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

by Katherine Arden

This oven was a massive affair built of fired clay, taller than a man and large enough that all four of Pyotr Vladimirovich’s children could have fit easily inside. The flat top served as a sleeping platform; its innards cooked their food, heated their kitchen, and made steam-baths for the sick.

I love the description of the oven

“Tell the story of Frost, Dunyashka. Tell us of the frost-demon, the winter-king Karachun. He is abroad tonight, and angry at the thaw.”

Very beauty and the beast!

She dreamed of wolves howling, of winter stars swallowed up by warm clouds, of a man with red hair, a woman on horseback, and last of a pale, heavy-jawed man with a look of hunger and malice, who leered and winked his single good eye.

Konstantin forced his face to coldness. Her people offered him beeswax and honey, begged him for counsel and prayers. They kissed his hand; their faces lit when they saw him. But that girl avoided his glance and his footstep, yet a horse—a dumb beast—could charm that light from her. The light should have been for him—for God—for him as God’s messenger.

Konstantin is awful but it's interesting reading through his cognitive dissonance

Now hear me. Before the end, you will pluck snowdrops at midwinter, die by your own choosing, and weep for a nightingale.”

“Believe in me, Vasya. Do not forget me.”

“I?” said Morozko. “I am only a story, Vasya.”