Time gushed like water from a burst dam, stirring the icy bird’s claws back into motion.

I had a full second to try to dodge them. But—what a weird thing time is—it was wasted on imprinting the bird’s image onto my mind. The sunbeams on wings and broad tail. Feathers matted by hoarfrost. Heavy frontal bones. Formidable beak. And the cold, empty eye was suddenly draped by a lid that covered it completely, turning into a blank eye on that icy statue, and…

What’s that?

I was frozen solid. The impulse to move never reached my muscles, getting stuck between the synapses.

Even my breath was stopped by the numbing cold spreading inside.

The glassy, blank eye held me like a trap, devouring the second I could’ve used to escape; I was unable to move or even to take my eyes off the approaching diamond claws…

…when a muffled blow came.

The bird lurched.

…and the whiteness in its eye vanished. Opening both eyes, the bird stared at me with dark, empty pupils.

Asp!

My stupor vanished.

I jerked to the side. The bird’s claws pierced the ground where I had just been; its head turned back, reaching for Asp. Flapping its small wings, the snake escaped the attack—but met the bird’s eyes.

Asp buckled, as though hit by electricity, hoarfrost running down its wings to the body. Frozen instantly, the snake plummeted to the ground.

The icy beak pierced Asp’s frozen scales, knocking the snake down to the hoarfrosted shrubs.

Turning its head and dragging one wing, the wounded bird wobbled after its prey, the bite in its neck oozing a smoking, transparent liquid. Falling on the grass, it evaporated quickly, leaving a whitish trace.

I darted towards the bird.

Stop, you idiot! a panicking voice screamed in my head. Are you going to attack this thing bare-handed? What about its blank eye? It almost killed you!

I ran as fast as I could, over the icy grass freezing my bare feet, over the smoking, whitish blood. Just a few steps left…

…when a violent shove from behind knocked me down.

Rolling aside, I sprung up to see…

A boy.

Maybe ten years old.

A dirty face.

Shaggy hair.

Taking off his fur vest, he jumped onto the bird’s neck, throwing the garment over its head. The icy monster collapsed headfirst, losing its balance, flapping its wings fervently to get rid of the unexpected rider clutching it like a mite, locking all his limbs around the bird’s neck.

“Here!” the boy cried to me.

I ran up quickly.

“Hold it!” the boy rasped.

Obediently, I clutched at the enraged ball of icy muscle beneath the hoarfrosted vest. The boy slid a dagger out of the sheath on his belt. In his thin, childish hands, this weapon looked more like a short sword.

Grabbing the hilt of the dagger with both hands, the boy dove the blade deep into the vest. Screaming, I jumped away, releasing my grip on the bird. Applying his whole body to the dagger, the boy twisted the blade around, making the monster rear in agony. A belch of vapor came from beneath the vest, then a gush of smoking blood. The boy yanked the blade out before it could become frozen inside.

As the bird collapsed, its whole body going limp, the boy jumped down, frozen vest in hand.

I stared at the monster. No longer did it look like a beautiful statue. Rather, it was a clumsy pile of broken shards, an icy dummy melting away: feathers thinning out, beak dripping like a candle, its whole body shrinking into the dark, frozen grass. No water was spreading beneath it, just vapor rising from the icy bird’s body as it was reduced to a crumbling mess, barely recognizable as the once formidable predator.

The air became warmer, the hoarfrost melting everywhere else except next to the monster’s remains, leaving the grass and shrubs dark and drooping.

Sheathing his dagger, the boy picked his vest up from the ground. Brushing the icy crumbs off the thawing fur, he put his fingers into the cut made by his dagger, then slipped the garment over his lean body and looked up at me with the pitch-black eyes of a gypsy child.

“Get the Ice Hawk’s core, Ana,” he said. “A strong warrior it was.” He turned away towards the white crumbles on the dark grass.

Human speech.

When I had abandoned any hope of ever hearing it again.

His words were weird, as was the name he called me. Ana? Why did he say that?

“Core? What core? How do I take it?”

“The core of the Hawk. Here.” He nodded at the evaporating remains.

“Why take it? And how? And… and how do you know my name?”

“It will make your weapon stronger,” he said in a calm, husky voice, ignoring my last question.

“What weapon?” He seemed to know what he was talking about, but I still struggled to understand.

“Your weapon,” he said impassively.

“I don’t have a weapon.” To prove my point, I patted my hips to show I had nothing on but my nightgown.

…or rather what remained of it. I’d better find other clothes.

“You do.” The boy glanced over his shoulder at the shrub where the snake’s body hung. “He’s your weapon.”

Asp!

Running up to the shrub, I squatted and took the snake’s body in my hands.

Unfrozen.

Looking like a leather hairband, slightly torn on the left. Is it… is he alive?

As I awkwardly brought the torn edges together, the boy came up for a better look at the snake. His eyes showed no surprise, just the patronizing interest of an adult watching a child attempting to fix their toy. A toy an adult could fix instantly, but they’d rather have the child try first in order to build character.

He apparently knew more about my “toy” than I did. He probably even knew how to fix…or heal my snake.

Abandoning my clumsy attempts, I turned to this boy who was anything but a regular ten-year-old. Show me any kid who’d pass up a chance to prove his superiority over an older girl.

…but this strange boy was silent. His penetrating but calm eyes could belong to a warrior…or to a very old man.

I recalled another man who had that same look.

My maternal great-grandfather.

I met him once, many years ago, when I was too small for my memory to retain anything but a few words and a handful of vague, blurry images.

Volyn, Western Ukraine. Locals mixing Ukrainian and Polish words in their speech. My adult relatives having a talk in someone’s kitchen. Hushed voices interrupted by Mom’s urging me to bed.

I understood little from their words; I was no older than five back then. But I was certain they mentioned some old war. Or rather several wars.

In the 1930s, Volyn belonged to Poland. My great-grandpa was a Polish cavalry corporal.

1939.

The Molotov–Ribbentrop agreement wiped Poland from the map, driving the remnants of the Polish army into a hopeless attack by German tanks. My childish imagination portrayed it as a battle between knights and dragons.

Losing this battle, great-grandpa ran home, across the Bug River, to the territory controlled by the Soviets.

1941.

Great-grandpa drafted into the Red Army to take charge of an anti-tank crew.

1945.

Storming Königsberg. Meeting Allies at the Elbe River. The watch Grandpa had swapped with an American soldier as a memento, now a family relic.

Great-grandpa must’ve been a good soldier. A lucky one, for sure, to survive all those years of bitter fighting with only a few minor injuries.

To me, it was a strange, alien world.

A scary bedtime story.

I had no idea what all those names and dates meant, but my childish memory retained the emotions behind these words, storing them away for years.

Great-grandpa died in 2006. He was ninety years old. I was six.

In the following years, his image in my mind was filled in by Mom’s stories, building up like layers of brick on top of the foundation. And that foundation was his eyes. The calm, gripping eyes of an old warrior who’d come face-to-face with Death many times.

I remembered those eyes on the face of a lean, ancient man with very broad wrists. Now I saw them staring at me from the face of a ten-year-old who’d just killed that…that Ice Hawk.

A little boy with an old warrior’s eyes. This contrast sent a chill down my spine, freezing the pit of my stomach.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Kasamarchi,” the little old man-boy said.

“Kasamarchi.” His name felt strange on my lips.

“We must hurry, Ana. The Budrahs are coming.”

“The Budrahs? Who are they? Those ape horses?”

“Yes. They’ve lost sight of the bird.” Kasamarchi looked down at his feet as though listening to the ground. “They’re close. We must leave.”

I looked at my feet too—wow, look how dirty they are—and even stooped slightly for better hearing, but I still couldn’t feel any vibration.

“Take the core,” the boy said again.

“I don’t know how! How do I do that?”

“Place Asp on the remains. They still have the core.”

Coming up to the icy mess, I squatted, reaching out to bring my snake closer to the smoking remains. Glancing at Kasamarchi for approval, I saw him nod.

Putting the strip down on the ice, I withdrew my hand.

“No,” the boy said. “Leave it on. Asp can absorb the core only through you.”

Shrugging, I took the strip with two fingers, but nothing happened. I glanced back at Kasamarchi, then again. He stared blankly in the space ahead.

“Remember your fight,” he said at last. “Remember the core.”

“I don’t—”

“Stop talking. Remember it.”

I seemed to feel the ground shiver slightly beneath my feet. Startled, I stared up at Kasamarchi who was as calm as Grand Master Oogway with eternity behind his shoulder. He didn’t seem to give a damn about the apes galloping to stab us with their spears…

I couldn’t help but smirk as I imagined that although the situation was anything but funny.

“Yes, they’re coming,” the boy said softly. “But you need to focus. Remember.”

What is the “core?”

The visions of the recent battle flashed before my eyes. Asp springing…turning…striking…retreating…

Stop!

Here it is!

The paralyzing blank eye!

Once I thought about it, the leather strip in my fingers shook like a vibrating cell phone, lurching more and more violently until it stretched like a string, a white shroud covering the snake’s tiny eyes for a moment.

In a heartbeat, it was gone. The leather snake had its normal eyes, its normal looks, no longer shaking, with the same tear on the left.

Astonished, I gaped at Kasamarchi, his face impassive as ever.

“Yes,” he said in a lifeless voice. “Take your snake. We’re leaving.”

He reached out a hand. Springing up, I took it and we ran into the forest as fast as we could, the ground shaking beneath our feet as the familiar trampling of hooves approached, echoing through the woods.