Page 18 of The Bone Doll (The Ruthenian Chronicle #1)

The Green Man

Syra slumped onto the bed, scrubbing at her wet cheeks.

She was a fool. How did she not realize that Viktor was seducing her?

The glass beads spread all over the floor.

He had even said that necklace was a bribe, and she had forgotten about it just because she liked his kisses.

She groaned and wished she could claw her own heart out. Maybe that would stop the pain.

While she was sniveling like a broken-hearted teenage girl, the door swung open. Lord Igor Sviatopolkovich strode in, a smug grin twisting his features, followed by a slew of guards. He stopped before the bed and crossed his arms in front of his barrel-like chest.

“It looks like my son had the balls to end it with you,” he said. “A Ruthenian lord really is too good for a tundra bitch. But I still have need of you, and I won’t even degrade myself by fucking you.”

She fisted the covers, glaring at him.

“My son says you – or that little figurine of yours – has magic,” Igor said. “And I need help with the leshy trying to tear down my house.”

“I’ll send him deep into the forest,” Syra said.

“No, no, no.” The lord wagged a finger. “You will bind him to another one of your figurines. And if you can’t do that, you’ll control it yourself. You and the leshy can be my little pets. It will be wonderful to control what grows where, and always have perfect hunts.”

“You don’t want the Bone Doll here,” she said. “It’s–”

“But I do,” he insisted. He gestured to the guards. “And all these lovely men are here to make sure that you ensnare the leshy, just as I want, and return to me.”

Three guards strode forward. Two grabbed her arms and hauled her off the bed, while the third pressed a knife into her lower back. Syra trembled but not from fear. Anger burned in her stomach.

“Take the girl into the forest,” Igor ordered. “And make sure she returns.”

They marched her out of the dining room and through the manor’s maze-like corridors.

The Bone Doll reverberated in her belt purse, as angry as she was.

Shadows and creeping vines reached out to meet her; the guards hacked the latter away.

A soft mist climbed up from the loam below their feet, obscuring the forest floor.

And they kept walking her deeper and deeper in until she could no longer see the sky above.

Finally, the guards let her go with a hard shove.

Syra almost lost her footing but caught herself.

Stepping hurriedly away from them, she drew the Bone Doll, her knuckles turning white as she gripped it.

It was painfully hot against her skin, but she didn’t let go.

It had saved her from that screamer; hopefully it would protect her here.

She looked around slowly. The fog began to twist tightly around her, turning the forest almost black. The nearby owl went silent.

I don’t want to do this…

Then, she heard choking. Thick vines wrapped around the guard’s throats.

Their faces turned redder and redder as they kicked out against the loam.

But the vines did not unrelent. The guard on the left dropped, limp and purple-faced.

A few moments later, the vines dropped the second corpse and the third.

The other guards, further behind, backtracked hurriedly until she could neither see nor hear them.

In her fingers, the Bone Doll glowed blue.

A figure emerged from the forest.

Her eyes widened as it moved forward into the moonlight.

It was a man who seemed nearly as tall and thick as an oak tree.

He wore a long, green caftan over matching trousers.

But he seemed to misunderstand buttons: the front of his caftan was twisted and pinched from his attempts to put buttons in the wrong holes.

And when Syra stopped trying to understand his odd dressing habits, she noticed the shining and sharpened antlers that grew from above his ears.

“Who are you?” she demanded as the Bone Doll went dark, cold. “What are you?”

“I am the trees, I am the moss, I am the lianas that crisscross,” the creature said in a voice as deep and dark as the underworld. “I am the lord of the golden wood, the soul of the birch forest.”

“You are the leshy,” she said.

“You are a woman far from home,” he replied. “And you carry a creature from far away.”

“The bones of a sky spirit,” she said.

When the leshy shook his head, it sounded like a tree creaking in the wind. “It is a spirit of the sky, to bone long ago tied.”

In her hand, the Bone Doll twitched and glowed brightly along its carvings as though agreeing to the forest spirit’s assessment. Syra scowled. She had been carrying around a living spirit this entire time?

“It tries to force your hand,” he said. “It attacks those that do not have the power to fight it.”

The curse. The nightmares, the whispers, the dead reindeers and the almost-missing children. The Bone Doll was threatening them. And Lord Igor wanted to do to this leshy what her grandfather had done to the sky spirit. What would the leshy do if imprisoned by a human?

“The lord” – she gestured to the manor behind her – “wants to control you. He wants me to bind you to something, like the Bone Doll.”

“You cannot do it,” the leshy said.

“No.” But maybe dispelling it was enough. “But my clan needs the silver. And you have ruined the house here.”

The leshy’s eyes burned and crackled green.

And then there was nothing there – just empty eye sockets, a vine crawling out of one and trailing down his cheek like a tear.

“Be careful what you try, human. I am as ancient as the forest. I have been here since the first seed fell to the dirt, and I will be here until this forest is nothing but ash. I will not be forced.”

She held the Bone Doll close. Spirits weren’t meant to be leashed by humans. And this one – the one helping her – had been trapped for years. She stared back at the leshy’s increasingly tree-like face and opened her mouth to chant.

Then, a vine curled around her throat, lifting her off the ground. She choked, her eyes bulging. She tried to tell the leshy she wasn’t going to ensnare it, but she couldn’t speak. Black clouds burst in her vision.

“You are flesh, and you are bone,” he intoned. “You will die. But I am the trees and the vines. I am the forest, and it is eternal.”

As her vision flickered and darkened, she saw the night sky again – and the tundra below.

Her brother and sister hauled something wrapped in reindeer hide out of their mya and set it on a sled that Syra did not recognize.

They put bone beads and a fine bone comb atop the reindeer hide before bowing their heads and stepping back.

An old man with webbing tattoos across his hands stepped forward, chanting and lighting a torch.

A sambana. A death shaman. Syra began to cry.

It was her mother in the reindeer hide. Dead.

Her consciousness blurred in and out, her throat bruising.

She wanted to go home. She didn’t want to be hundreds of miles south and west into Ruthenia’s forests.

She didn’t want to be a fool, lured here by a pretty mouth and soft lips.

She should have fought Munku’s order. She wanted to be able to trust Viktor.

Her fingers loosened. The Bone Doll fell.

As the darkness gripped her, she heard it land softly amongst the dead leaves.

And then, a bright blue light exploded.