Seeker of the Crown

by Ruth Lauren

  Anatol stares into space, so I address myself to Nicolai. “Where is the king now?”

  Nicolai tears his gaze from Anatol’s face to answer me. “He never leaves the palace. I hear he keeps entirely to his chambers now that Inessa … But even if he did know where Anastasia is—”

  “Father can’t have known Anastasia would take Mother,” says Anatol. His cheeks are flushed, and his chest is moving up and down much too fast. Nicolai doesn’t look much better.

  “You don’t have to do a thing,” I say quickly. “If it were a servant or a guard, it would be different, but we can’t interrogate the king. He’s your father. And it’s far too risky for you to try to enter the palace.” I almost touch his shoulder, but I don’t know whether I ought to. In the end I press my fists together. “There must be another way to find Anastasia.”

  Anatol’s eyes are wide, fixed on a point on the floor. He shakes his head, very slightly and only to himself.

  “Come on,” I say, heading for the door.

  “Where are we going?” asks Nicolai, hurrying after me.

  “To my house.” I push away the twinge of unease I feel at knowing neither Mother nor Father will be there. “We need Sasha.”

  Anatol doesn’t ask why—he doesn’t question me at all. He just submits when I go to pull his hood low over his face, and then he follows us out. I keep my eyes open for anyone trailing us and maintain a pace that leaves us all out of breath by the time we approach the house. Nicolai stands out of sight with Anatol while I sneak closer to check that Inessa doesn’t have any more surprises for us. My cheeks sting as I scan for any guards, but everything is just as I left it—smoke curling into the sky from the kitchen fire, snow lying deep and untouched in drifts that almost reach the windowsills.

  I take Anatol and Nicolai inside and find Sasha right where I left her at the kitchen table—with two additions.

  “Valor! When we didn’t hear from you, we asked Mila to get us your address. We were just talking strategy.” Feliks savors that last word, grinning at me. But his face falls once we step inside and throw off our cloaks and furs.

  “What’s wrong?” asks Katia, her expression wary as she eyes Anatol. “Couldn’t you find anyone from the palace?”

  Anatol says nothing, so I tell them as we all gather around the kitchen table. I actually hear Sasha gasp when I say King Fillip helped Anastasia escape.

  The others look dismayed too—not just for Anatol, but about what it means for us. Following this lead was our last hope; it was all we had left. A servant we could have bribed or cajoled or even threatened. But this is the king.

  Nobody knows what to say.

  My stomach rumbles. I push up from my seat at the head of the table and go to the store cupboard, then the icebox outside, stamping the snow off my boots as I come back in.

  Sasha nods, giving me a small smile, and I start making a chicken broth that’s soon bubbling and sending fragrant wafts of steam to cloud the windows. Katia builds the fire up high until it crackles warmth into the room, and Nicolai slices bread into hunks with a knife he weighs in his hands before he starts.

  “Cut it like this,” I say, trying to take the knife from him.

  He holds it out of reach. “I know how to use a knife, Valor,” he says with a glance at the prince.

  Anatol doesn’t look up from the table, even when I dig out packets of dried figs and apricots. I know they have them at the palace too—they were a gift to Father from the queen. But I know he won’t mind me breaking into them on a day like today.

  “Fit for a prince,” says Feliks, glancing at Anatol. His fingers aren’t especially clean when he picks up his spoon, but Katia just presses her lips together instead of saying anything.

  I didn’t realize just how hungry I was until I started eating, and everyone else must feel the same, because there’s no talk for five straight minutes. I think about the last time I ate with Sasha, Katia, and Feliks by my side—in the ice hall in Tyur’ma. We had problems then too, but we always solved them. Now I’m not so sure we can.

  Anatol slows, then puts down his spoon. The rest of us raise our eyes. He looks as though he’s about to say something. Feliks carries on shoveling food into his mouth until Sasha nudges him.

  “I don’t see what more we can do,” Anatol says flatly. I open my mouth, but the prince shrugs. “I’m just saying, Valor, I don’t have any other ideas. I don’t want to pretend that I do.”

  “Then let’s not,” says Sasha. “Let’s lay everything on the table instead. If anyone has an idea, even one that sounds like it won’t work, even half of one, then say it. It’s how things get done. It’s how committees work.”

  Trust my sister to see it that way. It’s all new to me. I concocted the plan to break Sasha out of Tyur’ma by myself. But now, as I look around the table while Feliks’s fingers inch toward the apricots, I wonder how much easier it would have been if I’d had help from the start, not just after I got into Tyur’ma.

  “Well, I only know what we can’t do,” says Katia. “We can’t go to the palace. We can’t ask anyone there for help, because they’re only interested in helping themselves.”

  Nicolai’s hand drops to the table. “That’s a bit harsh. You can’t talk about the royal family like—”

  “No, she’s right,” says Sasha. “Saying it nicely isn’t going to make it less of a problem. None of us knows anyone else with the resources Inessa has. If she really wanted Queen Ana found, she could do it. But she doesn’t.”

  Feliks chews rapidly and swallows. “Anatol, do you have your own Guard?” He looks to Nicolai as if he’s the answer to his question.

  Nicolai shakes his head. “I’m training to be part of the Queen’s Guard,” he says. “If—” He pulls himself up short with a quick, guilty look at Anatol. “When Queen Ana comes back, I’ll be at her command. But until then, even though Inessa has her own Guard, we all take our orders from Inessa too. She’s queen regent.” He says this as though he’s certain of it, but his face is a battleground.

  The others keep talking and I try to listen, but something bold and unexpected is rapidly shooting up in my mind like a pine tree from the forest floor.

  “How can we fight against two powerful princesses?” Katia shakes her head, her braids jostling against her shirt.

  My palm smacks the table. “We pit them against each other.” I shift forward to the edge of my seat.

  “How?” Sasha mirrors me, a forgotten fig in her hand.

  I pause for a beat. I don’t think I’ve ever come up with anything like this before. Katia looks doubtful, but all of them are rapt, no one moving, all eyes on me.

  “We do the exact opposite of what Katia said,” I say. “We tell Inessa exactly what happened down in that cavern. Tell her Anastasia is right here in Demidova, that she wants the throne, and that she’ll never stop until she has it. We use the situation to our advantage and play them off each other.”

  Anatol’s and Sasha’s eyes are bright now.

  “We’re not going to avoid Inessa anymore,” I say. “In fact, I’m going to see her right now.”

  CHAPTER 16

  My heart thumps uncomfortably loudly as Sasha and I march across the square toward one of the purple-sashed guards who now stand outside the golden gates of the palace.

  Sasha’s ankle is better today, but she still has to use the crutch she made. Feliks had gone to see whether Mila could find some way to get Sasha here without her having to walk. He came back with a donkey and told me not to ask where it came from, but to be assured it would be returned.

  Now Feliks, Katia, Anatol, and Nicolai hang back in the alley between the baker’s and the florist’s.

  We reach the gates. They’ve been polished to a high shine, like the boots of the guard who frowns at us.

  “We wish to speak with Queen Inessa on a matter of national importance,” says Sasha, barely slowing as she makes to step past the guard. He bars our way, and we both give him our most surprised and c
ommanding looks.

  “Do you know who we are?” asks my sister, her voice all haughty disdain. The guard opens his mouth, but Sasha doesn’t stop. “Perhaps, since you are new to Demidova and the palace, you do not, in which case we will forgive your impertinence. I am Sasha Raisayevna, and this is my sister, Valor. Our parents are adviser and first huntswoman to Queen Ana of Demidova, and to Queen Inessa in her stead. They’re both engaged in essential work for her at this very minute.”

  Sasha’s voice wobbles on the last sentence and her ankle gives a little, slipping on a cobble. She winces, and I grip her elbow.

  “Now kindly inform the queen that we’re here,” I say. “She won’t be pleased to hear we’ve been kept waiting at the gates.”

  The guard doesn’t take his eyes off us, but he gestures to another guard within the gardens and speaks to her in a low voice. They both eye us, and my back prickles, becoming damp under my furs. Inessa has already threatened us, already sent our mother away. Father’s in the palace right now. Our house is empty without them, and it feels like far too long since we were safe. I wish with all my heart that I hadn’t been so difficult in the Magadanskyan palace. I was spoiled and bored, when all Mother did was worry about me and love me. I start to think this is all too risky, but just as I turn to Sasha, she steps forward. We’ve been beckoned inside.

  The palace gates swing open and closed, golden and curlicued, a hundred times more beautiful than anything at Tyur’ma. But the same trapped feeling surfaces nonetheless. I stay close to Sasha, our arms touching—partly to help her stand straight, and partly because my heart is still hammering.

  We have to wait again at the palace doors while a sharp-eyed adviser listens to the guard’s whispered message. I hold my breath, straining to hear, but I can’t pick up a word. The adviser looks us up and down and then plasters on a cold smile. “I’m afraid Queen Inessa is busy with matters of state, and expects to be so for the remainder of the day.”

  “She’ll want to hear what we have to say,” says Sasha.

  “It’s a matter of national security,” I add, staring straight back at the adviser. Her dark hair is coiled around her head in hundreds of braids.

  “Perhaps you can convey your message to me, and I can be the judge of that. I’ll be happy to pass the information to our queen if, as you say, it is so important.”

  I square my shoulders. They feel bare without a bow, but Sasha said it wouldn’t have been appropriate to bring one. I’m beginning to think it would have done very nicely.

  “This is private information, fit only for the queen’s ears,” I say.

  The adviser’s nostrils flare at the slight.

  I push it further. “It’s regarding Princess Anastasia.”

  Sasha stiffens, and I wonder if I’ve said the wrong thing, but the adviser’s face changes at once. I’ve definitely got her attention now. She steps back, so I link arms with my sister and, keeping my head held up straight, we walk right into the palace as though we own the place.

  “Wait here,” says the adviser. I can tell she’s trying not to run as she hurries across the polished mosaic of the floor and disappears down a corridor. Sasha swallows, and it seems very loud in the great hall. I want to ask if she still thinks we’re doing the right thing, but I feel like we’re being watched. We probably are.

  We stand in silence for a few minutes before the adviser reappears and beckons us down the corridor with a sour look. We follow her deep into the palace, past tapestries and paintings and endless closed doors, until we reach a final set of doors that the adviser sweeps open. Opposite us, framed by a large window, stands Queen Inessa. My eyes are drawn straight to the view outside. Squarely in the middle of the mountain vista is Tyur’ma.

  I’m pulled right back there, back to the chains and the cells and the towering, tattooed Peacekeepers. To the hunger and the blisters on my hands from working in the mine. To Warden Kirov and her punishments—the ice dome that nearly killed Sasha. And to the constant fear that even if my sister survived the prison, I wouldn’t be able to rescue her.

  Sasha touches my hand, and I’m back in the warm palace, plush carpet under my boots and the faint smell of pollen on the air from hothouse flowers that don’t grow anywhere else in Demidova.

  I would love nothing more than to rush across the room and shake the composed look off our new queen’s face. But that’s what she wants. Standing there, in this particular room—it’s hardly accidental. I think about Inessa being slung into a cell like the one Sasha was kept in. I think about me slamming the door, and the look on her face when she realizes that she should never have threatened my family.

  “We’ve come with new information about the traitor Princess Anastasia,” I say. “In fact”—I actually lower myself onto one knee—“I’ve personally come to apologize for having her in my grasp and letting her get away.”

  Sasha sinks down next to me, and I pick that moment to raise my lowered eyes. Relief and pleasure mingle on the queen’s face, and she doesn’t quite manage to wipe them away before we lock gazes. I look down at the carpet again. “Of course, we knew you would want to know right away what she said when we encountered her, and what we know about where Queen Ana is.”

  “Of course I do,” says Inessa. “It is my sworn duty to find Queen Ana and to apprehend the criminal princess. Pray, where did you come upon her, and what was it Princess Anastasia said?”

  Sasha squeezes my hand again. She hears the note of greed in the queen regent’s voice. Inessa is just as eager for Anastasia never to be found again as I thought she would be.

  “We were underneath the library in a secret cavern, and she said …” I pause for effect. Queen Inessa steps forward, and then recalls herself.

  I take a breath. “She said she’s intent on having the throne, that it’s hers by right, and that she won’t stop until she’s taken it back from the nasty, self-serving, manipulative, conniving usurper who now sullies it.”

  Inessa takes in a little breath, and Sasha pinches my back. I might have gone a little overboard. But I’m sure Anastasia might very well say those things if she were here.

  My sister clears her throat. “We thought that keeping any detail of this from you would not be to our family’s benefit. We want you to know that we are wholly ready to cooperate. Valor and I understand exactly what’s at stake. Is … is our father still busy with his work here at the palace?”

  “Yes, yes,” says the queen dismissively. “Now tell me everything about where you found Anastasia and where you think she went.”

  A short while later, we’re making our way back down through the palace gardens to the golden gates, having answered all of Inessa’s questions about the cavern and the tunnel and the boat that carried the princess away with the queen trapped on board. She evaded or ignored Sasha’s further mentions of Father and Mother, and I didn’t trust myself to open my mouth again, even though words burned in my throat.

  As the guard at the gate lets us out and we walk across the square, I catch a glimpse of Feliks with two other boys. He pushes off the wall he’s been leaning against and touches his fingers to his ushanka in a subtle salute. I nod back. Katia’s harder to spot, but eventually I see her on the other side of the square. She’s tucked her pale braids into her furs, and though her skin is still lighter than everyone else’s, with her hair hidden she isn’t so noticeable. I nod at her too.

  It’s time to see if the rest of my plan will work—if we’ll get the results I’m hoping for.

  Once we’ve blended into the throng of people going about their business, Sasha and I make a sharp left. We’re going to meet Anatol and Nicolai at the back of the palace. Sasha starts to limp even with the use of her crutch. I hope Nicolai’s been able to get the horses.

  I’m all nerves, constantly sweeping my gaze around us by the time I see Nicolai in his dark cloak. He beckons us, and I see four horses, all saddled, all stamping and snorting. They’re standing under the awning of a blacksmith’s forge.

/>   Sasha casts a worried look at Anatol, who has hold of two of the horses’ bridles.

  “We paid the blacksmith,” says Anatol. “We had to—this place has the perfect view.” He nods over our shoulders, and I turn to see that the palace stables are right in our sights.

  I help Sasha over to a worn wooden bench, and she sighs and eases her leg out in front of her as I lower her onto it.

  I take up a position next to Anatol and Nicolai, whose eyes are trained on the stables.

  A few minutes later, I begin to doubt my plan, and the seconds stretch out, taking my nerves with them. Our horses start to get restless, but then there’s a commotion at the palace. Stableboys come running with saddles and other tack. Horses are readied and led outside, their hooves clopping on the swept cobbles. Sasha said that if Inessa sent spies out, those leaving on horseback would depart from the back of the palace, and those on foot would leave through the front. Neither Katia nor Feliks can ride, so they’re watching the golden gates. It seems as though my idea is working: Inessa’s taken the bait, and her spies are mobilizing.

  I had hoped that Inessa would react to the news about Anastasia this way, but it was an incredibly risky strategy. We need Inessa’s resources, but we also need to find Anastasia and Queen Ana before Inessa does. I have to be the one to capture Anastasia and rescue the queen—otherwise, who knows what Inessa will do with them? I don’t trust her not to imprison the queen along with Anastasia. Or maybe she would arrange for some kind of accident to befall the queen so she could keep the throne for herself. I don’t know how deep and twisted her ambition is. I don’t dare to dwell too long on it.

  My blood fizzes. “Ready?”

  Anatol and Nicolai nod, and I help Sasha mount one of the horses. The animals pick up on our excitement, tossing their heads and stepping back and forth, but we hold them back. It’s imperative that the queen’s spies not know we intend to follow them.

  The spies make their exit from the stables and head out through the gates. There are five of them, their horses unmarked by palace livery, their cloaks plain and dark, the hoods pulled low over their faces. With only four of us, we’ll have to let one of them go.