“I’m all right,” she answered. “A couple of places are sore. The burns hurt the most. I think the bandages are rubbing against my clothing, but I’ll be fine.”
So fierce.
“When we stop, you will rest. I’d hoped you’d sleep on the journey.”
Polya lifted her eyebrows and glanced pointedly at the upright leather seats. “I don’t know how anyone could sleep here,” she replied.
He’d slept in worse places, and he knew it wasn’t the seats that had kept her awake, but the conversation. Her father and uncle had discussed every possible horrible outcome. The trip had been a combination of the worst future outcomes and reminders of the Hunt.
No wonder she hadn’t slept.
Her father edged into the aisle, interrupting them. “Stay behind me,” he told her. “Don’t look around too much. Eyes on the ground. Got it?”
“Are we walking home?” she asked.
“We’ll stay with the crowd. Better to be lost among many than draw unwanted attention to ourselves,” Evgeny answered.
Pytor shuffled down the aisle. Polya stood behind him, Anatoliy behind her, and then Dara and Evgeny. They exited the car onto the platform and into a crush of humanity.
It was the perfect cover.
They shouldered their way past those attempting to enter the car, toward the mass inching their way past the ticket booths to the street. There were as many people leaving the station as were entering. Like the citizens of the town they’d just left, those in the capital hoped to travel to a safer place.
A hand grasped his, and he startled. Polya had reached back to take his hand. Her palm was sweaty, and she squeezed him tightly, as if afraid he was going to disappear.
Pytor had given away his hat, and his hair, a dark but golden blonde, bobbed above most of the people surrounding him. He was easy to follow. But he didn’t blend in as Anatoliy had hoped.
Pytor, and Evgeny too, for that matter, carried themselves differently. A soldier stood erect, posture perfect, but a royal commanded attention. Everything about his bearing was regal.
Moving quickly, Anatoliy pulled Polya behind him and whisper-yelled. “Slouch, Pytor. Make yourself smaller.”
The effect of his words was immediate. Pytor hunched his shoulders inward, dropping his head. Anatoliy glanced back at Evgeny, and found the man affecting a similar posture.
Better.
This way the men didn’t walk as if they were being presented at court. They were just one of many in a throng of men.
Next to him, Polya kept her eyes on the ground as well. Every now and again, he’d catch a glimpse of her blue eyes, darting up as if to assure herself her father was still close. Her hand clutched his. Soon, she crossed her arms and held onto him with both hands.
All at once, the group spilled onto the busy street. The noise assaulted Anatoliy’s senses. At first, he couldn’t discriminate one sound from another. It was a din, all of it blending into one cacophony.
Slowly, he began to filter the sounds, separating them. Voices hawked wares. Boys screamed headlines. Horses whinnied and metal runners on sleighs sliced across the ice and cobblestones, smooth and then jarring.
Groups of people split off in all directions. Had Anatoliy been leading, he would have needed a moment to get his bearings, but Pytor needed no such pause.
Turning sharply to the left, he insinuated himself into the throng. Anatoliy examined their surroundings and realized they walked alongside the frozen Svetleva River toward the palaces.
It was a stroke of luck they could hide themselves so well. Anatoliy kept one eye on the group and another on the street. Most people walked, but every so often, a sleigh would rush by, and like a flock of birds, all the people hurried toward the river before spreading back out.
None of them spoke. Pytor slowed to walk next to Polya. He glanced up once and then behind them to assure himself Evgeny and Dara followed before he dropped his head again.
Had Pytor not been so close, his indrawn breath would have been lost in the shuffle of boots in snow.
The Novo-Mikhailovsky Palace was farther from the station than the Imperial Palace. They had to pass right by Aleksandr’s former home to get there.
Anatoliy gazed at the Imperial Palace in wonder. He hadn’t seen it from this vantage point for years. When he was a bear, he was brought to a specific entrance, one used for deliveries of meat or coal.
The palace was nothing like he remembered.
Scorch marks marred the white walls. He followed the line of black down to the ground, where he found gilded window edges poking from the snow. Windows were broken, and in some places, blasted inward along with the brick that’d once kept it in place.
It had been bombed. There was no other explanation.
“Our mother.” From behind Anatoliy, Evgeny spoke in Pytor’s ear.
Pytor’s gaze remained glued on the building, but at Evgeny’s words he shook his head and stared at the ground. “We have a task to complete.”
“Pytor, you cannot think to just—” Evgeny raised his voice. A man and woman walking in front of them turned around, narrowing their eyes.
“Enough,” Pytor answered through clenched teeth.
“I cannot—” Evgeny answered, and at that, split away from them.
Taken with the destruction of the palace, Anatoliy hadn’t noticed the people entering and exiting the palace. A steady stream of citizens walked right in, as if they had every right. Those who sidled past them had arms full. Some carried chairs, others rolled textiles.
They were emptying the palace. The citizens of the capital were looting the treasures the royals spent hundreds of years accumulating, and Evgeny was walking right in next to them.
The prince kept his head down, but like his brother, he stood out against the throng.
“Stay or go?” Anatoliy asked Pytor.
He’d slowed considerably, each step laborious as if a rope held him tied to the palace. Finally, he dropped his head, shaking it from side to side. “Go,” he said. “It is too great a risk. For God’s sake, our family portraits are everywhere.”
“Perhaps not anymore,” Dara said.
Anatoliy glanced over his shoulder at his friend who stared at the palace. Following his gaze, he saw what Dara hinted at. A group of men carrying portraits had propped them against a dingy wall, and went about cutting them out of the frame. The wood was then stepped on, broken into manageable armloads and piled in a heap. One man rolled the canvas and tucked it under his arm before gathering the gilded wood, while others left the canvas and took the wood.
There was a purpose to the men’s actions. For some, it was firewood, while for others, looting. Either way, the end result would be a Konstantin stripped of its history.
“No,” Pytor whispered but continued forward. “Not anymore.”
32
A Prince Returns to the Imperial Palace
Lara had been confined to two rooms in the palace. Since her arrival, she’d managed to keep the dowager queen and herself safe. But it hadn’t been easy.
The palace was open to anyone who wanted to roam its halls and steal its furnishings. First it was the valuables—the jewels, silks, linens. Then the furniture. She watched two men heft a sofa weighed down with gilding and velvet like it was nothing.
But Lara didn’t care about the furnishings, she cared about survival.
The dowager’s personal physician stayed close. Each day, he visited the elderly queen, bringing with him news of the outside world and whatever comfort his compassion could give.
Her maid also stayed.
Lara realized, as she snuck down hallways and into food stores, what a soft and comfortable life she’d lived. If she was hungry, she rung a bell and food arrived. Tired? A maid turned down the thick blanket on her bed. Before the revolution, had she ever started her own fire? Had she ever been responsible for keeping herself warm and fed?
The answer was a firm no. Never was her unpreparedness for the world
as clear as when she arrived in the kitchen pantry. Faced with dry goods and ingredients, she’d felt like a little idiot. Here was everything she needed, but she couldn’t combine any of it into something edible.
Would she and the dowager starve to death with a pantry full of food? Lara had taken a deep breath and gotten to work. It was only a matter of time before the stores were wiped out, so with the help of the maid and doctor, she’d managed to transfer those preserved items into the dowager’s room.
They’d been living off of caviar and the last bottles of wine from the wine cellar.
But the food wouldn’t last forever, and then what was she to do?
In the weeks since coming to the palace, she hadn’t heard at all from Pytor. It wasn’t surprising. The post was often delayed, but things were still happening in the capital. From her window, she could watch the street, and there, people went about their business.
She could see the steam from the trains as they came and went. Far off, on the edges of St. Svetleva, the factories puffed smoke. It was reasonable to assume, therefore, that the city hadn’t ground to a halt, even with a revolution.
Lara tapped her fingers on the glass, nails clicking against the panes. How could she, one of many, feel so utterly alone in the world?
“Lara, come away from the window. You don’t want some idiot taking a shot at you.” The dowager’s voice cut like a knife through the frigid air, and Lara stepped back.
“You’re right,” she answered and seated herself across from the elderly woman.
If Pytor had told her she would become, if not friends, then friendly, with his mother, she’d never have believed him. But here they were. The only support the other person had.
Perhaps for the dowager queen, Lara was the only support she’d ever had. They’d come to an unspoken agreement, the two of them. Now, despite the looming threat of assassination each time looters and revolutionaries ransacked the palace, Lara would not leave the queen.
“Are you ready to leave?” the queen asked, startling Lara.
“What do you mean, Your Highness?”
“Lara, you’re an intelligent woman. You must see the danger of remaining in Konstantin.” The woman’s gnarled hands flexed on the cane she kept propped in front of her chair. She tapped it on the ground in front of her before fixing Lara with a watery, blue-eyed stare.
“Pytor may return at any time.” Every night, when Lara went to bed, she prayed for her husband to return. She pictured him in her mind. Broad-shouldered, blonde head towering above the masses. She imagined him striding toward her, wrapping her in his arms once again. Like she had years ago, in those first moments when she laid eyes on him, she yearned for her husband.
Without him, she was merely a shell. He gave her life meaning. What did she have without him?
“And the princess…”
Lara shook her head. They’d spoken only a little about Polya. If she was honest, Polya came into her mind less than Pytor, but hadn’t that always been the way it was for her?
Before she was born, Lara gave her up, and the moment she saw her, tiger’s tail clutched in her baby hands, she’d waited for her to be taken away. The Hunt was over, but whether or not Polya lived was not something she could dwell on. It hurt too much.
“Polya could be anywhere, if she lives…” Lara whispered.
The cane hit the floor with a sharp crack. “I have every confidence the princess lives. She is like Pytor that one, fierce. If there was any way for her to survive, she would have. Much like my son. Five boys. Five beautiful boys and a handful of forgettable daughters, and I sit alone in a ruined palace with a single maid and my loyal physician.” The queen blinked rapidly and turned toward the window. “Who could foresee what the future would bring?”
“Would you change it?” Lara asked, suddenly. “Would you go back?”
“Of course I’d change it!” she answered, and sniffed. “I was so young. My cousin courted me, an arrangement agreed upon by our parents, and within days I’d accepted his proposal. How was I to know he was mad as a hatter? Or that I would hold my firstborn son as many times as I have fingers? I would have accepted the other cousin. The one with the harelip. At least I could see what was wrong with him. Unlike the king. He kept his disfigurement hidden…”
Her words painted a picture of disappointment and pain. No wonder the queen always looked a little… absent. What had been necessary for her to do to survive such a life?
“And the worst part is—”
Lara shook herself from her reverie to focus on the queen again.
“The worst part is I have all of this family now, and I’m completely alone.” She tapped her cane again, this time with less force, but pushed herself to stand and shuffled toward the window. “It’s a beautiful day.”
Glancing over at the heavy gray sky, she disagreed, but aloud said, “It is.”
“Mamma?”
For a second, the deep voice, reminiscent of her husband, tricked Lara. She thought when she turned, she would see Pytor. Her disappointment, then, was so much greater when she came face-to-face with Evgeny, Pytor’s brother.
“Mamma, are you all right?” The prince strode toward his mother. As Lara watched, the old woman trembled, and reached with shaking hands for him. Her gloved hands fisted his coat.
“Evgeny?” This was not the woman Lara had become familiar with. Faced with her son, all the queen’s walls tumbled down, and she was left, sick, pale, and more emotional than Lara had ever seen her. “Evgeny, my boy, you’re alive.”
“I’m alive, Mamma. I arrived with Pytor just today.” The prince glanced at Lara for a moment. “He is well, Princess.”
“And you?” the queen interrupted. “How are you?”
“Cold.” He laughed. “I thought you’d be better protected. Everyone has abandoned you.”
His words, though true, were callous, and his mother winced as if he’d caused a physical pain.
“Mrs. Rosnovsky has remained,” she said. “As has Dr. Tarnevo. And Lara, of course.”
“Of course,” Evgeny said. “We should leave, though. I came through the halls, and it is only a matter of time before the people take their anger out on you.”
“And where am I supposed to go, Evgeny?” There was the sharp tongue Lara had known.
“It is moot, Mamma,” Evgeny said.
“Pytor.” Lara found her voice. “Where is he? Did he return home for me?”
Something in his brother’s eyes made her cheeks flush, embarrassed. It wasn’t attraction in his gaze that made her blush, but sympathy evident in his eyes. “He’s gone to the The Novo-Mikhailovsky Palace.”
Why would he go to the palace and not come to her?
“Novo-Mikhailovsky…” The dowager queen began, and then slammed her cane onto the marble floor. “The armory and guards. He’s going to rally the men, eh?”
“That is our hope,” Evgeny answered.
“Smart boy. You were always smart boys.” After a final pat on the arm, the woman shuffled to Lara. “Gather your things. Mrs. Rosnovsky!”
The lady’s maid appeared, head wrapped in a scarf, coat buttoned to her chin. “Yes, Your Highness?”
“We’re leaving,” the queen informed her.
“For good?” Mrs. Rosnovsky asked, her gaze bouncing between Lara, Evgeny and the queen.
“I think so. Yes.” Pytor’s mother nodded decisively. “We will need the bags we prepared, but leave the rest of it.”
“Leave it?” Evgeny studied the walls and furniture. In this room, very little was left, but the chairs, the tiny table where the queen had rested her teacup, were of the highest quality.
But what good would it do them in Konstantin now? The most they could hope for was a night of warmth when they burned the wood. They certainly couldn’t trade it. Who needed delicate teacups when there was no food?
Even more important, however, was what the furniture represented. It was the legacy of the royal family. Pieces given by visiting
royalty and displayed with pride.
Still. It served no purpose.
Hurriedly, Lara curtsied and left for the bedroom she’d been sharing with the queen. There, she had her own bag ready to go at a moment’s notice. Beneath her pillow, Lara had been safekeeping the letters she’d written to her husband. Into the bag they went. If nothing else, she wanted to show Pytor how often he’d been in her thoughts.
A thick woolen blanket lay in a heap on the settee where she slept every night. Lara gathered it quickly to wrap around her shoulders.
She stepped toward the window. Outside, gray clouds hung heavy in the sky, but the snow held off for now. It was one of those strange days when the world felt smaller and the sky seemed to touch the tops of the building.
The streets were jam packed with people. Lara hoped their presence could be hidden within the masses. Somehow, Evgeny had made it inside without being seen.
And Pytor!
Pytor was out in the city, planning. Lara smiled as she hoisted her bag onto her arm. Her husband was smart and fearless. If anyone could lift Konstantin from the ruin it’d become, Pytor could.
With one last longing glance toward the direction of the Novo-Mikhailovsky Palace, she turned away.
She would not miss the palace, or the safety it had given her. None of it mattered now, because Pytor was here.
33
The Tiger Princess Returns
Polya had never seen the Novo-Mikhailovsky Palace before. It did not look like a place to house an armory.
It looked as latticed and marbled as the Imperial Palace. The royal family’s, Polya corrected herself—her family’s—inability to acknowledge the danger of the world struck her as ridiculous. This building, with its windows taller than two men, its fountains and statues, could in no way protect what was inside.
Anatoliy chuckled humorlessly next to her and took her hand. “This is the epitome of stupidity,” he observed.
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