Tsarina

by Patrick, J. Nelle

  “We have the same goal, you know. I want to fix Russia too,” he said. There was a certain defeat in his voice, like he was afraid I still wouldn’t understand. And he was right—I still didn’t understand what could make so many people turn against their leader, what could make so many think that riots and kidnappings and abdications were the only way.

  Yet, I understood this much, at least—that Leo thought he was doing the right thing, every bit as strongly as I did. That the rioters in Saint Petersburg weren’t Leo any more than the nobles who fled the country early on were me. Those people were afraid, they were cowards. Leo and I were . . .

  Well. We were Russians.

  I opened my mouth to say as much, but couldn’t find the words; instead I lifted the cloth, touched it to a place on his neck. Leo pressed his lips together and tilted his head, till suddenly his cheek was in my palm, the cloth smooth between our skin. Everything told me to pull my hand away, that Leo was a Red and my kidnapper and not Alexei, and yet I brought my hand down slowly, ignoring the fact that the cloth was falling away. My fingers wandered down the length of Leo’s jawbone, till suddenly the inside of my wrist was above his mouth. Leo tilted his head forward, till his lips were touching my skin, though he didn’t kiss me, didn’t move, barely breathed; he sat perfectly still, eyes shut, like he was trying to commit this moment to memory.

  His eyes sprang open, though there was a heartbeat before he turned to look at me. I didn’t pull my hand away. Leo grimaced, like it was painful, but turned his head out of my palm. The cloth fell to the floor, and I was left with my hand hanging in the air. I drew it back to my lap, the feeling of Leo’s skin still shimmering across my fingertips.

  “I’m sorry,” he said swiftly, words choked. “I shouldn’t have—”

  “I should go,” I said, rising fast. The chair scraped the floor behind me, the sound mean in my ears. “Besides, it’s nearly dawn—”

  “And you have a Fabergé egg to find in the morning,” he finished. He ran his tongue along his teeth, looked up, and tossed his hair from his face—he was flushed. “It was a pleasure working with you, Miss Kutepova. Mostly. Except for the part where you sent me to Siberia.”

  I looked down at the oil lamp. “Emilia was right. It’ll all make a grand story for Paris.” I inhaled, found his eyes one final, long time, then stepped back, went to shut the door.

  “Miss Kutepova?” he said when the pantry door was only a sliver from being shut. I stopped, peered back around. “Good luck.”

  I smiled, shook my head at him, and shut the door. “Good night, Leo,” I said as I stepped away, extinguished the lantern.

  I almost missed it—the words hidden by walls and cans and space. His words, the last words I expected him to say to me. “Goodbye, Natalya.”

  Someone was screaming.

  Someone was screaming, screaming, screaming, a long, drawn-out sound that pulled me to sitting, yanked my eyes open. It was Emilia—I ran for the door, crashed through it, nightgown flying behind me. She wasn’t in her room, she was crying now, downstairs. I took the steps several at a time, sliding, eyes wild—there, in the parlor. She was in a robe, clutching her uncle, face contorted in sorrow. There were two other soldiers nearby; they saw me, then quickly turned away when they realized what I was wearing. I didn’t care; I threw a hand against Emilia’s shoulders, spun her to me.

  “What’s happened?” I asked. Emilia was choking, I could feel her tears against my neck. She pulled back, put her hands on my arms. There was a terrified look in her eyes, but it was one I hadn’t seen before, not even when we were running for our lives in Saint Petersburg. That look was panic—this one, this one was horror.

  “What’s happened?” I repeated, prepared for a swelling of sympathy, to hug her tightly.

  “Natalya,” she said shaking her head. “They’ve killed Alexei.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “Nicholas, Alexandra, all the girls too—they’re all dead. They shot them.” Words were falling from Emilia’s mouth, and yet they weren’t hers, they weren’t right on her tongue, like she was speaking a foreign language. I stared, waited for the cogs in my mind to spin, to work and help me understand what she was trying to tell me.

  “The White Army was approaching Ekaterinberg to investigate your claim that the family was hidden there,” one of the nearby soldiers said gently, like I was a child who didn’t understand something very simple. “They should have gone about it slower, but they drove forward in a frenzy. The Reds holding the family panicked.”

  I stepped backward. There were thoughts, hundreds of thoughts that slammed into my mind all at once, but one was louder than the rest, one kept circling like a lingering dream.

  This can’t be real.

  I reached for the thought in my head, grabbed for it to make it real, make it true, but it slipped through my fingers like smoke.

  This can’t be real.

  This couldn’t be real because Alexei was the tsar, ordained by God and protected by a Fabergé egg that also protected me. And because he was alive in my head, talking, laughing, memories that were too warm and comforting to be of a dead boy.

  The soldiers were still talking in front of me, still saying words I didn’t understand.

  “Natalya? Natalya, are you all right?” Emilia said, shaking me. I couldn’t answer her. My head was wrapped up, foggy.

  “They didn’t go down easy, you’ll be glad to know,” one of the soldiers said—to me? Perhaps not to me—he was talking to Misha. “They had them all down in the basement, told them they were taking a photo to prove they were in good health. When they started shooting, the bullets bounced off the grand duchesses. Gave the Reds a good scare, but apparently they’d just sewn jewels into their corsets.”

  Misha spoke—they were speaking so quietly, Emilia was yelling for my attention, but it was their words, their horrible words that found my ears. “So in the end, they were able to—” he began.

  “Finish the job,” the soldier said somberly. “With bayonets and close-range shots. The heir was the last to go. Which is quite a thing, really, given his condition. The revolution is spreading, though, Colonel—the Reds in Moscow are starting to riot. We may become another Saint Petersburg by sundown.”

  This can’t be real.

  He was the heir. He was a boy and they didn’t care. He was mine and they didn’t care. And the others—his father, his mother, the girls. Olga, she was a nurse; she cared for the sick. And Anastasia, she was tiny, a wisp of a thing with a loud laugh and blue eyes. They weren’t just the royal family, they were people, children, parents, lovers.

  They didn’t care. And Alexei, my Alexei, with soft eyes and gentle hands and the playful way he called me Natashenka. With our future and our lives and our pasts, our stolen moments and our interlocked hands and the way he smiled at me, shamelessly leaning in too close during the waltz. My Alexei was dead, in a cold basement, in Ekaterinberg, with no one to hold him, no magic strong enough to heal him, no one to keep him warm. No one to tell him as he lay dying how much I loved him.

  While I held Leo’s cheek in the kitchen.

  No. While I held a Red’s cheek in the kitchen.

  I stepped away from Emilia; as her hands left me, I began to feel again. Emotion bubbling up: sorrow, aching, raw, sorrow. Atop it, though, was guilt, hot and furious, rising like welts on my heart.

  I spun around, ran into the kitchen. Emilia was fast behind me, shouting my name; perhaps her uncle and the others were there as well. I slammed through the door, to the pantry, flung it open so hard it upset some of the canned goods, which crashed to the floor and broke open. The maids were here, they were shouting, everyone was shouting, but my eyes found Leo’s. He looked scared, began to speak fast, voice panicked and remorseful.

  “I don’t know what happened. They were never going to kill him. The Cheka who had him always said that. No
one wanted to kill them.” He seemed to be telling himself this as much as me, his words fast and needy.

  “I sent them!” I was screaming, I thought I was screaming—but no, wait, I was sobbing. “They killed him because the Whites were closing in. Whites I sent.”

  “You couldn’t have known—”

  “And I . . . I was here, with you, when he was dying.” My words sputtered, broke apart into syllables.

  My knees shook, I began to crumble away. I don’t know who caught me—Misha or one of the other soldiers?—but suddenly I was on the other side of the kitchen, fighting the black around the corners of my eyes, the black that was already in my lungs, stealing my breath. The whole time, Leo’s eyes didn’t leave mine, didn’t blink, didn’t do anything but apologize to me over, and over, and over.

  But I was the one who was sorry. I was the one who needed to apologize to Alexei, though I’d never get the chance to do so. Just like I never got the chance to say I loved him.

  The soldiers left quietly, assuring me that Alexei would be avenged, that Russia wouldn’t fall, that I would love again. The promises were empty, almost comical in their ineffectiveness. They were going to meet with other Whites, my father included, to sort out a plan to put Nicholas’s brother on the throne. Misha would drive us to the station so we could go to Paris as planned—we had to make it out before the revolution began. The Reds were gathering near the square, owned the south side of the city—they’d set up checkpoints, refused to allow any but their own through. The Whites patrolled the north and, for the time being, held the train station. If Saint Petersburg was any indication, however, that wouldn’t last long.

  I somehow forced my legs back up the stairs, to the guest room. Nothing seemed real, like the world was moving too slowly, like I was a dream version of myself instead of the real me. I crashed onto the bed, longing to fall asleep, because I was certain, so certain that if I did, I’d wake up and find this had all been a nightmare. Emilia was sitting beside me, dabbing at my face with a cool cloth, as if this would do anything for my tear-stained cheeks.

  “They said he was the last to die,” I finally said. “I wonder if that means he suffered.”

  “Oh, don’t think about that,” Emilia said, voice breaking.

  “I want to know,” I said. “I want to know every detail. I want to know where they were shot, and how many shots it took, and what their last words were—”

  “Why, Natalya?”

  I ignored her, kept going. “And I want to know what they’re doing with their . . . his . . .” I took a deep breath before managing the word. “Bodies.”

  “I’m sure the Whites will get them,” Emilia said softly. “They’ll be brought home.”

  “How long do you think they left them there? Bleeding together?”

  “Natalya, please, stop,” Emilia said, now crying again. “I can’t—”

  I stopped out of pity, but the questions kept coming. The soldiers said they brought in new guards, guards who didn’t know the family as well as the ones who had traveled with them to Ekaterinberg. Each guard was assigned a specific family member. Which meant someone was told, “Shoot Anastasia. She’ll be in the back, behind her mother, shaking. Shoot her.” “Shoot Tatiana, shoot Olga—they’ll be side by side, arms linked, best friends till the very end. Tatiana will have her little dog with her—kill it too.” “Shoot Alexei. The boy with the bleeding disease, the boy who comforted the fathers of fallen soldiers. The boy who fell in love with a girl from Odessa. Kill him.”

  Did they flinch, when they heard their orders? Do the Reds have heart enough to care?

  I hate the Reds. I hate the Fabergé egg that made it so hard to kill the family, that bent bullets and bayonets to bounce off diamonds sewn into corsets, which kept Alexei alive through dozens and dozens of shots. I hate it for helping me believe what the Babushka told me.

  “She was wrong,” I said aloud. “The Babushka. She said our lives were intertwined.” I hesitated. “Or maybe I was. I thought she meant Alexei and I would be together. Maybe that was just what I wanted to believe. Because our lives are intertwined, even though his is . . .”

  Over.

  “You think you were foolish for believing you and Alexei would be together?” Emilia asked. I nodded; she reached up to wipe a tear off her face. “That wasn’t foolish, Natalya. That was love. Love hopes for happy endings.”

  “I didn’t think I had to hope. I thought it was fate.”

  Emilia had no reply for a few moments. Eventually, she rested her head against my shoulder and spoke in a whisper. “There’s nothing left here. There’s nothing anymore, nothing at all but memories and misery. We’ll start new in Paris—”

  “I don’t want to start new,” I answered, jaw trembling with the threat of fresh tears—how were there still more in me? “I want to know how a Russian could shoot his tsar. And I want to know what they’ll do with Alexei.”

  “He’s gone, Natalya. The body isn’t really him.”

  “Those are the hands I held. Those are the eyes that watched me, the hair I ran my fingers through. I want to know what they’re going to do to it.”

  Emilia couldn’t answer. She was crying again, crying because she and I both knew that the bodies of war prisoners were not given burials and ceremonies and moving eulogies. They were thrown away like garbage. My Alexei, flung into a heap with his family, like they were nothing. I thought about Leo’s brother, how they never got his body back, and suddenly realized how cruel that was.

  My core was all sorrow, thick and heavy and powerful. But my mind, my heart, my body—these were all rage. The Reds took my future from me twice—the first time it was the future of crowns and courtiers, where Alexei and I would rule Russia together. This time, this second time, it was the last scraps of my happiness. They’d yanked it away, murdered it in Ekaterinberg.

  I never got to tell him that I love him.

  Did he know, wherever he was, that I spent his dying moments holding another boy’s cheek?

  I rose, walked to the bathroom. Emilia called after me, but I ignored her, let the door slam behind me. I dropped to the floor, lifted a scrap of porcelain from the teacup I had dropped the day before. I positioned the sharp end on the soft part of my hand and pushed in hard, till the porcelain broke my skin and bright red blood welled up. It hurt, it hurt horribly, but I pulled the scrap along until there was a thick line of red on my palm.

  I dropped the piece of porcelain; it broke again as it hit the floor, but I didn’t care. I stared at my hand, waiting, waiting.

  A multitude of tiny stars rose through my skin, brilliant and bright, so bright that I had to squint. They filled the wound and suddenly the blood stopped rising. When the stars blinked out, I wiped the remaining blood on my palm away and stared.

  My skin was clean. Unbroken. Healed. Which meant the Constellation Egg still belonged to the Romanovs through me. I was the last one, the last one the tsar loved. The tsarina. It was Alexei’s last gift to me, Alexei’s last hope. It was mine, inherited like a crown would be.

  And I was going to make absolutely certain the Reds didn’t get it.

  THE SANCTUARY

  It was over.

  Maria stared at the egg, tears springing to her eyes. She hadn’t really cried since her father died—it was hard to find anything worth weeping over, after the nightmare his death had been. She’d hoped, deep in her heart, to use the magic from the egg to avenge him; now she’d be happy to merely have the power to heat up a cup of tea without starting a fire.

  She was so certain the Constellation Egg would surrender its magic to her once the Romanovs were dead—after all, once they were gone, who was it linked to?

  She couldn’t believe she’d acted so rashly, pushed for the death of the entire family without knowing for sure if it would be effective. But now they were, undeniably, dead—every last one of the
m shot and stabbed and, if Maria’s vision was correct, their bodies dismembered and burned. Maria cursed herself for not realizing that their deaths wouldn’t unbind the egg; after all, Grigori Rasputin was far too clever to create something so simple.

  Because Grigori Rasputin was a better leader than you.

  The people of Russia always underestimated him. They saw him as a drunk, a lunatic, a womanizer. They were so busy whispering about his hypnotic eyes and tangled beard that they overlooked how clever he was. It was so obvious, now, and Maria hated herself for not seeing it before: Rasputin didn’t merely bind the mystics’ magic to the Constellation Egg. He crafted it so its powers could only be obtained willingly. In order to claim the egg, someone from the Romanov family had to relinquish their claim.

  And now there were no more Romanovs.

  And soon, Maria thought, walking out of the sacristy, staring at the sky that looked infuriatingly similar to the diamond-studded egg, soon there would be no more mystics. She would be the priestess who let them die out. The girl who failed as a courtier, who failed as a mystic. Who failed as a daughter.

  She’d never escape the stares.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  My face was swollen and tender from tears as morning became afternoon, long rays of cold sunlight stretching across the mauve bedroom. Emilia was silent now, like she’d given up on speaking entirely, though she did help me tie a long silk scarf around my head to hide my sob-tousled hair a bit. Still, it was jarring when she finally did speak—like I’d been asleep, though I was certain that wasn’t the case.

  “Natalya,” she whispered, “it’s time. The train is leaving soon. Are you ready?”

  I nodded. Nodded too many times, like my head was stuck doing so.

  “I’m going to go gather a few things for the trip. Just . . . I’ll be back. You’ll be all right?”