Web of Frost

by Lindsay Smith

  Katza scrambled to her feet. Her lungs were dry; her clothes were dry. She felt no chill, though her dress and coat were in tatters. She was alive.

  Pechalnya had answered her call.

  She turned to face the cathedral, looming over her on its outcropping. Canals surrounded it on three sides, lapping against the steep stones.

  Ravin leaned from the shattered window, a red and black boiled speck. Then he leaped down into the canal.

  Katza cried out and staggered back on her ice floe. But the whole canal was hardening under Ravin’s command. A thick skin of ice formed over the surface, and he landed on it, leaving only a faint crack in his wake.

  “Even your visions can lie to you, tsarika.” He strode toward her, limp, bloodied, beaten. But still he came. The shadows swirled around him, impossibly thick; in their tendrils, she heard the whisper and chatter of darkness. “Everyone can lie. Only I can see the truth.”

  Katza shook her head. The well called to her, offering with one ancient thread.

  “You need me,” Ravin said.

  Katza grasped the thread. Pechalnya, urging her to command that power once more. No—not Pechalnya. The siren she was before. Salka, sworn to protect Russalka by sea.

  Katza stood tall. “Not anymore.”

  Salka’s waters opened up and split the ice where Ravin stood. He stared at Katza, wild-eyed, as the ice cracked beneath him. The sound of it shattering echoed like rifle fire through the canals. Ravin’s eyes locked on hers, and she felt her heart pause.

  Then Ravin tumbled down into the depths of the canals. Salka swallowed him up, and sealed the ice over once more.

  The shadows hissed once, and then vanished. Smoke stopped pouring from the cathedral overhead. Only a brutal, heavy silence surrounded Katza now; the current of power had gone completely still.

  Katza stumbled forward, her feet unable to carry her any longer. She was battered and drained. Her heart ached in a thousand ways. The power was leaving her, now, and Salka’s siren call abated in her mind. She stared at the ice, afraid she would see that dark head reemerge from it. But Salka’s grip was true. Her oath to guard Russalka—absolute.

  Katza was free.

  She forced herself to stand and started for the quays, ice thickening beneath her with each step. With one last glance out across Pechalnoe Bay, Katza offered a word of thanks to Salka and trudged along in darkness.

  Russalka was free.

  Your Highness! Boj in heaven, what’s happened to you?”

  Nadika rushed forward, followed by a squadron of guards, as Katza limped toward the garrison gates. The burned tatters of her red skirt trailed behind her like blood. Tiny bite marks covered her legs, her arms, her face where the shadowy monsters had sunk in their teeth.

  “Nadika.” Katza all but stumbled into her friend’s arms. “It . . . it is done.”

  “What is done?” Nadika pushed her back, propping her up by her shoulders. “What have you done, tsarika?”

  “I’ve stopped him. The false prophet.”

  Nadika sucked in her breath. A dozen emotions passed over her face, but she seemed to settle on stoic pride. “Saints bless you for having the strength. But—” She laughed, dry, and pulled Katza into her embrace once more. “Why didn’t you warn me? What did he do to you?”

  “It doesn’t matter now. Russalka is free.”

  Katza sank into her friend’s warmth and let it smooth the hard edges of the chill she felt. For all that Salka had protected her from the water’s chill, a cold emptiness had settled into her spine, her limbs.

  “Well,” Nadika said darkly, “we’ll see about that.” Her gaze turned from Katza and toward where Ulmarova and her flock of followers sat in one corner of the garrison yard, chattering excitedly amongst themselves. Katza wondered, in the back of her mind, if she ought to be concerned. But she decided against it. Ulmarova was her prime minister now. Katza had no choice but to trust her. But she could also trust that Ulmarova would look all too eagerly for any opportunity to seize control for herself.

  Saint Volkov, Katza thought. Perhaps she could learn to wield Saint Volkov’s blessings as Ravin had, and peel back the layers of schemes and lies that surrounded Ulmarova and her agitators. Perhaps . . . later. When she was not so drained.

  Ulmarova caught her gaze then and raised a questioning eyebrow. Katza answered with a short nod. She had done what she’d set out to do. Ulmarova returned the nod with something dancing in her eyes. Dare Katza hope it was respect? Maybe in time, when she could better explain.

  Or maybe the details were better kept to herself.

  “Come on. Let’s get you to the physickers’ bay.” Nadika hoisted one of Katza’s arms over her shoulder. “We need you rested and healthy.”

  For what? Katza started to ask, before it all came rushing back. They’d be holding elections for Ulmarova’s council of representatives in two days, and in three days, the Hessarians were expected to arrive. Katza felt weary all over again.

  “Yes. Rest.” Katza coughed; it tasted of iron and brine. “Give me one solid night of rest. And then we can prepare.”

  “Would that I could give you more,” Nadika said, and helped her along, slowly, steady the whole way.

  Katza woke up in her own bed in the palace. She startled, bewildered; for a moment, she wondered if the past few days’ events had all been some terrible dream. But then she saw the empty brackets on the walls where looters had stolen artwork, and the broken window opposite her bed hastily boarded up with wood. She looked down at her arms and saw the thousand tiny cuts and splotchy bruises from her battle with Ravin.

  Boj in heaven. Katza sighed and sank back into the pillows.

  “You were born on the water, you know.”

  Katza’s mother sat beside her bed, freshly bathed and groomed. Some color had returned to her face, and with her hair untangled and styled, she almost looked the picture of health. Her green dress, simple velvet with embroidery, brought out the cool seaglass color of her eyes.

  “I’d gone with your father to a treaty summit in Hessaria. I don’t know what possessed me—I was ripe as a melon—but I couldn’t bear the thought of giving birth again without him at my side.” Her mother smiled sadly. “Back in those days, he hated to be apart from me, too.”

  Katza winced. So many people in the palace had forgotten that a living, breathing woman was inside in her mother’s skin. They treated her like a wild animal. Katza supposed she was guilty of it too. But her mother understood what was happening around her, even if she couldn’t find words for it at the time. She understood far more than she let on.

  “We made it all through the summit, all those interminable operas and balls and tours of Hessarian factories—none of the weapons factories, of course.” Her mother laughed to herself. “We’d made it all the way back to the Pechalnoe Bay, right into Pechalnya’s embrace, the winds wrapping around us . . . and that’s when my body split.”

  Sabine reached for Katza’s hand. Her skin was cold and dry. “You always belonged to the ocean, that’s what I think. Pechalnya wanted to be first in line to welcome you into the world. She’d battered the ship all day and all night, not that I noticed. I was in enough bloody pain as it was; I didn’t have time for seasickness, as well. But once you were born, the storms settled, the thin sheet of ice ebbed away, and we were able to return safely to Petrovsk.”

  Katza smiled at her, but a line creased her brow. On the one hand, it was just the sort of fanciful story her mother would make up, spinning them deep in the throes of her illness to justify her wild urges and thoughts. But on the other, it was the most lucid she’d seen her mother in . . . she couldn’t even recall how long.

  “I have Silov blood, too, you know.” Sabine’s eyes gleamed in the soft candlelight. “My mother’s uncle. As close as blood can get, and still marry.”

  Katza pressed her lips
together. “I’d forgotten about that.”

  “Oh, yes, everyone likes to forget. It’s why they spread all the stories about me, about my evil Hessarian side. How this madness must be Hessarian poison, looking to infect everyone I can. Ha!” She wrinkled her nose. “They think I don’t know what they say. But I hear everyone. The whole country cries out to me, and I listen, I heed their call.”

  Katza swallowed. There was the old illness she knew too well. She patted the back of her mother’s hand. “Mother, I’m sorry if anyone in my court has treated you unkindly.”

  “Treated me unkindly? You worry for me? You’re the one who should be afraid.” Sabine snapped her teeth into the air, like a hound snatching at a bug. “You don’t hear the whispers. The chatter in the ice.”

  “What whispers, Mother?” Katza asked. She spoke as calmly as possible, but her pulse was quickening.

  “The blood, the blood in Russalka’s veins. It fills the canals and flows downstream. It doesn’t forget. And neither can you.”

  Katza sat up fully. A warning trilled in the back of her skull. Some half-remembered vision—or perhaps something else. “What—what blood are you talking about? What am I not meant to forget?”

  “What once was, before the Church sealed it up, locked it away. Don’t you feel it calling from beyond the trees? It is what once was, and what will be again.” Her mother tore her hand from Katza’s and jabbed a crooked finger straight at her sternum. “It lurks behind the trees, waiting for you to tame it. Or worse, for it to tame you.”

  Katza blinked. Lurking behind the trees . . .

  She imagined the forest. The birches that surrounded the power’s well. She’d seen it when Ulmarova blocked it, just beyond her reach: a roaring river. Could that be what her mother meant?

  Or it was just another false vision, like so many countless ones her mother had experienced before. Katza’s shoulders slumped. She wanted to laugh at herself. It was almost as if she had been hoping her mother could see something that she couldn’t—that she could issue some divine pronouncement to assuage her fears and set her on the right path.

  What fears? Of Ulmarova and her ilk? Of Ravin? No. She had nothing left to fear from Ravin anymore.

  And yet Katza found herself wishing it weren’t so.

  Idiot girl. She was a tsarika, not a coquette free to pine away for a love that had never really been. Ravin wanted her for the power she could harness, and nothing more. Every kiss and touch and caress had been a carefully selected tool.

  So Katza had to believe, if she were to move ahead.

  Someone knocked on the door, and Nadika’s head appeared. “Prime Minister Ulmarova here to meet with you,” she said, unable to keep the disdain from her tone. “As well as Admiral Akuliy, and Guard Master Laskov.”

  Sabine stood up with a swish of her skirts. “I’ll leave you to your politics,” she said. “Way I hear it, you’ve plenty on your plate as it is.”

  Katza couldn’t argue with that. “Give me a moment to make myself presentable.” The last thing she needed was for Ulmarova to gloat over her while she was confined to a sickbed. “I’ll receive them in the parlor.”

  Sveta appeared to help her—she’d been held hostage in the palace’s basements, but had begged Nadika to let her return to work. Once she’d helped Katza into a blouse and loose blue overdress, Katza went to the parlor, where Nadika kept an eye on the advisers as if they were a swarm of ants who’d descended on her picnic. Katza couldn’t help but smile. Even ants had their uses, she thought, and she’d do her damnedest to put these ones to work.

  “Is everything prepared for your elections tomorrow?” Katza asked. Better to direct the flow of conversation. She’d learned that much from her father, at least.

  “Everything is set,” Ulmarova said. “Your courtiers are throwing a fit, but I’ll be damned if they think they can—”

  “They can complain all they like to me. The elections will proceed.” Ulmarova seemed satisfied with that, so Katza turned to the admiral. “What of the Hessarians’ approach?”

  “No change in their pace or in weather patterns. We expect them to reach the mouth of the bay in two days’ time. And the ground troops . . .”

  Katza grimaced. “I don’t suppose the Bintari have changed their minds.”

  “I petitioned the emir myself. For as long as you imprison Prince Fahed, they won’t pledge a single rifle nor blade to the cause.”

  Katza pinched the bridge of her nose. “But what if we offered—”

  “They will entertain absolutely no options. Not as long as the prince remains imprisoned.”

  Ulmarova made a little noise to herself, as if she had thoughts on the matter. Asking her for her advice was the last thing Katza cared to do, but she forced herself to turn to the woman. “Is there something you wish to suggest?”

  “Well,” Ulmarova said, “I think it’s fair to say your former fiancé and secretary are guilty of far less treason than I am. Yet here I sit.”

  Katza narrowed her eyes. “Would you rather I replace you with them?”

  “No, but in the interest of Russalka, you might reconsider your stance.”

  Katza groaned inwardly, but she knew the woman was right. If the Bintari Emirate would pledge soldiers, arms, resources to the fight against Hessaria—that was the sort of aid she could ill afford to turn down.

  “I will go to Temenok Island and speak with them,” Katza said. “But I make no promises.”

  Ulmarova tipped her head. “Fair enough, Your Highness.”

  Admiral Akuliy laced his fingers together and propped them against his stomach. “I won’t lie to you, tsarika. We stand to lose a great deal. With or without the Bintari, the Hessarians could crush us all where we stand. Their engineering, weaponry, their sheer number of fighters—it’s far more than we could ever afford, even if Bintar had been with us all along.”

  “But Hessaria does not have me.”

  Katza saw it again, the forest—the shimmer of gold beyond her reach. She didn’t need to seize it all at once. Didn’t need to bathe in its power, its violence, its bloodshed and lust. She could pull the individual strands down, fuel each blessing in its own right, and keep control. She would be in control. She need not succumb to the lust that had claimed Ravin.

  Katza realized, then, that the others were staring at her. And every last one of them—Ulmarova included—looked terrified.

  Katza exhaled and forced a smile to her face, though it felt false with cheer, like the fake flowers some courtiers wore in the depths of winter. “We can review the plans again when I return from Temenok Island. Perhaps the Bintari can be persuaded to aid us still.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.” Admiral Akuliy hoisted himself to his feet, and the others readily followed suit. “I look forward to it.”

  They shuffled toward the doors and excused themselves in a hurry. Katza had the distinct sense they were all thrilled to be done with each other. But she didn’t care. She had a mission before her: serve her people. Stop the Hessarians.

  At long last, she had the tools available to her to do just that. Truly, now. As a guardian of Russalka. As its proper tsarika.

  Nadika cleared her throat. “Your Highness . . .”

  Katza lifted her head.

  “I—I’m afraid you’re bleeding.”

  “Oh.” Katza looked down; a pool of blood was welling up beneath the bandage around her shoulder. She swiped away some with her fingertip, but panic trembled up her spine. For a moment, her hands held out before her, she imagined her vision coming to life, her arms stained, and she could almost feel the cold radiating through the hollow inside of her—could almost believe the wolf lay slain before her in the snow—

  “—Your Highness. Your Highness?”

  Katza snapped back into the present. Nadika was shaking her, calling for her. There was no clearing. No wol
f. No snow. Only an unhealed wound. Katza pulled away from Nadika, shaking her head.

  Saint Lechka. Heal this wound—

  Her stomach twisted even as she thought the name. The saint who never answered her call. The saint only Ravin seemed able to call down, as effortlessly as all the rest.

  But that had been just another lie. There was no Lechka, judging Katza and deeming her unfit to be blessed. There was only the well, and the threads she could pull from it.

  With tears in her eyes, Katza reached once more through the forest. Found that rushing, clamoring stream. Plucked a single strand of gold from it to heal and cleanse her wound.

  And quietly, calmly, with no fanfare or gust of wind, Lechka’s power suffused her. She felt it stitch through her shoulder, into her collarbone, and close up the gash. Whatever the shadows had done to her, the golden light washed away. The pressure against her brain eased, curing that relentless headache. And in the time it took for her to calm her breathing, the pain was gone.

  Katza opened her eyes again to find Nadika staring at her. Not in fear, but in awe.

  Tears crowded the corners of Katza’s eyes. There had never been a cold Lechka, refusing to heed her call. Could she have saved Aleksei? Her father, too?—But no. She remembered what Ravin had said. There were wounds that could be healed, but diseases that would remain.

  She swallowed, trying to moisten her parched throat. “Fetch the guards. I wish to visit the prisoners in Temenok.”

  Chunks of ice battered against the dinghy as they churned their way across the bay. Winter was only beginning to close her fist around Russalka, and it would be many days before the bay iced over in full; but Katza noticed, with a glance toward Saint Kirill’s, that the unnatural ice she’d created with Pechalnya remained. It comforted her and scared her. Eventually, she’d have to recover Ravin’s body. To give her peace of mind, if nothing else.

  “It is a brave thing you do, tsarika,” said the ensign who helmed the boat. “I wouldn’t have it in me to forgive them. Not Ulmarova, not the rest.”