Web of Frost

by Lindsay Smith

  Katza drew up her courage, imagining it filling her like she was a sail. “For someone with such a rare gift as yours, you do not seem to take much pleasure in being a vessel for the saints.”

  “Am I meant to take pleasure in it?” Even in the darkness, there was no mistaking the cruel smile in his tone.

  “There are many who would kill to possess it. And many more who would kill you because you possess it.” She shivered, thinking of the agitators in the tavern. And of Patriarch Anton’s bitter glare. “The saints have no choice but to commune with me. You, however, they chose.”

  “That was no meaningful blessing that I worked in there.” He flicked his spindly fingers in the direction of the banquet hall. “Your mother is not possessed by demons or afflicted with any spiritual ailment. It is a natural illness, and to cover it over with the saints’ blessings is not the same as curing it.”

  “It relieved her suffering for a time,” Katza said.

  “No. It relieved the suffering of those around her for a time.” His gaze locked on hers. “They are not the same thing.”

  Shame weighed on Katza. Too often, they sought to end her mother’s episodes to spare the royal family further embarrassment rather than ease her mother’s pain. It was selfish, and it hurt to have Ravin name it as such. But he was right.

  “I wish to do meaningful things with my blessings,” Ravin said. His words held weight—dipped in iron. “What you are capable of—it carries great meaning. Why do you fear it so?”

  “I am untrained in calling on the saints. And anyway, everyone says that to overuse our blessings is to invite Boj to smite us down. It happened to the old tsars, and it’s happened to my father and Aleksei too.” She recalled the riot at Bastalep. “Some even say Aleksei’s illness was punishment for his overreach.”

  And as open as she felt around this strange Ravin—around his unflinching gaze and his voice that wrapped around her like the softest wool—she could not tell him her other fear. The vision that drifted along the edges of her whole life: the wolf lying gutted in the snow.

  “Training is a simple enough matter. With the right teaching,” Ravin said, “you could work miracles.”

  Katza shook her head. “No. You don’t understand—”

  “Katarzyna. Tsarechka.” His voice sketched an image in her mind. It conjured up the saints, not flat in their icons, but warm and alive. “You could raise Russalka to new heights.”

  He was standing before her—when had he risen from the bench? Silver moonlight limned the side of his face, his shoulder, his arm as he reached his right hand toward her. He held two fingers toward her forehead with a question in the arch of his raised brow.

  Permission. He wanted permission to grant her the blessing of the Saints’ Wheel. No priest had ever asked before; they’d simply done it, and sent her on her way.

  Katza clenched her jaw and nodded.

  His fingers traced down her forehead, her nose, her lips. The sign was meant to seal in a blessing, but instead his touch felt like an awakening. His warm bare skin burned away the nighttime chill. When he lowered his hand, she pressed her lips together, and imagined she could still taste his blessing there.

  “You fear your visions and your gifts because you do not understand them.” He tilted his head. “But I could show you.”

  A distant cry from the palace square snagged both their attention. Katza’s ribs knitted together. Another riot? She grasped her right hand with her left.

  Ravin’s lips moved again, then he opened his eyes and smiled faintly. “They are restless still. But no harm will come tonight.”

  “Tonight,” Katza echoed. She released her hands and drew herself up. “What would you have me do about them? Not tonight—but in the grander scheme. How might my gifts aid me in resolving their complaints?”

  Moonlight caressed Ravin’s cheek as he tilted his head. “What visions have you had that pertain to them? What does your own heart urge you to do?”

  Katza winced. Listening to her own heart was a luxury too steep for a tsarechka.

  “Close your eyes,” Ravin urged her. “Concentrate on them. See what guidance comes your way.”

  Katza closed her eyes. For a moment, nothing came to her. Slowly, though, her thoughts wandered back to the darkened corners of the taverns. The cafés, where the students and writers and agitators congregated, whispering to one another and passing out illegal pamphlets that called for the end of the Silovs with no cause, no idea of the chaos they were inviting. As she summoned up those images, a scrim descended on her mind, shrouding it, filling it with a new vision. She imagined silence spreading over the land, spreading its wings like a great bird of prey. And in the silence, the bird spied all the little pockets where the rats scurried and schemed.

  “We must seize upon their words and plans.” Katza’s eyes flew open. “We must be able to stop them before they begin. And to do so, we need ears where they plan, filtering away the noise. We need to find this Ulmarov who’s urging them to act.”

  Ravin nodded. “Yes. Go on.”

  Katza bit her lower lip; it was still salty from Ravin’s touch. “I think we ought to send the palace’s agents into the taverns and cafes and classrooms and printing halls. Root them out.” Her voice pitched dangerously as she recalled their hateful, ignorant words. “Stop them from agitating.”

  Ravin clasped her cheeks. His touch was like fire. “Yes, tsarika.” His gaze skewered her. “If Russalka is to be tamed once more, then you cannot fear taming it.”

  Katza wavered. Some of their points were valid—even Aleksei had thought so. But they couldn’t go about it this way. “The agitators will resent us.”

  “Resent you? Maybe. Like an unbroken horse will resent its rider, at first.” Ravin lowered his gaze. “But it will learn its place, in time. If you do not let your will falter.”

  Do not falter. Katza blinked, recalling her vision during Aleksei’s funeral. The saints are yours to command. Perhaps the people of Russalka must be, too.

  “A new war comes to Russalka,” Ravin said. “A new order must arise. It will take a strong will to endure it. But I know you are capable.”

  Katza shook her head. “I’m not strong. I try to be, but I’m not—”

  “You are. Far stronger than you know.” Ravin smiled. “What you cannot do is doubt yourself. Too many will try to prey on your doubt—use it to chip away at you. Do not let them. Trust in the saints’ blessings, and endure the momentary discomfort. For Russalka’s good.”

  His words illuminated a dark space inside Katza where she’d never before dared to look. Strength was what was needed to set Russalka aright—to stop the agitators from upsetting the balance. To stop the priests from preventing her family from performing great works. Aleksei would have been proud to see Katza take up his cause—of righting wrongs and using blessings to their fullest, and not just what the patriarch would permit.

  Ravin was right. And Katza had never before felt so certain. A new approach, the one Aleksei would have wanted—it was just what she needed to keep her vision at bay.

  “Thank you.” She stepped back, unsure what else to do. “Thank you.”

  Dimly, Katza heard Nadika calling her name.

  Katza tensed. She wasn’t ready to leave the prophet’s side. Something about being near him filled her with a confidence she hadn’t known she’d possessed. Ravin’s fingers brushed against her cheeks, and his expression wrinkled with fleeting frustration, but he smoothed it away and let his hands drop.

  “Go on. Russalka needs you,” he said. “You know now what you must do.”

  “But what comes after?” Katza asked.

  He smiled softly. It warmed his eyes, though his gaze was no less intense. “Perhaps I can aid you then, too.”

  “Thank you, prophet,” Katza whispered. Ravin held up the sign of the Saints’ Wheel as she backed toward
the palace. Katza smiled, then turned, but held her head high. Her face was still warm where he’d touched it. It felt gilded, like an icon.

  For perhaps the first time in her life, Katza knew exactly what she must do.

  Tsar Nikilov was scowling at a stack of correspondence when Katza entered his private study the next morning. She recognized the thin telegraph paper his military commanders used to transmit reports. “Father?” she asked, chest tight with uncertainty. “Do you have a moment?”

  He peered at Katza over his reading glasses, face softening. “Yes, of course.” He glanced toward his secretary, a nervous, thin-haired man named Stolichkov. “Could you give us a moment, please?”

  Stolichkov laced his fingers together. “Your Highness, I think this warrants an urgent response . . .”

  “And it shall get one soon enough.” The tsar smiled, though even Katza saw what strain it was under.

  “Y—yes, Your Highness. I’ll return shortly.” Stolichkov bowed, trembling, then turned to bow to Katza again before retreating.

  Katza gestured toward the papers her father still gripped. “News from the outposts?” she asked. She hoped she was using the right terminology. Everything she knew of the Russalkan armed forces, she’d learned from Nadika.

  He shuffled them to one side. “Nothing you need trouble yourself . . . Well. I suppose it’s your right to know after all.” He smiled sadly. “We’ve received more reports of Hessarian troop movements along the southern border, and their naval fleet in the north is growing, too. One of my spies noted a great deal of activity at their shipyards, though he was unable to catch a glimpse of whatever they were building. He suspects it’s a new naval vessel of some kind.”

  “What of our allies in Bintar?” Katza asked. “If Hessaria is amassing troops on the southern border, they’ll defend it, won’t they?” She’d thought that the whole point of her marriage, after all. That, and trying to make everyone forget about Aleksei. The rancid taste of resentment lingered in her mouth.

  The tsar snorted. “Perhaps you should ask them for yourself.”

  “Fahed is a strong personality,” Katza said carefully. Her father had selected this match for her, and it wasn’t her place to protest. “I’m sure you and he will learn to work together soon enough.”

  “As I hope the both of you will, too. Without Bintar’s support, we can’t hold off a southern incursion. They stood with us during the Five Days’ War, but this would require more effort on their part.” The tsar stood from his desk and came toward the sofa opposite it; as he sat, he patted the seat beside him, as he had when Katza was a little girl. “Is that what troubles you this morning?”

  Katza settled onto the sofa beside him and ran her hand along the rich brocade fabric. She remembered so many fond afternoons playing with dolls in this room, and later, practicing etiquette lessons at the tea table, while her father and Aleksei discussed the world beyond the edges of the city of Petrovsk. The various farming districts of Russalka, the Mozgai steppes, and then the nations of Bintar, Hessaria, and Hessaria’s anxious allies to its west . . . Now she wished she’d paid better attention to those talks.

  “Your wedding will be very soon,” he said. “I am sure you are eager for it. An important time in every young woman’s life. I thought we might plan it to fall on Saint Agniesz’s feast day, to bode for an auspicious coupling and plentiful heirs—”

  Katza’s stomach churned. Choosing a date made the impending marriage far too real. She didn’t want it looming on the horizon, growing larger by the moment. “Actually . . . that’s not why I came to you today.” She steeled herself. “. . . I had an idea for dealing with the agitators.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “Oh? I thought you were undecided on the matter.”

  She turned her head away so he wouldn’t see her embarrassed flush. “Well, a new thought came to me. At the court yesterday, you and Fahed discussed meeting them with overwhelming force from the city and palace guards. You’d also mentioned calling in the army if needed to assist them.”

  The tsar nodded. “Yes, but if Hessaria is in fact threatening us, we’ll need the army at the borders, not here in the city.”

  “Precisely. What if, instead, we put some of your spies—your top agents from the military—to work here, in Petrovsk?”

  His smile faded, and he drummed one finger against his lips, considering. “And what would these agents do?”

  “Lurk in all the places where the agitators meet and rile up the workers. Listen to their scheming in the taverns and student halls. Hold to account those who print lies about us on their presses.” She faltered for a moment. It wasn’t all lies. But surely their agents could discern between those who wanted true change and those who only sought to disrupt. “And—and your representatives in the farming districts—they can appoint their own agents who can warn you of the farmers who try to withhold grain, or the peasants who try to agitate. Like the grain riots last harvest,” Katza said.

  “And what benefit does it give us?” he asked. Not unkindly—in fact, he sounded how he’d sounded with Aleksei, examining every angle.

  “We are no longer on our back foot. We aren’t waiting to react to whatever cruelty the protesters lob at us next. Instead, we will cut them off before they have a chance to act.”

  “Defuse the cannon before it has a chance to fire,” her father mused. “And using far less resources than calling in a battalion.”

  “Yes, exactly. I know the city guard does it somewhat already, but this would be a concerted effort committed to halting the agitators’ work. And . . .” She winced. “It would be safer. Than sending in a full force.”

  He pressed his finger against his upper lip to smooth the two sides of his mustache. “I don’t know. My spies are still needed at the borders, too, and it takes them time to gain their targets’ trust. And it is not easy to see how effective they are—they could catch a hundred schemes, but still miss the one that counts.”

  Katza steadied herself for the next part of her plan—the one her father was sure to hate. Saint Lviva, grant me courage! “That is why we will grant our agents a small blessing from Saint Raskriy.” The saint who, centuries back, gave his life to expose a plot and bring word of it to the tsar. “It will make their task far easier, and ensure our success.”

  His mustache bristled as he exhaled through his nose. “Katza. I am glad you are eager to step into Aleksei’s role as heir.”

  Katza already felt the frustration prickling her face.

  “But we must be cautious with the saints’ gifts.” The tsar patted her knee. “To overuse them is to make us dependent.”

  “Father, please. I know you and Aleksei had a bad experience stopping the riot at Bastalep, but—”

  “Because we relied too heavily on the blessings. We called on too many, and our people paid the price.”

  Katza gripped her hands tightly together. “I understand your concern.” He had no idea how much she understood that fear—the fear of drawing too deeply on their power. He had no idea of the wolf that haunted her, its eyes urging her toward caution. “But this is vital. You needn’t worry about your blessings growing out of control like they did at Bastalep. It’s only one blessing, to bolster the work the spies already do. I’m sure the patriarch will see its value if we ask his permission.”

  The tsar’s fingers went limp upon her knee. “I suppose it’s possible . . .”

  “Think, Father. Imagine if we no longer needed worry about the trouble within our own borders. How much more attention could you devote to the growing Hessarian threat? How much better prepared, then, could we be for whatever they bring our way?”

  He laughed, admiring, and stood. “You’re more like your brother than I thought.”

  Katza beamed. It was the highest compliment he’d ever paid her.

  “I suppose we can attempt it. On a smaller scale, at first.” He p
aced the study. “I’ll send a letter to Patriarch Anton, explaining my reason for using the blessing. Then I’ll ask Stolichkov to bring forth my ten most agile city guards for the blessing.”

  Katza nodded eagerly. “Yes! It’s splendid. But wait—do you not need the Golden Court’s approval?”

  “I consult with the Golden Court. But I am tsar. My orders are second only to those directly from Boj.” He looked at Katza sidelong. “Perhaps Boj is speaking to us now.”

  “And if Boj is not,” the tsar said, “that will prove itself quickly enough.”

  While her father blessed his agents and sent them out into the city, Katza had wedding preparations to attend to.

  Fahed remained his charming self through lunches and dinners and strolls through the palace grounds. But he was a private man too, tending to his gymnastics and his reading. Katza tried once or twice to join him as he exercised or read, but it seemed to matter not to him whether she was present, so she stopped. It was a relief, in a way—she always felt like a danse sacre performer on stage when she was with him, dreading when the next misstep might come. Yet it unnerved her, too. If he could ignore her so easily now, how easily would he reach over her, speak over her when she was tsarika?

  One afternoon, she invited Fahed to join her for a horseback ride along the quays that lined the harbor, but Nadika insisted they stay within the palace grounds for safety concerns, so Katza was only able to point out the most obvious monuments. The golden turnip-shaped domes of Saint Kirill Cathedral, the spires of the Russalkan administrative offices, and across the bay, the island where Temenok Prison crouched like a behemoth of red and black stone. Though the air was heavy with the threat of snow, the bay churned below them still, only a thin fringe of frost collecting at its edge where it lapped against the quays.