Echo North Read online

  I’m breaking. This can’t be. And yet some part of me remembers it—the taste of the sunlight on my skin, the easy friendship of a girl called Sara, the sense of belonging strong enough to banish a lifetime of loneliness.

  I don’t understand. Make it stop! I try to scream, but I’m caught fast in the sticky unwinding of my life as it should have been—as it could have been.

  I watch as the other me grows up. She still laughs with Rodya and holds Papa dear, but her world is larger than the bookshop. She visits the city with her friend Sara. She goes to a dance in the village. She blushes as boys ask her to dance. She wiles away hours practicing the piano, pouring her soul into Czjaka and Behrend. She dreams of studying music at the university, of filling all the world with song.

  My father introduces other-me to Donia, who doesn’t seem to disapprove of my existence any less for the absence of the scars. Her hatred oozes from her like muck from a bog. My father shows me the cottage in the woods. We work on it together, fix it up just as I remember, only the carpet in front of the fire is blue—wasn’t it red?

  I watch as my father marries Donia in the new chapel, as Rodya gives me the compass-watch for my birthday. I fall asleep with it pressed up against my chest, the steady ticking following me into my dreams like it had never been broken.

  Debt finds us in this version of my life just as it did in the other: Donia demanding more than we could afford, my father obliging her because he is capable of greater kindness and sacrifice than she could ever comprehend. He leaves for the city to sell his rare books and maps.

  He’s missing for half a year.

  I watch the other me find him in the snowy wood, hear the wolf asking her to stay with him. No, not asking. Demanding. Or he’d kill her father and her brother. He’d kill her, too. I can taste other-me’s fear, hot and sharp and filled with despair. But she agrees to the wolf’s terms, to save her family.

  I watch as the other me goes with the wolf to the house. She swears not to light the lamp, and spends the whole first night awake, staring into the darkness, afraid to shut her eyes lest the wolf devour her in her sleep.

  The strange half-memories fly thicker now: beautiful-me grows to trust the wolf, even admire him. She explores the book-mirrors and falls in love with Hal. Mokosh convinces her to light the lamp, and Hal is taken by the Wolf Queen’s soldiers.

  Shame courses through me as I watch myself kneel in the snow, vowing to save Hal and undo my mistake.

  My long journey passes in a blink. I meet Ivan and Isidor. I travel the northern wilds and discover Ivan is the North Wind. I climb the mountain to the Wolf Queen’s court and invoke the old magic to try and save Hal.

  I hold on to him as he writhes and twists beneath me. I am stubborn and proud. I am fiercely certain there is nothing the Wolf Queen can do or say to shake me from my purpose.

  But I am wrong.

  He lied to you.

  He never loved you.

  He never wanted you.

  He was just trying to save his own worthless skin.

  He never wanted you.

  He never wanted you.

  Heartbreak and betrayal twist across beautiful-me’s face. Despair weighs in her eyes. She is broken.

  She lets go of Hal.

  NO! I want to scream.

  But it’s too late.

  The Wolf Queen laughs and drags Hal away from the other me. Bonds of silver close around my wrists.

  “Do not let her take you, too,” says Hal, staring into the other-me’s face, “Please. Please, Echo. I can’t lose you. Not like this.”

  And the other me lifts her head, the Wolf Queen’s laughter ringing in her ears. She looks grim. Determined. Whatever Hal had done, it was at the Queen’s command—he doesn’t deserve to end decaying on her throne—and neither does she. She refuses. She screams into the sky, over and over and over, and I know the words like the own beats of my heart: “I call upon the Winds! South and East and West! Come to my aid!”

  They come in a wheeling fire, spinning and raging. Heat sparks on my skin, smoke stings my eyes. They resolve into three forms that look something like men, though they are taller and stronger and brighter than men should be: East blazing like the sun, West with his gold wings furled wide, South with his spear made of mountains, all with jewels flashing white from their foreheads.

  The other me can feel the Wolf Queen’s bonds tightening around her, but she’s not giving in, not yet.

  “Please,” she begs the Winds, “Take up the threads of the North Wind’s power. Harness time and turn it back. Let me try again to save Hal. Let me have another chance.”

  “Daughter, you do not know what it is you ask,” says the East Wind. “It is no little thing.”

  “Please. I will do anything. Give up anything. Just let me try again to save him.”

  “Would you give up your memory?” says the South Wind.

  “Yes.”

  “Would you give up your life? Yourself?” says the West Wind.

  “I would give anything.”

  The words echo in my mind, glinting like embers on my tongue. I know the taste of them, know the feel of them leaving my lips. Because I said them, in another time and another life, in this very spot. In this very moment. I begged the Winds to turn back time, and they did. The other me, the beautiful me—she is me, or was. The first me. Before the Winds sent me back to try again.

  “You won’t remember,” warns the East Wind. “You won’t be able to warn yourself. You could go through all of this and still die. Still lose him. Nothing might change.”

  The other me—the first me—lifts her chin, unafraid. “It doesn’t matter. I have to try.”

  The Winds look solemn. “So be it.”

  “No, Echo!” cries Hal. “You don’t know what might happen, you don’t know—”

  The first me grabs Hal’s hand and shuts her eyes. “Find me,” she whispers, “And this time I swear I’ll save you.”

  “Echo—”

  But the world breaks apart and his voice is swallowed in the spinning fragments of lost memory.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  I AM EVERYWHERE AND NOWHERE AT once. I am pain and heat and light. I am sorrow. I am joy.

  It hurts. It hurts so much.

  The Winds are here, wherever I am: East with a shining sword, South with his spear, West with a spinning wheel. There is a fourth power here, too, an unharnessed, teeming energy. I can’t see it, but I can feel it.

  I know it is the North Wind, or what’s left of his magic: a current of time and death and loneliness; a torrent of story, as strong as the world itself.

  The three Winds gather it up, East and South coiling it around their sword and spear, West channeling it into the spinning wheel. He winds it up, winds and winds and winds, and the sadness and pain pull out of me. I can breathe again. I couldn’t before.

  I am in a cold square room. Pricks of light hurt my eyes, and in the center sits a man at a desk, writing in a book. Life pours out of his pen, magic and laughter.

  I pace toward him and he lifts his head.

  I know him: his fierce dark eyes, his kind brown face. It is Ivan, the storyteller—the North Wind who once was. He smiles at me, lifts his pen from the book. Silver ink drips on the page. “What would you wish of me, Echo Alkaev?”

  The light sharpens; it’s coming from the doorway on the other end of the room: there East and South stand watch, fierce and strong, spear and sword raised high.

  I touch the left side of my face; it is smooth and soft and for some reason that troubles me. I dreamed once it was rough with scars.

  “Send me back. Send me back so I can try again. Send me back so I can save him.”

  “Dearest girl.” The North Wind smiles. He beckons me close and draws a mark on my cheek with his silver pen. It feels soft, like a gentle kiss. “You already have.”

  And I straighten to see the West Wind beside me, his golden wings spread wide. “Come, Echo. We have very far to fly.” He helps
me onto his back and I wrap my arms around his neck, my feet holding tight beneath his wings.

  He carries me to the door, and his brothers East and South pull it open wide.

  Beyond is …

  I do not know.

  Starlight.

  Emptiness.

  I am flying in the dark on the West Wind’s back, riding through the tides of time itself. On and on and on we fly, and I feel myself unwinding, the threads of my life falling to pieces, caught up on the spinning wheel.

  I forget who I am and why I’m here and where we are going. I only know I am safe, with the West Wind’s wings beneath me, that all will be well.

  I am lost in a sea of stars.

  I am wandering, wandering.

  But still I can feel the pulse of my heart, and it says don’t let go.

  We fly toward a very great light, and my eyes tear at the brightness.

  And then I am falling, spiraling down and down and down.

  But I am not afraid.

  Don’t let go, says my heart.

  Don’t let go.

  DARKNESS, LIGHT, AIR. I AM helpless and small. Someone is weeping. I’m cradled in warm arms.

  I sleep and sleep.

  Papa is singing to me. I like to hear the sound of his voice. I reach up tiny hands and tug on the ends of his beard.

  I grow. Old enough to be told the story of my name. Old enough to wonder what it might be like to have a mother. Old enough to know my father is the kindest man who ever lived.

  I remember, I remember what I shouldn’t be able to:

  I have lived my life twice over.

  And twice over I have failed.

  Somewhere outside of myself I can feel Hal’s fingers, pressing into my temples.

  I open my eyes.

  HAL STARES AT ME, HIS hands still tight against my head. His face is streaked with tears and my own cheeks are damp. Pain pulses through me, but it is duller than before. I take a ragged breath, then another and another. “I failed you,” I whisper. “I failed you twice. They sent me back. Hal, the Winds sent me back to try again and I failed.”

  He rubs his thumb across my scarred cheek. “No you didn’t.”

  “Hal, I let go.”

  He shakes his head. “No you didn’t.”

  And I glance down and see my left hand still curled tight around his ankle.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  HAL CRADLES ME AGAINST HIS CHEST, gently, like he’s uncertain if I want him to touch me. I’m shaking so hard I feel like I might burst apart. I try to focus on Hal, his heartbeat strong beneath my ear, his breath on my cheek, his cold fingers tangled in mine. I don’t understand what he’s done, or what I’ve done. I don’t know how to reconcile the two versions of my life, pages of a book glued together, impossible to tell what words belong to which page. But I know that it’s real. I know that it happened.

  And I am not the only one who is living out this story for the second time.

  I lift my head to see the Wolf Queen looming over us, angry and brittle as starlight, as ice. “If the girl-child had known everything you have made her endure twice over, she would have never come. Clever of you, Halvarad, not to tell her.”

  I hate that she has the power to make me doubt him even now, to make me want to pull away. But I don’t. I hold tight to his hand, and strength pulses between us.

  “You are wrong.” Hal’s eyes blaze with fury, his face is flushed and the mark on his cheek from the spot of oil seems nearly healed.

  How long have we been here, holding on to one another? There seems to be a change in the wind, blowing down through the top of this woodland hall. I can feel it, I think: the cords of his enchantment falling away from him, the Queen’s hold evaporating like smoke.

  “Echo would have come to save me anyway. That is who she is: she gives of herself to the people around her. Gives and gives and gives. Because at the heart of it, in her heart, there is compassion and strength, goodness and knowledge and truth. She would have come all this way, to stand up to you, to break me free from your spell—she would do it all twice, even though I don’t deserve it, not then and not now. That is what burns in Echo’s soul. That is why she’s still holding on to me now.” His voice cracks and he turns his eyes to mine, tears sliding down his face. “I was so afraid, so afraid to go back to her. But I was glad when you lit the lamp, when I woke and saw you leaning over me. I was glad, because it meant you would be free. And then I remembered—I remembered that you’d done this all before, and I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bear—”

  “Hal, it’s over. Can’t you feel it? Your century is fulfilled. You’re free.”

  He sucks in a deep, shuddering breath, and lifts his head once more to the Queen. Her hatred seethes toward us, a tangible thing. But she doesn’t take up the threads of her spell-song. She just stands there, staring at us.

  “Isn’t he?” I demand. “I’ve fulfilled your terms. He’s free. We both are.”

  “You fools,” spits the Wolf Queen. “I do not require an enchantment to destroy you.”

  Then she shouts a harsh word at the sky and the world explodes in rock and fire.

  I leap to my feet and yank Hal up after me, holding on to his hand with all the strength remaining in my body. The earth cracks in two beneath our feet and fire rages below, molten lava leaping up to consume us. I throw myself across the crack and Hal jumps with me; we run, hand in hand. Mountains explode around us, rocks and ash and fire raining down. The noise deafens me, and all sound narrows to a ringing in my ears.

  We run, choked for breath. Ever the earth is rearranging itself underneath, seeking to shake us apart but we don’t let it, our fingers locked hard together. Another mountain bursts ahead, and lava rushes toward us from every direction.

  “Jump!” shouts Hal, and we narrowly leap over a new crack.

  The lava oozes toward us; I can smell the sulphur, taste the heat. It will make short work of us—there is no escaping this.

  “Up here!” Hal cries.

  A rock juts up through the river of fire and Hal scrambles to the top with me awkwardly hanging on to his heel. He leans down to grasp my arm and pulls me up after him.

  All around, the world shudders and shakes. Lava licks at the base of our rock but doesn’t reach us. Even so, the heat singes my hair, sucks up the moisture in my skin. Soon there will be none left, and I will crack like the ground and fracture like the mountains. This is the full weight of the Wolf Queen’s power, her true nature. I can’t help but think that she is neither wolf nor woman but something else entirely, a creature born of fire and malice and hate.

  Hal and I huddle together, his arm tight around my shoulders.

  “I’m sorry,” he says into my ear, and somehow amidst all this horror of heat, I can still feel the warmth of his breath on my face. “I did this to you. I did this to you twice. I forced you to make promises you didn’t understand. I forced you to come here. I even—I even scarred your face.”

  I open my eyes to peer at him through the haze of smoke and ash and I’m filled with a profound sense of release. “It’s all right, Halvarad Wintar. It’s over now. I chose this. I chose you. I will always choose you.”

  He lifts his hand to my face, traces the scars with his fingers. Gently, so gently. “Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are?” I thought all the moisture had been siphoned from me but I’m wrong. A single tear slides down my cheek.

  And then I’m leaning into him, pressing my lips against his. Kissing Hal, who was twice a wolf, in the middle of a dying world. He pulls me close and kisses me back. A brittle wind whirls around us, tangling our hair together, my dark and his light. Ash falls like snow.

  The lava creeps higher. The earth shakes.

  And then Hal draws back from me, tightens his grip on my hand, pulls me to my feet. He raises our joined hands to the ragged, bleary sky. “Do you see this, Wolf Queen? Do you see? You are defeated! Your curse is undone, your rule over me ceases. She has broken it! The century
is fulfilled and Echo has broken your curse. Do you hear me? DO YOU HEAR ME?”

  “There’s no need to shout.”

  Suddenly the Wolf Queen is beside us, floating in the air just above the tumbling lava. Her features seem sharper in the raging light, but no wind stirs through her silver hair.

  “Well, then?” Hal’s eyes are hard as flint.

  “You have won,” she snaps. “Your stupid girl has prevailed.”

  He smiles. “Then we are free.”

  “Of the enchantment, perhaps. But not of me.”

  She circles us, as she did in the wood.

  Hatred and fear and anger gnaw inside of me, and I still don’t let go of Hal. “Where are we?” I demand.

  She doesn’t smile, just stares at me as she passes, around and around our rock, walking on nothing, her feet making no sound. “I am the Queen of many realms, many worlds. This is one of them. I was born here. Not the daughter of the Devil as so many have guessed. Just the daughter of another world. But I did not choose to stay.”

  Her words are punctuated by yet another eruption, barely fifty paces away. Hal and I fall to our knees, choking on ash. The Wolf Queen regards us without pity. “You have displeased me. You have robbed me. You have brought my enchantment to naught and turned my own daughter against me. And so I shall leave you here. And you shall die.”

  Hal struggles to stand amidst the trembling of the world, and he pulls me up beside him. We are one, united and strong against her. “That,” he says, “was not part of our agreement.”

  “You don’t make the rules. No one does but me.”

  “THAT WAS NOT PART OF OUR AGREEMENT!”

  I can hardly breathe. My skin cracks, the heat creeps up to my hairline. We have minutes left. Maybe only seconds.

  “I care not,” says the Wolf Queen.

  There comes a sudden silence, and then the next second a roaring, like a storm over the sea, and a rushing of wind.

  It whirls around all three of us, lifting us from the rock, away from the grasping fingers of the lava, away from the heat and the fire and the certainty of death. I think I catch a glimpse of gold wings.