The smaller girl looked up, her eyes widening, and beforeLiana could clear her throat and try again, the girl let out a shriek so piercing it caused a flock of birds to flee a nearby tree.
Liana flashed a desperate smile, white and sharp on her mud-splattered face.
The bigger girl jumped to her feet, pushing her sister behind her back. “Go away,” she said.
Liana sensed the hostility, but these girls were not dangerous, and she just wanted to see them up close, and maybe touch those dolls they held in their hands.
“I’m Liana,” she tried again, opening her hands to show she was carrying no weapon.
The bigger girl picked up a stone from the ground and threw it at Liana. She was far too slow and clumsy to hit her, but it hurt nevertheless. The littler girl was still making noise. The bigger one threw another stone, and it made Liana angry. Before the girl could throw a third, Liana rushed at her. The girl was too slow to even realize what was going on—all it took was one push and one yank. The girl landed heavily on her behind, and the doll was in Liana’s hands.
“What’s all that noise about?” another voice said, a human grown-up voice.
Liana didn’t stay to see who it belonged to. She turned and dashed down the dirt road and into the forest. The rusalka was nowhere to be seen, she’d probably slipped away as soon as the trouble began. It didn’t matter, Liana knew the forest like the back of her hand.
Or she thought she did. She ran, holding her prize firmly, until the sky began to darken, but she came no nearer to her mother’s lair. The trees around her loomed huge and unfamiliar, and for the first time in her life, she shivered with cold. She could hear the forest animals around her, but their chatter was suddenly incomprehensible, a mindless cacophony of chirps and squeaks and howls. She was a stranger in her own forest.
“Rusalka, where are you?” She called the fickle creature. “I don’t enjoy this anymore, take me home.”
The wind rustled in the leaves, but no water spirit answered the call.
“Snijeg?” She called her companion, the white stag. “It’s me, Liana. Come and get me.”
Her mother’s massive stag never failed to answer her call. She waited for a long time as the air between the trees thickened and the tree roots set traps for her weary legs. Fear crept into her heart. This was the same forest the rusalka had led her out of, any yet it was completely different. She now remembered the strange feeling when she first stepped onto the road, the shift in the light, the chill. If she could only draw aside this curtain of darkness and step back into the warmth, she’d be home. But the forest remained dull and impenetrable, devoid of any enchantment.
In the end, trembling with exhaustion and fear, Liana sat beside a massive oak tree, hugging the wooden doll, tears streaming down her face. “Mother,” she whispered, “I’m sorry I disobeyed you. Please help me, I don’t know how to get home. Please, Mother.”
An owl hooted, and something small and terrified died nearby. A hedgehog stirred in the heap of dry leaves. Far away, a wolf called his companion. But the Goddess of the Hunt had remained silent.
• • •
The sound ofa key turning in the lock woke her up.
“Amron?” she mumbled, rubbing the cobwebs of sleep out of her eyes.
“No.” The captain stepped into the room, in a uniform so crisp and clean it looked ready for a parade. His expression, though,was far from festive. “My name is Darin, I’m the captain of the King’s Guard.”
Liana uncurled her limbs and rose slowly. The only space where two people might stand upright in the tiny room was beside the door, so she approached him, lifting her head a little to stare at his face. He was only a couple of inches taller than her.
It was uncanny, his face. Weathered by the sun and the wind, with the first wrinkles running across his brow and gathering in the corners of his eyes, but still undoubtedly fetching. High forehead, sharp cheekbones, straight nose, and a generous mouth: It looked like a chiseled bust of a young god, animated by the soft glow of his green eyes and the gentle wave of his chestnut-honey hair.
It was like looking in a mirror—a mirror that distorted her face, aged it, changed its gender, but still reflected it perfectly. Her face, staring back at her.
“Liana,” the captain said, his voice raw. “Child.”
“Papa,” she whispered.
She’d never met him. He’d never returned to Till, never sent for her. She’d been so mad at him; she grew up an orphan, abandoned by her mother, knowing that he was somewhere at court, thriving, ignoring his only child. She’d imagined chasing him down some day and throwing all that fury in his face, demanding an explanation, an apology, some compensation for the lonely, loveless days of her childhood. But then he died and she never got the chance to meet him, and the fury in her heart turned into a wound that could never heal.
That pain threatened to choke her now, as his hesitating arms pulled her into an embrace. There were so many things she wanted to say, a stormy vortex of questions and accusations she wanted to hurl at him. But for now, hearing him say, “My girl, my beautiful girl,” was enough.
She refused to cry, though, and so did he. A shared stubbornstreak made them separate in an awkward attempt to deny their feelings. He cleared his throat, all formal again; she ran her fingers through her tangled hair.
“What are you doing here? When did you arrive?” he asked.
It was a perfectly reasonable question, but she had no good answer. She supposed there was another Liana, therealLiana, tucked away somewhere in Till, unaware of all the uproar about the royal wedding. If her father started asking questions, the other Liana would find herself in trouble, unable to explain why he thought he saw her in Abia.
“I’m not really here,” she said at last. “I’m just passing through.”
