“I’m not accepting this,” Cezar said, glaring at him. “What about all the work I’ve done: looking after the business, watching over the girls, organizing the hunt for the Night People?
You can’t just walk in and take it all!”
“Watching over the girls?” The last of the warmth had gone from Costi’s voice. “Have you forgotten that I’ve been here all the time? I saw you set guards on them and threaten them. I watched you crush Paula’s aspirations and rob the valley of its good priest. I saw you humiliate Iulia. I saw you put your clumsy paws on Jena and expect her to like it. Being a frog didn’t relieve me of my intelligence or my powers of observation.”
“You piece of pond scum!” hissed Cezar. “You think you can march in here and help yourself to everything! You don’t deserve to be master of Vârful cu Negur˘a: you haven’t done a scrap of work to earn it—you don’t know the first thing about running the business! All you know about is . . .”
“Being a frog?” Costi raised his brows. “Believe me, if there had been any choice in the matter, I would have stayed in human form. In fact, I don’t think I’ll have as much difficulty picking up the reins as you believe. What Jena learned about the business, I learned, too. Her shoulder made an ideal vantage point for reading all those ledgers.”
I was watching Cezar’s face—pale as parchment and dis-352
torted with outrage. Before my horrified gaze, something snapped.
He strode forward to seize his brother by the throat. I screamed.
Costi struggled, long limbs thrashing. His face turned crimson as he fought for air. His eyes bulged. Cezar was backing him toward the high stone wall by the hen coop. Dr˘agu¸ta stood quietly, watching the two of them.
“It’s her fault, that witch’s, she tricked me!” Cezar babbled.
“It was supposed to be mine, all of it, the estate and Jena, too, that was what it meant, King of the Land, but it was a hollow promise! Even with you gone, I could never be more than second best! It’s wrong! Wrong!” With each repetition he shook Costi as if he would smash his head against the stone.
Nobody was coming out: my screams had not brought a single guard. “Stop it!” I yelled. “Let him go!” I grabbed Cezar’s arm in a desperate effort to intervene. The game was not supposed to end with me watching one brother kill the other, right before my eyes—it could not be so. “Stop it, Cezar!”
Cezar knocked me away and I fell, painfully, onto the stones of the courtyard. In the moment’s respite allowed him, Costi performed a sharp upward jab with his knee. Cezar sucked in air—his grip slackened. Quick as a flash, Costi wriggled out of his brother’s hold and retreated, both hands up in front of him, palms out. “Enough,” he wheezed. “You don’t want to do this.”
“The game is finished.” Dr˘agu¸ta’s voice was solemn. Her gooseberry-green eyes moved over each of us in turn: me struggling to my feet, Costi gasping for breath, and Cezar just standing there with a look on his face that made me want to cry. He 353
had made his choice, it seemed, and it was a waste—a waste of what could have been a good life.
“My work is done here,” the witch said. Basket over her arm, she turned and trudged away across the yard as if she were indeed just another wanderer who had passed by, hoping for a crust of bread or a few coppers. None of us said a thing.
When she was gone, Costi cleared his throat and looked his brother in the eye. “We’re going home now,” he said, and his voice was as bleak as winter. “I’m sorry you are not prepared to accept me. I never forgot that we were brothers, even as I watched you bully the girls and mismanage Father’s affairs.
After this, I don’t want you anywhere near our cousins, Cezar.
We’ll discuss what few options are still available to you.
Come—I’m certain Jena is longing to see the last of us.”
I opened my mouth to speak, to say something—anything—
for the look Costi turned on me was tight and hurt and made me want to curl up and cry. But I didn’t say a word, for someone was coming on horseback, and the moment was over. Into the courtyard rode the gray-bearded figure of Judge Rinaldo, and after him a familiar figure seated sideways on her fine mare, her face pale and tense. It was Aunt Bogdana. She slid down from her horse, her gaze on Costi. As she came across to him, first walking, then running, I saw a wondrous sequence of expressions cross her face: utter trepidation, reawakening love, tran-scendent joy. She threw herself into his arms, hugging him like the child he had been when she lost him, and Costi held her with tears streaming down his cheeks. My own face was wet; I scrubbed a hand across it.
“Jena,” Judge Rinaldo said, “my apologies for coming with-354
out warning. Your aunt passed by on her way home, and I felt obliged to explain to her what had occurred. I offered to escort her straight here, since I knew that Costin was coming up to see his brother. This will silence doubting tongues. Nobody can dispute that a mother knows her son.”
I murmured something polite, hardly hearing him. Cezar was watching his mother sobbing in Costi’s embrace. Over Aunt Bogdana’s shoulder, Costi’s eyes looked into his brother’s.
What I saw in them was as much sorrow and regret as judgment. I did not think Cezar recognized that. He saw only confirmation of what he knew already: that he would never be more than second best. His mouth tightened. Turning on his heel, he strode off across the courtyard and away down the track toward the forest. He seemed hardly aware of what he was doing. It was almost night; the shadows swallowed him quickly.
“I hope this matter will not create confusion and discord at Vârful cu Negur˘a,” said the judge. “The valley sorely needs a time of peace, and it needs its leaders.”
“I know I’ll have to work hard to gain the community’s trust,” Costi said. “I’ll try my best to do things the way my father did—with wisdom and compassion.” He patted his mother on the back. Aunt Bogdana was laughing and crying at the same time. I doubted that she had noticed Cezar was gone. “I hoped that my brother . . . I did hope—” Costi seemed to gather himself together. “We’ve all suffered some blows this winter. It cuts deep to lose the trust of those who were once dearest to the heart. I think that is a wound that can never heal.”
I felt the poisoned arrow of his words right in my heart: it 355
hurt more than I could have imagined possible. He sounded so sad, and so unforgiving. I stood silent, shivering.
“Judge,” Costi went on, and now his tone was that of a leader, “I thank you for your help and your belief in me, and for bringing Mother here so promptly. Jena, I’ll take most of the guards up to Vârful cu Negur˘a with me. I’m sure you can’t wait to have your house to yourself again.”
There were plenty of things I could have said, but all I did was mutter, “I’ll find Petru for you,” and head back indoors as folk began, at last, to spill out of the castle to see what was going on. I did not know what I was feeling, only that my heart was being torn in all directions at once. Furious tears welled in my eyes. Those words about trust had been cruel. It sounded as if he’d decided he wouldn’t even try to forgive me. Perhaps we would live our lives a stone’s throw from each other, never exchanging so much as a friendly greeting.
I sent a bemused Petru to sort out guards and horses. As briefly as I could, I told my sisters and Florica what had happened. I could see that they were bursting with questions, but instead of asking them, the girls tiptoed around me, eyeing me warily as I helped set the table for supper, crashing plates and jangling cutlery. Whatever story my face told them, it didn’t have a happy ending.
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