88
" SLEEP SHE DID: a sleep like winter, a sleep like sickness. In her sleep the men all died again, stoic or screaming, their guts like dark jewels in the snow. The black-cloaked figure stood by, calm and knowing, to mark each death. But this time a terrible, familiar voice spoke also in her ear. “See him, poor winter-king, trying to keep order. But the battlefield is my realm, and he only comes to pick over my leavings.” Vasya whirled to find the Bear at her shoulder, one-eyed, lazily smiling. “Hello,” he said. “Does my work please you?” “No,” she gasped, “no— "
― Katherine Arden , The Girl in the Tower (The Winternight Trilogy, #2)
93
" Under the table, a creature dressed in magnificent rags, with a potbelly and a long mustache, was busily sweeping up crumbs. Domovoi, Vasya thought. It was Dmitrii’s domovoi. A tiny flossy-haired woman stood on Dmitrii’s table, skipping between the dishes and sometimes kicking over an unwary man’s cup. That was the kikimora—for the domovoi sometimes has a wife. A rustle of wings high above; Vasya looked up for an instant into a woman’s unblinking eyes before she vanished in the smoke of the upper walls. Vasya felt a chill, for the woman-headed bird is the face of fate. Seen and unseen alike, Vasya felt the weight of their gazes. They are watching, they are waiting—why? Then Vasya raised her eyes to the doorway, and saw Morozko there. "
― Katherine Arden , The Girl in the Tower (The Winternight Trilogy, #2)