The Wolf and the Woodsman

by Ava Reid

We would have called it power, magic. They called it piety. But what is the difference, if both fires burn just as bright?

“Do you call a hawk evil when it snatches up a mouse to eat? Do you call a fire evil when it burns your logs to ash? Do you call the night sky evil when it drinks down the day? Of course not. They are surviving, like the rest of us.”

It’s not a sacrifice when you’re chained to the floor, screaming.”

Without power, all you have is anger and spite. Cruelty comes when you have the strength to turn your anger on someone else.”

“Do you remember those nights on the ice?” I ask. “When we almost froze to death under a pitch-black sky like this one? Did you love me then, or hate me?” Gáspár’s throat bobs in the dark. “I hated you then,” he says. “For being the only warm, bright thing for miles.” “What about on the Little Plain?” I ask. “When you killed Kajetán to save me?” “I must have hated you then too,” he says. “For making me trade my soul for your life.”