by Ruth Lauren
Anatol and Nicolai crowd in behind me. There are odd grooves in the stone on either side of the entrance, as though there should be a banister slotted into place, but it’s missing.
I take a deep breath and step into the narrow space. Anatol follows, and we spin down and down, leaving the light behind. Just before it disappears, I find a scrap of material snagged on the stone wall. I pull it away and wordlessly hand it over my shoulder to Anatol. I can’t see the color, but it feels like fine silk. Fit for a queen.
Anatol’s footsteps stop for a second, and then he hurries after me.
After a while, there’s a grating sound from above, like a blade being sharpened on a whetstone but heavier. I keep going, but unease spreads across my chest, making my skin prickle.
“Valor?” Katia’s voice sounds uncertain but loud in the tiny space.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Just keep going.”
“Something’s coming,” says Feliks. “I can feel it.”
He’s right. There’s a draft, and the grating is louder; now it sounds like stone rolling over stone.
“I think … I think maybe—” Nicolai’s voice rises in panic.
“What?” I quicken my pace without waiting for his answer. Our feet fly down the steps, fast breaths drowned out by the sound behind us.
Katia lets out a yelp, but I can see light ahead and fling myself forward, missing the bottom step entirely and sprawling onto a damp stone floor. Someone grabs me around the waist and flings me to the side just as Feliks and Katia fly down and dodge to the side of the staircase.
On their heels, a huge stone boulder comes rumbling and rolling out, its momentum carrying it straight ahead beyond us.
I stare after it, breathing hard. “Is everyone okay?”
We all scramble to our feet.
“What in all the saints’ names was that?” asks Feliks. “And where are we?”
I look to Anatol, but he doesn’t know. A stone-walled tunnel stretches in front of us, the dark punctuated by the occasional lit torch affixed to the wall.
I take a torch and adjust my bow on my back, and we press on. Before we’ve taken five steps, the wall to my left seems to move. I jerk my hand back.
Anatol, instantly alert, appears at my side. “What?”
“I don’t know.” I hold the torch close to the wall. The bricks move, sliding back and forth as though someone’s pushing them one at a time from the other side.
I look at the torch in my hand. “Maybe I shouldn’t have picked this up.”
The wall begins to ripple, stone grinding on stone.
“Run!” Anatol pushes me forward and I run, the flame on the torch flaring backward and sending shadows flickering around us. The tunnel grows narrower, and the shifting bricks snag my sleeves until I’m almost pinned as I fight my way forward.
I burst out into a dark space at the same time a cry comes from behind. Anatol barrels into my back, and we both fall onto the floor. I twist around to see the bricks meshed across the opening of the tunnel, as if someone built a wall and poked out every other brick.
Feliks, Nicolai, and Katia are on the other side.
A noise behind us makes me whip back around. A figure moves across the cavern. I push up onto my knees.
“Anastasia!”
CHAPTER 13
I call out Anastasia’s name before I’ve ordered the thoughts in my head. Anatol is already on his feet. I dropped my torch when I fell, and it hisses a thin trail of smoke into the air, but the cavern is lit by other torches. Anatol’s face is drawn. He takes a step forward, and I pull him back. His foot is right at the edge of a steep drop into black water that quietly laps against the stone.
His sister’s form throws a huge shadow onto the back wall of the cavern, but she stands as still as a statue of a saint, her hands held neatly in front of her. I stare around the cavern, greedy for a glimpse of the queen, excitement rising after the shock of coming face-to-face with the princess.
This is my chance to make everything right. I can capture Anastasia and rescue the queen. When I do that, everything else in Demidova will fall into place.
“Valor,” Anastasia says, her mouth twisting as though my name is out-of-date pickled cabbage. “And, of course, my brother. I shall forget what it is to see either of you apart from the other.”
Anatol’s chest quickly rises and falls. If the body of water weren’t keeping him from her, I think he’d have arrested her himself by now.
I’d be delighted to join him.
“Where’s the queen?” My voice echoes in the large cavern, and I spot a boat bobbing on the water farther down. Whether it’s a slow-moving underground river or a man-made canal, I can’t tell, but it’s far too wide to jump, and I can’t see any way across. There must be one, though. If Anastasia got over, then I can too. My heart thumps at the thought of it.
Anastasia lets out a cold little laugh. “The queen is somewhere you’d never think to look.” She takes a few steps forward to the stone banks of the water. I keep my shoulders square and angle myself to face her as she moves so she can’t see the bow at my back. I’ll use it if I have to, but I’d rather keep the element of surprise for now.
“Oh, Valor. You didn’t think she was here, did you?” The amusement and scorn make me wish I could reach out and shake the princess. But this is what she wants—to make me angry, to distract me, the way she did in the palace when I caught her with the stolen music box.
I won’t let her do it this time.
I force the annoyance away. I have to keep a clear head and let her talk while I figure out how to get to her. I nudge Anatol, who startles so hard that I wonder what he’s been thinking this whole time. He looks at me, and I widen my eyes.
“We knew Mother wasn’t here,” he says, turning back to his sister. “In fact, you left such an obvious trail leading to this place that we thought it might even be a false one altogether. Evidently we gave you too much credit.”
Anastasia’s cold smile barely slips, but it’s deeply satisfying to hear him needle her anyway. I almost can’t tear my eyes away, but I need to find a way to her. I’m faster, I’m stronger, and I’m going to make her take us to Queen Ana.
“Really?” says Anastasia, adopting an air of mock interest. “It certainly took an awfully long time for you to arrive here, given that it was so easy.” Spiteful glee lifts her smile as she looks over to Katia, Feliks, and Nicolai. “Did something happen on the way to slow you down?”
I don’t move, but while Anastasia’s eyes are on our friends, I squint into the darkness and look for a bridge. When I don’t find one, I scrutinize the walls and the ceiling for ropes or pulleys, anything that will get me to her. I could swim, but it would be too slow and obvious. I need speed. My hands itch to grab her.
“Nothing of any real import,” says Anatol carelessly. I don’t know how he does it after everything his sister and her greed have put us all through.
I spot some steps leading down the inside wall of the bank, the kind that would ordinarily lead to a mooring. But these seem to drop straight into the water. It doesn’t make sense. I stare at them hard, wondering if …
I inch forward—the same steps are cut into this side of the bank too.
“Anyway, we could ask you the same thing,” says Anatol. “It hardly seems as though you’re doing well, hiding in a dank cave. A far cry from the throne room.”
Anastasia just smiles again. “Needs must, brother. I’ll have what I want soon enough.”
“What do you even want anymore?” I ask. She can’t have the throne—Inessa has it.
Anastasia looks at me as though I’ve said something ridiculous. “I want what’s mine by right of birth. And I’ll have it, too.”
“You won’t,” I say. “You can’t.” Doesn’t she know Inessa is queen regent? I decide to hold the information back, just in case. Maybe I can use it somehow.
She leans forward a little, staring right at me. “It’s not as though anyone’s been
able to figure out my plans or stop me so far. Even the palace dungeon couldn’t hold me.”
“That’s true,” I say. “There must be some who are still loyal to you in the palace.”
A wicked smile flashes over her face. “And wouldn’t you like to know who it was who helped me escape.”
“Tell us who.” Anatol’s voice is deeper and rougher than I’ve ever heard it, and he doesn’t wait for an answer before he speaks again. “Where’s Mother? Where have you taken her?”
I wish he sounded like the Prince Anatol who questioned me in the tower at Tyur’ma, haughty and commanding. He doesn’t, though. He sounds angry and desperate and hopeless and all the things I felt when Sasha was taken away from me and before I made my plan to be arrested and sent to Tyur’ma.
“Well, you’re so clever, Anatol. Just as clever as Sasha is—isn’t that what Mother used to say to the two of you? Surely you can work out where Mother is, or at the very least who helped me escape. Come now, think very hard.”
The smug tone of her voice pushes all the restraint right out of me.
“I couldn’t care less who it was, and neither does he,” I say, jabbing my finger at Anatol. “All you’ve succeeded in doing so far is putting your cousin Inessa on the throne, and if you think she’s going to hand it over to you, then you’re as deluded as you are selfish.”
I feel better for at least three seconds, but then Anastasia laughs. “They’ll be celebrating my coronation the day I take the throne. You really don’t understand anything, do you, Valor? Honestly, it makes me wish your sister were here. At least she’d appreciate my plans, even if she didn’t have the guts to do anything about them. Where is Mother’s little pet, anyway? Don’t tell me you two aren’t nested together like matryoshka dolls anymore. What will Mother think if Sasha isn’t simpering over someone? She won’t recognize her.”
The last of my control evaporates. I rush to the steps and down them, ripping my bow from my back as I run. I step out, an arrow nocked, with no thought for whether I’m right about the way across the water.
My boot sinks up to the ankle, then hits stone. There’s a bridge all the way across, linking the steps, but it’s concealed underwater. The current hits me harder than I expected—this must be a river after all—but I lock my muscles rigid, point my bow at Anastasia, and keep stomping right across the bridge.
“Am I to be your prisoner?” asks the princess. She still sounds calm, but I know she can’t be, not with two of us and only one of her, and me with my bow. “Where do you intend to take me?” She arches an eyebrow at me.
I don’t slow as I reach the steps on her side, but in my head I’m casting about for an answer. I can’t take her to the palace; Inessa might have Anastasia locked away with a triple guard, but she’d never make her tell where Queen Ana is, not when she wants the throne for herself.
“Maybe I’ll hand you over to a friend of mine named Mila,” I say. “I’m sure her associates would be very pleased to see you.” Let the thieves’ network keep her locked up. She’d have no allies among them. They might have no love for her mother, but they’d have even less for her.
“Valor!” Nicolai’s warning bounces off the walls of the cavern.
A hand clamps over mine and forces my bow down. I try to spin around, but someone else grabs me from the other side. The tip of my arrow scrapes the stone floor, and I find I can’t release it now, not that it would do any good.
On either side of me, Anastasia’s guards hold me rigidly in place, wresting my bow from me. It clatters to the floor, and one of them kicks it into the water. They’re dressed all in black, with no sashes. On the other side of the river, Anatol’s eyes flash defiance over the wide hand that covers his mouth. Two more guards flank him, pinning his arms to his sides.
“Let him go!” I struggle and then drop my body weight to the ground, but the guard won’t let me fall.
Princess Anastasia hasn’t moved a step, but now she claps her hands together. “Well, as much as I have enjoyed this reunion, I really do have less tiresome people to talk to.”
She turns, then pauses, her braids flicking back over her shoulder. “You didn’t actually think I was alone down here, did you?”
I renew my efforts, twisting my wrists, trying to kick the man and woman who hold me. They don’t even look at me.
Anastasia walks to the boat at the back of the cavern and hops lightly into it. “By the way, Valor, I was here only to retrieve something I left behind. You had perfect timing in that respect. A great pity you couldn’t get here any earlier.” She holds up something that glitters in the light. Anatol makes a muffled sound. It’s a kokoshnik—Queen Ana’s. The one she was wearing the day she was taken from the Great Library.
I scan the boat again. There’s a tiny window in the cabin, and inside, something—somebody—moves.
My heart stops. The queen was here the whole time.
I throw myself at my captors, first left, then right. Anatol thrashes around too, but neither of us can get free. Anastasia casts off. The boat moves instantly away on the black water.
And all I can do is watch it go.
CHAPTER 14
My eyes are watering from strain by the time I lose sight of the boat, but the guards still hold both the prince and me. Eventually I stop fighting and stare at the ground. Everything I’ve been chasing since I got out of Tyur’ma was right here in front of me for the taking, and I lost it.
I’m held in place for long minutes, miserable and sullen, feeling the tender patches on my skin throb. So much struggling, and all I’ll have to show for it is a collection of bruises. How am I going to tell Sasha that I was this close and still failed?
Eventually, the two guards let me go. I look up, surprised. “Don’t follow us. We have orders,” one says, letting the light glint on her sword. Without another word, they walk away along the riverside tunnel and unmoor a small rowboat that must have been nestled behind Anastasia’s vessel.
The other two guards who were holding Anatol follow, and the four of them push off. Even if I could follow them, Anastasia’s long gone by now.
I turn to face Anatol, wondering what I can possibly say. He’s sitting on the ground like a broken doll. Feliks and Katia’s dejected faces show through the chinks in the brick wall, and Nicolai looks ready to break through his cage with his bare hands if he could. Feliks’s fingers grip one of the stones, and his eyes, settled on Anatol, are round and sorrowful. It’s like a sharp pinch to the heart.
I rub my wrists and arms, shivering as water drips from somewhere high above. I should search the cavern while I’m on this side of the river. I should galvanize myself and the others, tell them this is only a setback, that we can still find the queen and stop Anastasia.
The other four look at me. I stand up straighter even though I don’t feel like it, and then march over to where I first saw Anastasia.
“You can’t follow them!” Katia calls.
“I know. But we have to search the place.” I say it with false conviction, then lift one of the torches from its bracket and walk briskly up and down the cavern, following the far wall. It’s uneven, with plenty of alcoves where the guards could have melted into the darkness when we arrived.
I pause. Anastasia could have hidden too, but she didn’t. She wanted to toy with us. With me. I kick myself again for being one step behind her all the way. Then I stumble into a barred iron door, and it clangs backward into the rock. A hand reaches out to steady it. Anatol. His boots drip onto the ground.
He stares into the cell in front of us and swallows. It’s so like the one I lived in at Tyur’ma that I’m glad Katia isn’t here to see it. It sends a shiver down my back and leaves a look of mingled horror and sadness on Anatol’s face. Had his mother been in here since she went missing?
“She’s not in there anymore,” I say, but the words are limp and just make me wish Sasha were here to say something better.
“I should have done something more about Anastasia.”
His voice echoes softly, hollow and empty. “I knew she resented the way Mother and I would talk. But I …”
His gaze drops to the ground, and he swallows.
I touch his arm. “You what?”
“I liked it,” he says. “Sometimes I thought Mother was paying attention to me to make sure I didn’t feel left out and useless. We all knew I would never have a real role in life and that Anastasia would be queen. But Mother liked me. She wanted to talk to me.” He raises his eyes to meet mine. “And I liked it. I liked the attention. I liked— Valor, I liked it when Anastasia was jealous.”
I squeeze his arm. “But you didn’t know it would drive her to this. How could you? Your mother loves you. She’s supposed to love you, whether you’re going to lead the country or not. Anastasia’s jealous of anyone who comes close to your mother. This isn’t your fault, Anatol. It’s hers.”
He looks at me, heartbroken and serious. “I have to stop her. The country needs its queen back. And I need my mother back. I know I can never rule, but I can make up for—”
“Stop talking like that,” I say. “There’s nothing for you to make up for, and we are going to stop your sister and get your mother back. Come on.” I tug Anatol’s arm until he backs away from the cell. “There’s nothing here.”
He stops and stares in the direction his sister went. “Where do you think she’s gone?”
I think about it. Where do all rivers lead? “To the sea.”
He nods. “You’re right. It can only lead straight out to the coast.”
“You want to go after her?”
His shoulders slump. “If this heads to the sea, it heads to open water. We have no boat, and Anastasia could have sailed in any direction.”
That’s exactly how I feel—completely at sea, with no idea which direction to go, despite my words to Anatol. I march back to the bridge and barely feel the cold water as it flows around my ankles again.
Anatol follows, and we both go back to the wall where the others are trapped. Feliks has pushed his face against the stone so hard there’s an imprint on his chin. It must have been just as difficult for them to helplessly watch the princess escape all over again as it was for Anatol and me.