Lovro ran a hand over his face. The rough leather of his glove rasped loudly against his stubble. “Let him wait.” His eyes were still darting across the faces in the crowd, but his voice had hardened. “We have to set this aside.”

  “Are you joking?” Nayden yanked his arm. “You want to turn your back on him? You’re going to wave fire around like a circus clown while he’s standing right there?”

  “And what do you propose?” Lovro snarled, shaking off his hand. “Charge into the crowd with a sword? Start slashing blindly at anyone in a hood? Panic will break out, the cattle will trample each other, and the Whisperer will vanish in the chaos anyway. That is exactly what he wants.”

  The drums began to beat a rhythm. Dull, monotonous, calling for order. Lovro adjusted his belt and straightened up, assuming the expression of a dutiful soldier. “We’ll play his game, Nayden. First the little theater for the elders, then the hunt. If we make a scene now, we’ll be kicked out of the service before that son of a bitch even touches us.”

  “It’s suicide.” Nayden took a step back, taking his designated position.

  “It’s duty.” Lovro didn’t look at him. “Put on smile number five. We’re going on stage.”

  The drums cut their rhythm. The village elders—a row of men wrapped in heavy beaver furs—retreated under the canopy. One of them wiped his nose with the back of his glove and nudged his neighbor. “How long will this take?” he grumbled, shifting from foot to foot. “The fat on the boar is congealing, and the wine is getting cloudy.”

  “Procedures, Elder,” the other whispered back, burying his blue nose in his collar. “The Order likes to hear its own voice. Let them recite the formula and let’s go eat.”

  In the front row, a mother yanked her son by the arm, positioning him facing the altar. “Eyes wide, Janko,” she hissed. “Watch closely. Your father gave half the granary for this spectacle. Let the gentlemen show they are worth those sacks of wheat.”

  Lovro stepped out in front of the line. He took the bowl from the priest. Hot oil sloshed inside, the heat burning through the leather of his gloves, but he didn’t even blink.

  “Hands higher,” Nayden whispered, standing right behind him. His gaze was still carving through the crowd, searching for blue. “Keep it together.”

  Lovro gave a barely perceptible nod. He drew himself up taut as a bowstring and shouted toward the leaden sky. “Perun! Mighty Thunderer! On this night of Szczodre Gody, we summon Your fire!”

  He raised the bowl. This was the moment. Always at this moment, they felt a tingling in the air, and the rune on the oak would begin to hum. “Send down your lightning! Let it strike this holy oak! Give us a sign!”

  Silence. No tingling. No humming. The air was dead and hollow, like inside a sealed coffin.

  Nayden moved half a step closer. “Lovro...” he hissed through his teeth, barely moving his lips. “What the hell?”

  “I don’t know,” Lovro whispered back, still holding his hands up. The smile was plastered to his face, but there was panic in his eyes. “I feel nothing. The rune is dead.”

  “What do you mean dead?! You checked it an hour ago.”

  “It was working! I swear, it was buzzing like a beehive. And now...”

  “Try the auxiliary incantation. Maybe the pressure is too low.”

  Lovro swallowed hard and tried again, louder, putting more mannerism into it. “Thunderer Perun! Lord of the Iron Sky! Cleave the darkness with your axe! Let Your eye flash! Feed this oak with fire!”

  Nothing. Only the wind whistling in the empty bowl. Someone in the crowd whistled. “Is that all?! My mother-in-law screams louder when she steps on a thistle!”

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  Cold sweat ran down Nayden’s spine. This wasn’t a malfunction. “It’s him,” he whispered, staring at the dead oak. “Lovro, it’s the Whisperer. He’s choking the flow. Sucking the energy out of the rune.”

  “Shut up,” Lovro ground out, his hands starting to tremble from the weight of the bowl. “Don’t panic. It has to work. It always works. Don’t make a scene. They’re watching us.”

  “You were supposed to protect us, and you can’t even strike a spark!” a woman with a child in her arms screamed. “Give back the grain, you bunglers!”

  A muscle in Lovro’s cheek twitched feverishly. “Patience!” he threw to the crowd, then snarled into the bowl: “Strike, damn it. Give me just a spark...”

  The crowd surged. The stench of discontent mixed with the smell of roasting meat. The Elder knew what this meant. A hungry crowd is an angry crowd. He stepped out in front of the line, spreading his arms like a preacher wanting to embrace his flock—or strangle them.

  “People of Volshev!” His bass drowned out the whistles. “Has the frost taken your wits?! Do you see?! Behold, a great mercy!”

  The crowd fell silent, confused. The Elder seized the moment, stepping into the role. “What did you want?” He roared, sweeping his gaze over them. “Thunder? Fire licking the thatch? Lightning turning barns to ash and killing cattle in the pastures? Do you remember the summer two years ago? Do you remember the stench of burning grain? That was the voice of Perun!”

  He made a theatrical pause, listening to the wind. “And now? Listen!”

  Silence. Only the creaking of snow.

  “Perun is silent!” The Elder pointed a gnarled finger at the leaden sky. “He does not hurl thunderbolts! He is not angry! He has tucked his axe behind his belt. His silence is a pact of peace for the coming year! No storms destroying crops! No fires consuming a life’s work! This is not the silence of emptiness, it is the silence of a sated god who does not need to punish his children!”

  He looked at Lovro with a gaze that said clearly: Nod or you hang. “The Order has begged for us a mild winter and safe roofs, hasn’t it, gentlemen guards?”

  Lovro bowed stiffly. “That is correct. Perun... is sparing his strength to protect your homes. Rejoice in the peace.”

  “You heard him!” The Elder clapped his hands, the sound echoing. “The offering is accepted! The gods are full, and we are hungry! To the tables! The barrels won’t empty themselves!”

  The tension eased. People began to mutter, still not entirely convinced, but the vision of free food and warmth was stronger than theological doubts. The crowd began to slowly disperse toward the feast tents.

  The relative peace lasted a split second. Something black detached itself from a branch above Lovro’s head. A wing struck the rotting bark. A splinter fell straight into the bowl. Hiss. The last flame died in a puff of acrid smoke.

  A drunkard by the railing guffawed, spraying beer. “Even a crow shits on you, ‘heroes’! Such is your holiness!”

  Lovro splashed the remaining oil onto the snow. His face was red with rage. “Fuck off home, peasant,” he growled. “Before I lock you up.”

  Nayden wasn’t looking at the drunk. He was looking at the beast that had landed on the railing, a meter from his face. This was no crow. The feathers shone like oiled steel, the beak was thick, capable of crushing bone. The raven stared at him intently, tilting its head sideways. In its black eyes, there was no birdlike emptiness. There was intelligence. And panic.

  “Shoo!” Nayden hissed, waving his hand.

  The raven didn’t flee. Instead, it spread its wings and shrieked—piercingly, hoarsely, as if tearing its throat. Before Nayden could react, the bird launched itself and landed on his shoulder, its hard beak striking the pauldron, right next to the boy’s ear.

  “Fuck!” Nayden jerked, trying to knock the intruder off. “Get off me!”

  But the bird held on tight. The raven tugged at the edge of his cloak, pulling him down with a strength such a small body shouldn’t possess. Toward the trunk. Toward the roots. “Kraa! Krr-rr-aa!” The sounds were fast, clipped, resembling garbled speech. The bird pecked at the metal sun emblem on Nayden’s chest as if wanting to rip it off, then violently pointed with its beak at the ground.

  “What’s got into it?!” Lovro shouted, trying to hit the bird with his glove, but it nimbly dodged the blow, hopping onto Nayden’s other shoulder.

  “Rabies!” Nayden yelled, feeling the bird pulling his hair. “The beast has rabies!” He grabbed the raven by the torso and tore it off his cloak. The bird struggled, squawking in protest. “Enough! Quiet!” Nayden hurled it into the air. “Get out! To the forest!”

  The raven circled, flapping its heavy wings, and landed on a lower branch of the oak. It didn’t fly away. It looked down at them, emitting a quiet, gurgling sound of resignation. It tilted its head, looking at Nayden with something that resembled human pity.

  “That’s a bad omen,” Lovro muttered, sliding his sword back into its sheath, though he kept his hand on the hilt. “The fortune teller spoke of an abyss, and now this black spawn... Let’s get out of here, Nayden.”

  Nayden brushed the snow off his cloak. “You’re right. Let’s go get a drink before...” The words caught in his throat. His gaze fled downward. To where the beak had been aiming.

  The snow at the roots of the oak was gone. Replaced by black, bubbling mud. It wasn’t the smell of frost. A thick, suffocating stench of rotten eggs and old, coppery blood hit his nostrils. A thin wisp of steam climbed upward, mocking the winter.

  “Lovro...” The hair on the back of Nayden’s neck stood up. “Look.”

  And then the earth beneath their boots groaned.

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