The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilogy, #1)

by Katherine Arden

A light came into the boy’s face. Pyotr’s mouth tightened. Marina was bone in the unyielding earth, but he had seen her look just that way, when her soul lit her face like firelight.

Vasya stumbled upright on feet she could no longer feel. Her head was bare to the night. It was snowing; the snowflakes tangled in her braid. She had gone beyond shivering; she felt heavy and dull. The man looked down at her, and she up at him. His eyes were pale as water, or winter ice. “Please,” whispered Vasya. “I am cold.” “Everything is cold here,” he replied. “Where am I?” He shrugged. “Back of the north wind. The end of the world. Nowhere at all.”

“East of the sun, west of the moon,” said Morozko. “Beyond the next tree.”

Will you tell her? asked the mare. “Everything?” the demon said. “Of bears and sorcerers, spells made of sapphire and a witch that lost her daughter? No, of course not. I shall tell her as little as possible. And hope that it is enough.”

am called Solovey. Vasya smiled. “Nightingale. A little name for a great horse. How did you get it?” I was foaled at twilight, he said gravely. Or perhaps I was hatched; I cannot remember. It was long ago. Sometimes I run, and sometimes I remember to fly. And thus am I named. Vasya stared. “But you are not a bird.” You do not know what you are; can you know what I am? retorted the horse. I am called Nightingale, and does it matter why? Vasya had no answer. Solovey had finished her

“Sleep is cousin to death, Vasya,” he murmured over her head. “And both are mine.”