Queen Vasilisa of the Light Volkhvy knew all about mistakes.
She would live with the shock of finding her daughter alive and traumatized by her own actions for the rest of her long life. Every time she saw Anna, she was reminded of what she had done. Not only to her daughter, but to all the people of Bronwal.
They had been her people, in spite of what their ruler had done.
She should have exercised more mercy and restraint, but should haves wouldn’t set things right. Only action could begin to do that. She’d already offered all the help of the Light Volkhvy to Ivan Romanov and his warrior wife. The bearer of the sapphire sword had brought the black wolf back from the brink of madness, and now she helped him reclaim Bronwal from the deterioration the curse had caused.
But they would continue to need Volkhvy help.
It pained Vasilisa that the Romanovs had rejected her Volkhvy workers when Elena had discovered she was pregnant. She knew it pained her daughter to no longer be welcome in the place she had once considered her home, curse and all.
Anna’s pain was her responsibility.
Helping those she’d hurt, including the Romanovs who refused her help, would only appease her own pain. She couldn’t let their refusal stop her. They were distrustful. She couldn’t blame them. She had turned their trust and loyalty to ash when she’d unleashed the curse.
They might never trust her again, but she could only hope and mend and knit together all the pieces her vengeance had rent asunder.
Soren Romanov. The red Romanov wolf. Lev was Soren’s twin. They had been born only minutes apart and they’d rarely been separated since. Lev was the youngest brother, but Vasilisa favored the middle child, Soren, above all the others, because he had stood by her daughter’s side for centuries. When he’d used the mirror portal to bring Anna to Krajina for healing, he’d stood on the cliff overlooking the ocean, but his eyes had been focused on her daughter’s pale face. He had barely spared a glance for Vasilisa or her people or the surroundings.
And yet, he rejected the Call of the emerald sword.
He would deny his own heart rather than trust a witch, and that was Vasilisa’s fault. She had tainted the Light Volkhvy with her Dark use of the Ether’s energy. Now her daughter suffered for what she had done. Much like how Vladimir’s offspring had suffered for what he had done.
Enough.
Vasilisa went in search of her daughter, because she had received a report that she was nearly healed. She’d also ascertained that Anna and Soren were avoiding each other. The red wolf rose every morning and ran the perimeter of the island in his human form, as if he still searched for his lost white brother. He wasn’t searching. He was escaping. The palace must seem like a sumptuous prison to him, filled with Volkhvy who might go Dark at any time. Not to mention the enchanted connection between him and Anna.
The sword only enhanced a connection between them that was as natural as breathing, but the red wolf wouldn’t accept that.
She found Anna in a stone folly built on a smaller rise just below the palace itself. The folly sat above the tangle of the rose garden, for now, but one day, decades in the future, the thorny vines would reach it and twine around its columns and its octagonal red-tile roof.
The center of the folly’s construction was solid white stucco. Around the stucco was a circular portico that resembled a merry-go-round, but instead of horses there were only empty spaces between the columns that held the roof until a wider gap on the ocean-facing side. In the wider gap, Anna sat on a swing made of red-lacquered wicker.
Vasilisa’s heart warmed when she saw her daughter—until she noted the longing on Anna’s face. The young woman shuttered her emotions as Vasilisa approached, but not quickly enough. An observant witch with the experience of centuries behind her, Vasilisa wasn’t fooled.
It wasn’t only the Romanovs who didn’t trust her.
“You are feeling better,” Vasilisa said. She stood beside the swing rather than sit where she wasn’t welcome. The wind off the ocean blew her day dress around her legs. It was shorter than her usual garments for convenient walking around the island, but it was still a design that would have been favored at the turn of the nineteenth century in the outside world. Its skirt was full but swept back in a bustle. A thousand ivory buttons fastened from its high-necked bodice down to just below her knees and along the insides of both of her arms. At her cuffs, her hem and her neck, puffs of snowy lace fluttered in the breeze. Vasilisa liked pretty things. She always had. And vintage clothing design appealed to her love of aesthetics.
Modern style was much too plain for someone who had lived through ages of much more intricate and artistic clothing.
“I am. Thank you,” Anna replied. She continued to stare out over the rolling waves.
Vasilisa had apologized. A million times. Yet still she had to bite her tongue to keep from apologizing again. Words were meaningless. Apologies only went so far. She had to fix this, and the only way she could do that was to force the red wolf and her daughter to spend time together.
She’d made her share of mistakes, but she couldn’t allow Soren and Anna to suffer any more because of them.
“I’ve waited until you were well enough to attend, but there are many Volkhvy on the island and your wolf’s wanderings make them nervous. He has to make an appearance tonight. We’ll have a dinner to celebrate your recovery,” Vasilisa said.
She left no room in her tone for refusal. Anna finally took her attention from the sea. Her green eyes fell on Vasilisa’s face. They were so cool they made even a queen shiver.
“He isn’t my wolf, Mother. He never will be,” Anna said.
But she didn’t argue or refuse the invitation. She simply stood and nodded before slowly walking away. That was when Vasilisa noticed the black leather gloves back on her daughter’s hands. The gloves were an affectation. Not necessary at all or even particularly helpful in aiding her control of Volkhvy abilities.
Vasilisa stretched her arms out toward the sea. A heavy silver ring on her left hand winked in the sun. It had replaced the lover’s ring that Vladimir had given her. The silver had been crafted with thorns that faced both ways, outward and inward to pierce her skin. She had worn it at first as a constant reminder of Vladimir’s betrayal. It had come to represent more than that. She deserved the pain now more than ever. For her betrayal of the Romanovs and her own daughter.
She was the one who had made Anna fear her ability to channel the Ether’s energy. Her poor choices and her temper and the curse she had worked when all her hope was lost had caused so much suffering.
Truth was, Soren and Anna were going to suffer more. Together or apart. The emerald sword didn’t lie. They were meant to be. If they didn’t come to accept it, they would always be hollow inside, as if a part of them was missing. But, worse, if they didn’t come to accept themselves, the wolf and the warrior, they would be separated from their own hearts forever.
Nothing about this was going to be easy, but Vasilisa was well versed in hard. She turned to watch her daughter head back to the palace. Anna had wrapped her gloved hands around herself as if the weather was chillier than it was. Without the Ether’s energy, the island would be like others in the Outer Hebrides, buffeted by the Atlantic cold and currents.
Perhaps Anna could feel a hint of that weather through her enchantment.
Or perhaps it was the red wolf’s distrust that made her cold.