Tsarina

by Patrick, J. Nelle

  Mystics were starting to panic as the revolution fighting grew closer—I suppose the herbs weren’t working as well as they hoped. Women were running over the bridge and away from the city, blankets filled with their belongings slung over their shoulders. The Babushka gave them a hard look, shook her head like she was disappointed as we hurried into a hallway.

  Arched windows lined one wall of the monastery, most missing their glass and all framed with vines that had eaten their way up the exterior wall. Through the windows on the right, I could see the remains of a garden. To my left, however, was Moscow. Smoke billowing up, people forcing their way down the alleys and toward the monastery’s bridge like a slow-moving flood. The compound’s decrepit walls were almost comical in comparison to the shouting throngs of people who would surely be here in no time at all.

  “Here we are,” the Babushka said under her breath as we reached a large wooden door with fancy ironwork around the edges. She pressed the door open.

  The room must have once been the church’s sanctuary. The ceiling was high above us, holes in the roof revealing storm clouds in the sky and ravens perching amid the exposed beams. Pews were long gone, replaced with typical furniture: a dresser, a bed, a table. Candles, candles everywhere, blurring upholstered chairs and rugs and tapestries into a sea of jewel tones. One wall had crumbled away entirely and was replaced by a panel of fabric, a curtain that I supposed led to a tent.

  “What are you doing?” a female voice snapped from somewhere toward the back of the room. “You brought strangers into my home?”

  “This is the girl I told you about, Maria,” the Babushka slurred as another cannon exploded somewhere outside. “Natalya Kutepova!”

  I heard a faint sound of approval from the back of the room and the woman—no, Maria was a girl, barely older than me—stepped where we could see her. She was tall, as tall as Leo, who dwarfed me, and was thin but sturdy-looking, like she wouldn’t bend in a breeze. Her hair was dark, like the other mystics’, but her skin was pale and fine, well cared for, like a noble’s. Something about her was familiar, like I’d seen her at court, but I couldn’t place her exactly.

  “Lady Natalya Kutepova,” Maria said, nodding, walking ever closer. She moved so slowly, except when her tongue would dart out, lick her lips in an almost predatory way. Her eyes were bright blue, a color as striking as Alexei’s, but wildly different. His were the sky, his were warmth, his were lakes and water. Maria’s, however, were the aqua color of thick ice, and when she looked at me, I felt cold. She dropped into an overly dramatic but trained curtsey, then turned her gaze to Leo. “And he is?”

  “I’m not sure,” the Babushka said, shrugging. She frowned, patted her pockets until she found a flask, then took a long swig of whatever was inside it.

  “Interesting,” Maria said, tongue flicking out again. “And why are you here?”

  “We’re here for the Constellation Egg,” I said swiftly. “I’d like to take it to Paris, where it’ll be safe.”

  Maria frowned, turned toward a table in the center of the room. It was covered in loose tarot cards, goblets and feathers, herbs and crystals. Indeed, covered in so much that I didn’t see what Maria was looking at right away.

  But then—there. There it was.

  Such a small thing, but such a perfect thing. It gleamed in the bits of daylight that filtered in through broken stained-glass windows high above us, sitting plainly on the table as if it were nothing more than another trinket. It was exactly as I remembered. Dark, almost black-blue, with a base like clouds. Diamonds for stars, a gold band around the edge. It was precious, priceless, and yet that’s not what struck me—after all, there were many priceless things in the world, many pretty things.

  What struck me was it felt like I was looking at Alexei. I would never see his eyes again, but this—this was him, this was all that was left of him. This was mine in the same way he was.

  Maria walked toward it, her steps slow and deliberate, protective of the egg. Leo and I ignored her, turning instead to face each other.

  There was nothing to be said, nothing that hadn’t already been said. We were here. This was the end.

  Still, Leo’s lips parted. He looked like words were there, words were ready, but they refused to come out of hiding. In the end, he clamped his lips together. One of us had to run, to move, to dash for it first, and yet neither of us wanted to be the one to cut the delicate thread of this moment.

  Footsteps, loud and masculine, getting closer, the sound of the mystics screaming. The sound severed the moment for us—we turned to see as they approached the sanctuary door.

  “How dare they come to my temple—” Maria began, muttering under her breath. She was cut off when the doors burst open.

  A gunshot. Bright and clear, a sound that bounced off the church walls and forced me to pull my hands to my ears. Everything was ringing, I saw Maria’s eyes widen, something struck me in the back, and I stumbled forward—Leo, Leo was knocking me over. Was he trying to grab for the egg, beat me to it in the chaos? I caught myself before crashing onto the broken stone tiles that covered the floor, stumbled along a few steps, extended a hand toward the egg on the table.

  “Lady Kutepova! Lady Kutepova, I’ve found you!”

  The voice was not one I knew. Standing in the doorway was a soldier, a White, so young that he didn’t even have the idea of a beard on his face.

  “Lady Kutepova, you’re safe now. Colonel Ivanovich sent me. Come with me,” he said, extending a hand. “I can’t believe I found you in this—”

  I blinked, spun around—where was Leo? The egg was still in the center of the table, but Leo, I had felt him, I had felt him hit me, he was behind me, and now I didn’t see him. The soldier continued to shout, his voice echoed around the room.

  Leo was on the ground.

  On his side, one leg and arm crumpled under him, his chest rising and falling unevenly. His eyes were closed, but he turned, flopped onto his back, and his hand wandered to his stomach, grasping at his shirt like he was trying to pull it away. I took a step toward him, another, and suddenly I was on my knees at his side, pushing his hand away, trying to see what was wrong.

  “You’re fine,” I demanded, voice rattling. “It’s nothing, Leo.” My voice was a whisper and yet louder than the chaos happening outside. The soldier was now beside me, pulling at my arm, but I didn’t rise. There was no blood, no mark, what was wrong? Water seeped into my clothing where my knees pressed against the tile floor—

  It wasn’t water. It was blood. I shoved the soldier away, tried to breathe, pushed Leo up to make certain I was correct. Blood, blood everywhere, pouring from a place on his back, a place I couldn’t even see for all the red. I pressed against his back, tried to find the bullet hole, but it was no use, I couldn’t find it.

  “I’ll go get Colonel Ivanovich,” the soldier said, giving up on my cooperation. He thought I was crazy; he didn’t understand as he ran from the sanctuary, shouting for his brethren to come quick. I pulled Leo back over, wrapped my fingers against the side of his face, cringing at the bloody prints they left. His eyes drifted shut.

  “Leo,” I said, though my voice didn’t sound like my own. “Open your eyes.” I left one hand on his cheek, let the other fall beside his head to brace myself. Grass began to force its way up under my palm, forcing its way through the broken stone floor. He opened his eyes, his lips parted, but he didn’t speak. I shook my head.

  “I can fix this. I was a nurse, remember? It’ll be fine,” I said, nodding at him, trying to smile. The grass was spreading, overpowering the stones, moving them apart as more and more shoots sprung up. A tiny white flower opened beside me, its petals stained crimson, drops of blood rolling down them to pool in its center. Leo breathed, the sound torn, and his eyes shut again. I grabbed his shoulders, shook him as grass raced around me, grew taller, grew greener, the most useless magic I could imagine.
I turned around to the egg, glared at it, useless, stupid thing. It didn’t save Alexei, it didn’t save his family, it couldn’t save—

  I released him, dropped my head into my arms, and muffled a scream. There was no point. No point in any of this. I reached down, grabbed a handful of the grass and ripped it from the ground. Another shoot sprung up in its place.

  Leo was shaking violently. I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see the moment when he stopped, when he gave in. When he became a body instead of a person. I couldn’t stop myself from listening, though, listening to the sound of his breathing growing shallower and shallower.

  I wondered if Alexei would be kind to him, in heaven.

  The blood on my knees was growing cold, the grass underneath me so thick I could no longer feel the tiles. Leo’s breathing fell in time with my heart, slowing, slowing, slowing . . . Maria was behind me; I heard the door to the sanctuary swung shut, muting the sound of the riot, forcing me to focus on the ragged sound of Leo’s breathing . . . until he was silent.

  It was the loudest silence I had ever known.

  Leo took a deep breath.

  A breath too large for someone whose lungs were filling with blood. I didn’t look, didn’t dare, until he took another, then another. Deep, full breaths. I finally lifted just my eyes, peered over my arm, through the hair strewn into my face.

  His chest was rising, falling evenly. His eyes were open, he was staring at the ceiling, blinking. Leo’s hand wandered across his stomach, not in the distracted, dream way, but like he was really feeling for something, something he could not find.

  And then there were stars.

  A million tiny stars, rising through the blood staining his clothing, glowing so bright that I flinched and held a hand to my head. They glowed white and flashed at me, stirred up memories of the first time I saw stars heal a boy. Then, quickly as they arose, the stars were gone. I blinked, rubbed my eyes.

  Leo sat up. The ground beneath him was still tiled floor, a void in the grass the shape of his body. Leo tried to grab at his lower back, but couldn’t reach. The motion, however, caused something to fall off his back and clink to the floor. He spun around, groped at the floor until he picked it up, held it in front of his eyes. A single bullet. Leo’s eyes moved from it to me, searching me, asking me questions I didn’t know the answers to.

  “Well,” Maria said quietly. “Look at that.”

  Leo took a shaky breath, started a few sentences—but before he could finish a complete thought, we heard shouting from the hallway outside. The soldier, back with Misha, as he promised. Maria, whose eyes were now sparking, almost crazed, looked at us in panic.

  “Hide,” she said, pointing to the table in the sanctuary’s center, the one where the Constellation Egg rested. “Hide now.”

  Still shaking, I wrapped an arm under Leo and pulled him up. We hurried across the sanctuary—Leo seemed weak on his knees—then ducked down behind the table. Leo was barely able to curl himself small enough to be hidden. His back was still wet with blood; I stared until he noticed and curved so I couldn’t see.

  The door to the sanctuary burst open, a square of light appearing on the far wall, filled with the shadows of men wearing military epaulettes and hats. The Babushka was near but stepped forward, beside the table and just out of our line of sight.

  “Lady Kutepova!” a voice—Misha’s—shouted. I closed my eyes, tried to make myself even smaller.

  “Colonel Ivanovich!” Maria said, though I hardly recognized her tone—it was light now, flirtatious and familiar. “How can I help you?”

  “Hello, madame. My man says he shot a hardened criminal in here,” Misha said swiftly, walking so far into the room that his shadow disappeared from the wall. Leo hunched in till we were nearly pressed together. I could hear the confusion in Misha’s voice when he didn’t see me. “And my niece’s companion was with him . . .”

  “I saw her! I shot the boy right here, but there wasn’t . . . there wasn’t all this grass,” the young soldier protested, sounding like a child trying to convince his mother of fairies.

  “I assure you, we harbor no criminals here,” Maria said. Her voice was strange, different than it sounded before. It was her voice, and yet, something entirely different, in the way that wind is just moving air or waves are just drops of water. Something about it was strong, was a force instead of a sound. She continued. “The revolution is happening. You’re needed in the city, I suspect.”

  “Perhaps we are . . .” Misha said, voice distant, like a boy’s instead of a colonel’s.

  “Certainly,” Maria said. “Go on now. Take your search elsewhere.”

  The shadows in the door shifted for a moment, looking at one another, flinching as gunfire sounded out from the city. Slowly, slowly they backed up. The other shadows vanished just as Misha’s reappeared in the door.

  “My apologies,” he said in the faraway voice.

  “Of course,” Maria said. “Go on.”

  “Farewell,” Misha said, reaching forward to shut the door. “Stay safe amid this danger, Lady Rasputin.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Leo and I sat side by side at the table, on rickety wooden chairs. There were cups of tea in front of us, something mint-scented and dark yellow, but neither of us touched them. The egg was on the center of the table, amid the haphazard tarot cards. The Babushka stood behind us, while Maria paced back and forth in front. Leo looked like he wanted to grab the egg and run, but was too unsettled by being magically healed and watching Maria Rasputin hypnotize a soldier to do anything other than stare.

  I now remembered Maria, though only slightly. She came to court occasionally with Grigori Rasputin, her father, though he acted less like a parent and more like a drunk chaperone, waving her toward crowds like her presence annoyed him. She always wore the sorts of dresses Emilia did; the peak of fashion, so stylish they were nearly gauche, but while they worked on Emilia, they never quite looked right on Maria. She was always too bright, too expensive, too vulgar, the girl who never quite fit in. Perhaps it wasn’t her clothes—perhaps it was that strange look in her eyes, like her mind was haunted.

  This Maria, however, was different from the one I remembered. At court, she was something to point at, to mumble about. Here, she was the ruler, every bit as regal in her movements as Alexandra ever was. She paced around like the sanctuary was a throne room.

  “It makes sense. Alexei Romanov was the tsar, if only for a few days,” Maria said, stroking her chin with a hand covered in so many rings that it looked dipped in silver. “I never considered that the egg wouldn’t care about marriage—you’re the one he loved, so the power is yours. I suppose it makes sense, really—my father didn’t think much of marriage, seeing as he couldn’t marry his Alexandra.” Maria walked forward; the Babushka scurried out of her way so that Maria could run her knuckles along the edge of the Constellation Egg, like she wanted to punch it. It prickled at me—it was all I could do not to reach forward and swipe her hand away.

  There seemed to be a lull in the riots outside as the sun set. The cannons had been stopped for an hour or so, and gunfire was sporadic instead of regular. The roar of people was now a seamless hum, and according to a young mystic girl who came to report to Maria, most of the mystics who remained at the camp were fine, if shaken. It wasn’t clear if the Reds or Whites were claiming victory, or if this was just a pause in the chaos.

  Maria rapped her fingers across the egg; the rings clinked against it, like a strange instrument. “And now all that power, all yours,” she said, looking from the egg to me wondrously. “What a thing that is. Strange how my father loving a queen could lead to a noble girl possessing the power of all Russia’s mystics.”

  I inhaled. “I came all the way from Saint Petersburg,” I said, starting slow. “On a train, in the cold. I was nearly killed a half-dozen times, and now Alexei is dead . . . I’m all that’s l
eft. I thank you, Babushka”—I looked to the old woman, tried to smile but found my lips incapable of the expression right now—“and the other mystics for keeping the Constellation Egg safe. But please, you have to give it to me. The Reds mean to claim it for Lenin. If it were to fall to them now, the monarchy would be lost for good.”

  Maria and the Babushka looked at each other, and something like a smile played at Maria’s lips. “Ah yes,” she finally said. “The monarchy would be lost, I suppose. Though I daresay, perhaps the monarchy has outlived its usefulness, Miss Kutepova. After all, they were failing before my father empowered the Constellation Egg. The egg was a life raft, holding the tsar afloat, but without a tsar, I suspect even my father’s tricks aren’t enough to stop the Reds.”

  I took a shaky breath, felt Leo shift beside me. “You mean to give it to the Reds, then?” Maria didn’t answer, so I continued, my voice rising, panicked—I hadn’t come all this way to learn the mystics were traitors. “But Rasputin—your father. He loved Alexandra. He loved the family. He would never have supported them falling, them being shot in a basement in Siberia. They invited him into the palace, they made him a noble—”

  “Made him a noble? What a laugh, Miss Kutepova. He was never one of you, not really. Your people betrayed him,” Maria said icily. “They poisoned him. Stabbed him. Shot him. Drowned him. I was home when they fetched him from our apartment for ‘dinner.’ I knew something was strange. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t say anything. Why would I? These were his friends. And besides, no one would ever hurt the man who healed the tsarevich.”

  “Those people didn’t represent all the Whites, Maria, any more than the rioters represent all the Reds. They were wrong. They shouldn’t have hurt him. But still, Rasputin gave his magic to the Romanovs—”

  “Our magic. He stole ours. My father had no right to steal our magic for his precious Sunny.” She spit the tsarina’s nickname out like a curse. “And she had no right to accept it. She was a monster. I went to Saint Petersburg with a father, and suddenly all he cared about was the tsarina, her children. Like he forgot he had any of his own. She broke him.”