Seeker of the Crown

by Ruth Lauren

  Katia surveys the open drawers and the bed. “There’s nothing here,” she says. “We should all have gone after her.”

  Maybe Katia’s right. “I just really thought she was hiding something.”

  Feliks runs his fingers over the tops of the door frame and the window, then turns back to me and shakes his head.

  Katia’s right. There’s nothing here. Natalia’s never going to come back here. We’ll never find her again. My gaze lands on the satchel.

  She was packing.

  In a hurry.

  I snatch up the bag and tip it out onto the floor. The rough material of a few spare clothes falls out, along with a small notebook. Feliks makes a noise of surprise, and both he and Katia step in close as I stand and open the book.

  “What is it?” he asks, looking from me to Katia and back again. I flip through the tiny pages. There are dates and times, and each of them has a brief note next to it, some including an amount of money.

  “I think these are details of everything she did for the princess.” I pause on a page that says “Tower fire,” then on another that says “Docks.”

  Feliks frowns. “Are you sure? Why would she write them down?”

  We’re all quiet for a moment.

  “Maybe … as a kind of insurance policy?” says Katia.

  “Yes. Proof of what she’d been asked to do,” I say. “Just in case she ever needed it.”

  Feliks’s eyes are wide, and I’m hoping it’s not with admiration. “To blackmail the princess?” he asks.

  I shrug. “Maybe. Or in case she ever got caught—to prove that she was acting on orders.”

  “Clever,” says Feliks. “I mean, terrible, of course,” he adds hastily, “but you have to admit, it’s clever too.”

  I riffle through the pages until I find the last entry. Katia and I read the date and time and look up at each other.

  “What? What?” Feliks shakes my arm. His fingers are filthy with dust from the door frame.

  “This is today’s date,” I say.

  Katia squints out the window, up at the sun. “In about three hours’ time.”

  “Well, what’s happening?” Feliks almost shouts.

  I flip the pages back and forth, just to make sure. “It doesn’t say. All it says is ‘Queen Ana.’ ”

  Katia touches the notebook. “You need to get this to her.”

  I nod. “And tell her what little Natalia told me about Anastasia. She still intends to rule Demidova.”

  “Valor?” The look on Feliks’s face as he stares past us makes me turn around fast. Standing in the doorway is one of the huge sailors from the ship I ran across, and behind her I count three more. The smell of the sea and the tavern rolls off them, sour and wild. A length of chain wrapped around the woman’s fist rattles out of her hand, and one end hits the floor.

  CHAPTER 6

  I instantly look to my crossbow, still lying on the floor where I dropped it when I grabbed for Natalia. The woman takes one swift step into the room and kicks the bow behind her. The chain she’s wielding drags along the floor with a solid iron slither that sets my teeth on edge. Feliks clutches my arm.

  “We’ll be on our way,” says Katia. Her tone is hard, but I hear the edge of fear in it.

  “I don’t think so,” says the woman. She has pale skin and an accent like Katia’s. Her hair hangs in matted braids shot through with beads. Feliks sidles away from me. We glance at each other, and I understand: he wants us to spread out and try to get away. He’s right. I won’t stop him the way I did when Peacekeeper Rurik came to collect us from the palace.

  But with the woman in front of us, the four of us take up most of the space in the cramped room. Another sailor blocks the doorway. I’m completely on edge, aware of everything; I see all the dirt in his beard, the broken leather lace on his tunic.

  Feliks dodges right, Katia breaks left, and I do the only thing I can: run straight at the woman, sidestepping and twisting past her. Fingers swipe the air by my arm, and my heart is hammering—and then suddenly, abruptly, I’m yanked to a stop, pinned in front and back by two sailors who are each a full head taller than I am.

  I open my mouth to shout. Someone grabs my arms from behind, and a sack is pulled over my head, muffling the sound I let out. I thrash around and yell, but the cloth is pulled tight, and I cough. It stinks of fish. Next to me I hear Feliks shouting out, and then a thump followed by a muffled cry.

  My eyes are wide against the sudden darkness inside the sack, and the reek of fish clings to the back of my throat. My arms are held taut at an uncomfortable angle as someone shoves me forward. I stumble, but my captor catches me roughly and pushes me onward. We march along the corridor and then out into the cold air. My boots tread snow. I’m jostled by a shorter person to my left.

  “Feliks?”

  Someone cuffs me on the side of the head, and the sudden blow sets my ear ringing. Now it’s harder to tell where I am and where anyone else is. The only thing I know is that we’re surrounded and being herded, saints know where, by four strangers who definitely don’t wish us well. I shake my head, trying to clear the buzzing. My ear is hot and throbs in time with my heartbeat.

  My arms begin to hurt from being pulled up behind my back every time I slow or stumble. I try to keep track of the twists and turns as we walk, but it becomes impossible, and all I can think about is my own warm breath heating the filthy sack over my face and filling my lungs with the reek of rotting fish.

  Eventually I hear voices, and the call of seabirds becomes more insistent. The cobbles feel slushy under my feet, and then I trip over a step and get hauled up again onto a narrow board that bows beneath my feet. I recognize it instantly from chasing Natalia—a gangplank. Someone grabs the front of my tunic and hurls me down onto slippery wood. I’m on the deck of a ship; I can feel the rocking motion. There are two thuds beside me, and Katia shouts but is cut off as though her voice just vanished.

  I hear a bang that vibrates through the wood where I lie struggling to right myself with my hands held behind my back, and then I’m dragged backward by the collar of my furs. The floor drops out from under me. I cry out as I fall and then hit something solid, knocking all my breath out of me.

  Two more heavy thuds sound beside me, and then above me something slams. I lie breathless for a few seconds, waiting for everything that hurts to stop hurting.

  “Valor?”

  It’s Feliks, sounding shaky.

  “I’m here. I’m all right,” I say, though my heart is still beating wildly and my arms are burning. “Katia?”

  “Here too. Are we on a ship?”

  “I think so,” I say. Above us are muffled sounds of boots and other heavier bangs. I wriggle my way upright and drop my head between my knees, shaking it in order to get the sack off. I have to wedge the end of the material between my boots to pull it off. I blink at Katia, who’s already managed to get the sack off her head. Her braids have pulled free in places, and there’s a cut on her lip, the blood already crusted.

  Feliks shakes free of his sack like a dog. We’re in a dim room filled with wooden barrels and burlap sacks. The walls are solid planks of wood, and there’s a heavy hatch above us—the one we must have been thrown through.

  “What do they want with us?” I ask.

  Feliks sighs, twisting into a position that allows him to rest his back against a small ironbound keg. “To sell us? To work the ship until we drop from exhaustion and then toss us overboard? Who knows. I told you the docks weren’t a place we wanted to come,” he says. “And they’re definitely not a place to draw attention to yourself.”

  My skin prickles even though the air is close and dank. “I’m sorry. I never meant for anything like this to happen.”

  “We should have waited, not rushed into anything,” says Katia. “We should have had a better plan. Now all we’ve got is some notebook that proves nothing, and look where we are.”

  I’d almost forgotten about the notebook. The date and time—
two o’clock this afternoon. And next to that, the queen’s name.

  Panic hits me. “I dropped the notebook. We have nothing to show the queen.” I struggle forward, a fresh sense of fear rushing through me.

  Feliks’s face is creased in concentration. He’s trying to work free of his bonds using the iron nails in the keg.

  “What time do you think it is?” I ask.

  Katia shakes her head. Her eyes are bright with fear, like those of a hunted animal. “Valor, you’re not listening. Look where we are. Who cares whether you have anything to show the queen if she never sees you again?”

  She’s right. I manage to get to my knees. The ship pitches and throws me off balance.

  Feliks huffs in frustration; his keg has tipped over and he’s lost purchase on the nail he was using. Black powder spills out of the barrel onto the floor.

  “Katia, come here,” I say. “Turn around.” I back up to her and reach out for her wrists. “Feliks, if you stand and watch, you can tell me what I need to do to loosen these knots.”

  He nods and tells me where to find the ends of the rope that binds Katia’s hands. I work at the knots until my fingers are numb and bruised, and finally they start to give.

  “That’s it. They’re coming apart,” he says.

  Katia starts twisting her wrists back and forth, loosening the ropes more and more until she gives a little cry, and I spin around to see her rubbing her hands, her wrists red and chafed in places.

  She flexes her fingers, glances at the hatch, and then starts tugging and pulling at my rope. I can’t wait to get it off.

  It doesn’t take long before my arms spring apart and I can finally move my sore shoulders. While Katia unties Feliks, I drag a barrel to the center of the room. Then we set a crate on top of the barrel. I clamber up, hoping the sea beneath us doesn’t decide to fling a wave at the ship, and then stretch to reach the hatch.

  I push it, gingerly at first—anyone could be up above. When the hatch doesn’t move, I push harder, then again as hard as I can. It doesn’t budge even a fraction.

  “Look around for something we can use for leverage,” I say.

  Feliks starts scrambling around the room, lifting sacks that release clouds of black dust. I wait impatiently, still trying to force the hatch or at least to peer through the cracks in the wood above me.

  “It’s nothing but barrels and sacks and this,” says Feliks, shoving a rusty old cannon, which doesn’t move at all. “Katia? Anything?”

  Katia pushes her damp hair back from her face and shakes her head. “Nothing. But let me try the hatch. I’m taller than you are, Valor.”

  I jump down and Katia takes my place, heaving at the hatch while I take a turn searching the room, tearing aside sacking, kicking our discarded ropes across the floor. The more I search, the more I realize there’s nothing here that can help us. The sounds of the dock are so faint that they barely carry down here. No one would hear us shouting. No one would care.

  There’s a sudden lurch, followed by muffled shouts from way above us. The ship rocks, and a great clanking sound fills the space. It’s almost like … the cell doors in Tyur’ma rolling back. When I pause, trying to force myself to think, I notice Katia. She’s on the floor with her back to the barrel we dragged beneath the hatch, hugging her knees to her chest.

  “Katia?”

  She stares straight ahead, her eyes dull, and suddenly I’m back at the prison meeting my cellmate for the first time. She was huddled on her bunk then, her back to me. I thought she was rude and fussy. I thought she didn’t care. I still don’t know how long she’d been locked in that cell before I arrived; she won’t tell me.

  I run over to her and drop to my knees. “I’ll get you out of here, I promise.”

  “I wanted to go home, to the village, to the blue mountains,” she says, her voice so faint that I can barely hear it. “I wanted to see Pyots’k again.”

  Katia’s head drops to her knees, and she wraps her arms around her legs, her hands clasping her wrists so tightly they go white. I put my arms around her until the noise stops. The ship sways and pitches.

  “Was that what I think it was?” asks Feliks in a tight voice. He’s standing with his feet apart to keep his balance. “It sounded like an awful lot of chain.”

  “They’ve pulled the anchor up,” I say. “The ship is heading out to sea.”

  Katia lets out a whimper, and I shiver. When I was stuck in the ice dome at Tyur’ma, she didn’t hesitate to smash the ice to get me out. When we were running from the warden in the tunnels under the prison, she never stopped.

  I’ve never seen her this scared.

  “We have to get out of here before there’s nowhere for us to go,” I say. I don’t want to leave Katia’s side, but I have to do something. I stand up fast and look around again.

  I start shoving at the sacks. All I see is the hull of the ship. I roll a small barrel out of the way, and then twist a heavier one on its base to move it aside. More solid hull. The ship rocks again, and Katia stifles a sob. I can’t bear to see her like this.

  Feliks helps me move a crate with a couple of rusty iron balls in it, and my heart leaps. “Look at this!” There’s a battened-down opening in the wood: a square just big enough for us to squeeze through. “If we can get it open …” There are hinges on the top of it, like a big flap in the side of the boat.

  Feliks and I both shove. It’s rusted shut. I’m getting desperate. Feliks keeps trying, pushing his thin shoulder into the wood, his feet sliding across the planks of the floor.

  “The cannon!” I say.

  He stops, out of breath. “As a battering ram?” he asks. “It’s too heavy. We won’t be able to move it.”

  “Then let’s use it,” I say. “Blast a hole in the side.”

  His eyes widen, his gaze flying to the barrel of black powder he knocked over. “Gunpowder?”

  I nod. “And cannonballs.”

  “I don’t know, Valor. It looks really old. It probably doesn’t work. It could be dangerous.”

  I try to smile, even though I know he’s right. “Where’s the Feliks who tried to run from a Peacekeeper?” I ask him.

  “Okay, Valor,” he says. “But if I lose fingers, I’ll want more than a pardon from Queen Ana. How do we even do this?”

  “I’ve read about it,” I say. Mother’s book collection is tiny compared to Father’s, but it covers all manner of weapons—my mother is proficient with more than just the bow and knife.

  I rip apart a piece of sacking and tell Feliks to scoop up the spilled gunpowder and wrap it tightly. While he’s doing that, I lift one of the cannonballs out of the crate and roll the other two around. There’s only one fuse, lying forgotten among strands of straw.

  “Feliks? Please tell me you have a fire inch-stick.”

  There’s a pause. I turn around, panic clawing at me again.

  Feliks is holding up two sticks. “Never go anywhere without them—not since … you know,” he says.

  I let out a breath. It was dark in the tunnels under the prison, and we might never have found our way out if Sasha hadn’t found the lamps and fire inch-sticks.

  “Pack it in tight,” I say, pointing to the muzzle of the cannon. Feliks feeds the parcel of powder in, and I follow it with a cannonball that leaves flakes of rusted iron all over my hands.

  We have nothing to pack the ball and powder down with, and I have no idea if the cannon will even work, but this is our only chance, so I try not to think about it. I push the fuse into the barrel until it meets the powder, and give Feliks a nod.

  I glance at Katia, but she hasn’t moved. “You will see Pyots’k again,” I tell her, though I don’t know if she can hear me.

  Feliks strikes the fire inch-stick and holds it to the fuse. It doesn’t light. The stick burns down until Feliks gasps and drops it to the floor. We both stare at the last inch-stick, and Feliks shakes his head. He doesn’t have any more.

  “We have the worst luck.” He jerks his
head upward. “How did this bunch even find us?”

  I freeze.

  “What?” asks Feliks.

  “Maybe it had nothing to do with luck,” I say. “Maybe they found us because they knew where Natalia lived. And if they knew where Natalia lived, then it’s because—”

  “They work for Princess Anastasia!” Feliks’s mouth turns down. “Here.” He holds the inch-stick out to me. “You do it, Valor.”

  I take the stick from him and light it carefully, all my focus on the tiny flame at the end. I hold my breath and move my hand slowly, so slowly, over to the fuse.

  It sparks to life with a fizz.

  “Move back!” I pull Feliks over to where Katia still sits, and we all crouch behind the big barrel. I cover my ears, and Feliks does the same. It takes forever for the fuse to burn down.

  I lift my hands away from my ears a little, certain the flame has gone out.

  There’s a deep echoing bang that I feel inside my chest, and acrid smoke fills the space. My ears ring, and I blink and cough. But I jump to my feet, clasping Katia’s hand and pulling her with me.

  Feliks barges into me, coughing. “Did it work?” he asks.

  I wave my free hand, trying to clear the smoke. Shouts sound above us.

  “Come on!” I run forward. Splintered wood surrounds a jagged hole in the side of the ship, and through it I can see the dock.

  And the expanse of sea between us and it.

  But there’s no time to think about that. “Jump,” I say to Feliks. “It’s not that far. We can make it. Hurry.”

  Feliks scrambles up to the hole and launches himself out without a backward glance.

  Katia pulls back on my hand, mumbling something. Below us, there’s a splash.

  “What?” I try to tug her forward again.

  “I can’t swim,” she says.

  And suddenly I remember Katia telling me about her sister who drowned. She’s blamed herself since it happened. She tried so hard to do the right thing, to earn her pardon. And now she’s faced with this? I can’t even imagine how scared she must be.

  “Oh, Katia. I’m so sorry.” I take both her hands in mine and look out at the gray sea. Feliks is surging through the water like a fish, his thin arms slicing the waves. “I won’t leave you.”