by Jane Kindred
“No,” I murmured. “Lively…”
I slipped from my horse into the hands of one of the Virtues beside me as we both tumbled to the ground.
I woke from the unnatural sleep in the room that had once been my own and suffered a moment of dizzying disorientation, seized by the thought that this was where I ought to be—just a carefree girl of seventeen, with my family still alive. When I sat up, the hopeful confusion dissipated immediately.
Lively sat by my bed. I could feel my navaja still in my hip pocket, the gypsy knife my dear friend Knud had given me before he died, and I had a terrible urge to snap it open and plunge it into Lively’s breast. Instead, I found the charm—my brigandine was gone—and I tossed the little pouch of flannel at her.
Lively caught it. “Mugwort. It’s good for calming the nerves.” She set it on the bedside table. “They wanted to kill you while you slept, but I told them we needed you alive. Aunt Helga won’t be pleased.” She sighed heavily when I didn’t respond, cupping her belly with both hands. “I won’t bother to say I’m sorry, because I know you won’t believe me.”
“What I can’t believe is that I trusted you. I can’t believe I wasted any kindness on you.”
The demoness pushed herself from the chair and stood. “Don’t trouble about that, Miss.” She gave me a mock curtsy as if she were my lady in waiting. “You didn’t waste much.” She folded her arms over the dome of her stomach. “Look, Nazkia, believe what you like, but I did spare your life and I mean to get you out of here before Aunt Helga arrives. You and Margarita.” Her face turned red and I couldn’t tell whether it was from the mention of Margarita’s name or whether she was actually ashamed of herself.
“You don’t get to call me Nazkia. ‘Your Supernal Highness’ will do.”
Lively glared but went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “The palace is occupied by the Fallen. You’re not to leave your room. There’s a guard posted outside your door, but there’s only one, because they think you’re a pampered little angel who’ll cower at a raised fist.” She paused. “Maybe you were once, but they don’t know who you are now.” She winced and rubbed her stomach as if the baby had kicked. “Margarita is in the suite next door, but they put her in irons as soon as she stirred because she broke the neck of the guard outside her room.”
Lively went to the door and paused before she opened it, her voice low. “I haven’t told them about the…others. I also haven’t told them about the navaja.” She glanced at my pocket. “And I’ll try not to.”
I laughed bitterly. “What do you mean, you’ll try not to? I suppose it’s just bursting to leap from your tongue like gossip among the help?”
“No.” She made another face of discomfort. “It’s Helga. I can’t keep anything from her if she asks. That’s why the demons were ready for us.” She stepped away from the door and lowered her voice even more. “She’ll be here in a day or two with the little grand duke. Whatever we do, we’ll have to do it before then. I can’t help you after that.”
I lunged from the bed and grabbed her forearm. “Is she bringing them both? Is she bringing Ola?”
Lively shrank back. “I don’t know.”
“I won’t leave here until I have Ola.”
“Then you probably won’t leave here at all.” She grasped her stomach with a sharp cry, and her olive complexion went pale. “Is this normal? Did you ever have pain?”
“Of course,” I snapped unkindly. “When I gave birth.”
“But I’m not due for almost eight weeks!” She sat in the chair, gripping the arms.
Despite what she’d done, I couldn’t be entirely callous to the fear in her eyes. “How long has it been happening?”
“It started a few hours ago. After I finished the spell. I remember thinking I must be imagining it after playing the part so well with the guards. And I really did.” She allowed herself a little smile. “They were mortified when my ‘water’ broke. One of them scooped me right off my feet and ran with me into the palace. When he set me down on a couch in the sitting room and asked what he could do to help, I took out my pouch of herbs and told him it was a peasant recipe to ease the pains, and I told him to throw it into the fire. He actually did the work for me. I didn’t even have to wait for an opportunity to sneak over to the fireplace.”
I had to give her credit. Whatever else she was, she excelled at manipulating people. As she was doing now with me.
“It’s probably practice labor.” I eyed her shrewdly as I sat back on the bed. “If you’re actually having any pains and you aren’t just trying to get my sympathy.”
Lively struggled to get out of the chair once more. “I suppose I deserve that. No, Your Supernal Highness. I do not expect any sympathy from you. But I’m going to get some rest. If you decide to try making a run for it, I hope you’ll consider taking Margarita with you. She has both her hands and her legs shackled, but you’re so much smarter than me, I’m sure you’ll think of something.” She made a face as if trying to hide another pain. Or perhaps that was only how she wanted it to seem.
As she opened the door, I asked the question I feared the answer to. “What about the Virtues? Where are they?”
Lively didn’t turn. “They’re dead. Just like every one of the queen’s men.”
In the room I’d once shared with my sister Maia, I sat and despaired. I’d been prepared for losses, but to know five hundred men with whom I’d just spent the past four weeks had simply been killed while they slept because they’d believed in me seemed so pointless.
It was after dark now, and the demons hadn’t left me a lantern or candle. Despite the charmed sleep to which I’d succumbed, the exhaustion of the day’s events and my unhappy thoughts soon overtook me. I dreamed fitfully of other days, reliving the cherished childhood I’d spent in this room, until one particular memory woke me out of a sound sleep before dawn.
There had been a secret passage between this room and the one that belonged to Tatia and Ola when we were girls—the room where Margarita was now confined. The four of us loved to play tricks on our mother, switching rooms and beds before bedtime so that when she came to kiss us good night, she’d find a different daughter than the one she expected in any particular bed. Could the passage still be there?
I got up and searched for the little panel beneath the recessed bookshelves on the common wall. It was there as I remembered it and after a bit of prying with my navaja to unseal the painted edges, I pulled the panel open and crawled through into my sisters’ bedroom as I’d done so many times as a child.
Pushing open the panel on the other side of the little crawlspace, I peered out to make certain Margarita was alone. Wide awake, she rose as I climbed out, her shackled hands clasped in front of her.
“Nazkia. How on earth…?”
“These were our rooms when I was a girl.” I couldn’t help myself. I rushed forward and hugged her, though it wasn’t the behavior of a commander. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”
She looked a bit surprised at my emotional display as I released her. “I’m sorry I let you down.” She sat on the bed and I sat beside her.
“Sorry? Margarita, you’ve done nothing wrong. It’s Lively who’s betrayed us.”
“But I was with her all the time. How could I have not known?” She looked down at her shackled hands with a sigh. “I let my…my sympathy for her blind me. Though she claims she hasn’t given our strategy away. And she did say she’d find a way to get me the keys to these cuffs. If we can get out of here, we can return to Iriy and warn the others.”
“You should. But I plan to stay where I am. Helga is on her way and she may have Ola with her. If the rest of the troops get here within a week—”
“Along with the queen’s,” Margarita interrupted.
“That has always been what we expected.”
“But being a prisoner of the Social Liberation Party wasn’t part of the plan. You aren’t going to do anyone any good from in here.”
“I might do
Ola some good,” I said tersely.
“At whose expense, Your Supernal Highness?” The formal address was indicative of her disapproval. “If the SLP has you as a hostage, they can determine the course of the entire war. What’s the point of championing someone who’s already been defeated? If it comes down to a choice between the Party and Aeval, the Virtues will simply ally themselves with the Party, and your bid is over.”
“In the name of all the Heavens, Margarita, I know. I know. Men have died for me. I owe it to them to lead, to win. But what do I owe my own daughter? What do I owe my baby?” I stopped as my voice cracked. I wanted to throw myself on the bed and weep, but I no longer had the luxury of indulging my emotions, just as I no longer had the luxury of doing what was right for myself and my child. I rubbed my forehead in frustration. “If I put the needs of my daughter above a princedom and all its citizens, I am selfish and unfit to rule. But what am I if I put the needs of the people above my own flesh and blood? What kind of mother am I? I am more than unfit. I’m a monster. Bloody Anazakia.”
Margarita put her shackled hands over one of mine. “I know I can’t understand what it’s like for you. If I were in your shoes, I’d have crumbled by now. You’re so much stronger than anyone I’ve ever known. That’s what it means to be a queen.”
“Strong?” I had to struggle not to shout it. “I’ve wavered, and thus far failed, at every step. Despite your patient teaching, I’m still so poor with a sword I need a team of Virtues to protect me in battle.”
“Nazkia, I spent years mastering techniques you’ve had to learn in weeks. And that kind of strength isn’t what’s necessary in a ruler. It’s the strength you have to stand in a battering wind of adversity I can’t even imagine and never fall. You haven’t,” she insisted as I started to protest. “Wavering isn’t falling. Wavering and going on when you want to fall, when you want to run away and give up—persevering when everything looks hopeless and the odds seem insurmountable—that’s what strength is.”
I regarded her for a moment, unable to say anything, and then took a heavy breath. “All I want to do is take Ola home to our dacha in Arkhangel’sk in the world of Man. If Helga knew that was all she had to do to be rid of me—”
The door opened and Lively gaped at us for a stunned instant before stepping in and closing it. “How did you get in here? Never mind. I don’t want to know. I got the key for you, Rita. But don’t use it now.” She held it out and Margarita rose and took it from her. “I’ve put the guards to sleep in the hallway, but it won’t last long. It’s almost morning, and there’s too much activity.” Lively glanced at me. “I heard from Aunt Helga. The Iriyan Guard has engaged her forces on the Vilon border.” She touched her belly unconsciously. “She’s very angry with me for not mentioning them.”
I felt the first glimmer of hope since waking in my own bed. There was a chance they could stop Helga before she ever got to Elysium, leaving the Virtues to contend only with Aeval’s army. And if Ola was with Helga, Vasily might soon have her safe in his arms. Everything could turn around.
“Come with us,” Margarita appealed to Lively, and I resisted the urge to clamp my hand over her mouth. “You don’t belong here.”
“No!” Lively exclaimed. “You don’t understand. Helga can reach me from anywhere.” She grimaced as if having another pain.
My eyes locked on her. “Is that where the pains are coming from? Is Helga punishing you from so far away?”
Lively looked aghast. “She wouldn’t,” she said as if to herself, cradling her stomach. “She couldn’t take him from me. She’s the one who wanted this baby.” Lively glanced toward the door. “You need to get back to your own room. They’ll be awake any minute. I’ll come back later and let you know when I can use the spell again. Probably after dark tonight.” Her gaze flitted to me once more and something in her eyes froze my blood.
“What? What else aren’t you telling us?”
Lively bit her lip. “There’s no need for you to stay here on account of Ola now.”
My heart leapt into my throat and I couldn’t breathe. No. No, not my baby.
“Auntie’s lost them.”
An instant of relief was quickly supplanted with alarm. “What do you mean, ‘lost them’? What are you talking about?”
Lively gave a tiny gasp, presumably at another pain. “Azel and Ola,” she said irritably, as if I didn’t know whom she meant. “They’re gone.”
Desyataya: The Course of Human Events
The angel of the Lord had come to him once more. Kirill had woken with the sun the previous day to find the Heavenly city of Arcadia within sight. It sparkled on the horizon like a diamond on a hill. Inside, among its thatched roofs and stained-glass windows, its weathervanes and gardens, the children waited for him to bring them home.
He rose and rolled up his blanket, and in the haze of light from the early-morning sun making mist of the dew, he saw the angel, its unfixed form pulsating before him. It always made him feel a bit ill. He bowed before it.
“Man of God. You must change course.”
“Change course? But what of the children? Is this not the city you sent me to?”
“The child has fled his captors. But he is lost. You will find him among the Fallen. You must go west to Raqia. You must stop him before he reaches Elysium.”
“Raqia?” He’d heard the others speak of this place. It was a den of devils. Kirill tried to focus on the pulsing being. “But how will I find him?”
The fluxing light of the angel disappeared, but it spoke once more. “Anything can be found in the Demon Market.”
§
Things in Raqia weren’t going as Azel expected. He’d thought to take advantage of the driver’s cart and go his way with Ola once it arrived at its destination, but the driver discovered them under the burlap sacks before they had a chance to climb out. Taking him for a thief, the demon yanked Azel from his hiding place and beat him with his horse’s crop.
“Let that be a lesson to you!” the driver shouted as he brought the crop down on the backs of his legs. “I will not lose another peck of produce to you street urchins! Younger every day, you little thieves!”
It was true he and Ola had shared an apple from one of the sacks, but only because she’d been very hungry, so he thought that didn’t count. The man insisted he knew Azel for a thief because he’d “stolen the fancy clothes of an angel.” Azel wasn’t sure if the clothes were rightly his or not so he didn’t argue the point. He took the beating in silence, having no frame of reference to take it any other way.
Ola, however, had cried. The driver, apparently unaware there were two of them hidden within his cart, became even more affronted when he saw her. He called them “runners” and demanded to know whose property they were. Azel had no idea, so the man marched them both up the stairs of a nearby shop.
“Have you ever seen the like?” He hauled Azel before the shopkeeper by the back of his collar. “Little thief can’t be more than five and he runs away with his baby sister!”
It was also true they’d run away. Azel didn’t bother to correct him about his age or Ola’s relation to him; just thinking about it brought on the terrible ache in his stomach and his head.
“No identifying marks?” The shopkeeper came around the counter.
“Not that I can see.” The driver pushed up Azel’s hair in back and turned over both his palms. “If they belonged to anyone of consequence, they’d’ve been sure to give them a tattoo or at least a brand.”
The shopkeeper scratched his beard. “Well, we can’t be expected to put up posters for them like a couple of lost curs if their master hasn’t the sense to keep track of his inventory. His loss is our gain.”
The driver had taken Azel’s boots and jacket, telling him he was lucky they hadn’t turned him in to the gendarme for stealing from the Host, and then confined him and Ola to a mudroom in the back of the shop’s living quarters.
“But we’re going to Elysium,” Azel protested
when the shopkeeper locked them in.
The demon laughed good-naturedly. “Yes, my boy, we’d all like to go to Elysium, but we go where we’re bidden.” He gave Ola a pat on the head. “Don’t worry. There are plenty of kind masters in Raqia. With your skin and eyes, I shouldn’t wonder if some wealthy merchant didn’t snatch you up to keep as pets. Easiest job in the Heavens. You get paid in sweets and all you have to do is lie about and look pretty.”
Azel wasn’t so sure he wanted to be paid in sweets. The ones Helga gave him made him sleepy.
§
Love felt she had her feet solidly in the world again once she’d spent some time at the Internet café. Any longer in Heaven and her e-mail account would have been deleted. There were hundreds of messages from people looking for her, and chat friends bombarded her with instant messages as soon as she logged on, wanting to know where she’d been. She noted without surprise that her family either hadn’t noticed or hadn’t cared that she’d literally disappeared off the face of the earth. With a sigh, she sent a message to her sister Nadja in St. Petersburg, letting her know she’d soon be in town. She also made contact with possessed85, ensuring everything was in place.
On board the train, it had been easy enough to keep the Virtues out of sight to avoid strange looks and questions, but as they’d neared St. Petersburg, they’d needed something to disguise their unearthly appearance. They’d spent the night here in Yekaterinburg, where Belphagor had procured a supply of jeans and T-shirts along with sundry hats, hooded sweatshirts, and sunglasses. The end result was that of a motley band of hoodlums, but an impression of lawlessness was far better than an impression of otherworldliness.
They left Yekaterinburg late in the afternoon, arriving in St. Petersburg shortly before midnight on the following evening. Dusk had just fallen in the Venice of the North. Love had almost forgotten the late-night sun.
Belphagor said they’d normally seek out a safe house, but with so many of them traveling together, and with the normal communication lines of the underground severed, it would be impractical to arrange. Instead, he charmed their way into a block of rooms at the Pushka Inn near the Winter Palace.
