A beastlike child could do anything. The next morning, a guard told Elma that Kyprosa had left the castle alone the night before. He also reported that when he tried to stop her, she had told him to “shut up and mind your own business.”
“She added that if I said another word, she’d throw me down into the moat.”
Kyprosa was no polite girl, but she usually spoke so little that Elma found it hard to believe she had used such coarse words. Yet the guard had no reason to lie. Born and raised in Fir Castle, Kyprosa could not have been ignorant of the danger of going outside alone after dark. The forest surrounding the castle teemed with wolves as large as calves, and traps to lure the living to their deaths were scattered everywhere. Moreover, every part of the fir forest looked alike. Even hunters who had roamed it for years could easily lose their way if their attention wandered for a moment.
Had Kyprosa truly followed Lieutenant Ofrelli? When Elma went to ask, Ofrelli said he had left the basket containing the baby and returned at once, and had seen no one else. After worrying over it, Elma reported the situation to Rosia. Rosia took no action.
Snow began to fall.
Kyprosa did not return all that day. The only one who acted was Jaeim. As soon as he heard what had happened after his afternoon lessons, he went out with several soldiers and argued with Elma. To Elma, a boy who was only taking lessons in spear fighting was committing suicide by going into the forest, even in broad daylight.
Only after dusk did Mad Denny, who had been dead drunk the night before and sleeping somewhere all day, slip back into the castle and hear what had happened. When he learned that no one was going out to rescue Kyprosa, he cursed every person in the castle, from Rosia to the boy who fanned the kitchen fire, as scoundrels fit to be cast into hell. Staggering, he ran to the gate. And in the distance, he saw a black speck moving through the falling snow.
A little while later, the guards stared openmouthed at Kyprosa and the trophy she had dragged home. Her hair and clothes were covered in blood, but it had nearly dried, and she did not seem to be hurt. The blood had come from the enormous wolf pelt she was dragging. Inside the skillfully skinned hide lay the baby they had thought dead. The baby was smeared with blood too, but she was also unhurt.
As a blood-covered girl passed along the corridor holding a blood-covered baby and dragging a wolf pelt with its head still attached, looking as though she had just returned from hell, dozens of people in the castle gathered to stare. Elma, who ran out when she heard, looked appalled, but first tried to stop Kyprosa and hear what had happened. Kyprosa only said,
“Get out of my way.”
When Lieutenant Ofrelli heard that Kyprosa had brought the baby back, he looked relieved for some reason. Still, he took Kyprosa before Rosia. Bringing into the castle someone the lord had ordered expelled was a serious act of rebellion. Facing her grandmother, Kyprosa spoke.
“I hunted a wolf, and it had a cub. I’m going to raise it.”
Rosia stared for a long time at the two granddaughters. No, they were not granddaughters. Orchidna, whom she had abandoned in the forest, had died the night before. What Kyprosa had brought back was a wolf cub. She must have dragged the wolf pelt with her deliberately to make that point. It was a forced argument, but it could serve as a pretext for letting the baby live. Everyone wanted that pretext. Lieutenant Ofrelli, Elma, and all the others looked earnestly at Rosia.
“Very well. From this moment, that child is yours. Everyone is to regard that child as an animal Kyprosa is raising. If the animal bites anyone, it may be killed on the spot.”
And so Orchidna came to stay in the castle. Reporting the result to the captains, Ofrelli said something unbelievable had happened. Kyprosa, whom Rosia hated most, had overturned Rosia’s decision. How? Because everyone wanted it. Perhaps Rosia had wanted it too. If everyone wanted something, even a forced argument could prevail. No one had taught Kyprosa this, and no one knew how she had learned it.
Everyone worried about how the inexperienced Kyprosa would care for a baby, but she did not struggle alone to raise her sister herself. In the sewing room, there were women who brought their babies and took turns tending them as they worked. When she placed Orchidna among those babies, the women could not ignore her crying and fussing, and shared their milk with her. Nor did it end there. Before long, Kyprosa seemed to have pushed the washing of the diapers onto the laundrywomen. Then she found a cradle in a storeroom, had the carpenter repair it, and made the cook prepare porridge. During all this, Kyprosa gave them orders. They were bewildered, having never experienced such a thing before, but they could hardly appeal to the lord to punish her granddaughter for being bossy. However much she had grown up treated like a kitchen maid, Kyprosa unmistakably carried the blood of the lord’s family.
Many people wondered how she had caught the wolf, but only Denny heard the answer. More precisely, Denny guessed, and Kyprosa admitted it. Just as he had expected, it was magic. She said she had stabbed a sleeping wolf to death.
“Did you learn it from your father’s books?”
“Yes.”
“Fearless.”
Using magic learned only from a book was extraordinary enough. Trusting that it would work and stabbing a wolf with her fingers was reckless beyond measure. But thanks to it, her sister had survived, so he could not scold her.
“I was lucky. There was no other way.”
“Now that it worked, you must be full of yourself. Are you going to become a wizard?”
“Looking at you, Denny, it doesn’t seem like a profession with much of a future.”
Denny giggled, then answered.
“That’s right. No future at all. Don’t even think of trying.”
“But who did Father learn magic from? Surely not you, Denny?”
“Do I look patient enough to take on such a worthless pupil? If you mean to follow what that fellow did, give it up now. If you want to learn magic, you have to go to the capital of the world. Poking about at random in a backwater like this is a waste of effort. That’s why that Raeven went out of his mind.”
Kyprosa closed her mouth. Denny was right. She would go to the capital of the world. With the snow bird, once she had tamed it. But when would that day come?
“Have you been there too, Denny?”
“To the capital of the world? I have.”
“What did you learn?”
Denny giggled again.
“I learned magic for catching rats. A little harder than magic for catching wolves.”
“Why?”
“From a hundred paces away, is it easier to hit a rat with an arrow, or a wolf?”
Kyprosa glared at Denny.
“By that reasoning, catching a sparrow must be harder than catching the snow bird.”
“That’s right. That’s why you mustn’t even try magic for catching sparrows until you know how to catch the snow bird. Raeven didn’t understand that. Don’t you forget it.”
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