for our winter festivals, and seen them dance while changing the plates.”

“Do you have any festivals during the summer?”

“Only one to mark its end, my lady.”

“Hmm.” It seems wrong, not to have anything to look forward to at a difficult time other than its end. What good is hope if it arrives too late? This will be a long, difficult summer. I know what scarcity does to people, how it grinds them down until they are little more than broken animals, plodding forward, unable to lift their heads even when their heavy yoke is gone. I know what the lack of hope did to me. How afraid I was to have any, lest it might be snatched away.

Rebekah has her hope, still. I want her to keep it. I want to keep mine.

“My lady?” Flek hesitates. “May I take my daughter to our rooms? She is tired, and I would put her to sleep. I can return afterwards, if you still have need of me.”

I suppress my proud smile. It took so long for Flek to express any wishes of her own that I cannot bear for her to think me mocking. “Thank you, but no. We have both worked hard today. Go home. I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Thank you, my lady. Thank my lady, little one,” Flek jostles Rebekah lightly in her arms, but the girl is sound asleep and cannot be woken.

“I will send something extra for her, tonight,” I promise, knowing there is always more than I can eat in my rooms. As Flek opens her mouth and her brow creases, I raise my hand. “She tired out far too quickly today, and I will need her help. She can teach me how the Staryk dance. I want to learn.”

“Very well,” Flek's objections go out of her like a breath of winter wind. “Good night, my lady.”

“Good night.”

It is strange, how quickly I have accommodated to the Staryk way of doing things, now that I am no longer a hostage to them. Their unwillingness to receive without giving, and vice versa, once seemed to me unspeakably cold, a frozen tundra from which no warm feelings or friendships could possibly spring. Yet now that I no longer fear them, I begin to understand them. They value the steadiness of certain ground, of understanding exactly where they stand in relation to each other. For me to give unreservedly, without demanding a return, would be to hold them hostage to mystery, unknowing when and how I would finally require compensation.

By just asking a little given back, a token favor, I remove that uncertainty. Flek will feed her child tonight, and they will both teach me tomorrow, and we will keep exchanging these tokens, these favors, knowing exactly what we are to each other. I don't know if the Staryk define friendships in the way mortals do, but I have never had many friends, anyway. Wanda is the first person outside my family I let approach my high and guarded heart; even then, our friendship started with an exchange of services. Who am I to think the Staryk cold when I have rarely been any warmer?

Are they that different from mortals? Are their needs and desires so far afield from ours? I used to think so. Now I know better.

All these musings help solidify my intentions. The Staryk need hope. They need to know that privation and darkness will end; and that until it ends, we can work together to keep fear at arm's length.

The mountain ushers me back to my chambers, where my servants—two Staryk women I have begun to think of as Mysha and Nos—have prepared a bath for me. They exchanged raised brows as they beat snow from my clothes, but say nothing until I ask them to invite the Staryk lord to my rooms for dinner.

Mysha—as timid and soft as the mouse I named her after—twists a finger into the end of her braid. “Shall I give a reason why my lady asks for his presence?”

“Tell him,” I swallow, “tell him I wish to discuss crop yields.” I do not like to lie, and did not even before living with the Staryk, but I also don't want my ideas discussed by my servants, especially if they should fail. Trading gossip is an industry here, like everywhere else, and Mysha and Nos have no reason to keep my secrets yet.

Mysha leaves to issue my invitation, while Nos helps me undress and get into the bath. I dismiss her as soon as she will allow me, not wishing to enjoy my bath under her arched and superior nose, and shortly Mysha returns with the Staryk lord's assurance that he will join me later. I nod my thanks, waiting until she leaves to grip the edge of the tub for a moment's stability as my heart seems to lurch in my chest. Have I grown used to the Staryk? A little. Does that familiarity extend to their lord? Not yet. I am not even certain if I wish it to.

Every time I am with him, I both wish to say more and regret what I do say. We have never been closer than we were that moment in the storeroom, when he burst in upon me with a wild look on his face, and took me by the shoulders as if to—I do not even know what he had thought to do. Asking would be impossible. Besides, whatever wild impulse seized him then seems now buried under a snowbank of manners and formalities. He denies me nothing except what I most want and can never, never ask for.

All former bargains between us have been dissolved, our debts to each other too complicated to be resolved to anyone's satisfaction. Yet sometimes I think what three questions I would ask, if he were bound to answer me again.

What was going through his mind, when he saw what I had done?

What did he want to do, as we stood staring at each other in the aftermath of battle?

Would he do it now, if I asked?

My hands ache where they grip the tub.

It occurs to me suddenly that this is the first time since returning—in fact the first time since our wedding—that we will share a private meal. Could I make another bargain, to get my answers? What would I do with them, if I got them? Would I want to demand answers, if he could not refuse me?

I plunge fully beneath the water, its cool touch soothing my suddenly feverish cheeks, and breathe out a plume of frustrated bubbles. Oh, I am no good at this! What is this, anyway? I have never had the luxury of being like my cousins, or the girls in the village, flitting and twittering over whichever boy happened to be tallest, or who sprouted the first patchy beard, or who looked best in a blue woolen jacket. I had always thought them silly, and myself superior, never to be troubled by such thoughts.

But I think of the way the Staryk lord—my Staryk—looked at me, and it is with a mix of shame and pleasure that I find myself capable of being just as ridiculous.

Emerging in a burst, water splattering over the floor, I breathe deeply and try to calm my heartbeat. Once I do, it is my thoughts that start racing. Which of my clothes look best? Should I order the same simple dishes I usually do, or try for something grander? Should I order his favorites? If I do, what will be said about me? Should I call the whole thing off, and make my requests in writing instead?

I stand, water sluicing off my body, huffing at my own foolish nerves. If I believe my idea to be a good one, why should I need to dress it up to make it acceptable? The Staryk will either agree with me, or he won't. I will not let my silly little girl's fears keep me from doing right. I am Miryem Mandelstam, who can turn silver into gold, who rescued the Staryk lord, and who defeated Chernobog.

These truths do make me feel a little better about myself, but they also throw a stark contrast on the fact that I am also Miryem Mandelstam, a girl who has never been loved by anyone who wasn't already bound to love me. I have never been wanted; I have only been needed. I always thought it was safer to be so; to be valued for what I can give and do, not needing to rely on my prickly nature to be thought worthwhile. I am capable, I am clever, I am determined, I am strong.

But am I lovable?

If I am, do I want to be loved?

And if I want to be loved, do I want my Staryk to love me?

Chapter Text

III

She has grown cautious with her words, my lady. Sharp and shrewd she had always been, with her own kind, but 'sharp and shrewd' among humans carries a different meaning among Staryk. Yet she has learned our ways, learned to weigh her words as carefully as any mortal merchant, before hazarding speech. I can almost see, in her darting eyes and restless fingers, the calculations of her working mind. Our kinds share the understanding that the first to speak her want is the weaker in any negotiation; I know my lady would not want to seem weak.

I could tell her that she is not, that she could never be. But my curiosity is stronger, and I wish to see how she will overcome this challenge. It is a strange thing, to want something from another person, yet not to have the power to command it from them. The wait shimmers with anticipation, like a new skim of frost hardening my skin.

Fighting her own nature, she begins with a feint. “I think the orchards in the upper ring are starting to bloom again. My bondsmen and I were walking there today and we saw the buds.”

I am aware; the mountain and all within it is as part of me as my own limbs. Once, I would not have bothered to reply to this with more than a raised eyebrow. From my own subjects, the thought that I would not know this would be an insult, if such a clumsy one it deserved only disdain. But my lady speaks unknowingly; she cannot understand how, at this very moment, a patch of rot somewhere beneath my ribs is repairing itself along with the orchards.

Yet I cannot overcome my own nature enough to reply. A gracious incline of my head is all she receives, but she is encouraged, as she ought to be.

“It will be months, though, before they bear fruit.”

She does not ask a question. Clever, for to waste time and leverage on such a minor negotiation for my answer would rob her of both when she comes to her point. I nod again, and am forced to hide a twitch of my lips behind the rim of my glass.

She studies me as I drink, and where a Staryk's cheeks would go blue with a sudden flush, hers go pink. Strange to remember that once I thought those blushes rough and rude, like a spill of blood on my blade. Now, the soft pink of her cheeks reminds me of a delicate winter sunset, tinting the entire forest around with a pearlescent oyster-shell glow. My hand tightens around the glass as I lower it, but she does not know me well enough to notice.

I also remember a time when the feel of her hot skin was repulsive. Now, I must distract my hands from wanting to feel that rush of warm blood soften the tips of my fingers. Once I had had the right to hold her hand in mine whenever I wished. Once, I had held it for hours, on the journey to her grandfather's house and then as we sat, watching the wedding dance. Her skin had been dry and chill in the open air, yet still alive beneath, a candle-flame cupped in my palm. Later, inside and then in the dance, it had burned, burned against mine like a brand, and yet it had taken torture to force me to let go.

I would face that torture again, if only I knew she would welcome my hand at the end of it.

“Among humans, winter is our dark season, where nothing grows. People starve, sometimes, or freeze. My family almost did.”

My lips thin. Her cheeks are still hollow—not quite as pinched and drawn as they had been, the first time I saw her through her window—but her short months of prosperity have not been enough to add flesh to her delicate bones. Nor can I now offer her much to change that. She will not starve—she will not—but it will be months before I can offer what she truly deserves. To feed her as she should always be fed.

“But we have a festival during that time, one that reminds us that there can still be light, and miracles, and happiness,” her eyes are faraway, and light shines in them, turning them golden as honey. A smile touches her face, thinking of past happiness. “God made one night's supply of oil burn for eight days in the temple.”

“Fire is a thing we have had too much of, recently.”

She catches my tone, and her warm honeyed eyes sparkle as she smiles. “Yes, but I wasn't thinking of lighting the mountain on fire,” her smile dims as she remembers the true terror of that battle, but she breathes through the fear and comes to her point, at last. “Our festival is a laugh in the darkness, a reminder that winter ends and the sun will come again. I asked whether the Staryk had something similar, for summer, and was told that you don't.”

“You were informed correctly,” I say, finding the thought of a summer festival inherently off-putting, no matter how much I trust my lady, “We do not see anything to celebrate in your sun and heat. Nor is there much to celebrate this summer.”

“There is, though,” she stresses, “we saved the Mountain from Chernobog.” she shudders again at the mention of that demon's name, and my teeth grind with a fury that even the abomination's death could not satisfy. “I know we replanted the orchards and honored the dead. But we didn't celebrate the living.”

“It would be foolhardy to do so with the little that remains to us to last until winter.”

She smiles, with a shrug that is both ironic and proud, “If there is one thing my people know, it is how to make a little go a very, very long way.”

We have arrived at the crucial moment, at last. I see the questions poised on the edge of her tongue, and it is my own past callous and cruel treatment that stops them. I do not regret what I did, nor how I treated her. She was an outsider, a mortal with a particular utility, and I used her as I would use any other tool. One does not feel sorry for the hammer once it has been used to beat in a nail, even if one breaks it in the effort.

Perhaps she understands that. Perhaps she even forgives me. Yet now, there is a gulf between us that words are not enough to bridge. Bargains are what I have left her with, to sway me. She does not know her value, nor what she could offer to get what she wants. She does not know that I would give my crown to see her sudden smile, even if not directed at me. She does not know that in saving my kingdom, she is entitled to anything and everything it could offer her.

Even as I think this, I wonder. My lady is sharp, and shrewd. Among her kind, I watched her drive hard bargains. Is her hesitance truly because she does not know her rights, or because she does not wish to take advantage of them?

Once, the thought of the latter would have driven me to fury. Now, I find myself intrigued to be at her mercy. Especially when I know myself so little deserving.

If she has offered me mercy, I owe her the same. The Staryk will not try something new and foreign unless it has been sanctioned by their King, so my sanction she shall have.

“Would you like to have such a celebration?”

Her lips drop open in quick surprise, but she hides the shock in a moment. “Yes. Yes, I would. In exchange, I can offer—”

“A dance,” I finish, regretting for a brief moment forfeiting the knowledge of what she was willing to give me. Still, I have never been more certain of what I want, and what I am unwilling to give up. This is a chance that may not come again, and the pleasure—sharp and sweet—of holding my lady in my arms again is one I will not lose.

“A—” she hesitates, and calculations start up again behind her eyes, that are fixed on mine with an intensity that makes color rise in my own face. She wonders what I am after—is a dance only a dance?—or am I mocking her, by asking for what, she believes, is so much less than a request of her size would warrant.

I could tell her all. I could lay myself open, weaker and more vulnerable than ever I was when I collapsed against her in those hellish tunnels, or when I stood before her in the heart of my own Mountain and longed to drag her to me and never let her go. Would her mercy extend to cover such weakness? Would her eyes soften and warm, would her hand—flat on the table, fingers restless in thought—extend to touch mine? The longing to know is almost desperation inside me. But I am the Staryk Lord. My weaknesses are under my control.

“A dance?” she repeats, slowly. “Just one?”

I curse her caution, for my greed is another weakness I must now conquer. “As I said,” I repeat, as coolly as I can. Considering the rush of my blood, strong as the river under the Mountain, that is saying very little indeed.

But she is consumed with her own emotions. “Very well,” she agrees, dipping her head. “A dance for a party.” Her sentence is almost a question, and I can feel her confusion, her longing to ask whether the dance is truly enough. In the end, she does not ask; though she has suffered from my machinations, she has also learned that the Staryk are to be trusted once a bargain is struck.

She shrugs off her confusion, practical again now that her point has been gained. Our dinner has been neglected during this negotiation, so she tackles it with fervor. “I will discuss the location and menu with my bondsmen,” she says, “and I will bring the details to you for approval.”

I nod again, slower to take up my fork. I know my lady thinks she has had the better end of this bargain, but I cannot stop imagining how it will feel, to take her to myself again.

She has done so well, my lady. Mortals and Staryk are opposites in so many ways that there seems to be no common ground between us, nor any way for each to understand the other. Nor have we often wished to. Each species to its own sphere, and each content to let the world spin on in such a way.

The festival takes place in the lowest ring of the Mountain, closest to its frozen heart. Even in the middle of summer, which I can feel beating down on the peak many thousands of feet above me, the air here is so chill that a silvery plume of breath rises above each attendee, ringing their heads in a delicate cloud. Furs have been taken out of storage, black sable and white ermine glowing faintly in the rime-lights strewn around the hall.

The hall's decoration is simple, but effective. My lady and her assistants have gathered dark pine branches and woven them around the stone pillars and into generous wreathes. Chilly rime-lights coat walls and ceiling in liquid silver, and shadows stand starkly around each corner. At one end of the hall are long feast-tables, set with what abundance she could manage to assemble. In the center, heaped high and shining like rubies, are dried winter fruits, preserved in past years for times of hardships like these.

My people do not often show their pleasure, but I can see the wintry atmosphere has struck a sudden, deep chord of joy in my people's hearts. However she has learned of it, my lady has been sensitive to what the Staryk value: starkness, contrast, shadow, and cold. Perhaps I should not be surprised; her model for this celebration is a winter festival. Hope in dark times is a concept that applies whether one hopes for summer or winter at the end of that darkness.

She, in a royal layer of white fox-fur, her brown hair tamed in a long braid that wraps in a crown above her head, cheeks bright with the cold, looks as at home as any of my subjects, and she greets them with restrained bows as they enter the hall. She cannot, however, restrain her mortal smile nor her joyous eyes, which dart around the room to assure herself that all is in place and well.

Her bondsmen move like silent shadows around the room, along with a half-dozen other Staryk who have assembled under my lady's banner, and between them, everyone is tended with a glass of ice wine and offered a slice of crisp bread layered with sugar, candied fruit, and nuts. The drink is familiar, the food is not, but no one mutters or complains. I vow to gut the first person who does, if their ill-meant words shade the joy in my lady's eyes.

Her eyes, which now meet mine from across the room, have none of their golden sunlit shine. They are dark, and intent. Her smile blooms, though she tries to hide it, and she lowers her gaze with her nod. I return the gesture and refrain from lifting my glass to her; such would not go unnoticed by my subjects whose curiosity is already well-roused by my unexpected choice to sanction this celebration in the first place. I will not expose my lady or myself to idle gossip.

Conversation flows quietly but easily, and as the wine does its work, laughter rises. Uncertain at first—the very first woman to laugh touched a shocked hand to her lips—then more and more brightly, light as the bubbles that sprayed from the opened wine bottles. My lady has calculated right, and I see her signaling to her bondsmen as the evening goes on, for the rare ice wine is quickly succeeded by home-brewed juniper liquor and spiced-ginger smallbeer.

By the time the musicians raise their instruments, the crowd is loose and easy, ready to shrug their cares away.

The first chord rings through the Mountain like a gong, as if the Mountain's deep and giant voice were awakening after a long, hot summer. The crowd echoes the note in a delighted sigh, and couples pair away with no prompting to take their places around a clearing circle in the middle of the room. My heart, so often cold and still in my chest, leaps. It takes all within me to keep my head from turning towards my lady, who, though she stands behind me and to the right, I could pick from the assembly in an instant.

Our bargain stands on the instant of fulfillment, but I hold myself back. Will she wait for me to come to her, unwilling to give me what she owes? Shall I have to go to her and be seen to offer her my hand in front of all my people? And if she does not come to me, will I go to her, knowing the consequences if I do?

I shall. I shall, and I will have no choice. For her, I am weaker than ever I was in Chernobog's ring of fire.

As I feel my control slipping with the ice-melt of my desperation, my lady once again has mercy. Her hand slides into mine, so soft and unobtrusive that at first I only feel it as a touch of winter's first snow.

“My lord?” her eyebrows raise at my shock, which I have in no ways concealed, “Shall we?”

It is shameful, my greed, but I no longer want the dance. Would she object if I pulled her from the hall and found a shadowed corner, dark and haunted with possibilities? I have never done such a thing in my life, never even been tempted, yet now I wonder if this is one of the true reasons why we Staryk are so fond of the darkness. My people's passions run deep and lie hidden, a dark vein of untapped silver in our blood. I had always thought myself above all that.

I cannot, I cannot. I have no right to her, no more than she has offered me in this bargain. With my own hands, I threw away my rights to her. I am the Staryk Lord, and I will not take without fair recompense.

She has bargained this, though. Ceded her rights to me for this one dance. I draw her hand further under mine, feeling her warm under the layer of fur, even though her cheeks are radiant with cold, and watch them go still redder at the touch of my palm on hers. Her pulse leaps in her neck and her breath comes short, like a hare's when the fox spots her, but my lady is too brave and too honorable to run from the hunter. Her chin lifts, proud under her crown of braids, and she does not trail me by so much as a single step as I lead her out onto the floor.