Seeker of the Crown

by Ruth Lauren

  Silence drops on us like snowfall dislodged from a roof.

  When I look down at my hands, they’re clenched into fists. “Anastasia’s behind this.”

  Sasha frowns more deeply. “I wonder if she got Anatol banished just to get him out of the way so she could do this.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised.” My voice comes out sounding weary. I feel weary now that we’ve stopped running.

  Feliks shakes his head. “How did she pull this off, though? I mean, it’s the queen. And in broad daylight.” He’s half in awe of the sheer audacity of the feat, I can tell.

  “Queen Ana can’t really have vanished,” I say. “She must have gone somewhere. Which means she can be found.” I think about the tunnels under the city, about the fountain that I never knew to be anything but a fountain until this week, about the very place we’re sitting right now, in a building I’ve walked past hundreds of times in my life without ever guessing this room existed.

  “This library has hidden exits,” I say. “I’d bet my life on it.”

  Sasha’s head lifts. “Yes. A lot of old buildings in the city do—not just the palace.”

  “Do you know any?” I can’t keep my voice from sounding tart.

  Sasha notices and frowns. “Of course not. I’d tell you if I did.”

  “So the queen might have been taken through the same door we just used.” Feliks rises a little from his seat, though I can’t tell if it’s from an unconscious desire to bolt for his own safety or to find Queen Ana.

  Sasha shakes her head. “I don’t think so. There wasn’t enough time to do that before we got here.”

  “There weren’t any tracks in the snow, either,” I say. “Anastasia must have had some other way.”

  “And she must have had help,” says Nicolai.

  “She always does.” My sister’s voice is sour, and I’m reminded again how Anastasia’s betrayal still sits just below the surface with her.

  I lean forward, my elbows on the table. “If Father knew of any hidden places in the library, he’d be ordering the Guard to search them right now—”

  “He would, but Father mustn’t be involved in anything we do here.” Sasha’s words cut in before mine have finished.

  “Why not?” I wait for my sister to speak again, but she just looks at Katia and Feliks for a long moment and then lowers her eyes to the table.

  “If you want me and Feliks to leave, we can go,” says Katia quickly, but I hear the note of hurt hidden under the hard edge of her voice.

  “No,” Sasha and I say at once.

  “That’s not what I meant,” says Sasha. “I just meant we can’t ask Father to keep all the secrets we’re keeping. It’s not only the matter of Feliks and Katia’s … current status. Think about what’s going to happen if the queen isn’t found quickly. Who’s going to stop the Pyots’k army from marching right through Demidova and using our ports whether we say they can or not?”

  “We should just let them,” mutters Feliks.

  Sasha’s eyes widen. “No, Feliks! What do you think they’d do once they gained access to our ports? They’d wage war on Saylas.”

  Feliks scowls. “I don’t care about Saylas. I care about us.”

  Nicolai blows out a loud breath. “Feliks, if we let Pyots’k use our ports, then the people of Saylas will know we let Pyots’k attack them. They’ll start fighting with us.”

  “It would drag Demidova—drag all of us—into a war,” says Sasha. She looks at Feliks and then pointedly at Nicolai’s Guard uniform.

  Feliks’s face changes, and Sasha gives him a small, sad smile.

  “My being in the Guard has nothing to do with this,” says Nicolai, his chest puffing up a little. “I don’t want a war any more than any of you do, but if I have to fight for Prince Anatol and Queen Ana and Demidova, I will.”

  “No one is questioning your loyalty, or your bravery,” says Sasha.

  Katia’s head has dropped. I reach out for her and touch her cold hand. “What’s the matter, Katia?”

  “What will happen to me if Pyots’k goes to war with Demidova?”

  “What do you mean?” asks Nicolai.

  Katia just shakes her head.

  Feliks answers for her. “She’s from Pyots’k.”

  He looks to Sasha. Her face is grave, but she doesn’t speak. I don’t know the answer to Katia’s question either, not fully, but Katia’s light skin and hair make it easy to tell she’s from Pyots’k. If they cause a war, how will she fare on the streets of Demidova?

  “I don’t even know anyone in Pyots’k who would want war,” says Katia. “It isn’t like that. We’re not like that, but Queen Lidiya …” Her shoulders slump.

  Everyone is silent for a few long seconds, until Nicolai drags his hands through his hair. “Prince Anatol would never order anything that would hurt you, Katia.” He looks dazed, though, as he shakes his head. “And I would never take orders from anyone—”

  “You don’t know that. You might have no choice. Do you think every member of Queen Lidiya’s Guard would want to treat Demidovans badly?” Katia’s fingers worry at each other, her hands clasped on the table.

  Nicolai sets his jaw, his mouth a stubborn line. “It won’t come to it. I studied hard and trained even harder to get my apprenticeship, and I did not put in all that work to become someone who would …” He sighs. “I’m sorry, I have to get back before I’m missed. I’ll say I was helping round up the crowd. No one will suspect anything with the chaos that’s gone on up there. But, Sasha … Are you sure I can’t let your father know about any of this? If we could get word to someone in charge—”

  Sasha shakes her head. “Father will have so much responsibility. Surely you understand, Nicolai, that sometimes the soldiers must protect the general. He needs to be above reproach; he needs plausible deniability.”

  Feliks looks at me blankly.

  I wish I could answer him.

  “Plainly put,” says Sasha, “I mean our father can’t know what we’re doing. We’ll only put him in danger if we involve him. And if I know my sister, we’re going to do something.”

  I start nodding. “The queen didn’t ask Father to find Anastasia, she asked me. And she swore me to secrecy—you know that, Nicolai. We can’t drag our parents into this. Father needs to keep peace with Magadanskya and with Pyots’k. The less he knows about what we’re doing, the better. Then if anything goes wrong, or if we—if we need to do anything he wouldn’t think proper—he’ll have never known about it.”

  Nicolai bites his lip, and then nods.

  Sasha smacks her hand lightly on the table. “Exactly. And it’s like you said, Valor—if Father knows of any possible route out of the library, he’ll have ordered it searched, and the queen will have been followed and found by now.”

  “You should go up with Nicolai and find out,” I say. “Father will give you access. He’ll tell you what’s happening.”

  “True. And it’s been too long already; he’ll worry if he can’t find me.”

  Sasha pushes her chair back, the sound echoing loudly over our hushed voices in the chamber. She and Nicolai hurry away, and for long minutes Katia, Feliks, and I sit. I begin to feel the ache in my legs, the bruises on my elbows, the cuts and scrapes on my hands, and the deep, deep tiredness that weighs down my whole body.

  Sasha finally comes back, quiet and alone, her pace giving away the fact that she doesn’t bring good news. The queen hasn’t been found. Father doesn’t know how she was taken, or where, or why, but he’s in the archive hall now, issuing a constant stream of orders while every alley, spire, and cobblestone of the city is searched.

  “So are there really no other ways out of this building?” asks Katia.

  Sasha shakes her head. “No, there must be a way, Father agrees. He just can’t find it. There are things only the members of the royal family know, but the king has no knowledge that can help. In fact, Father could get very little out of him—it’s such a dreadful shock after Anastasia,
and then Anatol being accused.” She presses her lips together, pity and worry mixed on her face. “Father told me to find you, Valor, and go straight home. He would have had a guard take us if any could be spared.” Her shoulders slump as she takes a seat at the table again, but mine tense as I realize what has to happen.

  “Anatol,” I say.

  Feliks frowns.

  “There are some things only the members of the royal family know. If Anastasia knew of a way out, then she must have learned it from the queen, and if she learned it from the queen—”

  “Then perhaps the prince knows too,” finishes Sasha. Her eyes are bright again.

  My mind is whirring, picking up speed. “Who do we ask about having him released?” I look to my sister.

  “I don’t know.” She wraps her arms around herself. “I don’t know what’s going to happen without a queen on the throne. But by the end of the day, Father will.”

  “We should be at home waiting when he gets back,” I say. “If we’re going to keep my mission to find Anastasia a secret, he and Mother can’t know about what happened today. They’ll never let us out of their sight again.” I gesture toward my damp and ill-fitting clothes.

  “You’re right. We should meet up again tomorrow, but we should go now. You can tell me how this happened on the way.” Sasha shakes her head as though she can’t even begin to fathom how the three of us ended up this way. I don’t blame her.

  Hearing Sasha mention Anastasia—how raw she still sounded—makes me regret asking her whether she knew anything more about passageways in the library. I touch my sister’s arm as we head for the door. “It’s fortunate you knew about this place.”

  “Fortune bred of spending much of the past thirteen years here,” she says. It’s only a slight rib about the fact that I’ve spent precisely none of the past thirteen years here, but it’s enough to harden my feelings again after how things have recently been between us.

  “Maybe your father and the Guard will find the queen quickly,” says Feliks. “Then we won’t have to do anything at all.”

  “Maybe,” I say. But for some reason I don’t believe it.

  I don’t think any of us do.

  Sasha nudges me awake. When I move, everything hurts, and it takes me a few seconds to remember that I’m at home, still sitting upright on my bed. At least I’m wearing clean, dry clothes—I vaguely remember tugging them on after we sneaked into the house right before Mother got back. She still questioned me closely about where I’d been. Sasha had to answer, because I had no idea that I’d spent the day safe at target practice, honing my rusty crossbow skills after the trip to Magadanskya.

  “Father’s back,” says Sasha. Her face is guarded, tense.

  I scramble off the bed. We’ve been waiting hours for our father to return—at least I judge it to be hours by how dark it is outside.

  Sasha runs along the landing to the top of the stairs. Our parents’ voices are coming from the kitchen downstairs. Something in their tone makes us both falter. We look at each other and stop, an unspoken agreement stilling us and making us sink down near the top of the stairs instead.

  I rest my head on the railing. Sasha, two steps above me, leans forward, her elbows on her knees.

  “… delicate situation … unease …” Father is pacing, and his voice drops in and out of range.

  Mother’s voice is easier to hear. “… terrible … disaster for the country. What are we going to do? They must find her. There’ll be chaos without a queen, and no heir in Demidova—”

  She stops abruptly. I look back at Sasha. She frowns and shakes her head.

  “What is it?” asks Mother.

  “There is an heir.”

  Father’s voice is clear now, as if he’s stopped pacing. I can picture the deep crease between his eyebrows.

  “Inessa Alistratova, the queen’s sister’s second daughter. She’s not next in line, but we can’t wait for the elder daughter; we must restore order as quickly as possible. It’s our only chance to continue to stave off Queen Lidiya of Pyots’k and maintain our links with Magadanskya. If either sees our position weakening …”

  I turn to Sasha. The crease between her eyebrows—a softer version of Father’s—is as deep as I’ve ever seen it.

  “Any regent would be walking into a difficult position. There’s already so much work for her to do,” says Mother. “Isn’t she injured?”

  “Yes, although not badly. She’s young, though, and timid, from what I’ve seen. She’ll need a lot of counsel.” Father just sounds tired now, as if the thought has reminded him of all that’s happened today and all he still has to do.

  There’s movement in the kitchen—footsteps on the stone floor. Sasha and I rise and pad quickly back to our rooms. We no longer need to ask Father who has the power to release Prince Anatol.

  On her first day in office, we’ll have one more matter to put to the new queen regent.

  CHAPTER 9

  My breath huffs out fast as Sasha and I weave through the crowded streets near the palace in the early morning chill. Everybody’s out. Everybody’s talking. Nobody’s paying attention to a group of street performers with painted faces. The festival for Saint Sergius’s Day is supposed to last all week, but it’s been overshadowed and all but forgotten now.

  Both Mother and Father were up and gone before Sasha and I rose. They left a note with strict instructions to stay in the house this morning until they return. Neither of us likes deceiving them, but Sasha says it is for the greater good.

  That’s true, but I don’t think she would have said that a year ago.

  My whole body aches. I have a new and unrivaled appreciation for dry clothing—and an old yet still surprising appreciation for my sister’s powers of persuasion. We left the house this morning in complete agreement that we needed to gain an audience at the palace today, but now we’re almost at the gates and we still don’t agree on what we should say when we get there.

  Sasha looks over at me. “We have to tell her about the mission Queen Ana entrusted you with, Valor. She’s queen regent—ruler of the whole country. And she’s not going to lift the banishment on Anatol and let us do whatever we want just because we say she should. She barely knows us at all.”

  I keep my voice low. “We’ve been through this already. I don’t see why we have to blindly tell the queen regent everything. I don’t see why we even have to decide what to tell her right now. Can’t we see what she says when we get there?” Maybe it’s my time in Tyur’ma that makes me feel uneasy, makes me want to hold things back until I’m sure I can trust someone.

  “Nobody enters a conversation like this without having thought it through first,” says Sasha.

  “Sometimes you just have to react in the moment,” I mutter, though I know she’ll never change her mind.

  As we clear the last street and enter the central square, I catch sight of the golden gates of the palace and the onion domes rising above them. The snow has been cleared, and our boots hit cobbles as we make our way to a back entrance that Sasha knows.

  We pass through it unchallenged—Sasha’s been here before, and a few words to a guard who recognizes her gain us entry—though for some reason my heart beats fast, like I’m some kind of criminal. I can’t quite shake that feeling, though I never truly was one.

  We scurry down a long, narrow passageway, then up a flight of stone steps. I hear a high voice falter and then speak up again, and then we’re out in the palace proper, among a group of Father’s colleagues in the great hall with its mosaicked floor. The room is full of advisers in the blue cloaks they wear—I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many gathered together all at once.

  Father himself must be here somewhere, though I can’t see him. And I definitely don’t want him to see us. Sasha and I hang back by a marble pillar, our heads lowered. But no one’s paying any attention to us. They’re all listening to the girl at the front of the room.

  She wears a dark, somber dress and stands on a platform
flanked by two guards wearing purple sashes. I don’t see much of the small, chubby girl I vaguely remember in her. She’s as tall as I am and trying to stand like the queen does, though her wrist is bound in a silk sling tied around her neck.

  I think we’ve entered at the finale of her speech, because the first thing I hear her say is, “Rest assured, I am here to do everything in my power to not only stand in as queen regent and make sure our fine country is safe but also to ensure that the rightful queen is restored to the throne as swiftly as possible.” She almost rushes through the words, as though she’s memorized them and is glad to finish.

  Then she bows her head, the diamonds on the kokoshnik she wears glinting in the many lamps that burn along the length of the hall. The assembled advisers bow back. I tug Sasha behind the pillar.

  We wait until the room clears, watching as advisers, some clutching papers, break into clumps and hurry away, talking to one another. I don’t see Father, but as I sneak a look around the pillar, I do see the queen regent heading back into a separate chamber. The door shuts with an echo, and we’re alone in the great hall.

  “Now’s our chance,” I say.

  We steal across the room, glancing left and right, and knock at the door.

  “Enter.”

  Sasha wipes her palm on her trousers and turns the knob. The queen regent sits at a desk, upright in her brocade gown. She’s maybe a little older than we are, tall but slightly built. She looks like someone who’s trying not to look anxious, and I don’t blame her one bit. As Anastasia’s cousin—and not even firstborn—she must never have expected to find herself thrust onto the throne.

  “Queen Inessa.” My sister bows low, and I remember myself and do the same.

  The queen regent looks at us expectantly. Her dark eyes are set deep and ringed with thick black lashes. “And to whom do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” she asks.

  “We met briefly yesterday,” says my sister. “I am Sasha Raisayevna—”

  The queen regent rises immediately. “Yes, of course! And this must be Valor! I have met your father and heard much about both of you already,” Inessa says warmly. “He helped me with that speech, although I’m afraid I didn’t do it justice.”