Web of Frost

by Lindsay Smith

  Other voices joined in. “Death to the tsar! Russalka must burn!”

  The gates clattered shut behind them. Katza all but leapt from the sleigh as her father’s secretary, Stolichkov, emerged from one of the side entrances.

  “Katza. Oh, my dear girl. You must come quickly.” Stolichkov pulled her into an awkward embrace against his concave chest. “It’s your father. There’s—there’s been an attack.”

  “What?” Katza ripped away from his arms. Attack. Everything receded from her vision, her hearing—all she could hear was that word, assailing her thoughts. “Where is he?”

  Stolichkov pressed at the small of her back to guide her into the palace. “In his rooms. I’ll take you there.”

  Katza’s throat stuck on the words she wanted to ask. She stumbled on the steps and caught herself on the doorframe. “What sort of state is my father in?” Katza asked, her words ragged. She glanced back toward Ravin, who’d climbed from the sleigh and stood behind her, his face twisted with concern.

  Stolichkov grimaced and hastened his pace. “I’m afraid you’ll have to see that for yourself.”

  They moved through the back rooms of the palace, the ones Katza rarely saw. Guards trotted off in all directions, while a maid scurried past with arms full of bedsheets. On the sheets, Katza noticed streaks of blood. Everyone’s faces were long and wreathed with sweat, and they moved with a nervous haste that set Katza on edge, too.

  “Stolichkov.” Katza moved faster to stay at his side, Ravin treading behind them. “Please. Tell me what’s happened.”

  “We were headed for the administrative building, down Nikonovskiy Prospect.” He tugged at his collar. He’d unbuttoned his shirt partway, and sweat and dirt and flecks of blood stained its edges beneath his waistcoat. “Your father had decided to repeal the martial law order we’d put into effect last month.”

  The order Katza had pushed him to make. She recalled the way he’d kissed her forehead and shared his doubt about its success, just a few hours ago. “He was repealing it?”

  “That was the plan, yes. But our carriage—” Stolichkov let out a rattling breath. “As we passed over the canal bridge that led around Saint Kirill’s Cathedral, though, there was an explosion. Ulmarov’s men must have rigged it with explosives underneath. The stone absorbed most of the impact, but . . . shards of stone went everywhere. Tore through our carriage, overturned it.”

  Bile singed the back of her throat. She clamped a hand around her aquamarine pendant necklace, a birthday gift from her father. “And—and my father?”

  Stolichkov began climbing the stairs toward the first floor of the tsar’s wing. “I’m afraid he took the worst of it.”

  Katza raised her skirts and followed him up the stairs. The worst of it? What did that mean? If he was dead, wouldn’t Stolichkov say so? But he didn’t. He had to be alive.

  And if he was alive, he could be healed. She could call upon Saint Lechka. Mend his wounds, make him whole.

  “Please. I have to see him.”

  Stolichkov rested his hand on the entrance to the tsar’s suites. “I just want you to be prepared.”

  Inside the main parlor of the tsar’s suites, her mother was screaming. No words, no cohesion, just unbridled wrath. As they entered, a host of attendants were trying to grab her mother’s arms, but she beat on their chests, spun away from them, grabbed at her own dress and tore it.

  “Assailants! They’re everywhere. They’re among us. You’re one. I know it! You are!” She spat at one of the attendants as they charged forward anew to grab her arms. “They’re coming through the walls. They’ll smother us all and set the palace aflame. I’ve seen you plotting!”

  “My lady, please, you must calm yourself.” One of her attendants, Lara, tried to approach her with short, even steps. “Your husband lies in there dying, and here you are, concerning yourself with things that are of no importance right now—”

  Ravin rushed forward, all signs of his earlier exhaustion gone. Some color had returned to his face, and he moved with grim urgency past Katza to reach for her mother’s hand.

  “My lady. May I?” He tilted his head toward Sabine.

  She snarled at him, but then slowly extended her hand toward his, her chin jutted defiantly. He cupped her palm, running his fingers soothingly over her knuckles. The tsar-consort licked away the spittle on her lips and let her heavy breaths fall into soft whimpers.

  “There will be a time for answers,” Ravin said. “Later. For now, your husband is our concern.”

  She nodded, over and over, in response to his touch. “All right. All right, all right. Mustn’t look like a Hessarian spy. Yes, I know what they say about me.” She laughed bitterly. “I know everything they say.”

  Prince Fahed came into the room then and rushed toward Katza. “My love.” He clutched her shoulders and pulled her close. “I am so sorry. It was awful. I was in one of the carriages following them—the blood, the shattered stones—”

  Katza tugged away from him. “Let me see him.”

  “Are you sure?” Fahed asked, brow furrowed. Yet his concern sounded so false to Katza’s ears that she could barely stand it. Why was everyone trying to protect her? “It is not a pleasant sight.”

  “I am not a tsarechka because it is pleasant. It is because I must.”

  Fahed arched one brow and stepped back from her. “Very well.” Stolichkov opened the gilded doors to the tsar’s inner chambers.

  At first, Katza could hardly see anything for the thick mass of physickers, bustling to and fro. Her father’s bed was but a speck at the far end of the chamber, after all, and the physickers were many. She walked across the wooden floors toward his bed on silent feet. The heavy curtains of his bedframe had been pulled back, and the plush brocaded sheets were rumpled and stained. Katza covered her mouth.

  What she’d mistaken for a bloody towel at first was, in truth, her father’s face. He looked horrific. Burned and bloodied—half his face had been charred like a log, the skin cracked and blackened. His left arm, she realized, was completely gone, and physickers muttered and held wadded towels against the stump as they tried to stanch the flow of blood. The eye on the charred side of his face was swollen shut, but on the other side, his gaze roved listlessly as his back arched and he cried out in wordless pain.

  One of the physickers looked up at Katza, startled, then folded his arms. “He’s been punctured by a piece of wood from the carriage. Drowning in his own blood, his lungs filling up. He’s lost a limb—lost a lot of blood . . .”

  Katza flinched and turned her head from her father’s bed. It wasn’t even the blood that upset her. It was the injustice of it all. “He was going to repeal the order,” Katza said. Even to her own ears she sounded high-pitched and whiny, like a little girl.

  “I’m sorry, tsarechka.” The physicker shifted his weight, uncomfortable.

  “He was repealing the order. And the Hessarians are practically at our gates. He only wanted to—” She choked back a sob. He was giving them what they wanted, the ungrateful cowards. Why didn’t they see?

  “We’re doing what we can, tsarechka.” The physicker reached forward to give her an awkward pat on the arm. “But he’s slipping fast. If there’s anything you wish to say to him . . .”

  Slipping fast. Katza’s heart fractured at that.

  She nodded, dumbly, and allowed the physicker to guide her around to the side of the bed. In the gaps of silence between her father’s wheezes, she could her the protesters’ chants rising from the square. They were muffled by the thick palace walls, the glass and heavy curtains, but she knew perfectly well what they said.

  Her father twisted his head to look at her, his single good eye shot through with blood.

  “Father.” Katza reached out to touch his shoulder, but could find no safe place to put her hand. All of his flesh was exposed to the air, liable to be in
fected. The unburnt half of his face was slick with blood. “Father, please. You can survive this.”

  He groaned, a wet, slurping sound.

  “Please.” Tears rushed into the corners of her eyes. Her chest felt as if it had been hollowed out. “I’m not ready. I can’t lose you, Father. You were right to want to repeal the law—I was too eager to bring about change.”

  His eyelid sagged closed, and the flock of physickers rushed forward.

  Urgency tensed her muscles as she clenched her fists by her side. “I need you, Father. Please,” she sobbed. “Stay with me.”

  The physickers pushed her away. “I’m sorry, tsarechka, but we can only try . . .”

  “No—there must be something, anything that you can do—”

  “Tsarechka.” It was Ravin’s voice, soft-edged but decisive, from the doorway. Katza looked from him back to her father, but he was slipping already as the physickers smeared a fresh batch of poultice on his wounds and tried to pump his chest. Katza stepped back from the bed and approached Ravin.

  “Is there anything to be done?” he asked.

  Katza squeezed her eyes shut. A great pressure was bubbling in her, and if she let it burst, she would lose everything. Her composure, her grip on Russalka, her soul. “I—I need to pray. To Saint Lechka.”

  Yes—she’d demonstrated her better grasp on the blessings. Surely Lechka would answer her now. Surely she could force Lechka’s power into herself. She had to. She had to save him.

  Ravin nodded and gestured toward a settee to one side of the tsar’s room. “Sit. I’ll pray with you.”

  Ravin reached for Katza’s hands, and with trembling fingers, she linked them together. His touch was cool and clean somehow; Katza’s own skin felt grimy and worn out. Katza recalled a time, far too recently, when she sat like this in her brother’s bedroom and tried to reach Saint Lechka for the first time in her life. It did not fill her with confidence.

  Ravin clenched her fingers to reassure her gently. “Pray. If Boj wills it, then Lechka will answer.”

  Boj, or whatever the power source was Ravin had told her existed beyond the saints’ reach. Either way, Katza had no choice but to appeal to it. Saint Lechka. Katza’s throat bobbed with grief. Saint Lechka, I need you now more than ever before. I can’t lose my father. He’s all I have. I need him. Russalka needs him. . . Please let him survive this. Give him life, and then in time we can heal his wounds.

  Katza’s vision tugged at her, an insistent child unwilling to be forgotten.

  If he dies . . . Katza grimaced. Then Russalka may die, too.

  She was gripping Ravin’s fingers fiercely now; the slender bones of his hand compressed in her clutch. He did not cry out, only stared forward with sharp intensity. Katza strained to do the same. She waited for any sign, any trickle of warmth within her, or over her father’s body. She waited for a word, for a whisper to descend, for some vision to guide her and point her along the path . . .

  But nothing came.

  “No!” her father screamed—barely a word, more of a rasp, scraping like a knife against fine porcelain. The physickers fluttered with fresh activity. Katza held her breath, heart racing, and strained to hear their words.

  “Barely a pulse . . .”

  “All but gone now.”

  Please, Lechka. Please, if you would not answer me before, answer me now!

  Ravin deflated with a weary sigh and shifted his hands so they cupped Katza’s own. “I am so sorry, Katarzyna.” His dark eyes cast downward, repentant.

  “No.” Katza pulled her hands away and covered her mouth. “It’ll come. If we just wait—”

  “It is not Boj’s will for him to survive.”

  “You’re stronger in the saints’ blessings than I am.” Katza narrowed her eyes. “They aren’t answering me. But they might answer you if you ask them alone. Please—you can do this. You can call on Lechka to heal him. She won’t listen to me, but she listened to you before—”

  “But Katza. This is Boj answering you, blessed one.”

  She stared at him, disbelieving. “No. I refuse to believe Boj would just let him die—”

  “But if Boj did, then it must be for a reason.” He grazed her cheek with his palm. “Perhaps Boj is asking you to take charge. To lead Russalka into a new era.”

  Tears trickled from her eyes, following the path where his hand touched her skin. “I can’t do this. My father is the tsar—we have to save him. I can’t lead.”

  Her recurring vision hovered, a shadow in her thoughts. The white wolf, its guts spilling out onto the snow, its belly drenched in red. Its blood on Katza’s hands. She could not lead. She would only bring Russalka to its death—

  “It is beyond anyone’s capacity to save him now, tsarika.”

  Katza bristled at the title. He’d called her that before, incorrectly.

  “You must do it.” Ravin’s gaze pierced her. It was the only thing holding her upright. “You must be the leader Russalka needs.”

  The room went very still. The physickers paused, hands raised over the tsar’s mangled body, hovering as if frozen. Katza rose from the settee and stepped toward them. “Please. Tell me you can save him.”

  The lead physicker shuddered and shook his head. “I’m sorry, tsarechka. It is too late for him.”

  “No.” Katza fell back from him, room spinning around her. “He has to survive.”

  “He’s gone,” the head physicker said. “I’m sorry, tsarechka. He is gone.”

  Katza’s world contracted into darkness.

  First her mother, lost to her illness, then her brother, and now her father—she was alone, so very alone. And now the fate of Russalka rested in her bloodstained hands. She couldn’t do it. Bad enough she had to live without Aleksei and her father, but running an empire without them—she couldn’t do it. She stood no chance.

  Boj’s will or not, she couldn’t do it alone.

  Hands clutched her shoulders from behind. Ravin, steadying her. But she thrashed against him; she didn’t want comfort. “You have to save him! You haven’t done enough!”

  Ravin drew her back against him. His hot breath slid over the side of her face as he pressed his mouth to her ear. “Tsarika. Please. Listen to me.”

  She stopped thrashing, but was shaking still. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to stop.

  “We cannot undo what’s passed. All you can control now is what’s to come.”

  “I’m not ready,” Katza whispered.

  “Katarzyna.” He squeezed her shoulders, once, then turned her to face him, his expression at once solemn and reverent. It quieted the tremors inside her. “You are.”

  A few more tears blazed down her hot cheeks. But his words worked some strange alchemy inside her. Outside she was trembling, but inside she felt nothing but cold, heavy calm. His touch grounded her in place. Created a pedestal for her to stand on.

  She drew a ragged breath and raised her chin high. For Russalka. For herself.

  “Then let’s begin.”

  Ravin released her and followed her out to the parlor.

  All voices fell silent as they emerged. Everyone was watching her, Katza realized—waiting for her command. They already knew the tsar was gone, or at least had their suspicions. She pressed her hands together to keep them from shaking and jutted her head high, defiant. From the corner of her eyes, she focused on the dark slash of Ravin to ground her.

  “Tsar Nikilov II is dead.”

  Everyone exhaled at once—gasping or sobbing or letting out a long-spent breath. Some of the servants sank into seats and pressed their faces into their hands; Nadika bit her lower lip and watched Katza with painful sadness weighing her eyes.

  Then Nadika sank to one knee and bowed her head. “All glory to Tsarika Katarzyna.” Her voice was forceful, brooking no dissent.

  “Tsari
ka Katarzyna,” Fahed echoed, joined by his attendants.

  “Tsarika Katarzyna.” The cry rose louder around her. Katza flinched each time it was said.

  She looked toward Ravin, watching her with eerie calm. How could he look so calm? Her anger was growing within her, burning like a sun. It had replaced her sorrow in an instant. Now she only wanted revenge. “I’m not ready to—”

  “Yes, tsarika. You are. And you must.” He mustered a sad smile. “You must use your blessings now. Undeterred. Unafraid.”

  Yes. She needed to prove herself. Quickly and unequivocally. She was the tsarika, and she was in control.

  Ravin tipped his head toward the balcony doors, where the protesters cheered and screamed for the tsar’s blood. “What will you do about them?”

  “They cannot be permitted to cheer for this horror they have wrought.” Katza rolled her shoulders back. A new conviction was flooding her. A channel for all this rage. If she was to be tsarika, then she could leave her subjects with no doubt that she’d earned the right to call herself such.

  Ravin nodded slowly. “You’re right, tsarika.”

  Katza stormed past the guards and threw the balcony doors open wide.

  As soon as the protesters spotted her, their shouts swelled. She scanned the crowd, traced the thin line of the iron gates that separated the raging mob from the squadron of guards and army footsoldiers that filled the palace grounds. She wore no coat, no hat, no gloves, but the cold could not reach her. Katza was burning from inside, burning with grief and rage and vengeance, and she wanted them to feel it too.

  “Death to the tsar!”

  “Death to the baby tsarechka!”

  “Tell us, little Katza! Tell us the tsar is dead!”

  Katza gripped the balcony railing, her face as hard as marble.

  Saint Marya, grant me your vengeance. Grant me your scorn. This horrible act cannot go unpunished. A smile spread through her. Make me your vengeance. Fill me with your glorious retribution. Let me show my people they can never harm us again.

  Like a spark catching, their cheers of delight turned into screams of pain.