Web of Frost (Saints of Russalka Book 1)

by Lindsay Smith

Katza turned toward Stolichkov, who had been examining the seams on his leather gloves. “What budgetary concerns?”

  Stolichkov dropped his hand. “My dear girl, these have been a trying few years since the war. We believed our troubles with the Hess were settled, after all. Your father focused his efforts on quelling the peasant rebellions in the further provinces, importing grain from Abingdon and Bintar, and then of course there’s been all the trouble with the manufacturing sector . . .”

  Katza stared at him, slack-jawed. “The Russalkan factories are some of the greatest in the known world. One of the sources of our wealth, keeping so many nobles flush with finance—”

  Stolichkov burst into laughter. It felt as sharp on Katza’s skin as the cold. “Your Highness . . . Heavens, no. We’ve been losing to Texeira and Bintar in manufactured goods for a few years now. But we must keep the nobles happy and the undesirable sorts employed, must we not?”

  “I don’t follow,” Katza said.

  “Your father’s administration was subsidizing the factories to keep them running until we could gain an edge once more. He felt certain we’d achieve a breakthrough, but no one outside of Russalka cares for Russalkan goods. Not right now.”

  “So we paid the factories to produce things no one wants in factories that actively try to kill their workers—” Katza pinched the bridge of her nose. “Never mind. We’ll have to address that later. We need to head out into the bay now.”

  “We?” Akuliy screeched. “I beg your pardon, Your Highness, but we?”

  Katza nodded as the aide returned with fresh garments from Sveta. “I’m headed out with the fleet.”

  Nadika looked ready to spit poison. “Absolutely not, Your Highness!”

  Katza accepted the garments from the aide. “Fetch the prophet Ravin for me.” Then, to Nadika, “I most certainly am. It’s our best chance at stopping the Hess. They may have the better fleet, but we—I—have the saints’ blessings.”

  “Please, Your Highness—” Stolichkov started.

  “Your father might have spared us all in the Five Days’ War,” Admiral Akuliy said, “but there is no guarantee you can do the same. It’s far too risky. Please, let me carry out our maneuvers as best we can. It’s our surest chance.”

  “Perhaps I can’t do what my father did,” Katza said. “But perhaps I can do better.”

  “But you haven’t Patriarch Anton’s permission—”

  “I have my permission. I have Boj and the saints to aid me.” Katza narrowed her eyes. “Let the Hessarians try to stand against that. Just let them try.”

  Stolichkov and Akuliy looked at one another for a hard moment, then finally, Stolichkov shrugged. Maybe at last he was learning she couldn’t be flattered and placated like her father.

  “Very well,” Akuliy said. “But please leave the management of my ships to me. I assure you, they are more than suitable for the task.”

  “I’m going to change into these garments,” Katza said. “And then you’re going to tell me your plan.”

  By the time Katza and her naval staff had finalized their plan, dusk had settled across Pechalnoe Bay. The wind blew bitter and crisp across the garrison, and a soft snow fell, clinging to Katza’s eyelashes. The salty smell of the churning water flooded her nose. Far across the bay, a dark fog crept, concealing whatever Hessarian beasts lay beyond.

  But she had Boj’s will within her, and her prophet at her side. Their plan would have to be enough.

  Admiral Akuliy helped Katza into the flimsy dinghy that would carry them to his command ship, the Firebird. Nadika climbed in next, though the moment her boots grazed the bottom of the boat and it swayed, she turned green.

  “It’ll be all right,” Katza assured her. “I was queasy my first time on a boat, too.”

  “Tell that to my stomach,” Nadika said.

  Ravin smiled. Despite the grim task ahead of them, he looked in good spirits, and Katza couldn’t help but find his confidence infectious. She smiled in return and savored the press of his thigh against hers. “Are you not accustomed to riding horses, Nadika?” Ravin asked.

  “I am.” She flinched as the boat rocked over a bit of chop. “But they tend not to spray you in the face with saltwater, and then capsize.”

  Katza laughed. “I told you that you weren’t required to accompany me on this mission. I’ve plenty of sailors and soldiers around me. Mind you, the whole idea is that I’ll be coming under fire.”

  “Nonsense. I take my duties seriously. Even if I’m feeling a bit . . .” Nadika winced. “Out of sorts.”

  Katza laughed again, though it died out when she glanced back toward the garrison. Fahed and Stolichkov stood on the docks, watching their departure with a strained expression. Katza’s blood went cold at the sight of them together again. She had no doubt they’d conspired together to develop that investigation into Ravin’s past, and she didn’t like to think what new nonsense they might fabricate in her absence.

  Well. With Boj’s grace, she’d survive to see it. Her hand pressed against Ravin’s, and he inhaled softly. With a turn of her head, she could kiss him again, feel his lips on hers, feel that crackle under her skin, that feeling of unstoppableness . . .

  But there’d be time for it soon enough when they succeeded. Katza looked toward the bay, the red in her cheeks not just from the cold.

  “The wind favors us,” Admiral Akuliy noted, as they drew nearer to the Firebird’s massive hull. “If we hurry, we can catch the Hessarian boats a good twenty fathoms before they reach Temenok Prison Island.”

  “Good. We can keep the city largely out of the crossfire,” Katza said. That had been the trouble with her father’s heroic acts in the Five Days’ War, or so she’d been told. He’d waited until there had been no other choice, and plenty of civilian Russalkans had suffered in the warpath of his blessings along with the Hessarians.

  The rowboat reached the side of the Firebird. It was built of concrete and steel, the sturdiest Russalkan shipbuilders could make, but in the face of the Hessarians’ unknown mortar weaponry, Katza had to hope it would be enough. The sailors tossed over chains that hooked into the bow and stern of the dinghy, then with a mighty clank of gears, began to haul them up. Katza’s teeth rattled with every turn of the clank. When they were about halfway up, the whole hull shuddered as the Firebird’s massive steam engine roared to life. A new wind scudded around the sides of the ship as the propellers began to churn the choppy gray waters of the Pechalnoe Bay.

  “You’ll want to remain on the bridge,” Akuliy told Katza, taking her by the arm to steer her toward the command center of the vessel. “It’s the best tradeoff I can offer you between visibility and safety.”

  Katza wasn’t sure which she needed more for this to succeed, so she let him guide the way, Ravin and Nadika close behind.

  The bridge was situated overlooking the ship’s bow, in front of the thick smokestacks that belched woolly smoke into the darkening sky. Katza stood before the massive captain’s window and watched the storm clouds gathering in the west. Fog marred the gulf’s mouth, offering cover to the Hessarians, but as they steamed closer through the choppy gray water, she caught glimpses of masts, tufts of smoke, the faint flash of gas lighting rigged on distant ships.

  Ravin touched Katza’s shoulder. “You know what to do, blessed sun.”

  Katza nodded. Her mouth felt suddenly dry. Though they were shielded from the coming storm inside the bridge, the chill sea spray had already soaked her woolen clothes beneath her oilcloth slicker. “Saints Orlov and Tuman.”

  “I’ll help you,” Ravin said.

  Katza held her hand to him and he took it. His warmth permeated her gloves and bolstered her as she stood tall. “Saint Orlov first.”

  With eagle’s vision, you spied the lost and injured herd and brought them back to your village to survive winter’s torments. You spotted the enemies�
� approach. Grant me that vision again so that I can save my people. Let me soar over the Hessarian fleet and know just what monsters we face.

  Katza lurched forward as her sight separated from her body. Ravin gasped beside her, perhaps doing much the same. She glanced at Ravin’s face, ecstatic and bright, through her eagle’s sight. Then she surged onward across the bay, over the Firebird’s bow and up, until all of Petrovsk spilled its granite and gold buildings to her left and the Pechalnoe Bay’s jagged waves opened to her right. She wavered as she soared into the fog, but then she smelled the diesel smoke and the bitter iron and steel of the thickly armored Hessarian fleet.

  Through gaps in the fog, she spotted them: the lead cruiser, its hull pitch black and its deck laden with mortar cannons. The racket of the mortar’s gears spinning nearly deafened her. She continued on to the next cruiser, just behind it, and spied the soldiers in their pith helmets darting back and forth, arming mortars, shouting commands. The captain spoke his thick, bready Hessarian orders into a funnel that seemed to amplify and carry his words over the whole ship. A neat trick, that, Katza thought. Better than the shrill semaphore whistles the Russalkan navy used.

  She surged on and circled around. Now she found the smaller boats headed out to scatter their mines. Beneath the water, a dark shadow lurked. A massive sturgeon? No—it was too big even for that. They rarely saw whales in the bay, but she supposed it could be one.

  Back on the Firebird’s bridge, Ravin squeezed her fingers tight.

  Katza slammed back into her body. “The mine ships are headed for us first. I can choke them up with fog, perhaps, so they can’t easily track where they’ve laid mines. Maybe even direct them onto their own charges.”

  Admiral Akuliy translated her suggestion into a quick series of commands for his captain, who then ran outside to blow the whistles. “What about their cruisers?”

  “All of them are heavily armored with mortar cannons. Their gear systems for targeting look considerably more complex than ours. But if I can add some chop to the water around them, it might throw off their aim.”

  “We’ll proceed with standard artillery evasion maneuvers, to be safe.” Akuliy pointed to the map of the gulf spread before them. “Can you plot their current positions? Help us gain the targeting advantage?”

  Ravin took the admiral’s grease pencil from him. “I can do it.”

  Katza offered him a grateful smile. “All right. Time to turn this weather to our side.”

  Saint Tuman, who turned into mist to confuse the Mozgai bowmen who refused to submit to Russalkan will . . . I have need of your gifts now. Russalka is threatened once more. The air thickened around Katza, charged. Smother the minelayer boats. Confuse their paths. Let them steer directly over their charges.

  The fog rolled west, gathering from nothingness, congealing. Cries rose up from the bow of the Firebird but Katza ignored them; she’d clear the path for the Russalkan fleet. With Orlov’s sight once more, she gained vantage over the gap in the gulf between her fleet and theirs, now densely shrouded in dark mist.

  A gout of flame burst from the fog, its shockwave carrying all over the bay. Katza reached up to cover her ears as cheers rose up around her. One of the Hessarian minelayers had steered over their charge in the fog.

  “The tsarika blesses us!” the sailors cried.

  “Glory be to the tsarika!”

  Another Hessarian boat exploded in a spray of metal and fire. As bits of the boat flew into the sky, they too caught and exploded—more of the unlaid mines detonating in the air.

  “All hail Tsarika Katarzyna!”

  Katza returned to the bridge, cheeks flushed with pride. “The battle’s only beginning. But if we can rob them of their munitions before it’s underway—”

  An explosion tore through the Firebird, sending Katza flying. Her skull crashed against a metal beam inside the bridge; Admiral Akuliy landed atop her, and Ravin fell at her side. Shouts flooded the deck, all tumbling over one another, as whistles sent panicked messages across the fleet.

  “We’re hit! Close the bulk!”

  “Hull breached! Hull breached!”

  Katza wriggled out from beneath Akuliy and staggered to her feet. The Firebird was lopsided; she’d have to climb up the slope to reach the other end of the bridge.

  “What happened?” she cried, then turned to Ravin. Please, don’t be hurt! He shook his head. A scratch marred his pale forehead, but he was otherwise unharmed. Katza tasted blood from where she’d bitten her tongue in the explosion.

  “Mortar fire?” Akuliy asked, as he shoved himself upright.

  “Unless the Hess have an even newer cannon design, we’re too far out still.” His captain snatched the map of the gulf off the tilted floor and tried to smooth it onto the admiral’s table, which had been bolted to the ground. “They can’t have crossed fifty knots in the past few moments—”

  “No. It’s as if it came from beneath us.” Katza cast her gaze further down the bridge. Smoke was rising up from the depths of the Firebird as the damage control crew worked to seal the breached chambers.

  “There’s something in the water!” someone shouted on the bow. The bridge’s windows, Katza realized, had blown out, and she could hear everything on the bow with much more clarity. The water. The dark shadow she’d seen lurking there. Could it somehow be part of the Hessarian fleet?

  Ravin bit his lip, dark gaze settling on her. “We must stop them,” he said. “Or they’ll sink us.”

  Katza’s head swam; her lungs were scratchy with smoke. It was as her vision had said. “What can we do?”

  “Saint Pechalnya,” Ravin said. “Call on her guidance. Or as you may know her better—Salka.”

  Katza tightened her jaw. Salka was the old fable from before the church papered over ancient Russalka with Boj and all the saints, the wolf’s lover who became a siren and went to guard the sea. “They are the same?” Katza asked.

  “The church could not kill the stories.” Ravin smiled bitterly. “But they could make them the church’s own. What better way to convert the peasants? Don’t call them liars. Simply correct them, guide them onto the path of compliance. Subservience.”

  Katza forced herself to slow her breathing. Some gear inside her mind was locking into place, but she couldn’t quite name it just yet. And she was already exhausted from directing the fog, from blessing the troops.

  “Help me,” she said.

  Ravin held out his hand. “Always.”

  A shock coursed through Katza as their hands met. The shouts and frantic motion on the ship receded like the tide. Her vision went black, then suddenly flooded with light. She was glowing from within, her exhaustion burning away until she was clarified.

  “Saint Pechalnya.” Katza’s voice rose barely above a whisper, just enough for Ravin to hear over the chaos around them. Admiral Akuliy bellowed orders, whistles blew, and still the smoke churned up from below. “Salka. Grant us command of the currents, the sea—”

  “No. No. If you wish to claim Salka’s power for your own, you need not petition anyone. You need only seize it.”

  Katza shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “It is all Boj’s power. Your power. Waiting to be tapped.” His words had grown thorns, sticking into Katza’s mind. “Tap it. Let it fill you.”

  Katza risked a glance at him, cracking one eye. Perhaps it was the fire and the smoke, but she could swear he was gleaming as if kissed by an unseen sun.

  She shut her eyes again and tried to calm her thundering heartbeat. Boj’s power. Her power. It lay beyond Pechalnya and Orlov and Tuman and all the other saints, unfiltered and raw and alive. And it was hers to command.

  Katza gasped as an arc like lightning leapt through her. That cleansing fire she’d felt from Saint Marya and Ichischa—it was here. Now. Within her. Oh, Boj, it was filling her up, and it needed to go somewher
e, but she didn’t know how to direct it—

  “Become the siren,” Ravin called. And in his touch, she felt it. It was filling him, too.

  And then they were the sea. Roiling, churning, nearly frozen and nearly boiling all at once. They were Salka’s sorrow, salty with grieving tears and heavy with determination. They were the guardians of Russalka, and they could not be stopped.

  There, a few fathoms beneath the Firebird’s torn hull, a dark vehicle lurked. Like a boat, but with no open bow so it could safely submerge beneath the waves. It was a tube of metal, and Katza could sense the men inside it, stoking the diesel engine, loading another round of mortar into a tube. Gears spun wildly as they ratcheted the cranks to aim the mortar. Dense Hessarian words, prickly with consonants, shot back and forth as their captain issued commands—

  “Make them pay,” Ravin said.

  The tide was Katza’s fingers. The currents were her hair. She tangled the submersible boat in a rush of water and began to drag it down, and down . . .

  And Ravin was there beside her, helping her, crushing the submersible’s hull as if with a fist of water.

  Katza staggered back, stunned by the power coursing through her. She’d never felt it like this before, never felt the saints’ blessings rushing through her all at once, completely unhindered. Never before had she heard the men’s screams, not merely frightened but terrified, their lives forfeit as the water pressure bore down on them, as rivets popped and scattered into the depths—

  “You’ll kill them!” Katza cried. “We should—we should capture them, or—”

  Ravin’s voice cut through her thoughts with jarring heat. “They mean to kill you, my blessed sun. They do not deserve to be spared.”

  Katza’s throat seized up. Her grip on the submersible faltered. She’d killed the men in the minelayer boats, but indirectly—they’d been the ones to steer themselves astray.

  “They are Hess, wishing only for the sight of your blood on their hands.” Ravin’s voice stretched thin as razorwire, slicing through Katza’s resolve. “They must die. For Russalka. For you.”