CHAPTER 1. THE LEGACY OF THE GRAY LION (Part 5)

  Cohen stepped into the corridor, clutching the bundle of priceless fur to his chest. As soon as the door closed, the castle bore down on him with all its icy weight. Here, in the second-floor gallery, the cold wasn't just temperature—it was a physical entity. Drafts roaming the long, dark passages seemed to have names and voices. Without the protection of the skin, Cohen froze instantly. The thin velvet of his doublet, sewn according to capital fashion five years ago, provided absolutely no warmth. The fabric had long worn thin at the elbows, and the silk lining had rotted, but the Baron squared his shoulders and marched forward, trying to make his heels sound firm.

  He walked through the Gallery of Ancestors. Once, the walls here were hung with tapestries depicting the glorious victories of House Prust over northern barbarians. Now, only rusty hooks sticking out of the stone and light patches on the soot-stained masonry remained. The canvases themselves were sold two years ago to a passing merchant for a laughable price—they needed to fix the stable roof, which collapsed anyway.

  Along the walls stood carved oak chairs with high backs—work of dwarven masters from the last century. The leather on the seats had cracked and split, exposing horsehair stuffing where mice likely lived now. Cohen ran his hand over the back of a chair. The layer of dust was so thick his fingers left deep furrows.

  “Dust to dust,” he whispered.

  He turned to the Grand Staircase. Wide marble steps led down to the Hall. The railing, turned from mahogany, once shone with polish. Cohen remembered sliding down it as a child, his mother standing below in a rustling blue silk dress, laughing and catching him. Now, there was no railing on a ten-meter span—it had been used for firewood last bitter winter when the well froze. The chopped balusters left ugly stumps looking like rotten teeth.

  Cohen began to descend. The marble underfoot was slippery with moisture. From the ceiling of the Great Hall, lost in darkness (the two-hundred-candle chandelier had long been lowered and sold for parts), water dripped. A huge puddle had formed below, reflecting empty pedestals. Once, suits of knightly armor stood there. Now, only silence stood there.

  Passing the Hall, the Baron turned into a narrow service corridor leading to the kitchen wing. Here, the smell changed. If upstairs smelled of dust and old wood, here the air was thick, heavy, and sweet with rot. It smelled of stagnant water, mold, and hopelessness. The stone slabs of the floor underfoot became wet. With every step, there was more water. *Squelch. Squelch.* Cohen's boots sank into water up to the sole. The castle's drainage system, destroyed by tree roots and time, had turned the lower levels into a swamp.

  Cohen pushed open the kitchen door. The huge room, where a dozen cooks once roasted boars and baked pies, met him with gloom and cold. The giant hearth, which one could walk into standing tall, was dark. Only in a small side stove did the last embers glow, over which a soot-stained cauldron hung. The dish shelves were empty. Copper pots, silver platters, spits—everything had vanished into the belly of Nordcross pawnshops.

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  The kitchen floor was flooded three fingers deep. Woodchips and trash floated in the black water. To move without soaking one's feet, shaky walkways made of old doors and planks had been laid across the floor.

  In the center of the kitchen, on the only dry island, towered a massive oak meat-carving table. The tabletop, scarred by the knives of generations of cooks, was scrubbed white. On this table lay Toby.

  The boy, small and thin as a twig, seemed tiny on that huge surface. He lay on a pile of rags—old tablecloths and aprons. Beside him, kneeling right on a wet bench, leaned Martha. The cook, once a stout and ruddy woman, was now gaunt. Her face was gray, her eyes sunken. She held her son's hand in her wide, calloused palms and moved her lips soundlessly.

  “Mama...” Toby rasped. The sound was terrible, gurgling. “Cold... I'm cold...”

  His chest heaved, trying to pull in air, but his lungs, clogged with fluid, refused to work. Pink froth bubbled on his lips.

  Martha looked up, hearing steps. Seeing the Baron, she flinched and tried to stand, wiping her hands on her apron. “My Lord... Forgive us, we are here... In his room, water from the ceiling, but here the stove... just a little...”

  Cohen stopped her with a gesture. “Quiet, Martha. Don't get up.”

  He approached the table. Balancing on the shaky planks, he felt like a tightrope walker over an abyss. The Baron looked at the boy. Toby was blue. His skin had become transparent; dark shadows lay under his eyes. Life was draining out of him with every wheezing exhalation.

  “He's burning up, My Lord,” Martha whispered, tears rolling down her cheeks. “And shivering. I covered him with everything we have, but he's shaking from the inside. The Healer... he won't come?”

  Cohen shook his head. “No. Kruger sold his oath.”

  Martha covered her face with her hands and wailed—quietly, hopelessly, a peasant woman's keen. It was the sound of a mother who knows the end is coming.

  “But I brought something else,” Cohen said firmly.

  He unfolded the bundle. In the gloom of the kitchen, amidst soot and dirt, the Snow Lion skin blazed with white fire. It seemed a creature from another world—too clean, too perfect for this hole. Martha gasped, taking her hands from her face.

  “My Lord... Is that... The Duke's...”

  “It's just fur, Martha,” Cohen said harshly, though his heart clenched. “Lift him.”

  The cook, with trembling hands, lifted her son's thin body. Toby's head lolled back limply. Cohen spread the skin right over the old rags. The thick, white pile accepted the boy into its embrace. The Baron wrapped him, tucking the edges of the skin so that only a pale nose and closed eyes stuck out.

  The effect was instantaneous. As soon as the magical fur closed around the body, Toby stopped shivering. His breathing, ragged and whistling a second ago, suddenly became deeper. The wheezing quieted. A barely noticeable, faint blush appeared on his waxen cheeks. The Snow Lion, a beast that slept in snows and drew power from ice, began to give its warmth accumulated over centuries to the dying child.

  Toby sighed—a long, drawn-out sigh without pain—and his face relaxed. He didn't regain consciousness, but the agony retreated, replaced by deep, healing sleep.

  Martha watched this, daring not to breathe. She shifted her gaze to the Baron. “My Lord... You gave... You took off...” She saw that Cohen stood in just a thin doublet, and he himself was shaking with violent tremors from the cold reigning in the kitchen.

  “He needs it more,” Cohen said, tucking his blue-turning hands under his armpits. “The skin will hold him. A week, maybe more. The fever will break. It gives us time.”

  He stepped back toward the doors. “Watch him, Martha. And... boil him some broth. Even from an axe, but boil it.”

  The Baron turned and quickly, almost running, left the kitchen. He didn't want to see gratitude in the servant's eyes. He felt ashamed. Ashamed that he couldn't do more. And terribly cold. He walked down the dark, water-filled corridor, and his teeth beat a rhythm. Now he didn't even have the skin. Only cold walls and a night full of despair.