The Demon in the Wood by Leigh Bardugo Page B

broad shoulders draped with black furs, his hair red-gold, worn plaited and past his shoulders in the way of the north. Ulle was Fjerdan for “chieftain.” They really weren’t quite Ravkan here.
    “Welcome, Lena!” boomed the Ulle as he strode toward them. Eryk barely registered the name his mother had taken. To him, she was always Mama, Madraya. “How was your journey?”
    “Tiring.”
    “You shame me as a host. The elders would have gladly sent men and horses to fetch Eryk.”
    “Neither my son nor I need coddling,” she replied. But Eryk knew there was more to it. He’d learned long ago that there was a second Ravka, a secret country of hidden caves and empty quarries, abandoned villages and forgotten freshwater springs. They were places where you could hide out from a storm or an attack, where you could enter as one person and emerge disguised as another. If the elders had sent men with his mother to retrieve him, she would have had to reveal the hunters’ blind. She never gave up a hiding place or possible escape route without good reason.
    The Ulle led them to a hut and pulled back the stitched elk hides that covered the gap between the door and the crude wooden lintel. It was snug and warm inside, though it stank heavily of wet fur and something Eryk couldn’t identify.
    “Please be at your ease here,” said the Ulle. “We want you to feel at home. Tonight we welcome you with a feast, but the elders are about to meet now and we would be honored if you joined us, Lena.”
    “Would you?”
    The Ulle looked uncomfortable. “Some of them object to having a woman at a council meeting,” he admitted. “But they were outvoted.”
    “Honesty is always best, Ulle. That way I know just how many fools I need to work to convince.”
    “They are set in their ways, and you are not only a woman, but”—he cleared his throat—“they fear you are not entirely natural.”
    Eryk wasn’t surprised. When other Grisha saw the power that he and his mother possessed, they had only one of two responses: fear or greed. Either they ran from it or they wanted it for themselves. It’s a balance, his mother always said. Fear is a powerful ally, but feed it too often, make it too strong, and it will turn on you. She had warned him to be cautious when displaying his power, to never show the full extent of what he could do. She certainly never did—she never used the Cut unless the situation was dire.
    That wasn’t a problem for him, he thought bitterly. He still hadn’t mastered the Cut. His mother had managed it when she was half his age.
    Now she lifted a brow and addressed the Ulle. “The first men to see bears thought they were monsters. My power is unfamiliar, not unnatural.”
    “A bear is still dangerous,” noted the Ulle. “It still has claws and teeth to maul a man.”
    “And men have spears and steel,” she said sharply. “Do not play the weak party with me, Ulle. ”
    Eryk saw the flash of anger that moved over the big man’s face at his mother’s disrespectful tone. Then the Ulle laughed. “I like your ferocity, Lena. But have a care with the old men.”
    Eryk’s mother dipped her head in acknowledgment.
    “Now, Eryk,” said the Ulle, “do you think you can be comfortable here?” His eyes were merry, and Eryk knew he was expected to smile, so he attempted it.
    “ Der git ver rastjel, ” he said, giving the traditional greeting first in Fjerdan, then in Ravkan. “We are grateful guests.”
    The Ulle looked slightly amused, but he replied in the prescribed fashion. “ Fel holm ve koop djet. Our home is better for it.”
    “Why is there no wall around the camp?” Eryk asked.
    “Does that worry you? The villagers barely know we’re here—they certainly don’t know what we are.”
    Someone must, thought Eryk. That’s how we found you. That was how they always found Grisha. He and his mother followed legends, whispers, tales of sorcerers and witches, of demons in the forests. Stories like