Page 13 of The Bone Doll (The Ruthenian Chronicle #1)

A Pretty Bauble

After a supper of soup brimming with omul and wood sorrel, Viktor stayed with Yefrem at the table in the servants’ quarters while Syra retreated upstairs.

The steward opened a bottle of birch juice, pouring them each a mug, before slumping deep in his chair.

It reminded Viktor of the hundreds of other times Yefrem had poured him birch juice, when Viktor needed a quiet place to sit where his parents and tutors would not find him.

Yefrem tested the birch juice. “You never send a note or anything ahead to announce yourself like a decent lordling.”

Viktor laughed. “I thought you were resigned to the fact that I'm quite an indecent lordling.”

The steward snorted. “I really had given up on you.”

“Had?” Viktor raised an eyebrow.

“I never thought I’d see you guarding a lady,” Yefrem said. “It’s almost genteel.”

“The Sarnoks don’t have nobility.” Viktor hid his face with a sip from his mug. When Yefrem said it, this job sounded almost … chivalric. A knight escorting a lady. But Viktor was only doing this because his father demanded it. And his father only demanded he did shit jobs.

“It’s not the blood that makes a lord or lady, boy, it’s the soul,” the steward said. “My Karolinka was born a serf, but she was a lady through and through.”

Viktor remembered Yefrem’s wife, Karolina Adrianovna, with her graying red hair and meaty hands.

She was a terror in her kitchen but as fond of fairytales as Viktor was.

She had told him many stories that his nursemaid had not.

Karolina had passed two summers ago, while Lord Igor had Viktor collecting taxes from Zoldrovya’s serfs.

Viktor had traveled night and day to make it to Karolina’s funeral pyre, but he had been too late. She was ash when he arrived.

“Boy, you look like you’re carrying an iron yoke around your neck,” Yefrem said.

Viktor shrugged.

What was he supposed to do? He had failed his parents.

He had failed his tutors. He had failed Karolina, and in doing so, Yefrem.

Now, he was leading Syra down a dead-end road.

And yet he still kissed her. And he wanted to kiss her again and again.

He wanted to do more than kiss her. All night and all day, he had been plagued with what he wanted to do to her, with her.

But Viktor was a liar, a coward, a failure. She deserved better than him.

It was too much to carry.

“My father wants Syra for her magic,” he said, cradling his head in his hands. “She thinks she’ll go home after binding the leshy deep in the forest. But my father wants to control the leshy. He will demand she remain and control the leshy for him. He won’t let her go home.”

Yefrem nodded over his mug.

“Syra, she’s… She’s tough and proud and intelligent.

And I’m certain she hated me at the beginning.

Everything I tried to do, tried to be, she saw straight through.

I hated it. I do hate it. But she’s” – he struggled for the words – “more. Better. And she makes me want to be better, like her. But I’m walking her straight into the wolf’s jaws. ”

Yefrem sighed. “You’ve always wanted to be a hero, but you think it means swinging a sword and riding magical horses.

That’s only in the stories, boy. Real heroes are made of blood and scars and wounds so deep you cannot see them.

You want to be good? Do right by the girl.

Not what your father wants. Not what you want.

Her. And perhaps she will return home and tell her family of the man who upheld his promises and set her free. ”

Viktor rubbed his forehead with his thumbs, a dull ache spreading behind his eyes. Was he as bad as his father? Because he did not want to let Syra go back to the tundra either.

“I should go to bed,” he said, standing from the table. “I have a headache.”

“I’ve always been proud of you, boy,” Yefrem said as Viktor walked away. “I hope that one day you’ll be proud of yourself.”

Climbing the back staircase, Viktor wiped at his stinging eyes and silently cursed his growing headache. He told himself it was from exhaustion: he had been up since before dawn.

Emerging on the second floor, he hesitated before Syra’s closed door.

He thought of the way she held his shoulders – like he steadied her – when he kissed her.

What he wouldn’t do to feel her lips and hands on him again.

But the shame and the guilt ate away at him until he was only a husk. A shadow unworthy of Syra’s touch.

His chest tightened. Yefrem was right: he could do right by her and maybe then he might be worthy of her. And to do right by her, he could start with the truth. That Lord Igor Sviatopolkovich didn’t just want momentary aid but a lifetime of service.

He knocked gently at the door.

The door creaked open a finger’s width.

“Syra?” Viktor peered into the unlit bedroom and then pushed the door open just enough so he could slip in.

Dressed in one of his tunics, Syra slept on her back, her arms curled above her head like a dancer’s. Viktor sucked his teeth, letting his gaze climb her bare legs. She was beautiful, and his palms burned with the desire to touch her.

But it was clear that she hadn’t opened the door.

Her pack and reindeer hide clothes littered the rug beneath his feet.

Still in its pocket in her bibs, the Bone Doll glowed.

Then, it was as though he were a puppet who another controlled.

He knelt down. He smelled iron – no, blood – and his arm extended of its own accord towards the Bone Doll.

The thing twitched. And though he knew he shouldn’t, he touched it.

The world went dark. And Viktor felt like he was falling from a great height, the wind roaring in his ears. Then, silence, stillness.

“She pities you,” a voice that sounded like his own whispered from behind his shoulder.

Viktor spun, but there was nothing there. Just the dark and the empty. He turned back around and came face-to-face with himself. His double was wearing the same clothes, but they were cleaner and better fitting as though this version of himself had succeeded in life.

“You don’t want a woman,” his double said. “You want a prize. A pretty bauble to parade around. To prove you’re not a pathetic wretch.” His double stalked forward. “You are a villain. You ruin everything you touch. What do you think you will do to her?”

But then it wasn’t his double that was standing over him. Syra stood there, her eyes lifeless. A heavy chain wrapped around her neck, leaving bruises in its wake. Viktor reached for her but his fingers slipped through her like she was a ghost.

“No!” he shouted and then, suddenly, the bedroom had returned. He was lying on the floor, shaking, while the Bone Doll sat across the room, glowing faintly blue.

Syra – the real Syra – knelt over him. Gently, she ran her hands along his face and throat, then across his chest, before examining his hands.

Viktor held his breath to stop himself from doing or saying anything stupid, but damn it, he wanted her to touch him like that again – and slower. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” he stammered, though his heart was beating so hard he thought he might die.

“I told you not to touch it.” She cupped his face. “It could have burned you or worse.”

Viktor would have taken a burn over what he had seen. But he didn’t mind Syra touching his face. Reluctantly, he sat up. “I think I got the ‘or worse’ part.”

She glanced across the room, where the infernal artifact flickered brighter for a moment as though recognizing her gaze. “Don’t believe anything it tells you. It’s not true.”

But what the Bone Doll had told Viktor was true. You ruin everything you touch. He placed his hand on her collarbone, slipping his fingers beneath the cool beads encircling her throat. Her pulse fluttered beneath his thumb.

“It’s late.” Taking his hand, she stood and then guided him to his feet. “And we both need rest.”

Viktor swallowed. He had come to tell Syra the truth, and now was the time. He squeezed her fingers, willing himself to be brave. It would only take a few simple words.

But then Syra unfastened his belt, letting it fall to the floor. Next, she easily undid the buttons on his caftan. Shrugging off his undertunic, he stood before Syra, who ran her hand appreciatively up his bare chest from navel to heart. Heat bloomed across his skin.

It was then he knew he couldn’t tell her.

He held his breath, afraid even the slightest movement might ruin this.

He wanted her to touch him forever. And if he told her the truth, she would be upset.

She would be angry at him for lying. She might even leave, returning home without his help.

He couldn’t risk any of that. He needed her hand on his naked chest, resting above his racing heart.

She kissed him on the cheek and then led him to the bed where they slept chastely side by side, half-dressed.