His waving, dark hair had grown two inches longer since I’d last seen him; the front locks hung near to his chin when they used to fall across his eye. He’d grown a short beard, making him look at least five years older than his youthful age of nineteen. All his traveling had wrought him leaner and more muscular. His cheekbones protruded with sharper relief against his chiseled face, and his rolled-back sleeves revealed sinewy, tanned arms.
While I didn’t want him to see me yet, I yearned for the stalwart strains of his aura, the patient notes that hummed along my nerves and soothed my troubled heart. My chest ached that I was unable to draw him into me and hold his energy there, where it belonged.
He leapt down from his horse and gave a quick embrace to Tosya, as well as a nod of greeting to Genevie. I couldn’t be sure from up here, but his expression seemed pensive. He exchanged a few words with Tosya, glanced around the grounds, pointed down the road to a small company of men who had traveled with him, then looked up at the convent. He scrubbed a hand over his face and walked inside.
Genevie whispered something to Tosya, looking at the tree I was nestled in, and struck a path for the hospital tent.
Tosya scratched the nape of his neck, feigning casualness as he meandered back to the maple I was hiding in like an ash-drenched squirrel. “A ruble for your thoughts?” He poked his head under a low-lying branch.
“Ten for your aura,” I countered. “Or Anton’s. Or anyone’s.”
He spread his empty hands wide. “I’m afraid you don’t have that kind of money, dear Sonya.”
Resigned, I climbed down the branches. Tosya looked hopeful for a moment, but then I hopped down and ran for a small orchard in the back of the convent.
“Where are you going?” he demanded, tired of my games.
“Thank you for covering for me!”
“You can’t hide forever,” he called in a singsong voice. “Ten years with the Romska should have taught you that.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
I WASHED MY HAIR IN A LITTLE DITCH THAT RAN THROUGH THE orchard and did my best to scrub my body, hoping my ash-coated blue sarafan wouldn’t make me filthy again. I told myself I wasn’t wasting time. I’d have to bathe before my journey tomorrow, anyway, and I was already packed with my food provisions wrapped. As my hair dried, flowing loose in dark-blond waves to the lower ridge of my spine, I dipped my toes in the water and gazed at my rippling reflection. The day passed this way: me staring at hazel eyes and wondering where all my courage had gone. I had stood up to tyrants, silenced courtrooms, and wrestled violent auras inside me. Why couldn’t I face the boy I loved?
Why had Anton stopped here, anyway? Ormina was three days out of the way from Torchev to the mountain pass.
Was he still going to Estengarde? I hoped so and feared so. I wanted to be with him, but didn’t. Not if everything was lost between us.
Through the tree canopy above, golden flecks of sunlight turned to shimmering silver moonlight. Still, I didn’t move from the orchard. The glow of a lantern approached, bouncing leafy shadows about its circumference. I stiffened until I heard Genevie’s voice calling, “Sonya?”
I slowly stood and turned around. Genevie wasn’t alone. Nadia was with her, two lines creased between her brows. No doubt she was annoyed she had to come out here at nighttime to find me.
Genevie smiled and tilted her head. “Your hair is pretty like that.”
“Doesn’t it look ravishing with my dress?” I twisted back and forth at the waist, displaying the sooty fabric.
“Your prince will like it.”
“Shh.” Nadia nudged her.
I frowned, studying the sly glimmer in Genevie’s eyes, all the more pronounced by the lantern’s flame. “What’s going on?”
“It was meant to be a surprise,” Nadia said.
“What was?” My stomach knotted with misgiving.
“Tu verras.” Genevie pulled a large handkerchief from her pocket. “Come and find out.”
When I made a small moan of resistance, Nadia rolled her eyes and grabbed my arm.
I tugged at the blindfold over my eyes. “Is this really necessary?”
“No,” Nadia replied. “We just like confusing you.”
I pressed my lips together against a terse remark. “Are we almost there yet?”
“Yes.”
The coolness of the convent’s stone walls surrounded me, but I couldn’t place our destination within. “Is this surprise your idea or Anton’s?” I asked, the toe of my shoe catching on the corner of a rug.
“Anton’s,” Genevie said. I could hear the smile in her voice.
“Hmm.” I imagined what he’d reveal once the game was up. Maybe a map of Riaznin flagged with provinces, cities, and villages that had managed to defend themselves against the Shenglin invasion and not declare allegiance to Valko in the process. But that might only be three or four pitiful flags. Nothing to celebrate.
Genevie spun me in three circles, then pulled me a new direction. After fifteen more steps, she did it again, continuing to guide me deeper inside. Soon I was completely disoriented.
We turned a corner and entered a new space. I sensed the vastness of the room by the far-reaching echoes of our footsteps.
“Arrête.” Genevie touched my arm. “We are here.”
She removed my blindfold and let go of my hand. My gaze settled on the brightest spot before me, a large panel of windows, its curtains drawn open. The moonlight spilled inside and illuminated the well-ordered rows of oak tables and surrounding river-rock walls.
I was in the dining hall, the most magnificent room in the convent, simple as it was.
The door clicked shut behind me. Genevie and Nadia had disappeared.
“Sonya,” Anton said.
I shivered with a sudden rush of warmth. I hadn’t heard his voice this close to me in what felt like ages. It rumbled softly in its deep and resonant octave. Glancing to my left, I saw him in a dim recess of the room.
He walked nearer, hands behind his back, and my heart raced, sending a flush of fire to my cheeks. He’d shaved his beard, combed back his hair, and brushed the dust from his homespun green kaftan, the inconspicuous clothing he’d journeyed in.
My throat ran dry, caught up as I was in drinking in the sight of him. I’d imagined this moment for months, me running into his arms as he whirled me around, both of us weeping with happiness. But now I couldn’t move. My joy felt buried beneath my pulsing anxiety.
Anton withdrew his hands from behind his back and offered me a bouquet of delicate-blue aster and a shy smile.
I reached for the flowers, then resisted, pressing my hand to my stomach. “Anton, I . . . I need to tell you something.”
“I know you lost your abilities.” His voice was steady, gliding on waveless water. “Tosya told me.”
My mouth unhinged. A terrible concoction of humiliation and fury brewed in my gut. “Oh, yes? Well, then I’ll kill him.”
“You might regret that.”
“Doubtful.”
“You were on the verge of telling me yourself just now.”
“Which was my right, not his.”
“I agree, though you should know I tortured him for the information.”
I snorted and crossed my arms. “How, by threatening to steal his quill? He probably caved immediately.”
Anton’s grin spread to his eyes. “You’re even more beautiful than I remembered.”
I froze, searching his face, aching to sense what I couldn’t feel inside him. “How can I be,” I whispered, unable to support my breath, “when I feel so empty?”
“Sonya . . .” Was it pain or regret that laced the edge of his voice? Did sympathy or fatigue weave through his gilded brown irises? “Please,” he said, “take my hand.”
After a beat of hesitation, I offered him my half-curled fist. He threaded our fingers together. Our physical connection released a slow exhale from inside me. I’d forgotten how perfectly I fit against him, the heel of my hand in the
cup of his palm.
He led me across the room to the open floor before the windows. I found myself staring at the leaded panes of glass. They were new. I’d broken the old ones when I’d fallen outside in the snow, moments before the convent fire raged out of control. “Will you pretend something for me?” Anton asked.
“What?”
“See those three candles?” I followed his gaze to a branching candlestick on a nearby table. “Imagine scores more around us, washing everything in golden light. The breeze against the windows is violin strings.” He pulled me nearer and tipped his head. “If you listen closer, you’ll hear the flute and oboe in the orchestra. They’re playing a Riaznian waltz. I’m wearing a fine kaftan”—he broadened his shoulders—“and you’re in an elegant silk dress. These wildflowers are roses from the garden beside the palace orchard. And this stone floor is smooth and shining marble. It makes you feel like you’re walking on glass.”
“Sounds very imperial,” I said, though I clung to the beautiful spell of his words.
Anton broke into a warm chuckle. “I suppose it does.” He set down the aster bouquet on a table and reached beside it to pick up another arrangement of flowers that were woven into a delicate crown. They reminded me of the hawthorn blossoms I’d worn at Kivratide, back when I’d had such naive hope for peace after Valko abdicated. Anton had later given me another crown, red with poppies, once I was stable after being shot. I’d found them when I regained consciousness. I’d feared they meant he was saying good-bye forever. “Do you know what I’ve been thinking about all these months?”
I contemplated him, genuinely curious. “Perhaps you wish you and I could return to the way things were before . . .” Before we rushed into this revolution. “Is that what all this is about?”
He shook his head, eyes lowered as he idly touched one of the flower petals. “I wish I’d danced with you at the Morva’s Eve ball.”
I swallowed, suddenly timid and warm and far too wobbly on my feet. “Oh.”
He met my eyes again. Something about his gaze sent heat through my body. It cascaded from the tips of my shoulders down the lengths of my arms to the very ends of my fingertips.
He approached me. Past the leaded glass, the moonlight traveled over him, painting rippling shadows across his body. “I admired your courage in asking me to dance that night, despite the shock of the court ladies. You were so beautiful. I didn’t dare hold your gaze for fear I would reveal my aura and what I truly felt about you. That was the first night you hinted at any affection for me, but I didn’t trust it. I was afraid.”
“I scared you?”
Anton placed the flower crown on my head, his fingers trailing down to the sensitive spot behind my ear. “Very much. You still do.”
His scent of musk and pine brought me back to our journey in the troika from Ormina to Torchev, back in our first days together, when I was learning to trust him. “Even powerless?”
“Sonya . . .” His thumb brushed my cheekbone. “Do you think I love you because you’re an Auraseer?”
I shrugged, glancing down at the ashy folds of my dress. I supposed I didn’t think that, not when I forced myself to be rational. But Anton had endured so much by leading a revolution and dealing with the never-ending fallout. If I were still gifted, I could be helping him. “I wanted to be more for you.”
The warm press of his lips lighted against my brow. He tenderly lifted my chin, and the tears trapped in my lashes fell. “And I wanted to give you a peaceful life in Riaznin,” he said, his own eyes shining, “but I wouldn’t trade that for this life with you, just as you are.”
Months of pent-up tension released from the tight space between my shoulder blades.
I drew a deep and sustaining breath. Just as you are echoed in my mind.
His hand slid to cradle my cheek. “Let me give you what I can . . . my heart and this quiet moment that no one can steal from us, not even Feliks.” When my posture sagged, he nodded. “Tosya told me everything.” A shadow of rage crossed Anton’s face, but he swallowed, striving to compose himself. “When the Romska warned me Feliks was coming here, I rode back to make sure you were safe.”
My stomach twisted, thinking of the ultimatum the general had given me. “I don’t know how I’m going to—”
“I promise we’ll find a solution together.”
“Did Tosya also tell you about Sestra Mirna?” I bit the inside of my cheek against the sting of threatening tears.
“Yes.” Anton leaned his forehead against mine. “I’m so sorry.” His hand cupped the back of my head, and he ran his fingers through my hair. “You’ve endured so much. But for now, please, let me give you respite.”
The comfort he offered felt tangible enough to fold myself in. All our troubles would exist in the morning, but for an hour or two, we could allow this world to narrow to us, a boy and a girl in a moonlit room.
Stepping back, Anton swept into a graceful bow. “May I have this dance, Sonya Petrova?”
I sniffed and cracked a smile. “If you don’t mind getting covered in soot, I would be honored, Anton Ozerov.”
He drew me close to him, one hand wrapping around my back, the other extending my arm. The silent orchestra started playing a new waltz, and our feet swept into its one-two-three rhythm. “Do you know what else I wish?” he asked.
“Careful, you might end up with more regrets than I do.”
“I wish I’d kissed you in the troika.”
My smile tempered and heart fluttered. “Truly? You didn’t seem very keen on me back then.”
“I was good at deceiving you. I remember so vividly when you were nodding off to sleep. Snowflakes kept melting on your lips. I’d guarded myself against you, but in that moment, my feelings got the better of me. I’m surprised my aura didn’t wake you.”
I tilted my head as we revolved. The moonlight and the candles swirled behind us. “Tell me what you felt. I miss knowing.”
He looked away to the window, then back at me, boyish and shy, maybe even a little embarrassed. “Mostly afraid,” he confessed.
My brows lifted. “More fear? I have a gift for bringing that out in you, don’t I?”
“I’m not finished,” he said. The warm print of his hand seeped through the back of my dress as he drew me nearer. “I was afraid at the level of admiration I already felt for a girl I’d just met—a girl I thought I could never have.” He stopped dancing, and my dress swished about my ankles. “Sonya, a moment ago, you said you wanted to be more for me. But that girl you were, unaware of any revolution, sleeping with my mother’s blanket wrapped around her, the snow glistening in her hair . . . she has always been enough.”
My skin warmed, bathed in a glow that radiated from deep within me. I loved him. I adored him. Stronger than ever before. I searched for the right words to express how much, but all I managed to say was, “Are you going to kiss me now? Because I’d really like for you to kiss me now.”
He grinned, giving the slightest pout. “I was rather hoping you would kiss me now, what with that romantic story I just told.”
A bubble of laughter tickled up my throat, but I didn’t release it. I was too enraptured by the candlelight and how it caught on the divot above Anton’s upper lip. My voice went a little hoarse when I replied, “Perhaps we can compromise.”
We drifted nearer in sweet slowness and sealed off the small gap between us. His hands wound through my unbound hair. Mine found purchase on the hardness of his chest. Our noses softly bumped, then our lips.
We got to know each other again, taking our time, remembering the gentle push and pull of our rhythm, the way he tipped his head whenever he drew breath, and how he let me guide his mouth for my consent to draw the kiss deeper.
At length, he tucked my head against the curve of his neck, and I wrapped my arms around his torso. “Somehow we’re going to be fine, you and me . . . this nation. I won’t let us lose what we’ve fought so hard to attain.”
I let his words sink into me a
s we held each other, clinging on to that hope, the breeze singing against the windowpanes like the high, faint strains of a violin.
CHAPTER EIGHT
NADIA JOSTLED ME AWAKE THE NEXT MORNING, SO EARLY only a hazy promise of sunlight caught in the weave of my bedroom curtains. It was the day our party was going to set off to Estengarde. “I’ve decided to stay,” she announced.
I could scarcely see her face in the dimness. I didn’t trust I’d heard her correctly. “What?” My voice was still thick with sleep. Nadia and I had been arguing over whether she should remain here ever since Feliks left. She wished to meet Madame Perle, too, but we didn’t want to leave Genevie—someone unfamiliar with the convent—alone to wait for the other Esten Auraseers, especially with all the sick soldiers and the possibility that the bounty hunter was still lurking nearby.
“I have something to show you.” Nadia lit the candle on my bedside table. The rest of my grogginess vanished upon seeing Sestra Mirna’s journal in her hands. I propped myself up on my elbows as Nadia knelt next to the bed and laid the book on the edge of my mattress. She opened it to a ribbon-marked page where Sestra Mirna had written Yuliya Aliyeva in her bold and deliberate handwriting. “Look at this genealogy.” Nadia tucked her raven hair behind her ears and pointed to the names that branched upward from Yuliya—her parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and some distant aunts and uncles. Other spots were left blank where Sestra Mirna must not have yet deduced who belonged there. “You see this great-aunt here, Verusha Kovrova, and the marking beneath her name?”
I rubbed my eyes and focused on the underscoring line. All the names on the page had one, except this woman’s line was embellished with two angled points on the right end, like an arrow with two arrowheads. “The same marking is also below Yuliya’s name,” I said.
“Yes. Two angles nested side by side. It’s an ancient symbol for Feya.”
My spine tingled. “You think Yuliya’s great-aunt was an Auraseer?” Feya wasn’t the supreme god in Riaznin’s pantheon, even if we treated her as such in the convent. She was the goddess of prophecy and Auraseers.
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