Prisoner of Ice and Snow

by Ruth Lauren

  But by far the most riveting things about them both are the harsh, straight lines of their mouths and the rigid poses of their bodies. The prince brings his hands up, and then seems to remember himself and forces them down again.

  I glance back at Nicolai. He’s frowning. He shakes his head, telling me he doesn’t know why it’s happening any more than I do, but we see the same thing—the prince and the princess are having a blazing fight.

  CHAPTER 11

  Nicolai and I watch the prince and princess fight. Anatol’s fists are clenched at his sides, his brows pulled low over his eyes. His sister’s mouth twists as she spits words at him. After a minute or two, the whole procession begins to move closer to us. Princess Anastasia storms off under the pretense of joining Warden Kirov at the front.

  Then I realize it was no pretense. The princess is talking to the warden now, her features animated. She no longer seems angry, but she still tosses her head and glances at Anatol. The warden has her hands behind her back, her face unreadable as she walks. Anastasia leans in closer to the warden and points straight above the girls’ cellblock. No, at the top of it, maybe. Warden Kirov’s gaze fixes on the building, and then she bows to the princess just before they both disappear from view along the wall.

  Silently, we slip back down the tunnel, Nicolai raising the torch as we descend into the mountain.

  “What do you think that was about?” he asks.

  “I have no idea,” I say. “Though I’d dearly love to know.”

  “Didn’t your sister used to work for the princess?”

  “How do you know that?” I ask in a sharp voice.

  “I just—I heard that she did.”

  The tunnel dips and twists around a corner. I put my hand to the wall to steady myself.

  “Just how much else have you heard?” I’m annoyed that everyone seems to know my family’s business.

  His eyes are wide. “Nothing much,” he says. “Only that she stole a music box from the palace.”

  “Well, then you heard wrong.” I can’t work out what’s going on with the prince and the princess, only that something is. “My sister didn’t steal anything. Someone else did and made sure she was blamed for it.” The words come out angrier than I mean them to. I know it’s not fair to Nicolai. It’s my own guilt for believing my sister to be a thief that’s talking, not real annoyance at him. But that only makes it worse.

  He stops walking, and I can’t go any farther now that he’s carrying the torch.

  “What?” I say shortly.

  “Are you sure she didn’t steal it? What—what are you going to do?”

  I don’t blink. I look straight at him. “What could I possibly do about it? Forget I said anything.”

  He hesitates, but then carries on walking. “Valor?” he says.

  “What now?”

  “We’ll be working in the kitchens tomorrow.”

  “Why are you telling me that?”

  He shrugs. “It might be useful information. Like I said, I want to help. I don’t want to spend my life in here anymore than you do.”

  We walk on in silence until we get back to the glowing cave, where I find Katia and Feliks working away, talking as though they’ve known each other forever. It never ceases to amaze me how other people can do that. I watch Nicolai as he joins them under the soft, starry light. Maybe I can trust him after all. But I still decide to wait until our evening meal before I talk to Feliks.

  The line for food snakes along the wall of the ice hall. I managed to get myself into a position with Feliks in front of me and Katia behind. Nicolai is farther forward, almost at the counter. Cold radiates from the translucent blocks of ice. I check for Peacekeepers and then lean forward to Feliks.

  “It’s time to get the keys. But I need your help.”

  He flashes a quick grin over his shoulder.

  The line moves along, and I check around us again. “I have everything ready for when we have them. Can you do it?”

  “I’m offended,” he says. “I’m the best goods liberator in the city. Or at least I will be when I get out of here. If I get the keys, then I get to come with you. Deal?”

  He gets to the front of the line and takes his bowl.

  “Deal,” I whisper, moving into position to get my food. The man with the wolves tattooed up his arms hands me a portion of watery soup and a hunk of bread. I turn around and almost pour the contents of my bowl straight onto the floor.

  “Hello, Valor,” says Sasha quietly. Her eyes are dancing, and she’s bouncing on her toes. I can tell she wants to fling her arms around me. I want to do the same.

  Instead, I steady my bowl and glance around for Peacekeepers. “What are you doing here?”

  She grins, full of glee. “Well, I’m out, of course. You didn’t expect me so soon?”

  I can’t believe it. It seems as though Peacekeepers should rush in and drag her away, like there’s been a mistake. I stand, dumbfounded, while she gets a bowl ahead of Katia. Then she takes my arm and tows me back down the room.

  “How did you do it?” she asks. “What did you say?”

  “What?” I shake my head. “I haven’t done anything. I tried, but Warden Kirov lied to me—”

  Sasha frowns. “No, not her. The queen.”

  I’m so lost. I can’t believe she’s here, holding onto my arm, but I can’t focus on it properly until I understand what’s happened.

  “Sasha, stop. I didn’t do this at all. I had nothing to do with getting you out. So start at the beginning. And whisper.” We shuffle in between the tables, moving as slowly as possible. There are prisoners everywhere, waiting for their food or taking it to the tables. I have to stop myself from putting my arm around Sasha; we can’t look as though we’re talking.

  “I was in the laundry with the Black Hands when Warden Kirov summoned me to the tower. Have you been in there? It’s like the palace, Valor. There’s this blue carpet, and—”

  “Sasha.”

  “Okay, okay. She said I was to be released into the general population of the prison and that I’d have a cellmate on the block like everyone else from now on.”

  “That’s it? She didn’t say why?”

  “She said, ‘It seems that you have inspired royal mercy.’ I thought you’d begged the queen and she’d ordered the warden to let me out.”

  I step in front of her, taking the lead so I can guide her to our table. “I had nothing to do with it,” I say, heartily wishing that I had. It’s starting to make sense nonetheless. “But I don’t think it was the queen either.” I tell her what I saw earlier on the wall—the princess talking to the warden, pointing to the part of the cellblock where the Black Hands are kept. I tell her about the princess and the prince arguing too.

  Sasha’s smile fades as we take our seats. “He’s determined to keep me hidden so that nobody finds out I didn’t take the music box, isn’t he? Do you think he could have me put with the Black Hands again, Valor? I don’t want to go back to the cell on my own.”

  I take her hand under the table and squeeze it. “Think, Sasha. You know the princess is far more powerful than Prince Anatol. She’s the one who will inherit the throne. She’s the one about to enter her thirteenth year now. He can’t overrule anything she does. Even in here. Warden Kirov knows that. Don’t worry.”

  I say it to comfort her. It’s true that Anastasia will be queen, true that she has far more influence, but Anatol looked so angry on the wall today. So determined. He’s always been the kind of boy who finds a way to get what he wants. We have to run. And we have to do it soon.

  Sasha nods. “You’re right. Maybe Anastasia’s trying to help us. She thinks very deeply of late about the issues her mother faces now. Only a few months ago she questioned why Queen Ana was so set on an alliance with Magadanskya and not Pyots’k when Pyots’k could make us so much richer. Of course we all knew, and the queen and I explained to her why we must both put an end to the cold war with Magadanskya and ignore the promise of riches f
rom Pyots’k because of their intention to use our ports to launch their warships.

  “Once we made her understand, she spent a lot of time thinking about the intricacies of alliances. Maybe she’ll apply the same wisdom to the justice system, and to our predicament here.” My sister’s face has filled up with hope while she’s been whispering, and that’s more important to me than whatever politics she’s talking about. It’s wonderful to see her, to hear her chattering on about the same ideas she always used to talk about at home. Even if it does hurt to hear her still so enamored with the queen who put her here.

  “Valor?” whispers Feliks as he sits down. On my other side, Katia joins us. All at once the joy of it hits me. Ever since I came here and found that Sasha was locked away, I’ve been missing part of my heart—a part I thought I’d have back when I got to Tyur’ma. Whatever else I lost by getting myself arrested, I thought that at least we’d be together. Then I arrived, and it’s all been so hard, gone so wrong. Until now.

  “Feliks, Katia—this is Sasha,” I say, and before I know it my voice has cracked and I’m trying to hide the big tears that roll down my cheeks. I don’t let go of her hand. I cover it with my own and wish that I could close my eyes and transport us out of here and back to when we sat before the fire at home, waiting for Mother and Father. I would give anything.

  Sasha’s fingers twine into my own. “I’m all right, Valor. And now we’re together. It will be all right.”

  “We’re all in it together,” says Feliks.

  “So,” says Katia. She watches the Peacekeeper in the corner as she murmurs the words. “There’s really nothing stopping us from getting out of here, is there?”

  I look around at our group and nod. I think she’s right. I think it’s time.

  On the way back to the cellblock, I walk with my sister ahead of me, and when we’re inside, I watch to see which cell they send her to. It’s opposite mine and up one level. Before we’re ordered to step inside, I catch her eye, and she lifts her hand, just at the wrist, and waves.

  Maybe we could leave Demidova altogether, go to Magadanskya or somewhere beyond—somewhere Prince Anatol won’t find us. Maybe we can get word to Mother and Father and all of us could go. We could take a ship from the docks, find passage to another part of the world where music boxes and royal families don’t matter.

  I step into the cell with Katia, and the bars blur in front of me as the door rolls closed. I wipe my cheeks, barely even hearing the noise the mechanism makes. After the roof groans and rumbles its way into place and the block is silent, I creep out of my bunk. Katia watches me as I remove the soap I stole from its hiding place inside one of the split seams of my mattress. Tomorrow, Nicolai had said, we will be working in the kitchens. I have my sister; now all I need are the keys.

  “Nicolai got a message to me as we were walking back here,” whispers Katia. She grins, and I wait expectantly. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smile like this before. It crinkles her eyes and warms her whole face.

  “He’s requested Sasha on our work detail tomorrow.”

  “Really?” My insides tingle and fizz. Everything is finally coming together. I don’t think I’ll sleep at all tonight.

  “I think you could trust him, you know. If you wanted to.”

  Maybe I could. I tuck the soap securely into the wide brim of my hat and tie the earflaps up to hide it. The metal we’re going to melt down to make copies of the keys will go into the secret compartment in my boot. I creep to the bars of our cell. The block is silent. A few dim torches flicker in brackets along the walls. I stare at the shadows, trying to make out Sasha’s cell. I can’t believe that I once protested at having to share a room with her when our parents had guests staying at the house. My heart reaches out over the gap between us now, wishing she were in this cell with me.

  I crouch and reach for the silver pick strapped to the slats under Katia’s bunk.

  I reach farther, my fingers groping in the dark.

  “What are you doing?” asks Katia.

  “I can’t reach it. Let me just—” I flip onto my back, the cold from the floor seeping into my furs as I wriggle under the bed. I feel all over the slats, then push myself farther under. My fingers grasp the thin strips of torn material I used to bind the pick to the bedframe. The edges are sliced. The bindings have been cut. My pick is gone.

  CHAPTER 12

  I yank myself out from under the bed and scramble up to face Katia. “Where is it?”

  Katia swings her legs over the edge of her bed and sits up. “The pick? The pick’s gone?” There’s panic in her voice.

  “What else would I be talking about?” I push my hands through my hair, fingers catching on my braids.

  “Well, why are you asking me?”

  “Who else would I ask?” I hiss at her.

  She pulls her knees up to her chest. “I don’t know where it is any more than you do. Someone’s been in here, Valor.” She looks around as if she expects them to still be here, or that there’ll be some big clue to who it was.

  I don’t know what to think. I only know I should never have trusted anyone but me. “Why did you change your mind about helping me?” I start to pace the cell. Four steps by four, back and forth. “All you could talk about was how dangerous it was, how it couldn’t be done, and then suddenly you wanted to come with us. Why is that?”

  She gets up off the bed, and I’m reminded that she’s taller than me. “It wasn’t me, Valor. If I wanted to stop you, I could have told Warden Kirov days ago.”

  “Then why the change of heart?” I demand. We’re both keeping our voices down, but there’s so much fire in what I say. If she’s been working against me the whole time …

  Katia takes a step forward. “You’re not thinking straight.” She brings up her hand in the time that I blink, then flicks me right on the forehead.

  We both stand there for a second, shocked, and then I let out a brief laugh before stifling it with my hand. It’s just such a ridiculous thing for her to do. She smiles.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “You’re right. It makes no sense that you would have told Warden Kirov. We wouldn’t be in here unpunished if she knew, would we?”

  Katia drops back onto her bunk.

  I join her on the bed, and we both stare at the flickering shadows on the wall for a while. Does someone know about my plans? Are they toying with me?

  “You asked me why I want to help you.” Katia’s voice wrenches me from the maze I’m tangled in. She keeps looking at the wall, and I can just make out the freckles across her cheek. “Do you remember what you were talking about the night I agreed to help?”

  I think back. I’ve been here such a short amount of time, but so much has happened. “I told you the whole story,” I say. “Is that what changed your mind?”

  She looks at her hands clasped in her lap. “It was the way you talked about Sasha. It was how much you needed to get her out of here. How much you’d given up to try something that is, frankly, impossible. I—” Her jaw tightens, and when she lifts her head, her eyes are shining. She swipes a hand over them. “I had a sister, once. We were close, like you and Sasha. But she was younger than me. I should have stayed at home to look after her; my mother asked me to, but I didn’t. When I got back—saints, all I had wanted to do was go to a silly festival—she was gone. She’d drowned. It’s my fault that she died. And then everything that I did afterward—running away, stealing … that’s why I’m here.” Katia turns to me and her eyes are wet with tears, but they’re bright and hopeful too. “But I can help you save your sister. And maybe if I do … maybe if I do the right thing now—” She takes a ragged breath. “Sasha didn’t even steal the music box. She’s innocent, and she doesn’t deserve to be here.”

  I put my arm around her. “I’m sorry, Katia,” I whisper. “Thank you for helping. I don’t think you deserve to be here either.”

  She makes a soft, bitter noise, so I pull her in tighter. I know what she’s risking for me. “
I’m not as good a sister as you think I am. I thought Sasha had stolen the box,” I say. Saying the words makes me feel a little bit lighter.

  Katia nods slowly. “But you came to save her anyway. That’s what’s important.”

  I feel even lighter. “Do you still think what we’re trying to do is impossible?”

  She looks up, the outline of her hair in silhouette. “Yes. But I know you’re going to try all the same.”

  The kitchens are behind the ice hall, built with solid stone like the laundry, but only one story high. Huge chimneys rise from the roof, sending smoke into the light-blue sky. Feliks and Sasha walk beside me, both quiet since Katia and I told them about discovering the pick had disappeared last night. I put my hand on Sasha’s shoulder the way I used to when we were little, just to reassure myself that she’s really here. I feel unsettled and watchful with the other prisoners in our group, as if someone’s watching me from the tower all the time, even though when I look there’s no one there.

  We pass a group headed for the mines. A downcast boy dragging his boots through the snow has a stripe of ink down his forehead. He’s walking at a little distance from the others. The rest of the boys in the group look grim. It makes me sad that I know why.

  The Peacekeeper with the chessboard tattoos stops at the kitchen doors, takes his keys from his belt, and unlocks the doors, leading us inside. Feliks elbows me in the ribs at the sight of the keys, hard enough for me to feel it through my layers of clothes.

  Inside is one long, wide room. An enormous fireplace spans the length of the left-hand side. Over it there are spits and huge, blackened cooking pots. Two pitted wooden tables run down the other side of the room, and underneath them are drawers and cupboards. Pots and pans, grills and racks hang from the ceiling on chains.