“But we cannot allow them to be more powerful than Us,” Aleksandr said.
“How do you propose to do that?”
“A hunt.” His brother smiled.
The plan now began to sound similar to what Father Stepan had designed. Here was the opportunity Pytor needed to gain the throne.
“We, you and I, and perhaps a select few of the elite and our allies hunt the beasts.”
“You don’t expect me to kill my daughter or allow her to be killed,” Pytor argued, pretending he didn’t know what Aleksandr would say, what line Father Stepan had already fed him.
“Of course not!” Aleksandr acted affronted. “Your daughter is quite safe. We shall kill my Beast. All I ask is that you offer her services in exchange for the death of my Beast. I will need someone to fulfill the role he has had.”
Pytor stared at his brother, unblinking. The trap was set, the bait laid, and his brother had stepped into it. “I agree,” he answered.
Pytor Proposes the Hunt to Polya
Polya followed the domaćica back to the throne room and snarled quietly when she entered. The room was heavy with tension and something else, something evil. It tickled her nose, and she worried whatever the feeling was, it would stick to her clothes like dust, coating her. She imagined even after bathing, scrubbing at her skin and airing out her clothes, she would still feel the lingering film of malevolence.
The king and her father seemed unaffected by the noxious environment, but both turned their heads when hearing her snarl.
The king smiled. “I hope you don’t snarl at me?”
She cleared her throat. “My apologies, Vaša Svjetlost, I most certainly did not.” But you are most certainly part of whatever wickedness pervades this room.
“I will see you in one month, Brother,” the king said to her father.
Pytor bowed and indicated to Polya to leave. They both backed out of the room before silently following the footman to their carriage.
Polya settled against the cushions, rubbing her nose in the velvet lining the seats at her back.
“Why must we return?” she asked.
Pytor waited until the carriage was in motion before he moved to sit next to Polya and took her hand.
“I have something to tell you,” he said. His blue eyes, so like her own, seemed to bore into her.
She waited, wishing so badly her father would be the man she thought he was. She mourned the loss of him as much as if he had well and truly died.
“There is an opportunity,” he said, “to take this country back from the brink.”
She didn’t trust him. She didn’t trust him at all. The caring, genuine look of concern in his eyes, it was a lie.
“You,” he said, taking her hand and squeezing it. “You are paramount to success.”
How unfortunate for you then.
“The king has proposed a hunt,” he said, “in which you will participate.”
“A hunt?” Polya asked confused, of all the things she expected her father to say, she did not expect him to suggest she hunt.
“Yes,” he answered and sat back, his eyes sliding away from her, transmitting his internal disquiet, “you and his beast.”
Polya closed her eyes and turned her head to the window, not wanting her father to see the barbed wire piercing her heart yet again.
“You and the beast will be a show of his strength, of his cunning, and his power.”
“How does he think a hunt will do this?” Polya asked.
“He has designed a series of challenges, problems for you to solve. You are an extension of him, a representation of his cunning.”
Polya raised an eyebrow and allowed herself to growl. “I am nothing to him.”
“You are an extension of me. The personification of my power, my cunning, and my intelligence.”
“I have no value as myself then?” She couldn’t help asking.
“Of course you do, Mače.”
“How does my participation show this?”
“There will be guests, and there will be participants. They will be powerful men, allies and enemies. You will destroy them.”
“Kill them?” Polya waited, breathless, for his answer.
“If you have to.”
“I won’t,” she said quickly, desperately. “I won’t do this. You can’t make me.”
Her father’s eyes narrowed, the blue getting colder and colder until they reminded her of the winter sky. “You will.”
“If I have to kill them,” she said, realization striking her, “it means they are trying to kill me.”
Her father glanced away. “Yes.”
“You want me to die?”
“You won’t die,” he said. “You have been excessively worried about your demise as of late.”
“Because you are pushing me toward the precipice!” How could he not see what would happen? Her death was inevitable. It was the only outcome. “I am grasping for handholds, and they are pulling away from the earth,” she whispered.
“You will have a partner,” he said. “The beast. He is ruthless and strong. No one will get past him.”
“The beast will be destroyed, just as I will be.”
“Polina.” He wearily rubbed his hand across his forehead. “Let me finish.”
Polya waved her hand. “Please,” she said grinding out the words. “Don’t let my concern about dying stop you from explaining to me the manner of my death.”
“You will not die!” he yelled, his fist slamming into the carriage above their heads. “You will be the hammer! You will be the sword!” He took a deep breath to calm himself. “There will be a hunt,” he said. “That will be your opportunity.”
“To kill the king?”
“Kill or be killed, Mače.”
Polya shook her head. “No.”
Her father stared at her.
“No,” she said again, more forcefully. “I refuse. I won’t do it.”
“You want to leave?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t want to see me again? To be a part of rescuing our country?”
Polya paused. She missed her father so much. He had been her only confidante. Now, he was contemplating her death without blinking.
“I want to live. I want to be free, and I don’t want people using me.”
“If you do this, Polya,” he said seriously, “you can have Bishmyza. You can go there, and we will never bother you again. You can be free.”
This had been his plan all along. He was too quick, too confident of her answer.
Polya clasped her hands in her lap, her tail snaking from under her dress to wrap around her body tightly like a shield.
“And if I refuse? If I refuse to participate?”
“Then I am dead. Your mother is dead. Or”—he shook his head as if clearing his thoughts of the consequences—“things will be harder than you can imagine.”
“I have no choice.”
The King Commands Anatoliy to Participate in the Hunt
The door to Anatoliy’s room swung open, and the guards entered. Anatoliy sat up, anxious, his conversation with Dara fresh in his mind. Had the king caught him?
“Bathe him,” Aleksandr said, sniffing and wrinkling his nose with disgust. “He reeks. But wait until we leave for the fields. He can stew in his own filth until then.”
One of the guards nodded.
Aleksandr turned one of the wooden chairs around and straddled it. “You understand me, Bear, and I know you could communicate with me if you wished.”
Anatoliy stayed in his corner. He would give nothing away.
“My brother has just left here with my niece. She’s a lovely girl, except that she’s not a girl. She’s an animal, much like you. Beautiful,” he added, “but with a tiger’s tail and fangs.” Aleksandr laughed. “She had the gall to growl at me.”
Anatoliy huffed a laugh, glad that Aleksandr couldn’t understand the nature of his sounds.
“You and she will put on a show,” he
continued, and Anatoliy shook his head. “Yes, Bear. Yes, you will. Because not only do I hold the lives of your squadron in the palm of my hand, but I have a reward for you, should you do as I ask.”
Anatoliy cocked his head, what?
“Your squadron.” He smiled. “Their freedom. And yours.”
Anatoliy shook his head. Impossible. The king would go back on his word, he would never allow his men to be free. They were much too useful.
“If you do as I ask, I will not have need of your men,” Aleksandr said, surprising Anatoliy with his insight. “I will be feared here and abroad. No one will ever think to cross me.”
He was delusional, Anatoliy realized. It was the nature of men to yearn for more than what they had, and as long as there was such a wide gap between Aleksandr and his people, they would always strive for more, to shrink the gap. They would always want to have what Aleksandr had.
Yet Anatoliy could not discount what he offered. Never, in the years of his containment, since the priest changed him from man to bear, had the king ever made an offer such as this. He had used Anatoliy as a blunt instrument, killing everyone in his path. All Aleksandr had to do was threaten his men, and Anatoliy acted. He had never made a promise to set his men free.
Anatoliy had to give them this chance. If it was all a ruse, which Anatoliy had every suspicion of it being, he would have to take the risk.
He stood on his hind legs, walking toward the king until the guards’ spears dug into his skin, drawing small drops of blood, and he bowed his head, accepting his offer.
“Marvelous,” the king whispered.
Preparations for the Hunt
Around the world, across oceans and across Konstantin’s lengthy borders, invitations were sent and received. The invitations were embossed with real gold leaf, the paper woven with silk, a tangible reminder of the glorious Konstantinean monarchy.
Each and every invitation was accepted. Ambassadors took steam ships across the oceans. Diplomats ordered new suits, had their rifles cleaned and oiled, and wore stiff boots around their homes in preparation for tramping through the forest after wild animals. They consulted taxidermists, hoping to stuff and mount their kills, not knowing there would not be enough animals to go around.
Aleksandr’s brothers began their own preparations when they received their invitations. They made sure their wills were filed and signed and their wives would want for nothing. They sent their sons far away to boarding schools on other continents. They sent them with trunks that had false bottoms and were full of treasures. They warned them never to return to Konstantin, no matter what they heard. They sent their daughters away as well, hiding them in convents close to the border, giving the abbesses directions to send their daughters across if revolution should come. They set up bank accounts in foreign countries, quietly sending money away, planning for the future of their children, since they believed they would be the victims in whatever plot their brothers had hatched. They fully expected to die in the Hunt.
The anarchists languishing in their prisons also received invitations, though theirs were less glorified. They were given increased rations and allowed to write letters home. They knew what that meant. They were saying goodbye, preparing for the fight they would face, the one they knew they would never survive.
The man who had trained his rifle on the prince wrote a letter to the woman he’d never told he loved. In his letter, he told her everything. How he had joined the anarchists to make a better world, how he had never told her how he felt because, as the world now stood, their children would have no hope, and no future. He detailed the first time he had seen her, across a crowded and cold factory floor. He told her of watching the dust motes gathered around her head like a halo, and the way her blue eyes had shone over the kerchief she kept over her mouth to keep from inhaling particles.
The guards kept their word and mailed the letters. The king had decreed they do so, the priest having assured him that the fear and hopelessness would be transmitted to the addressees.
Father Stepan was right. Until the day Yulia received her letter from the man she had loved for years, she thought he’d cared nothing for her. Then, realizing this was his goodbye, she sewed heavy stones into the hem of her winter dress.
Blindly, she’d walked the streets of St. Svetleva, her skirt dragging through the mud. At Borisova Bridge, she descended the ancient rocky steps, and threw herself into the Svetla River.
Mothers wept and wished they’d never married and had babies. They wished there was some way they could have kept their children from this fate.
Fathers took to staring out their windows or at their hands, sick to death with the knowledge that they could not protect their sons. They hated themselves for not acting when they were young to ensure a better future for the boys now being sent to their deaths.
In the western part of Konstantin, workers prepared the land for the Hunt. They found the perfect spot: a forested swath of land at the base of the Stovnya Mountains. They brought in giant land-movers, dug holes, and laid traps and lines.
They aimed cannons at the summit and made trails impassable. The villages surrounding the area had never seen so many trains. Beautiful and ornate tents were set up, comfortable homes away from comfortable homes. Kitchens were quickly built, and cooks began the task of creating meals in the wilderness.
More trains arrived, this time with massive, steel box cars stuffed with ice. They were hoisted off the rails and dragged by the horses which had been commandeered from the surrounding villages.
The king didn’t worry that the farmers were struggling to cut the last bit of hay or to harvest the corn needed to help the cows survive the winter. He didn’t worry that they were eyeing the path cut through the forest that made a wind tunnel for the icy air to sweep right off the mountain and into their already difficult lives.
None of that concerned Aleksandr.
He was consumed with preparations. He never let Father Stepan away from his side. Any suggestion the priest made, Aleksandr followed.
Take their horses.
Cut their trees.
Pull the men from the fields, have them dig the trenches.
Let the anarchists write home. Let the papers meet their families.
Aleksandr could barely eat and sleep, he was so excited. Each day that passed only made his enthusiasm grow. He visited Anatoliy daily, taunting him with small nuggets of information, and teasing him with potential challenges he would face in the Hunt.
Anatoliy spent his time on the rug, staring at the floor or tracing the words on the wall with his claws. When Aleksandr left him, he paced.
Dara didn’t return. He hoped his good friend had left, and that he wasn’t imprisoned somewhere. He hoped he wouldn’t meet him during the Hunt.
Anatoliy didn’t pray, and he didn’t mourn. He prepared himself, hoping his men were free, hoping that the life he was living was close to ending.
Polya didn’t eat or sleep, either. She paced her room. She didn’t bathe or brush her hair. When her mother came to visit, bringing with her a seamstress who would make her clothes for the Hunt, Polya hissed and spat.
Her father didn’t dare enter her room, for the one time he did, mirrors, boxes, books, treasures, flew at his head. She screamed and growled at him before finally ignoring him and refusing to acknowledge his presence. When she wasn’t pacing, she was lying in her bed, staring at the ceiling, tracing the lines of plaster, staring bleary eyed at the shadows as they moved across the floor.
She lit a candle at night and stared into its flame. She held her tail tightly in her hands, stroking the fur, letting its weight comfort and soothe her. It was her protection. It was her shield.
Polya is Made Ready
Polya woke up with her mother shaking her shoulder.
“It’s time.”
Had she fallen asleep? She lay on top of the blankets on her bed, the candle she’d placed on the bedside table a puddle of hardened wax. She turned over so she could face
her mother.
The sky was just starting to lighten, giving Polya the ability to make out her mother’s face.
“Do you want me to go?” she asked her mother, who had been absent during the weeks of preparations except for engaging seamstresses and worrying about Polya’s hair.
“I was never meant to have you,” her mother said, “and then—I was never meant to keep you.”
“I’m not coming back,” Polya told her, rubbing her eyes and sitting up.
Her mother stood and moved to the window, pushing aside the curtain to peer out at the road. “The carriage is ready. I’m sending a maid to help you with your hair.”
Polya pulled herself to the side of the bed. “Mama.”
Her mother turned around, her beautiful skin glowing in the gray light. Her hair caught any bit of reflection possible. She looked like an angel—a cold, distant, unforgiving angel.
“Will you miss me?”
Her mother sat next to her on the bed and held her hands out to examine her rings before sighing and straightening her skirt. “I won’t let myself miss you, Polya.”
It hurt Polya all the more because she expected such a response. “I can get ready on my own,” Polya replied and stood up, moving behind the screen to pull her dress off.
She began to dress in the long, woolen leggings and underclothes her mother had ordered. Her fingers were numb, and she moved robotically. She buttoned up her dress and sat at the vanity.
The mirror reflected her face, and Polya touched her cheeks. She felt like she was firmly seated in her body, like no one could disconnect her from it. She told her fingers to unwind her braids, and they did. She told her eyes to blink, and they blinked. She looked at her fingers, touching the tips. She imagined being pulled out of her body.
And what if, after that happened, there was nothing? No dream-filled sleep, or moral reckoning for her life.
Wrath and Ruin Page 11