The Beggar with the Dragon’s Seal. Summoned by the King’s Decree. Book 2: The Price of a Winter Vow

© Aleksandr Vitaliev, 2026

ISBN 978-5-0070-5946-6 (т. 2)

ISBN 978-5-0070-5947-3

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The Beggar with the Dragon’s Seal. Summoned by the King’s Decree. Book 2: The Price of a Winter Vow

by Aleksandr Vitaliev

Chapter 1. The Extended Term

The stone beneath my bare feet was still warm, and I made a point of remembering that, so that later I could hate myself for remembering.

The gates stood open, and that was no good sign. Three years ago, when they threw me out, they had been bolted shut behind me, and I had heard the iron clanging for a long time afterward. Today the two leaves were simply thrown back, like an open mouth, and through them drifted the smell of hot bread, of woodsmoke, of something sweet that made my jaw ache.

I stopped. The hem of the stranger’s black dress, pulled off a stranger’s dead back, was too short and too tight for me, and I could feel the guards’ eyes on me, but those were not the eyes I feared. Those would come later.

“Astrid.”

Erwin, the royal scribe, sat on an overturned bucket just inside the gate. On his knees lay a fresh parchment, and the wax sealing it was unfamiliar — blue, stamped with the royal lily, not the dragon’s maw. He saw me looking and, for some reason, looked away.

“You’re ahead of the term,” I said.

He stood. His legs had gone numb, and he shifted his weight, flexing his fingers in the practiced way of men who must not let their hands be seen to tremble.

“There has been no snow yet,” I said — echoing what I had repeated to myself all night on the road. “The judge set the term for the first snowfall. I remember.”

“The term has been changed,” he said, and his voice was level, which was worse than shouting. “The royal court has extended the winter cycle by another year. Until the first thaw, not the first snowfall.”

I did not move. Somewhere behind me, down in the lower town, a shutter slammed, and I heard a woman calling her daughter, and the daughter not answering, and it was so ordinary, so unbearably ordinary, that I made a fist and my nails bit into my palm.

“Show me.”

He unfolded the parchment. I did not take it in my hands. I had no right to take a document from a scribe’s hands until he offered it himself, and we both knew it. I read it sideways, over his shoulder, the letters jumping.

"...in light of new circumstances in the matter of the restoration of the seal of the House of Northern Fire… the term of confinement of the bearer is hereby extended until the full completion of the winter cycle… signed: Judge Lissa of the House of Grey Water…”

Lissa. His Lissa. The one who slept in his bed while I slept under a bridge.

“Where is he?” I asked.

Erwin did not answer, and that was answer enough.

I stepped through. The guards parted, and one of them looked at my bare feet, and I gathered the hem out of habit, and the fabric cracked, and I thought that I needed a dress, and that I would ask Marta for one, and that I would ask Marta for only the dress, nothing more.

The yard was empty. The firewood was stacked neatly, and a new steward I did not know stood on the porch, hands folded over his belly, watching me as I walked, and I walked slowly, so that he could see I was not hurrying, and that I was not afraid.

“My lady,” he said, and the word *my lady* cost him an obvious effort.

I stopped in front of him. He was two heads taller than me, and his hands were red, and I thought that he probably did the laundry, and that he did not recognize me, and that I did not recognize him either, and that perhaps that was for the best.

“Lord Darven is in the great hall,” he forced out. “A guest from the Winter Branch is there as well.”

The guest. Inara. The one who lay in my bed while I lay under a bridge.

I nodded. Thought that I ought to wash, and decided I would not. Thought that I ought to put on stockings, and decided I would not. Walked up to the door, and the steward did not step aside, and I squeezed past sideways, and the fabric at my shoulder tore, and I felt the cold air lick my skin, and I thought that this must be the shame they had spoken of, only I had not recognized it until now.

The corridor smelled of tallow and smoked fish, and I knew that smell, and it hit the bridge of my nose, and I forced myself to breathe evenly. Around the corner I could hear voices — a man’s, unfamiliar, and a woman’s, soft, with a rasp to it. Inara. And between them, in the silence, his breathing, which I would have known from a thousand.

I stopped. Pressed my palm to the wall, and the stone was warm, and I thought that behind that wall there was probably a flue, and that someone had probably just lit it, and that it was probably he who had ordered it lit.

Erwin caught up with me. He stood quietly at my back, and I heard the rustle of his quill on paper, and I knew he was recording everything, and I knew I was grateful to him for it, and I knew I would never thank him for it.

“Do they know?” I asked, without turning.

“The guest — yes,” he answered, after a pause. “The lord — no.”

I nodded. Took my hand from the wall, and a warm print was left on my palm, and I closed my fingers around it, and the warmth stayed inside, and I went on, toward the door of the great hall, and the door was not locked, and I thought that perhaps it was an invitation, or perhaps it was a trap, and that in this castle there had long been no difference between the two.

I pushed the door and went in, without waiting to be invited.

The great hall was overheated, and it brought on an ache at my temples at once, the way it does when you have stared into snow too long. To the right, against the far wall, stood a long table laid for two — plates, goblets, a carafe of something dark — and I felt my jaw tighten. To the left, by the hearth, three people sat in a half-circle: an old man with eyes blood-red from a cold, a woman with a neck so thin it seemed her head was held on by a thread, and another, younger, with a wart on his cheek that bounced when he chewed. I did not know them by face, but I knew them by voice — the very elders who three years ago had voted to strike me from the line’s book.

Inara stood at the window. She was paler than I remembered, and shadows lay under her eyes, and her belly under the grey dress had begun to round, and my gaze lingered there before I could stop it, and she caught it, and her fingers settled over the fabric, as if to cover it.

Darven sat at the head of the table. He did not rise. That mattered — he could have stood, and did not, and I read in it everything he wanted to say to me, and everything he could not say. He wore the same grey shirt he had worn that morning, when I had seen him through the window across the road, and I thought that he had not had time to change, or had not wished to, and that either way it was equally bad.

“Lady Astrid,” said the old man with the red eyes, and the word *lady* came out of his mouth as if he were tasting rotten fish. “We did not expect you so early.”

“I am no lady,” I answered, and my voice sounded steadier than I had expected. “I am a guest with a seal. Let us leave it at that.”

The elder exchanged a glance with the woman. The wart on the younger man’s cheek twitched.

“A guest,” the woman repeated, and there was so much venom in her voice that I wondered how she was still upright. “With another woman’s seal on another woman’s wrist. In another woman’s dress.”

I looked at my wrist. The sleeve had ridden up when I pushed the door, and the thin white line of a scar was visible, and along it, as if alive, crept a fine red thread, and I understood that the seal had woken, and that they could see it, and that I could no longer hide it, even if I wanted to.

“The seal was returned by the court,” I said. “By law.”

“The law,” Darven cut in, and his voice was that very one, low, with the rasp at the consonants that had once made my knees go weak. “The law has been extended. Until the thaw, Astrid. Not the first snowfall.”

I turned to him slowly. He was not looking at me — he was looking at his hands, at the carafe, at the table, at everything except me, and I knew his way: when he was ashamed, he hid his eyes, and once I had mistaken that for indifference, and it had made me a fool.

“You knew,” I said. Did not ask.

At last he raised his gaze. Grey, almost white eyes, and in them there was neither anger nor remorse — only weariness — and I thought that three years was a long time even for him.

“I learned yesterday,” he answered. “Lissa sent a rider. There was no time.”

“No time for what?”

He did not answer. The old man grunted, and I heard the wart on the younger man’s cheek click against his teeth.

“No time to warn me,” I finished for him. “Of course. As always.”

Inara coughed. Softly, into her fist, and I saw her shoulders shudder, and she pressed her palm to her belly, and I thought that she was probably cold too, and that she too had probably not been warned, and that, it turned out, the two of us had more in common than I would have liked.

“My lord,” she said, and her voice was steady, but the last word broke. “May I sit down? I am unwell.”

Darven stood. At last. In a single motion, the way men stand who are used to obeying the crown, not their wives, and I felt something inside me pull, old, familiar, and I crushed it down as I always did.

He pulled out a chair for her. Not for me — for her. And it was that same chair, oak, with the high back, in which I had sat three years ago when I received visitors, and I understood that he had not done it on purpose, and that only made it worse.

“Sit,” he threw at me across the table. “And listen.”

I did not sit. I went to the carafe, poured myself a drink into his goblet, because there were plates only for two, and drank it down without asking. The wine was sour, and it stung my nose, and I thought that it was probably cheap, and that for me he grudged even the cheap.

“I am listening,” I said, wiping my lips with the back of my hand. “Speak.”

The elder with the red eyes cleared his throat.

“The Council of Houses will convene at midwinter,” he began. “Until then you will remain in the castle. In the capacity of… guests.”

“A guest,” I corrected. “Not guests.”

The woman with the thin neck sniffed.

“A guest,” the old man agreed. “With a seal. That grants you the right to enter the court hall, to demand an accounting from the steward, and to summon witnesses. It does not grant you the right to interfere in the affairs of the line.”

“I know what the seal grants me,” I answered. “I spent three years reading the laws under a bridge while you drank sour wine in here.”

The silence struck like a blow. The wart on the younger man’s cheek froze, and he stopped chewing.

Darven watched me, and for the first time that morning I caught his eye, and there was something in it I had not seen before — not fear, not anger, but a heavy, grey exhaustion — and I thought that perhaps he too had not slept, and that perhaps beyond that wall, in his rooms, the stove had been lit as well, and that perhaps there was a reason.

“Erwin,” I called, without turning.

The scribe stepped forward from behind the door, where, as it turned out, he had been standing the whole time, and I heard the rustle of his quill.

“Record this,” I said. “Astrid of the House of Northern Fire, guest and bearer of the seal, demands of the elders an accounting of the expenditures of the castle kitchens for the past three years. The right to demand this is granted under the law of the winter cycle, article four, paragraph concerning the maintenance of the bearer.”

The old man choked. The woman sprang up, and her thin neck stretched taut as a string.

“You dare not,” she hissed.

“I dare,” I answered. “I was silent for three years. Now I want to know where my money went.”

Darven slowly lowered himself back into the chair. I saw the knuckles of his fingers go white on the armrest, and I thought that he was about to say *go*, or *enough*, or *Astrid*, and I knew in advance which of those words would wound me most, and I was ready for it, and from being ready I grew so sick I nearly swayed.

He said nothing. He only looked at Inara, and Inara lowered her eyes, and her fingers settled over her belly again, and I thought that she too was probably counting the price of silence in this castle, and that her price, probably, was different.

I finished the wine. Set the goblet down on the table — not on a tray, but straight onto the wood — and it gave a dull thud, and the echo ran through the hall, and I turned, and walked to the door, and the door was still unlocked, and behind it stood Erwin with his quill in hand, and I passed him, and he recorded this too, and I knew he would.

I had not taken five steps down the corridor when, behind me, a chair scraped.

“Astrid.”

The voice was low, that very one, with the rasp on the consonants, and I felt the scar under my sleeve twitch, as if someone had run a cold fingernail across it. I stopped. Did not turn. Because if I turned, he would see that my eyelid had fluttered, and I did not want that, and did not want him to know what I did not want.

“What?” I threw over my shoulder.

Footsteps. Heavy, uneven, and I heard him veering slightly to one side, as if going around the table, as if going around Inara, as if going around something else, and I counted the steps, because counting steps was easier than thinking.

He stopped two paces behind my back. I felt the distance on my skin — between my shoulder blades it grew warmer — and I knew his habit of standing too close for a stranger and too far for a former husband.

“The seal,” he said quietly. “It has woken.”

“I know,” I answered. “I am wearing it.”

“It burns. On me.”

I turned slowly. He stood with his right hand hanging at his side, fingers open, and on the back of it, at the base of the thumb, I saw a thin red line that had not been there the day before, and it pulsed in the same rhythm as my scar, and I understood what it meant, and from understanding my mouth went dry.

“The law of blood,” I said. “If the bearer suffers, so does the holder. I spent three years forgetting it. You, it seems, did not.”

He closed his hand into a fist. The red line sank under his skin, and he winced, and I caught myself taking a step toward him, and I stopped myself, and that step I had not taken was louder than any word.

“You have not eaten today,” he said. It sounded like an accusation.

“And you?” I asked, and immediately regretted it, because it sounded like concern, and concern was not something I could allow him.

He did not answer. He only looked at my wrist, at the sleeve that had slipped, at the thin red thread creeping along the scar, and I realized suddenly that he had never before seen it wake, because three years ago I had hidden it, and three years under a bridge there had been no one to see.

“You need food,” he repeated. “And a room of your own.”

“The room by the kitchen,” I said. “I have already been told.”

“It is not suitable.”

“It is. For me. Not for you.”

He raised his eyes. Grey eyes, tired, with red threads in them, and there was something in them I did not want to see, and I looked away, and that was a mistake, because he took it for weakness and stepped closer, and I caught the smell of his cloak — smoke, cold, his skin — and my throat went tight.

“Astrid,” he said, and his voice broke, and it was the first time he had spoken my name in three years, and I knew that he had heard it too, and that it did not make it easier for him.

“Lord Darven,” I corrected. “If you are finished, I will go.”

He did not step back. His shadow fell over my shoes, and I stared at that shadow and thought that three years ago I would have lifted my hand and touched his cheek myself, and now I could not lift my hand, because it would have touched him, and I did not want that, and did not want him to know what I did not want.

“Shall I bring you soup?” he asked, and it sounded so wretched that I almost pitied him, and from pity I nearly agreed, and he could not read the agreement, and I could see him trying.

“Send Marta,” I said. “And have the stove lit. The room is cold.”

I turned and walked on. Halfway down the corridor I stopped, because my legs would not hold me, and I leaned my shoulder against the wall, and the wall was warm, and I remembered that somewhere behind it lay his rooms, and I pulled my shoulder away, and went on, and my back burned, and I knew he was watching me go, and I did not turn.

The corridor behind me stayed quiet for a long time, and that quiet was worse than his footsteps had been. I made it to my door, pushed it open with my shoulder and went in, and the room met me with cold and the smell of someone else’s furniture, and I realized I had forgotten what the castle smelled like from inside when you were its guest and not its mistress. The stove was unlit. The candle on the table had burned down to the very base, the wick drowning in its own wax, and I did not bother to fix it, because in the dark it was easier not to see the wall behind which, I knew, he was standing now.

I sat down on the bed still in the borrowed dress, without taking off my shoes, and brought my left wrist up to my eyes. The scar burned steadily, in the same rhythm as the red line on his hand, and I pressed my palm to my chest and felt beneath it a second heartbeat — his, muffled, stubborn — and from that my nose stung, and I clenched my teeth in anger, and the teeth ground in the silence, and I heard someone pass behind the wall, and the footsteps were uneven, and I thought that he was probably counting his steps too, and losing count, and from that thought I grew so sick I stood up and went to the door, and the door was locked only on my side, and that was right, and it was not enough.

A knock came a few minutes later. Soft, twice, and I recognized the manner — Marta had knocked just that way three years ago, when she came to say that supper was served, and I had asked *who*, although I knew, and she had answered *the keeper of the keys, Marta, my lady*, and I had opened, and in her hands had been a bowl, and the smell from the bowl had been so strong that my stomach clenched, because I had not eaten since morning, and morning had been two days ago.

Behind Marta stood a servant with an armful of firewood. Marta looked at me, then at the unlit stove, then at me again, and said nothing, and that silence spoke more eloquently for me than any question.

“The lord ordered it?” I asked, and my voice came out steadier than I had expected.

“The lord ordered it,” Marta nodded. “And he sent this as well.”

She drew from behind her back a folded cloak. That very one, his, grey, with a black trim, and I recognized it by the seam at the shoulder, which I had mended myself, back there, in the other life, when I had believed we had a shared future, and from that I took the cloak carefully, the way one takes another person’s evidence.

“He said — have the stove lit,” Marta added quietly. “And he said that if my lady was cold, this would be the last thing he would send, not the first.”

I set the cloak down on the bed. Put the bowl on the stool. The servant was already lighting the stove, and at the first flame a crackling ran through the room, and I stood and watched the wood catch, and thought that it was his fire, in my stove, and that I had not asked for it, and that it was too late to refuse, and that too late was, in general, the story of us.

“Marta,” I called, when the servant had gone.

“Yes, my lady.”

“Where is the guest from the Winter Branch now?”

Marta lowered her eyes. I saw her dry fingers work at the edge of her apron, and that was her only sign that she did not wish to answer, and I waited anyway, and she knew I would.

“In the western bedchamber,” she said at last. “On the second floor. The lord ordered her not to leave until morning.”

“He locked her in?”

“No. He asked. She agreed.”

I nodded. Went to the table and took the bowl. The soup was hot, fatty, with carrots, and I knew the recipe, because three years ago I had cooked it myself, and from knowing it my hand trembled, and the spoon clinked against the rim, and Marta pretended not to notice.

“Thank you,” I said. “You may go.”

Marta did not go. She stood in the doorway, and I raised my head, and she was looking at my wrist, at the scar, and for the first time all evening I saw something on her face besides her habitual caution, and it was recognition, and I understood that she had known about the scar before, and that she had been the first to see it, there, at the gate, and that it had been she who had called Erwin, and that she might be the only person in this castle who was glad I had come back, and from that thought my nose stung, and I lowered my head back to the bowl, and Marta went out, and the door closed behind her, and I was alone, and the scar on my wrist pulsed in time to his steps beyond the wall, and I counted those steps, and lost count, and counted again.

Chapter 2. The Scar That Remembers

The gates stood wide open, and that was worse than if they had been locked. A locked gate could be read as a refusal. An open gate is an invitation, and I have never liked being invited back to the place I was thrown out of.

Erwin was waiting by the gate. Not Darven, not Martha, not the steward — a clerk with a quill tucked behind his ear and a scroll in his hand, the royal seal still bright on the ribbon. I stopped three paces from him and did not greet him. He did not greet me either. We looked at each other the way people look who have met before and both wish they had not.

“The cycle has been extended,” he said at last. “One year. By order of the court. Signed — Lissa of the House of Grey Water, Overseer of Compliance.”

I took the scroll. The wax was still warm, as if it had just been lifted from the flame, and when my fingers settled on the seal, the scar beneath my sleeve twitched. Not pain, not sharply — just the way an old nerve twitches, the kind that remembers more than its owner wishes it did.

“One year,” I repeated.

“One year,” Erwin confirmed. “The count now runs to the first thaw, not the first snow. There are three ways to break it. A voluntary surrender by the bearer, a public hearing before the Council of Houses, or an admission by the line that the seal was stolen. The third path,” he said, watching me very carefully, “unmakes Lord Darven as a lord. That is why he is home today.”

I nodded and walked toward the door. The black dress they had lent me in the lower town fit as though it had been made for someone else and I had squeezed into it on a dare. The hem dragged on the stone, the bodice pulled across my chest, the fabric sagged between my shoulder blades, and I knew that anyone who looked would see exactly how little I belonged here. I did not care.

The steward met me in the lower corridor. He stood in the very spot where, three years ago, he had not deigned to meet me at all, and he looked at me the way one looks at an uninvited relative who has returned for a funeral.

“Guest with the seal,” he said. “A room by the kitchen. Two sets of bedding. The shutters close at night. The kitchen — by the back door only.”