Web of Frost

by Lindsay Smith

  “Please. I can’t bear another moment of false tears from Countess Barilova, or the way Prince Martinov keeps looking at me and muttering, ‘Such a shame.’”

  “If you asked your father, would he permit you to go?”

  Katza stilled. Her yearning to visit the city had nothing to do with the tsar. Without a word, she surrendered her blue krest’yan piece and sought a new position for her horsebacked bogatyr.

  “I’m sorry. That was unkind.” Nadika leaned back, her sturdy frame making the ancient sofa beneath her groan. Her face was neutral as always, but Katza knew her well enough to hear the undercurrents of sorrow in it. “It’s been a challenging few days. I suppose a short ride in a phaeton could do no harm.”

  Katza would never find the order’s chapel from the back of a sleigh, gliding down Petrovsk’s broad boulevards. She tried to conjure up the details of her vision: the dark alleyway, the faint scent of brackish canals. Her best chance at finding it was to explore the city’s corners and let the saints guide her way.

  With a quick sacrifice of her bogatyr, Katza slid her tsar into place. “Checkmates.”

  Nadika frowned at the board; it took her a moment to spot how Katza’s blue tsar threatened her own white one. She toppled them both and the counterweights in the pieces shifted to change both tsars to red. “So it is. But you let me win with the far superior force,” Nadika said.

  Checkmates was a game of mutual destruction: two tsars chasing each other across the board, until one guaranteed the other’s death with his own. The only way to win was to die with the best army under one’s command. Sacrifice so that the rest could live on. A distinctly Russalkan game, but Katza was appallingly bad at it, as Aleksei had never failed to demonstrate.

  She wished he were here to point out all her mistakes once more.

  “What is the matter, tsarechka?” Nadika asked. “You usually at least put up a fight.”

  “I can’t bear another moment in the palace.” Katza’s words surprised even herself, but she felt the truth of them. “The halls are stuffed with my memories of him. It’s so hard to imagine never hearing his laughter down the hallway again.”

  Nadika grimaced. “I’m so sorry, Your Highness.”

  “And I need to be out there, not in here.” Katza gestured to the frosty windowpanes, set into deep recesses in the thick walls. The truth was the best option here. “I had a vision.”

  Nadika lifted her head. Something changed in her expression—a tactician’s alertness. “What kind of vision?”

  “It felt like—like a command. I think I’m meant to seek out an order of prophets. One whose sigil looks like this.” Katza rose and went to her correspondence desk to sketch the design.

  Nadika followed her and peered over her shoulder. A small crease appeared between her brow, but if she recognized the symbol from the prophet boy’s cloak, she said nothing of it. “And the saints bade you do this?”

  Katza nodded, a lump rising in her throat. “At Aleksei’s funeral rites.”

  Nadika worked her jaw; her gaze drifted to the parlor window, and the gray winter day of Petrovsk beyond. “Your father would not be pleased.”

  “But even he must bow before the saints.” Katza folded the paper and slipped it into the pockets of her thick woolen skirts. “Please, Nadika. Let’s walk the canals. Like we used to do with Aleksei.”

  Nadika smiled sadly. “All right. But only until the bells ring for last light.”

  Katza started to hug her, she was so relieved—but she wasn’t sure how Nadika might react to that. “We’ll be safe. I promise you.”

  Katza wore a heavy coat of simple wool over her chapel clothes and wrapped her scarf to cover her mouth and nose as well as her hair, while Nadika donned a woolen dress over her soldier’s uniform. Nadika’s height and her sharp features were harder to hide. Her high, broad cheekbones, sandy skin, and guarded eyes marked her as coming from the Mozgai people of Russalka’s southwestern plains. Yet Mozgai were common enough in Petrovsk, especially in winter’s early days, when the horse traders came to sell their stocky thick-coated breeds. To a casual observer, they appeared to be two women heading to or from market, nothing more.

  As soon as they slipped out of the servants’ gates along the Kirpichniy Canal, the shroud of grief that had draped Katza all day lifted away. Stubborn rays of late autumn sun pierced the cloud cover, and the cool wind blowing off the Pechalnoe Bay was not yet fierce enough to sting at her eyes. She breathed in deep, relishing the sour tang of the fishing boats and the salty scent of the canals. This was her city, and she loved it, for all that she feared she could never be the ruler it deserved.

  “There are many smaller orders housed in the Zhukov District, near the theaters,” Nadika said. “Maybe we could start our search there.”

  “Zhukov District . . . That’s south of Nikonovskiy Prospect, right?” Katza asked. “My father—” She lowered her voice, a flush creeping over her face. “My father says all of the writers and drunkards live there.”

  Nadika’s mouth quirked. “He’s not wrong. It isn’t far, though. One of the Mozgai from my old squadron tends bar at the Iron Gate Tavern there—he might know where your chapel is.”

  Katza jolted as an old woman, bundled in dozens of flowery scarves, shoved straight past her on the bridge. Well, she supposed she was standing in the middle of it. And it wasn’t as if the woman knew she was the tsarechka. A tiny thrill ran down her spine at her subterfuge.

  Nikonovskiy Prospect ran west from the palace square, a broad boulevard lined in staunch stone administrative buildings, wealthy townhomes, and chapels of marble and gold. As they crossed the afternoon bustle of phaetons and merchants’ carts to the south, however, the streets narrowed; the pedestrians thinned from people in thick fur coats and hats to sharp clusters of young men, eyes glittering from behind upturned collars. They passed a tenement home, some of its windows boarded up, and a baby’s shriek filled the air. The overwhelming stench of urine in an alley cut through Katza’s scarf and clung to the back of her throat.

  A door flew open in front of them, nearly striking Katza in the face, and a group of men spilled from a tavern’s mouth, laughing and slinging arms around one another’s shoulders. Actors or students, from the looks of them; they wore prim tailored suits that were nonetheless shabby and worn. “To Prince Aleksei!” one cried, hoisting a murky bottle.

  “To the death of Russalka,” another answered him.

  “The only Silov with a lick of sense. Into the cold ground with him.”

  “Another ten years, and we’ll all join him. If the Hessarians don’t overrun us, the tsar will work us to our deaths.”

  Katza froze on the spot. She’d known that not everyone loved the Silovs. Aleksei had disabused her of that. But to see them grimly cheering on the nation’s fall . . .

  Nadika squeezed Katza by the bicep, gently but firmly steering them down a side street that curved alongside a canal. “We’re nearly to the tavern.”

  Katza curled her fingers around the sketch in her pocket. She was quickly realizing how little she knew of her own city. Her own people.

  The Iron Gate was nestled in a cellar beneath one of the sagging university buildings, and true to its name, its entrance was guarded by a wrought iron gate that squealed as Nadika pulled it open. The inside was dimly lit but clean enough, Katza supposed, with wide wooden floor planks that groaned underfoot and unadorned white plaster walls. Semicircular windows ringed the walls just below the ceiling, granting a view of booted feet hurrying past along the narrow canal. Beyond the main tavern room branched a honeycomb of dining alcoves, filled to the brim with male university students in their waistcoats and fashionable caps, and bony women who looked fresh off their factory shifts or ready to head to work in the theatres. They tossed back yeasty-smelling ales as they shouted over one another and laughed.

  “Is it always this way?
” Katza asked under her breath, clinging to Nadika’s side. Unease had lodged itself in the pit of her stomach. “Father’s advisers said the whole city was in mourning.”

  “Your father’s advisers tell him what he wishes to hear.” Nadika ushered her to an empty table near the bar, where a one-armed Mozgai man wiped down the counter. “I’ll ask Bornov if he recognizes the sigil.”

  Katza settled into the rickety wooden chair while Nadika took the drawing to the Mozgai man. He smiled warmly when he recognized Nadika, though as they spoke, his gaze kept darting nervously toward Katza, like he expected her to do something rash. Katza glanced away to try to put him at ease and listened to the students a few tables over.

  They were playing some sort of boasting game, trying to top one another as they drained glass tumblers of vodok, a clear grain alcohol. Katza’s nose wrinkled as one of the men let loose a particularly convoluted string of vulgar words, but she forced herself to shake it off. These were her subjects, after all. The laborers and thinkers that would drive Russalka forward.

  “When I’m tsar,” one boy said, lifting his glass of vodok, “I shall put all the farm animals in the palace and put the Silovs in the barns.”

  Katza’s jaw loosened. The boy tipped his glass back as his compatriots laughed.

  Another boy stood and tucked his thumbs into his vest. “When I’m tsar, I shall wear his wife’s ball gowns, and make her parade up and down Nikonovskiy Prospect in only her smallclothes.”

  “Pig!” one of the women cried. “They should be burned instead. We could use the warmth here in Petrovsk!” Laughter sparkled all around.

  “Or give the dresses to me!” another woman said. “I think the tsar-consort’s temper itself is enough to roast us all alive.”

  The first woman raised her glass of vodok. “When I’m tsarika, I’ll prove what a fraud the Silovs are. Saints’ blessings, my ass. The little tsarechka couldn’t bless a turd!”

  Katza shrank down into the chair and pulled her scarf up to hide her flushing cheeks. She was trying—trying so hard to use her blessings well, even if the priests told her it was not the will of Boj. Surely they recognized what she’d done last night, to quell the rioters—

  “Now, now, let’s be fair. Someone in the palace cared enough to heal up the rioters last night,” one of the men said. “Grigoriy saw it himself.”

  “Some, but not all of them,” another boy sniffed. “If they truly cared, they wouldn’t have let their guards murder them.”

  “They wouldn’t let us starve in the first place—they’d use their blessings for all of us.”

  The first woman laughed. “Boj in heaven, no. The last we need is for them to have more power. We should thank those bitter old priests for keeping the Silovs in check, if nothing else.”

  Katza wrapped her arms tight around her. Yet there was no saint she could pray to—not to alleviate the sting of the truth. The people hated and feared her family, especially with Aleksei gone. Nothing her father did was enough to appease them; trying to stamp out their anger never did anything but spread the sparks.

  But they didn’t understand the burden the Silovs were under. All they saw were the extravagant banquets and the rare blessing from the saints, when the priests deemed it permissible to follow Boj’s will. They did not feel the pressure of the Hessarians like a blade at their spine as they constantly threatened to invade. They did not know that there was a danger in beseeching the saints too much, in becoming dependent on them. Russalka could not survive on blessings alone—someone had to rule, even if it meant making choices they didn’t like.

  Though if Katza was to someday rule Russalka, her visions warned, her nation may not survive at all.

  Katza had clenched a fist atop the table; Nadika sank into the chair beside her and covered her tight hand with her own. “Pay them no mind,” she whispered. “They’re just looking for someone to blame for their woes.”

  Her anger hardened, fire-tempered. “I wish that were true.” She wanted to help them—carry on Aleksei’s work. But how could she, when they wouldn’t even give her a chance?

  “Nothing you can do will make them happy. They think your family is to blame for all of it—the Hessarians, constantly threatening us with war. The poor harvest yields. The conditions in the factories.”

  “But those are real problems. And I do want to help them—the way Aleksei wanted to.” Her anger crested, crashing down. She could never match the hope he offered them, the sureness with which he spoke.

  “You are an unknown quantity to them. They’ll see in time that you have their best interests at heart.” Nadika exhaled. “Some will resent you no matter what, but most will let go of their fear in time.”

  Katza shook her head, tears threatening in her eyes. “No. They’re right to be afraid. I have no idea what I’m doing, Nadika.”

  The hesitation before Nadika spoke said enough. “I’m sure you learned much from your brother.”

  Katza slumped forward, drained. “Aleksei tried to teach me to be a good leader, in case I ever needed to step into his shoes. The unhappy workers and students, and the protesters at the banquet—they fear they have no allies left in the palace. No one left to hear their troubles.”

  A smile tugged at Nadika’s lips. “Your brother used to sneak out into the city all the time, in a disguise.”

  “He never told me about that.”

  “Not many knew—he swore me and his personal guard to secrecy, but I’m sure he would understand why I’m telling you now. He’d spend hours at the cafés and taverns, listening to his subjects talk. And all the while, they never knew they had their future tsar’s ear.” She released Katza’s fist. “He’d be proud of you for listening. For caring, no matter what.”

  Katza swallowed. The discomfort in her stomach was growing, spreading through her limbs. But if she saw the young prophet again—surely he could tell her what to do. He’d show her a way to quiet the students’ fears and placate the workers, just as he had with the riot last night.

  “Come. Let’s go to your chapel.” Nadika rose with a scrape of her chair. “Bornov says it should be only a few blocks away. The Order of the Mouth of Boj, he says they’re called.”

  Katza leapt up. “He knows it?”

  “Knows of it.” Nadika’s expression had hardened into granite. “He says they’re a bit, ah, unusual in their practices.”

  Katza’s unease lingered, like a shadow, but now she felt a renewed sense of purpose. She could find a way to use the saints’ blessings responsibly, like the prophet had showed her—she needn’t succumb to the lure of overwhelming power like tsars in the distant past, or to the warning of her recurring vision. She could be a good tsarechka and serve her people. She would earn their respect.

  As they climbed the steps that led out of the cellar, however, she heard the students’ chatter once more. “. . . And when the Bintari prince arrives, we’ll make last night’s protests look like a day at the market.”

  Nadika’s gaze met Katza’s. Katza’s eyes widened, but before she could react, Nadika reached for her hand and pulled her up the stairs.

  “Did you hear—”

  “Lots of folks threaten,” Nadika muttered. “Few of them act on it.”

  “But people died. And not just last night. The grain riots at the harbor earlier this year. The sailors’ mutiny at Bastalep—”

  “I’ll report it to the guards as a precaution,” Nadika said. “But we can’t risk lingering. It’ll only raise their suspicions.”

  “A precaution?” Katza cried. “They’re—they’re agitators, is what they are.” She clenched her teeth. Even if there was some fairness in their complaints . . . “They’re not peasants going hungry or workers toiling away. They’re just—bored students, trying to turn the common people against us.”

  “Yes, well.” They trudged back onto the narrow canalside path. “We
have ways of dealing with that.”

  Katza fell silent, remembering the way the guards had huddled as the rioters first climbed the gates. And then how they’d charged forward with their bayonets. If these were their ways, it was doing little more than making the people angrier.

  She had to find the young prophet. The way he’d steered her to just the right saints to quell the riot . . . He’d show her the right way to handle them. How to make better use of her gift.

  “Just another block,” Nadika said.

  They passed another row of tenement homes, rust stains snaking across them like veins, broken windows gaping. Their porches sagged from too many decades of heavy ice, and the carved murals on their lintels had softened and blurred. A woman watched their passage from where she perched on a window ledge, legs bared and dangling despite the cold, eyes hooded as she chewed a wad of bacc. Katza glanced at the decrepitude around them. The too-thin coats and ragged shoes on the people they passed. How could people live like this, so close to the palace’s splendor?

  But then they turned a corner and the darkened alley before her nearly staggered her.

  Everything aligned to her vision. It felt like a seam stitching closed. The heavy wooden door, set back from the street. The last golden gasp of daylight framing the world. Even the smell, brackish with the canals but clean with the scent of promise, was as her vision had foretold.

  And on the door, the sigil: the open circle spilling forth curved rays like a mouth issuing the truth. The Order of the Mouth of Boj.

  Katza reached for the door handle and it fell open.

  Incense wrapped around her like a warm blanket, pulling her into the dark depths of the small sanctuary. Her boots fell muffled on an earthen floor. A shaft of sunlight pierced the altar, and dust motes glittered within it like stars. As Katza’s eyes adjusted, she made out the icons of saints that lined the walls. They were far less ornate than those in the palace chapel where she’d spent the morning, yet there was an earnestness in the brush that rendered them, an honesty in their plainness, that made Katza feel as if she were before the saints themselves.