Page 10 of The Bone Doll (The Ruthenian Chronicle #1)
Star Souls
Syra sat on a retaining wall, watching a puppeteer perform.
She had never seen anything quite like it; and, though she didn’t recognize the story, she was delighted by the puppets, which were made from multicolored paper and sticks and decorated with fabric and glass beads.
The puppeteer played out a story of a knight who went to slay a giant but befriended him instead.
Viktor came to lean against the wall beside her, and she was a bit surprised to realize that she was no longer frustrated by his presence. When had that changed?
“That’s the story of the knight Ilya and the giant Sviatagor,” Viktor said. “It’s one of my favorites.”
“Do you have any stories without knights?” she asked.
“Plenty.” He crossed one ankle over the other and folded his arms across his chest in an easy, relaxed pose. “But my favorites have knights.”
The puppeteer finished with a flourish of streamers on sticks and a magnificent puppet in golden armor.
Then, the crowd tossed coins into his hat.
Viktor slipped forward to hand the man a silver coin before resuming his position against the retaining wall.
His hair gleamed like copper in the fading light, and Syra found remembering how he had given her clan most of his supplies.
Viktor fidgeted with his belt purse. “I meant to give this to you earlier.”
Syra frowned at the strand of beads that dangled from his fingers.
The beads were fine and detailed, just like the bone, antler, and ivory jewelry the Sarnok wore.
The Sarnok didn’t use glass, so she was surprised at how much it looked like colored ice.
It was beautiful. But that didn’t explain why Viktor was showing it to her.
She squinted at the necklace and then him. “What is it?”
“Just something I found.” In the gray-blue twilight, she could not tell if he blushed, but he did start smoothing the front of his caftan with his free hand.
“I know you didn’t want to come, and this hasn’t been an easy journey.
I thought maybe this would be something good. That came from Ruthenia.”
Syra sucked on her lower lip. Part of her was touched. The other part insisted this wasn’t what it seemed. “You don’t need to bribe–”
“It’s a gift.” Viktor’s voice grew more insistent. “It made me think of you. That’s all. Will you take it?”
She remembered lying on the floor of Aron Iosifovich’s home in Bereza, so homesick that she couldn’t sleep. He had scooched closer, warming her, and told her the story of Dobrynya and the zmey, lulling her to sleep. He could be sweet. Maybe that was what this was: sweet.
Syra held out her hand.
Viktor looked at her expectantly and then cleared his throat. “May I put it on you?”
Syra nodded and felt a strange ache in her chest. Undoing the first button of her coat, she pushed back her hood and collar.
Viktor slipped the beaded strand around her neck, tying it in the back.
He was swift, and he was proper. But he did not wear his gloves, and even the slightest brush of his fingertips sent heat crackling across her skin.
Viktor stepped back and seemed to look at everything but Syra.
“It’s … not ugly,” she said, letting the cool glass soothe her suddenly too-hot skin.
“Thanks,” he said. “I tried to avoid the ugliest ones.”
She had no gift for him – none that she had planned – so she thought quickly. Unbuttoning the rest of her coat, she slipped her hand into one of the interior pockets. There, she found a knife barely the length of her palm that her father had carved from bone. “Here.”
He held a hand up, his palm facing her. “There’s no need.”
“I want you to have it,” she said. “It is meant for gutting fish.”
“Practical.” He took it and turned it over in his hands, examining the workmanship. “I gut so many fish.”
Her lips quirked, and she almost smiled. “I can tell.”
Syra studied him then – his coppery hair, his amber eyes, the angle of his lips.
She knew what he wanted to be. He wanted to be a great warrior who fought monsters.
But what did she know about him? She knew almost nothing beyond that he worked for a lord who wanted her to use the Bone Doll.
And for most of this journey, she hadn’t cared to know more.
But he could be generous and sweet, and perhaps she should know more. Just a little.
“When I have bound the spirit and have returned to the tundra,” she asked, “will you go home?”
Viktor hooked his thumbs in his belt. “I prefer to stay on the road.”
“Your family must want you to visit at least,” she said.
He smiled bitterly. “I’m not sure they miss me.”
“Of course, they do,” she said. “I would miss my brother, if he was traveling most of the year.”
“Your family must miss you,” Viktor said quietly. “Have you ever been away from them?”
Syra swallowed against the lump that had formed in her throat. She would give almost anything to be back in her family’s mya, sitting and chatting with her parents, playing with her baby nephew, bickering with her siblings. “They know I’ll return.”
They fell silent for several moments as the puppeteer packed up his materials and then left. The twilight faded into night, and no one else walked this road. But Viktor and Syra remained.
Viktor tilted his face towards the sky. “You said your grandfather could walk in the sky. What does that mean?”
Even with her weak magic, Syra felt the stars’ pull as though they wanted her close but could not reach her.
The Sirtian Hunter’s seven stars burned brightly tonight.
Her grandfather said that the Sirtian Hunter always foretold magic, but the stars did not deign to tell Syra what magic they prophesied.
“A long time ago, there was only Sky, and people lived in the Sky,” she said.
“But when the Sky birthed the Earth, the people were split. Their souls were split: half of the soul lived on the Earth and half lived in the Sky. For a while, everyone could feel that they were sundered in two, but eventually that faded. But just because we cannot feel it doesn’t change the fact that each star in the Sky is half a soul, a twin for someone on Earth.
The vidutana, the Sarnok sky shamans, still have that connection to their sky-souls, and through that connection they have magic.
“Most vidutana can read the stars for omens and prophecies, but the strongest ones have other abilities. Some can manipulate moon- and starlight. Others can create powerful talismans like the Bone Doll. And still others can detatch their souls from their bodies and let their souls wander amongst the stars. My grandfather could make talismans and he could detatch his soul and travel into the sky to commune with our star-souls.”
Viktor raised his eyebrows, still gazing at the sky. “So, somewhere up there is star-Viktor.”
The possibility of Ruthenian star-souls had never crossed her mind, but she said, “Yes.”
“I wonder what he is doing up there.” His voice was distant. “I wonder if he has made something of himself.”
“Perhaps he's wondering the same about you,” she said.
Viktor turned to face her, still casually leaning against the retaining wall. “He would be sorely disappointed.”
“Or perhaps he would be envious of all you’ve done.”
Fidgeting with his belt purse, Viktor glanced down quickly and then back to her. “I have done very little.”
“You have traveled from your home in the heart of Ruthenia all the way to the tundra. You have enough to pay for food and lodging. And you are kind. Some might consider you fortunate.”
“Do you find me fortunate?” he asked.
“It doesn’t matter what I…”
The words died on her tongue as he lifted her chin with a curved finger. “When I look at you, I see a woman who is strong and can survive anything; a woman who knows more about the wilderness than I ever will; a woman who knows magic; a woman who loves her family and her people.”
Her mouth was painfully dry. She should have been nothing more than a job – deliver her and the Bone Doll to Zoldrovya.
But instead he saw her. Not the woman with too little magic to continue her grandfather’s legacy, with too little magic to protect her clan from the Bone Doll’s curse – but Syra.
Her chest tightened as she realized how terribly he must want to be seen, in the same way he had seen her.
“How do you find me, Syra? Fortunate? Well-traveled? Generous?”
“You aspire to be a good man, but you don’t see that you already are.
” Heat emanated from where his finger rested beneath her chin.
“You shared your food with me on the road, when you did not have to. You comforted me when I could not sleep. You shared your bedroll when mine was wet. These are the acts of a good man.”
His gaze grew soft, and he trailed his finger along her jawline, turning Syra’s stomach to knots.
His skin was soft and rough, cool and warm all at once.
Gently, he bowed his head forward. The starlight caught in his orange hair, shimmering like a crown.
Syra felt like a star glimmering in the darkness.
Then, Viktor kissed her.
Her eyes fluttered close as a pleasant heat, like a summer breeze, swelled inside her.
His hand slid to cup her cheek, his kiss still gentle but intent.
Instinctively, she leaned into him, parting her lips.
He tasted like cinnamon and yearning. She rested her hands against his chest, his heartbeat wild beneath her palms.
Then, he pulled back, staring down at her with his lips parted in surprise. “Syra, I…”
Her mouth burned from his kiss, even as her heart began to sink. “Why are you looking at me like that?” Like you didn’t mean to kiss me at all?
“I shouldn’t have done that,” he muttered. “I let my emotions get the better of me.”
“You didn’t want to kiss me?” How did you accidentally kiss someone?
“No. I mean, yes. I mean–” Viktor held up his hands in defeat. “Yes, I want to kiss you. You’re a beautiful woman. Of course, I would. But I’m here to bring you to Zoldrovya; and you’re here to handle the leshy. That has nothing to do with kissing you, or whether you like me or I like you.”
“Are you trying to be one of your knights?” Syra had the sudden desire to laugh. “You can escort me, and I can bind your forest spirit, and you can still kiss me.”
“A man should offer a bride-price, a home, a steady income–”
She grinned at his prudish logic. “I am a Sarnok, and I will go back to the tundra once I am done with your leshy. I don’t want a Ruthenian husband, so I don’t need your dowry or house.” She leaned in. “But I might want more kisses. If that is something you are offering.”
Viktor stared at her wide-eyed for a long moment before stammering, “Kisses, yes.”
He stepped in, placed his hands at her waist, and kissed her again. Settling her hands upon his shoulders, she let her body and mind melt into a warm and bright summer.