It took two stewards and a ladder to put Rilka on her rabbit.
She had expected the ladder. She had not expected to catch her new mulberry cape on an ear, turn halfway round, and find herself looking down the rabbit's backside while both stewards politely studied the palace.
"Forward," said her sister from below.
"I know which end is forward, Dova."
"Good. It's the end you're not facing."
Rilka hauled the cape free. The ear lost a spoonful of snow. She rubbed it smooth with one gloved finger, then carefully turned herself on the saddle.
The rabbit was a hare, properly speaking, with a narrow head, a proud chest, and hind legs folded beneath it like enormous white fists. Its ears stood six feet above her. She had cut the fur into its flanks so finely that the low sun caught every little groove. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever made, and she wanted everyone on the lake to notice.
Everyone on the lake appeared to be watching the ladder.
Beyond the starting ropes, the grandstands climbed the bank in bright tiers. People had come from three neighbouring kingdoms for the Ice Kingdom's Great Winter Contest. Those from the warmest had dressed in such quantities of fur that they looked like additional entrants. Vendors passed between the benches with hot buns and heated stones wrapped in felt; children waved paper antlers, claws, and wings. Above them, the palace's seven terraces shone with new snow. A trumpeter tried a note. The cold took it clean across the lake.
Dova held up a wooden board.
"White Thunder," Rilka read. The words were black and enormous. "Yes. That will do."
"I can still put 'Rilka's Rabbits' underneath."
"You can put that on the shop."
Dova turned the board over. It already said Rilka's Rabbits on the back.
For twenty years, Rilka had made little snow rabbits for children's mittened hands. The children supplied a small pulse of magic and the movement: one finger along the back to hop, two to turn. Rilka supplied the fine packed joints that made the hopping graceful, the twitch of the nose, the folded dart that could whisk a rabbit out from under a reaching palm. At the market, toddlers watched her demonstrations with their mouths open. Their parents bought her rabbits and went away happy.
Nobody had ever watched her go away carrying the Winter Cup.
It stood beside the finish poles on its velvet cushion: silver, broad as a soup tureen, with two curling handles and a lid crowned by a snowflake. Rilka had admired it at nineteen, at twenty-nine, and again that morning, at thirty-nine, after paying her entry fee. She had tried to lift it while the steward's back was turned. It was satisfyingly heavy.
"Do remember," Dova said, "the shop's roof needs new shingles."
"That is why I'm winning the prize money."
"Excellent. I'll tell the roofer we're depending on a rabbit."
The ladder went away. Rilka laid both hands on the snow in front of her and sent a slow movement through the hare's legs. It stood.
The lake was suddenly much farther down.
At home, the motion travelled from her little finger to a creature that could sit in her palm. Here it went through a shoulder wider than her kitchen table. She felt its weight come back against her hand, the drag of the haunches, the pressure of each foot on the ice. Snow had no notion of how to stand. She must give it everything.
The hare wobbled. Rilka caught the weight over its forefeet. Dova took a sensible step away.
"Now that's a rabbit," said a man behind her.
Torren's stag approached with barely a sound. It had none of the frothy detail of the hare: four long legs, a smooth narrow body, and antlers that swept back instead of standing up. Torren wore a plain red sash over his riding coat. Four tiny silver cups had been sewn into the sash, one for each of his victories.
Rilka had once persuaded herself that he rode the same stag every year. Watching him that morning make it from his allotted mound had put an end to that comforting idea.
"Hare," she said.
"My mistake." He looked up. "Splendid ears."
She liked him less for saying it correctly.
His stag turned in a great easy arc toward the starting line. He gave it room, and it came round without breaking stride. Rilka tried a turn of her own. The hare pivoted on its haunches and almost put her in the snow.
"We shall be faster than that," she muttered into its neck.
Along the line, a woman in a yellow coat sat inside the curve of a snow serpent. A squat rhinoceros stamped under a rider nearly as broad as its shoulders. There was a bear, a long-backed six-legged fox, and a dragon with a magnificent shovel of a tail. The dragon's maker was trimming his tail to keep it from fouling his neighbour. The neighbour was making her fox's grin wider.
The contest marshal came past on skates.
"Your own snow only. Through every gate. First rider between the finish poles wins. If you leave your mount, you're out. If it leaves you, we'll fetch you."
He said the last part for the visitors. Under the final leap, the catch-net sagged deep and reassuring between stout posts. A steward below it was eating a bun.
Rilka had walked the course at dawn. Out across the lake to the first gate; over the five frozen ridges of the Frostcomb; a tight bend around the old willow; then up the long ramp to the highest palace terrace. The Seven Steps brought the racers down again. Broad ramps swept across the palace front, switching from side to side as they joined the terraces. Straight ahead lay the drops; she had seen only fur hats above the terrace edges when the stewards stood on the lower shelves. She had watched Torren gallop through that zigzag for four winters. Short shelves meant gathering long legs after each landing; the ramps gave his stag room to keep running. At the bottom, twenty feet of air separated the last lip from the finish landing.
She had stood there for some time, picturing herself arriving above the net instead of in it.
Torren's stag lowered its head. The serpent drew itself into three thick coils. Rilka felt the hare's legs under her fingers, each packed joint waiting for movement. Somewhere behind the ropes, Dova shouted her name. Someone else shouted, "Rabbit Lady!"
Rilka set her jaw. The trumpeter lifted his instrument.
Nine snow beasts burst off the line.
The first two bounds were appalling. The hare lifted Rilka so high that she saw the top of the marshal's hat, then dropped her hard enough to drive her teeth together. She had made thousands of that exact movement. She had never before been sitting on it.
On the third, she bent with the back instead of resisting it.
On the fourth, she laughed.
The grandstand rushed past. The cape snapped open behind her. She could feel every foot, every great contraction of the hare's thighs. It was as though her familiar little trick had broken out of her hands and grown large enough to carry her away.
The serpent went sliding along to her left, its rider low in the curve behind its head. The rhinoceros was thundering straight ahead. Torren had already taken a place near its shoulder.
Rilka tucked the hare's front feet, gathered its haunches, and gave it the biggest bound yet.
For a moment there was no lake beneath them. The hare flew between the first gate's pennants, and Rilka saw their dark blue shadow racing over the ice. She landed ahead of the rhinoceros.
The crowd roared.
"White Thunder!" she yelled, although she was the only one close enough to hear herself.
At the Frostcomb, the serpent flattened and slipped through a gap between two ridges. The bear scrambled over the first with its claws. Torren's stag rose neatly, forelegs folded, and touched down with barely a spray.
Rilka cleared two ridges in one leap.
She landed on the narrow flat between the second and third. A hard little click came into her right thumb.
There were three ridges left. A lower bound would take them one at a time. She could feel the stag gaining, its landings soft, its pace beautifully even.
She could clear two more.
Rilka packed the right heel tighter, looked at the flags beyond the comb, and gathered the legs again.
This time, when they rose, the spectators stood.
They landed well past the fourth ridge. The click came back sharper. She had only the last ridge to cross. After that there would be plain ice, and she could ease the gait. Torren's stag was a length behind.
She leaped.
Something in the right heel shifted before it struck the ground. Rilka caught the weight on the left foot and front paws. The hare skidded sideways, throwing up a sheet of powder. Behind her, the rhinoceros's rider bellowed.
"Still ahead," Rilka said. She was breathing through her mouth. "Still ahead."
She lowered the bounds. The right foot held, but it sent a scraping pressure up into her wrist every time it took the weight. White chips scattered behind them.
At the willow bend, Torren went wide.
She knew his move. He opened the turn until the stag could run through it, then came out with its long stride unbroken.
Rilka put the hare on the inside. It was her chance to shut the door on him.
The haunches swung. She pulled the forefeet round too late. For a moment the whole hare leaned outward, right heel dragging under the load.
It snapped.
The hare dropped on one side. The willow blurred past her face. Rilka shoved both hands deep into its shoulders and held the forelegs rigid. Its chin furrowed the snow.
Torren swept past. She saw the four little cups on his sash. Then she saw the serpent's yellow-coated rider, low and quick and gone.
The rhinoceros came by on the other side. Its rider raised one arm to warn the following fox away from her.
Rilka stopped just beyond the bend.
The hare stood on three feet. Its fourth lay folded at an angle no rabbit should have had. Loose snow was pouring out of the heel.
There was fresh snow all around her. Lovely clean powder lay against the willow's trunk. She could scoop up one handful and be disqualified in front of three kingdoms.
Instead, she reached for the right ear.
She had spent half an hour getting its inside curve exactly right. Her fingers sank into it, and she pulled. A thick ribbon of snow came down past her knee and flowed beneath her palm toward the damaged leg.
The hare lurched. She had let its left knee slacken while thinking about the repair. Rilka braced it again. A six-legged fox flashed past with three separate pairs of footsteps and a wide, infuriating grin.
"Yes," she said. "Very funny."
She took the other ear. Short stumps remained above the hare's head. The weight that had tugged at her shoulders was gone; below her, the rebuilt heel grew broad and thick.
She could not keep the leg straight and reshape its joint at the same time. She folded it clear of the ice, held the hare on the other three feet, and worked until she could feel a continuous curve of packed snow beneath the damage. Her hands shook. The dragon went past. Its tail threw powder over her boots.
The hoofbeats and cheers moved away up the ramp.
Rilka lowered the repaired foot. It felt solid. It also felt as heavy as a sack of flour.
The magnificent cape had wrapped itself around her left calf. She kicked it loose, set the hare moving, and immediately found that the new heel would not fold far enough for her old bound. The hindquarters lifted unevenly. She landed sideways.
"No," she said, with the fierce quiet she used when a customer's child had broken something expensive.
She sank the hare lower, keeping the thick heel tucked close beneath it. The front paws slid forward. The hind legs followed in a quick, small thrust.
They shot ahead.
Rilka nearly went over the tail.
She knew that movement. She had given it to rabbits that darted under a toddler's closing hands: flat, folded, and suddenly somewhere else. Here it made the long body slide beneath her before the legs caught up. She tried it again, leaning forward this time.
The heel pressed against her hand. It held.
Again. A low flick of the forelegs, a fold, a quick push from behind. There was almost no fall to catch. The ears had stopped pulling her back. She could bend farther over the shoulders.
She passed the bear at the foot of the ramp. Its rider was trying to replace a missing claw without letting the other paws lose their grip.
Up the ramp, the low dart needed shorter strokes. Rilka's wrists began to ache. She had never made a rabbit run so long, nor held so much weight through so many movements. She could not look at the spectators. Each time she lost the sequence, the thick heel dragged.
The dragon was labouring halfway up. Its maker had shortened the tail, but the great shoulders still heaved with every step. Rilka came alongside, heard the man grunt with the effort of moving it, and slipped past.
At the top, the wind slapped the sweat cold against her face.
The lake opened below her, crowded with little dark figures along its edge. She could see Dova's board. Even from here, she was fairly sure Dova was showing the wrong side.
The rhinoceros had reached the first terrace ramp. Ahead of it, the fox was bringing the last of its three pairs of feet down the second drop. The serpent flowed down a terrace face, then curled sharply to bring its rider to the next drop. It was gaining on Torren, but every bend cost it a moment of recoil. Torren's stag was already sweeping out of the third ramp, fast enough that its hooves hardly seemed to settle.
Straight in front of Rilka, the drops were as high as a grown person standing on the ice. Between them lay short landing shelves, barely the hare's length from nose to tail. The broad ramps ran left, right, left, making a generous zigzag. The direct drops made one white stairway down to the last lip. Beyond that lip hung the gap, the finish landing, and two red poles.
With her old bounds, she would rise above each step and come crashing onto the next. She could feel exactly what that would do to the heel.
She pictured a fifth little cup on Torren's red sash and dug her aching fingers deeper into the snow. Then she lowered the hare until its belly nearly touched the snow.
The first drop arrived. She let the head pitch forward over the edge instead of bounding out above it. For a moment the hare's backside was higher than her shoulders.
Forepaws down. Shoulders fold. Haunches follow.
The forefeet struck the lower shelf. Rilka folded the shoulders under the impact, taking the weight through them before the haunches came down. The shock kicked into both elbows. The heavy heel hit last, with a hard thump. She clenched her teeth, waiting for it to give. Its weight came through her hand and settled.
She was already at the second edge.
The rhinoceros turned ponderously onto its ramp. Rilka dropped past its great square head. Its rider shouted something she couldn't hear.
Third step. Her cape streamed over the edge behind her. The fox was on her left, its front feet already on the lower shelf, its last pair still on the ledge above. Its rider was folding the middle legs to bring the long body through. Rilka landed beside its nose and darted ahead before the rear feet came down.
The sequence was quicker than she had practised. One shoulder would fold before the other; she had to pull them even. The hare's body wanted to slew sideways under the heavy heel. She drove the left hind foot a little harder and caught the balance. Her hands had become two cramped hooks in the snow.
Fourth step. Fifth.
The serpent took the fifth drop beside her. Its rider was grinning, bare teeth bright in a wind-reddened face. She flicked a hand, drawing the serpent's head ahead of the hare.
Rilka gave the short, folded thrust.
The sixth edge vanished under them. The serpent's coils were still gathering behind its rider when Rilka landed below.
Across the last broad ramp, Torren turned his head.
Their eyes met. His stag was running beautifully, four legs working in a long smooth reach. He had room for one more stride before the leap.
He bent over its neck. The stag stretched. Snow fanned out behind its hooves.
Rilka reached the last terrace with no long stride at all. The lip was rushing toward her. Below it she saw the net, then the polished blue of the lake. The finish poles stood on the opposite landing.
She gathered the hare's legs.
The right heel resisted.
It was sound. It was stiff. She could feel the thick packed joint refusing the last part of the fold, and the animal was still running toward the edge.
To her left, the stag sprang. Its antlers caught the sun.
Rilka bent so low that her cheek touched the hare's head. She shortened the left leg's fold to match the right, pulled the shoulders tight, and planted both hind feet against the lip.
The heavy heel bit. She drove the folded haunches open against the planted feet, flinging the hare forward and up.
They were out above the net.
There was the stag, taller in the air, its forefeet already opening for the landing. There were the red poles. Rilka's hare stretched beneath her with its front paws reaching, short ears pressed against her cheek.
They struck the far landing chin first.
Rilka felt the shock in both wrists. She kept the shoulders open. The hind legs came through, the broad heel scraping, and the hare slid in a long white sprawl.
Torren landed beside her. She could hear his breath.
The red poles went past Rilka's shoulders.
She tried to turn her head. All she could see was one of the stag's knees.
The brass bell rang.
"Rilka of the North Market!" the marshal shouted.
She sat motionless, with both hands sunk in the hare. The creature lay flat, front feet extended, one hind leg still half folded beneath it. Torren brought his stag round in a slow curve. He stared at her. Then he looked back at the finish poles.
"By half a shoulder," he said.
Rilka made a noise she hoped sounded dignified. It did not.
The serpent came through. Its rider slapped the top of its head with delight at her own finish, and the head obediently dipped. The fox arrived in fourth place, grinning as widely as ever. Across the lake, people were waving everything they could find.
"Rabbit Lady!" somebody shouted.
Rilka stood on the saddle, which was a foolish thing to do with two shaking knees. She took one hand out of the hare, raised it, and shouted back so loudly that she hurt her throat.
Torren slid off his stag. Without his touch, it sank a little at the knees and stood still.
"You came straight down," he said.
"I noticed."
He looked at the broad right heel, then up at the stumps above her head.
"Good ears," he said.
She laughed so hard that she had to sit down again.
Dova reached the landing with the marshal's permission and no regard for anybody else's feet. She brought the ladder. Rilka descended slowly, keeping a hand on the hare until her boots touched the ground. Then she let go.
The snow settled under its own weight. The hare lay stretched beside the finish, the grooves of its fine fur scuffed almost smooth, its face buried to the nose in powder.
Dova pressed her cold cheek to Rilka's hot one.
"The roof," she whispered, "is going to be magnificent."
The marshal called them to the little platform. Torren took second place; the serpent's rider took third. When Rilka received the Winter Cup, she had to lift it with both arms. Her wrists protested. She lifted it higher.
From the grandstand, nine hundred people tried to pronounce her name at once.
Dova leaned against the ladder, holding the board with White Thunder facing out. A small boy waited beside her, looking from Rilka to the fallen hare.
Rilka came down from the platform with the cup locked against her ribs.
"Can I ride it?" the boy asked.
"You can sit on it. It won't move without me."
"He asked if he could ride it," Dova said.
Rilka looked at the hare's battered flank. Then she looked at the boy, who had both mittens pressed over his mouth. Behind him, three other children were pretending not to wait.
"One at a time," she said.
She handed Dova the cup.
"Both hands. Mind the lid. No, the other handle too."
Torren was collecting his gloves from the foot of the platform. He paused beside the ladder.
"Are those going to be fast rides?"
Rilka glanced at him. He was smiling, but there was a small sharp interest under it.
She put her hand on the hare. Its short ears lifted. Its head rose from the snow.
"You'll have to buy a ticket."