“Yes, thanks to you,” he said. “Though I have to admit, I miss the excuse of having you come to my tent.”
I glanced at him, and his gaze ensnared me, causing my breaths to come faster.
“Katya,” an unfamiliar voice interrupted, and I looked up to find the queen watching us. Embarrassed, I tried to put some distance between the prince and me, but only ended up nearly falling off the bench for my efforts. If she noticed my awkward display, she thankfully didn’t react to it. “Would you speak with me? I have heard there is much we have in common.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” I said, and hastened to my feet.
She walked to the stern of the ship, where there were far fewer people and we could have relative privacy. “You have unique powers,” she said, and it was a statement and a question both.
I flinched. “Unique is . . . a kind word for what they are, I think.”
She looked at me knowingly. “You’re afraid of them?”
I started to say that I was afraid of what they could do, but then I realized she was right. I was afraid of having any powers at all. “Yes.”
“And have you struggled, then, with controlling them?”
I thought of all the many times I’d lost control over my powers once I’d fully unleashed them, but I also remembered my recent successes: against earth elementals and even Baba Yaga herself. “Yes, I have failed on many occasions, though I’ve managed to assert my will upon them lately, at least to some degree. What plagues me the most is how much it drains me.”
“I was once like you,” she said, her dark eyes taking on a faraway look. “Afraid of my powers, unable to understand them, which on one occasion, nearly cost me my life. Worse”—and now her gaze shifted to the king at the prow of the ship—“it nearly cost the life of the one I love.”
She had my full attention now, as it was clear to anyone with eyes that the queen was someone who was formidable. “What did you do?”
“You must stop being afraid of your power,” she said, turning back to me. “You are not a monster, Katya. I have known you for only a very short time, and even I can see that. But you think you are, and because of that, you hold yourself back.”
To my horror, tears pricked my eyes. “You don’t know what I’ve done,” I whispered.
“It wouldn’t change my opinion if I did. But know this: not having an understanding of your power will only cause you to continue to hurt people.”
As if sensing my distress, Elation landed on the edge of the ship, mere feet from us. Her golden eyes bore into the queen’s. I walked over to her and touched the soft feathers of her head. Be still, I thought, I am only upset because I know she is right.
“My power doesn’t always listen to me,” I said, surprised by how true that was. I thought of the times I’d tried to recall my power, only for it to ignore my attempts.
She watched me for a moment. “It was on this very ship that I learned to control my own power. Where someone much wiser than I said I had been using it all wrong. I had to completely relearn how to access it.”
“How did you do that?”
She smiled, but the expression seemed to be toward a memory replaying in her mind rather than to me. “A woman who agreed to mentor me in it properly motivated me. You must do the same. In many ways, your power is like another being living inside you. And just like a person, you must find what motivates it. Only then will you learn to access its full potential.”
“Did you ever stop being afraid of your own power?”
A knowing smile played across her lips. “Much more than that. I revel in it.”
I thought of the terrible destruction I’d brought upon my village, of all the people I’d killed, and worse still, of the moment I’d been glad to bring justice upon those who had treated me so badly. Even now, the memory of that warm feeling sank teeth of guilt within me.
“If you’ll let me,” the queen said, “I’d like to help you learn more about your power. It’s a part of you. It shouldn’t be something you’re afraid of.”
I dipped my head in thanks. “I’d appreciate any help you can offer.”
She gave me a small smile before walking away to join her husband at the bow of the ship.
Despite what the queen had said, I didn’t think my power would ever be something to delight in.
But I was more afraid of the day it would.
The queen left me alone with Elation and rejoined her golden husband at the prow of the ship. He wrapped his arm around her and drew her close, and despite her cool demeanor, she leaned into his touch. It was clear they didn’t care who saw. I looked away though, feeling as though I’d witnessed something intimate.
The sun glinting off her blue-black hair, Kharan joined me at the stern of the ship. “It took everything in me not to shadow meld while she was talking to you,” she said, her eyes on the dark queen. “I dared not because I was sure she’d be able to detect me.”
My eyebrows arched at that. “You think she could see through even your shadow form?”
“I have no doubt,” she said with no little awe. “They say the queen once commanded an army of undead soldiers—they had died, but she raised them with dark power and used them to conquer most of her land and the Varangian land besides.”
A little shiver chased over my skin. It was difficult to believe, and yet I did believe it. Power rolled off both the king and queen in waves. “She would make a terrifying enemy.”
Kharan nodded before leaning closer. “What did she say to you?”
“She gave me advice on how to better understand my power,” I said hesitantly. “She said I’d have to overcome my fear and find what bests motivates me to use my abilities.”
Kharan fell silent in thought for a moment. “That’s true. Even with my shadow power, I had to learn not to be afraid of disappearing forever.” She grinned. “But I got over that fear very quickly as a child.”
I could imagine disappearing into the shadows might be frightening for a child at first. “How did you learn not to be afraid?”
“I discovered how fun it was to spy on people,” she said, amusement dancing in her eyes. “Even in a small tribe, there are intrigues and conflicts—though perhaps minor compared to the ones in the palace.”
“I envy you your power sometimes. I think it would have been useful to be able to disappear in my village.”
Her mouth turned downward momentarily in sympathy. “Your village was truly awful. I’ve been wondering about that ever since we learned the truth of your parentage. Why that village? Why so far south? The Ice Queen must have had her reasons.”
“She did have her reasons—the village was that of my father’s parents. That was something I learned when Babushka left me her journal, but what I haven’t been able to figure out is what happened to my father. Baba Yaga never said for sure that he was dead.”
She turned her attention to Elation, who’d seemed to be tracking our conversation with her intelligent eyes. “If only Elation could tell you.”
Elation flapped her wings mightily for a few moments before taking off into the bright blue sky high above us.
“One other thing I’ve heard whispered of about the queen,” Kharan said, “her mother is like yours—one of the Old Ones of her land. She is half-immortal, too.”
“Half-immortal,” I repeated. I looked again at the queen, wearing her power as easily as one wore a cloak. It was hard to believe I had anything in common with her. Yet she had taught her power to serve her, had both conquered and brought about peace.
What could I do with my own?
Chapter Twenty
THE SKY WAS AWASH WITH A deep black when I awoke, the stars glittering above and below, diamonds reflected onto the dark blue of the sea. The sea was so calm, and the water so dark, that it looked like I could simply lean over the side and pluck a star right from the surface. It stole my breath; I didn’t think I’d ever gazed on anything so beautiful. I wasn’t sure what had woken me, but I couldn’t be up
set when it enabled me to appreciate such views.
I sat up slowly, noting the deep, slow breaths of Kharan beside me. King Leif had provided us with leather bags to sleep in, lined with soft fur. The king, I saw, was still awake, sitting close to the mast and gazing at the stars. Navigating, perhaps?
But as I continued to survey the ship, I noticed Sasha sitting nearby. The light of the moon and stars illuminated his face, and I could see he was deep in thought. As though I were the tide and he the moon, I found myself drawn to him. My heart beating unsteadily, I slithered out of my soft leather bag and stepped carefully over other sleeping forms to his side.
The starlight glinted off his light gray eyes, his hair dark as midnight, so that for a moment, he appeared as though he was wrought from the night sky itself.
He turned when he heard me approach, and the light in his eyes turned from cold starfire to warmth. “You couldn’t sleep?”
The heat of his gaze seemed to transfer to my body until I nearly felt warm. “I could at first, but now I’m glad I did wake.” My face tipped back toward the sky. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen something so beautiful.”
“I have,” Sasha said, his eyes drawing me toward him again.
The quiet of our voices and the relative privacy we had with nearly everyone else asleep combined to make our conversation seem far too intimate. I was too afraid to ask what he meant. Too afraid I already knew. “You seemed lost in thought.”
He mercifully didn’t try to fight my change in subject. “I was thinking of how I haven’t been to Constantinople since I was a child, of how I stayed in the imperial palace and was treated like the son of a princess of the Byzantine Empire.” His face darkened. “But now I’m hardly welcome in the city, much less the palace.”
I remembered what I’d heard about the Byzantines withdrawing their alliance with Kievan Rus’, and my heart ached for the prince. Still, I wanted to hear the story from Sasha himself. I knew how badly rumors could be twisted. “Why have they barred you from the palace?”
A muscle flexed in his jaw, and his whole body tensed. “My blood kin believe I was capable of murdering my own parents, never mind that I was little more than a child at the time. They were both killed in their beds—stabbed—so it had to have been someone who knew the layout of the palace helping the assassin. The Byzantines believe that someone was me.”
Kharan had told me as much before we left, but it meant a lot to hear it from Sasha—that he trusted me. The pain radiated off him, and I couldn’t help but reach out and touch him if only for a moment. “How terrible to be accused of something you didn’t do, and to your parents no less.”
He glanced down at where I was touching his arm before looking back up with a ghost of a smile. “I’m surprised you believe me. Wasn’t it you who feared I was the monster rumored about from village to village?”
“Yes, but that was before . . .” I trailed off, unsure what exactly I meant. Before I got to know him? Before I realized he was nothing like the beastly prince the rumors said he was?
“It’s nice to be believed, though I know I little deserve it.” He shook his head. “For all my sins, I would never do something so evil.”
Kharan had once said that the assassin who’d killed his parents was a hired Varangian, but as I looked at the Varangian king, his form regal and strong in the moonlight, I knew he would never be hired as an assassin. He was too conspicuous and memorable. “Have you known the king and queen long?”
“No. I haven’t known them at all, but only communicated through letters before this day. I knew we needed to sail to Constantinople, and the Varangians have an active trade route there through the Black Sea. I asked them when they next planned to sail into the city, and then I paid them a hefty sum for our passage.”
I watched the wind rustle the skeletal dragon sail. “I hope it will be worth the price.”
He smiled grimly. “They are the only reason we will be admitted into the imperial palace, but I plan to take full advantage of it.”
I knew what it felt like to be exiled from a place where I should have been welcomed, and it twisted my heart to discover just how much the prince and I had in common. “I’m sorry you won’t be admitted as the prince you are, Sasha,” I said.
“If I can prevent the other princes from destroying Kievan Rus’, then it’ll be well worth the pain of being barred from my mother’s city.”
“What is the palace like?”
His expression softened in memory. “More beautiful than I can describe. So large it’s like a city by itself, and more gold and marble than you’ve ever seen. I just remember being a child and thinking everything seemed impossibly enormous. My neck ached by the end of our visit there because I’d kept my face tilted upward the whole time. Then it was ruled by my grandfather, but now, two sisters are co-rulers.”
“Two sisters ruling together?” I said in surprise. “I didn’t know such a thing was possible. The palace sounds like it’s just as astounding. I’ve never been anywhere at all, so I’m sure I’d be amazed even if it was little more than a hut.”
He grinned. “It’s as beautiful as the bone witch’s hut was terrible.”
“I’m glad you can joke about it,” I said with a shudder. “I think I will have nightmares for years to come.”
This time it was he who reached for my hand. “I only joke because it helps distract me from what nearly happened to you. I’ll have nightmares of that for years to come.”
His gaze turned warmer and warmer, until an answering warmth grew within me. He bent his head, and before I knew what he was doing, he pressed a kiss to the back of my hand. It was like being branded with fire, the way it thawed the ice that had risen to my skin at the thought of his lips touching me. It terrified me, but at the same time, my mind raced ahead. What would it feel like to have his lips on mine?
But something held me back. I thought of what I’d seen in the fire at the bone witch’s hut. Winter, if she was indeed my mother, had ended up killing the man she loved by losing control over her power. What if I was destined to do the same?
Before, we’d been interrupted by the queen, but there was no one who would stop us this time.
“I should go back to sleep,” I said, gently pulling my hand from his.
He looked down for a moment before nodding. “Of course.”
“Spokoynoy nochi,” I said, before turning back to the sleeping forms in the middle of the longship.
I risked one more glance at him before I lay back down, his strong form silhouetted against the starlit sky. He reminded me again of a wolf, though this time, it was of one that was very much alone.
At long last, we arrived in the port of Constantinople. The water was crowded with ships, and beyond that rose the great white city. I recognized the Varangian longships with their dragon-headed prows; the now-familiar knarr ships were there in abundance, too. There were other ships, ones I wasn’t as familiar with, with three sets of rowers. They were even larger than the longships. Beyond the port itself, the most striking thing about the city was that it was entirely enclosed in white walls of marble. The walls were formidable, and it became readily apparent why the city had been, so far, impregnable.
Seabirds called to one another overhead, but Elation kept silent, staying perched near my side. The birds drew my gaze upward, and beyond the harbor, rising up from the first hill of the seven hills of the city, was an enormous structure surrounded by four towers and topped with a golden dome that glinted in the sun.
A warm breeze stirred my hair from where it lay heavy on my neck. We had all brought clothes appropriate for standing before the empress in the imperial palace. I wore a rubhaka of soft blue-and-gold silk, studded with pearls. It hung heavily on my body and was belted at my waist with a golden braid. Peacock feathers were embroidered all over the fabric, and the neckline was fit for a princess, with pearls and blue sapphires. Yet underneath it all I still wore my deerskin boots.
Kharan, too, had donned her
most elegant outfit, with what looked like a robe in the most gorgeous gold-and-black brocade. As she moved closer, the golden threads caught the light, shimmering like molten flame. It was covered with flowers, but there was something else among the blooms—an animal of some sort. A wolf?
“That’s beautiful, Kharan,” I said with a nod toward her elegant clothing.
“Thank you,” she said with a relaxed smile.
“Another deel?”
She smiled. “You remembered. And yes, this one has the pattern of my tribe.”
Sasha walked over to me, close enough that my breaths came a little quicker.
I tried not to think of the way he had kissed my hand, nor the way his gaze had captured mine. “Is that the palace?” I asked.
“No,” he said, his voice rumbling in my ear, “that is the basilica of Hagia Sophia.”
“A church! It’s enormous.”
He laughed. “The palace is much larger.”
His laughter and the spectacular scenery seemed to loosen something within me, and I took a step toward the side of the ship and just breathed it all in. It wasn’t long before King Leif’s longship docked, and the two other ships that had accompanied his—the knarrs—did, too. Sasha helped me from the ship and onto a wooden pier, his hand lingering on mine so long I wondered if he would continue to hold it. Ivan soon joined us, though, and then he did release his hold, and the chill that returned to my hand felt like a cold gust of air after being seated in front of a warm fire.
The king and queen disembarked, and then they ordered their horses and ours as well brought forward from the knarr.
“Tell the others,” Sasha said to Ivan while we waited on our horses, “only the five of us will accompany the king and queen. Everyone else must stay with the ships.”
“Yes, Gosudar,” Ivan said, striding off immediately toward the knarr.
A clatter of hooves announced the horses, and two let out piercing whinnies as though relieved to finally be on land again. Ivan brought Zonsara over to me, and as I stroked her soft neck, I watched the Varangians bring forth the king’s and queen’s mounts. They were both war chargers, at least two hands taller than my own mare and much wider. The queen mounted a horse as dark as night, and the king rode beside her on a stormy gray stallion. But even with such an impressive display, it was Sasha who held my attention on his blood bay mount. The prince’s eyes surveyed the city possessively, his bearing tall and strong in the saddle, and it was as if a Byzantine prince was coming home. True enough, whether the Byzantines would accept that or not.
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