Prisoner of Ice and Snow

by Ruth Lauren

  “In,” says Peacekeeper Rurik in a tone that tells me he won’t say it a third time. He pushes me forward, and I step onto a mat on the tiled floor. I smell oil lamps and soap and herbs I don’t have names for.

  One of the other doors opens and a woman appears. She’s shorter than I am, her hair pulled back into one long braid that suddenly reminds me of my mother and makes my chest ache. Behind her are two beds, and sitting on one of them is a huddle of brown furs.

  The woman nods to Peacekeeper Rurik, and he leaves, shutting the door to the infirmary and closing out the cold.

  “Come through,” says the woman. I hesitate, looking around warily, and then walk through into the next room. It’s smaller, with only the two beds, a sink, and a shelf brimming with jars of herbs and pastes and liquids, each labeled in a tiny looping script.

  “Name?” she asks.

  “Valor Raisayevna,” I tell her. I used to be proud of it. Now my stomach clenches. But the woman doesn’t react.

  The mass on one of the beds moves. It’s the girl with the eye patch—the one who saved me that night when I almost fell from the ledge on my way to find Sasha’s cell. The one Katia told me had tried to escape. Her name is Mila. I can’t stop myself from checking her hands. One is scrunched tight into her furs. The other sleeve lies in her lap, a gaping hole at the end of it where her hand should be. I swallow.

  The woman gestures at the other bed. “I’m Dr. Lenina. Sit.” She has a quiet voice, and she doesn’t look at me the way Warden Kirov does.

  I perch on the edge of the bed. “Why am I here?”

  She smiles—the first real smile I’ve seen on an adult since I came here. “This is an infirmary. I presume you can tell me why you’re here?”

  I’d almost forgotten that my hands hurt. Now that the doctor mentions it, though, a fresh wave of stinging washes over my palms. When I lift my hands up, they’re red and starting to blister in places.

  The doctor nods and busies herself with something in the sink. “Take your coat off and we’ll have a look.”

  I don’t understand. Is the prince scared that I’ll show Princess Anastasia my injury? Is he going to leave me alone, stop questioning me now? I’ve played a dangerous card, threatening a prince, but … have I won? I bend my fingers, wincing, and struggle to do as the doctor says. If Natalia hadn’t taken the key impressions, it might all have been worth it.

  “Here. Let me help you.”

  I pull away from her; I can’t stop myself.

  She pauses and presses her lips together. “You know, I always wanted to be a children’s doctor. And where better to do it than where I’m most needed? Warden Kirov is very dedicated to her job, and to the royal family. But believe me, Valor, I am equally dedicated to mine.”

  She moves toward me again and unbuttons my furs with deft fingers, then gently slips them over my shoulders and lays them on the bed. Then she takes my hands and inspects them, frowning and turning them this way and that. Her own hands are cool and careful.

  “I’m going to make a salve and bandage them.” She turns to the other girl. “Mila, I’ll make yours at the same time. Wait here.”

  Dr. Lenina crosses to the other door. I hear clinking as she gathers supplies in the next room. Opposite me, Mila sits, her good eye staring steadily at me. I haven’t seen her since the night she pulled me back onto the ledge.

  I clear my throat. “Thank you for what you did for me.”

  “Think nothing of it.” I’d forgotten how low her voice is. Soft, though, like gravel under water.

  “But I do. I think a lot of it,” I say, ashamed that I haven’t sought her out before, that I haven’t thanked her properly for putting herself at odds with the other prisoners for a complete stranger. “I—I’m sorry about us having no roof that night because of me. My sister was up in that cell, and I wouldn’t have gotten to her if you hadn’t helped me.”

  I think about Sasha now, back in the kitchens with Natalia. I’m itching to know what’s happening in there.

  In the room next door, glass clinks on glass, and the doctor says something to herself.

  Mila leans forward. The cuff of her coat folds in, empty where her hand should be. “There are people in your work detail you should steer clear of,” she says, as though she’s read my mind.

  The pulse in my neck leaps. “I’ve been trying to.”

  “Not hard enough, I bet.” She shakes her head. “You can get yourself into a lot of trouble mixing with the wrong people. My advice? Don’t make friends in here. You don’t know who you can trust.”

  The doctor’s footsteps sound on the tiles.

  “Who? Who can’t I trust?” I say.

  “The warden has spies. And she’s not the only one.”

  Dr. Lenina knocks the door open with her elbow, her hands full of bandages and bowls. She hands Mila a bowl of ointment that smells of mint and something darker. Mila places it on the bed beside her.

  The doctor takes my hands and smears the contents of another bowl over my skin. It tingles, then soothes, taking the fire out of the burns. I feel my whole body relax, even if my mind can’t. She wraps soft white bandages around my palms and each of my fingers.

  I let her work. Over her shoulder, I see Mila dip her fingers into the paste in her bowl. She lifts the eye patch from the ruined socket that was once her eye, before she crossed Warden Kirov. I try not to stare at what the warden did to her. It speaks of a cruelty I’ve only seen the surface of.

  While the doctor finishes dressing my hands, Mila shuffles down from the bed, places her bowl in the sink, and leaves, as though her being in the infirmary is a regular occurrence. How long has it been since she tried to escape?

  I move to follow her, eager to find out more, but Dr. Lenina protests. “Valor, instructions have to be followed. You are to rest here for a while.”

  I glance at the door. “I need to get back to work. My sister—”

  She puts her hand on my shoulder and guides me back onto the bed. I wilt a little under her gentleness. But I have to get to Sasha.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” says Dr. Lenina, and for the first time she sounds like she won’t take no for an answer. She makes me lie down, and when she smooths my hair back from my forehead, the kindness undoes me altogether. I close my eyes as tears fill them. I’ve tried so hard, but doubt has seeped into me like the cold. I don’t feel like a girl who believes she can rescue her sister at all.

  I wake slowly, the sheet soft against my cheek. For a moment, I’m back at home, with Father working downstairs in his study. I hear Sasha arguing some point of law or court politics with him. Mother is sharpening hunting knives in the kitchen, which sends the housekeeper wild with annoyance. I smile, and then I remember where I am. My eyes snap open. There’s a blanket over me. I push it off as I sit up. The door is open, and the light from the ward is dim. I jump up, my hands swathed in bandages.

  When Dr. Lenina releases me from the infirmary, the sky is darkening to a bruised purple. The prison grounds are covered in a fresh coat of snow, bare and clean of footprints, empty of inmates. Up on the wall, a Peacekeeper is lighting the nighttime torches. A lone wolf calls, long and lonely, raising the hair on my arms.

  I hurry toward the ice hall for the evening meal, my breath huffing in icy crystals. As I pass the forge, where the air still smells of hot metal, there’s a soft crunch behind me. I spin around, alert and jumpy, pulling myself back into the Valor who exists outside of the infirmary. The soft sheets are gone, and the bitter cold is back. There’s nothing behind me, though; only the snow, sparkling and deadly in the growing firelight.

  I rush on past the store, a low building trimmed with windswept icicles as long as my arm in places. A scuffling noise followed by a snap makes me drag in a breath, scanning behind me again. There are eyes on me. I feel them. I sense them as though there were a wolf from beyond the wall stalking me. My skin prickles.

  The strange underwater glow of the ice hall is just visible. I run for
it, into the shadows of the boys’ cellblock. Feet pound the ground behind me. I don’t look back. I push myself forward and someone hits me from the side, knocking me into the wall. I yelp, kicking out and almost losing my balance. Hands grab me and throw my back against the wall, rattling my teeth.

  Something sharp pushes into the soft part of my neck underneath my jaw.

  “Quiet,” says Natalia. “So.” She leans right into my face. “When are we escaping, Valor?”

  I shake my head. The plan was for Sasha and me. I’ve already added Katia and Feliks, which means I’m already trusting more people than I wanted to with my plans. And I don’t trust Natalia at all. “There is no we. You’re the one with the key impressions.”

  Her face hardens. “I can’t just open the gates and stroll out across the plains. So I want to know what you’re planning. And I want to know when we’re leaving.” She slides one hand down my arm and snatches my bandaged left hand. I try to pull away, but she slams me against the wall again. The back of my head hits stone. A cold trickle runs down my neck, and I realize the sharp thing at my throat is an icicle.

  Natalia squeezes my fingers, crushing the tender skin. I grit my teeth as tears spring into my eyes. She sighs, like it’s my fault. “Do you really think I’m going to bother making a new plan myself when it’s clear you already have one? Either you get me out of here too, or I’m going straight to Warden Kirov, and you and your precious sister will never escape Tyur’ma. I’m sure she’d give me a pretty nice reward for information like this. But maybe you think she likes you. Maybe you think she’d believe you over me. It’s your choice, Valor.”

  “Stop.” My voice is twisted up with pain, but she doesn’t let go of my hands. “I have a p-plan. There’s a tunnel, under the tower. But I need the keys to check the escape route first. And you took them.”

  She finally lets go of my hands. I gasp, curling forward over them. She drops the icicle to the ground and kicks snow over it.

  “Why can’t we just leave?” she asks. “We should go now.”

  “I told you. Without the keys, we can’t get out. I was going to find the escape route. I know it’s under the tower somewhere, but I have to find it. What if we all get into the tower and then we can’t get out? What if the tunnels are blocked? It has to be perfect.”

  “You really had this all planned out, didn’t you?” Natalia sounds almost impressed. “Are you sure there are even tunnels at all?”

  I hug my stinging hands to myself. “Yes. I’ve seen them on old maps that belong to my father. But you took the molds I was going to use for the keys, and now—”

  She brings up her hand and releases something from her fist so that it dangles in front of me. A set of silver keys.

  I straighten in astonishment, my heart leaping up.

  “It’s all taken care of. See? I want to work with you. The Peacekeeper was none the wiser after Feliks returned his keys. Between him and your sister, they had the whole thing figured out in no time. And now I’m giving these to you. I’m trusting you to get me out of here.” She holds out the bunch of keys and I look at them, perfect and silver, my whole life dangling right there with them in Natalia’s hand.

  “Take them. Find this escape route tonight. I want to get out of here tomorrow, and you’re going to make sure that happens.”

  I try to stop my hand from shaking as I take the keys. My fingers are clumsy as I hide them in the compartment in my boot. Natalia disappears into the shadows, and I walk on trembling legs to the ice hall.

  A Peacekeeper questions me. I show him my bandaged hands as an excuse. I only want to see Sasha. And even though I’m too late for food and we get marched back to the cellblock right away, it’s enough just to see her face. I walk in silence beside her, and it makes me feel better to know she’s all right.

  It’s not until sometime after we’re in our cells, the lights dim and the cellblock silent, that Katia climbs up to my bunk.

  “Here,” she whispers, pushing something into my hands. I scramble up, my back against the wall. There’s a torn lump of bread and some chunks of cheese in my grasp. I look at her in surprise. “Thank you.” I start to shovel it into my mouth, only now realizing how hungry I am.

  She sits next to me, her long, thin legs sticking straight out over the end of the bed. “After what happened today … well, this is serious, isn’t it? We’re really leaving here. And I can’t let everyone else take all the risks when I take none myself. It isn’t right.”

  “But, Katia, you risk everything all the time just by sharing a cell with me. If Warden Kirov found out—”

  “Well, we’d better make sure she doesn’t, then. There’s no going back. Not now that we have keys. Not when Natalia and Nicolai are coming too.”

  I swallow my mouthful. “Nicolai?”

  “He can’t stay now. Practically his whole work detail is escaping. Think what the warden would do to him. And he helped so much, Valor. He did exactly what Sasha and Feliks said.”

  “How did the keys get made?” I push the last of the food into my mouth, trying to chew slowly.

  “Sasha and Feliks. You should have seen them.” Her eyes shine with pride. “Sasha got Feliks to return the keys. Then she sent Nicolai to the forge with a story about putting in an order for some new silver cutlery for the warden. Apparently, some of the old set got … damaged.” Katia grins wickedly.

  “You stole the warden’s cutlery to melt down and make the keys?” I can’t believe all this went on without me there. Feliks and Sasha are quite the team.

  She nods, grinning at the memory. “It was all Sasha’s idea. I never dared to hope. I never let myself think that I could leave here. But when I see how determined you are, and I hear your sister standing up to Natalia, telling her she has to clear it with you if she wants to join us, I can’t help myself.” She presses her hand over her chest and takes a breath.

  I shake my head in wonder. “I wish I’d been there. My sister has a way with words that I’ll never have. But I don’t think she knew exactly how Natalia planned on clearing it with me.” I reach down and pull the blade of one key from its hiding place in my boot.

  “You have them now?” Her smile falters.

  I tell her about my little meeting with Natalia. Her eyes are round when I finish.

  “You have to go out of here tonight? By yourself? It’s too dangerous.”

  “If I don’t, Natalia will turn me in to Warden Kirov. And if that happens, I won’t be the only one who pays. I have to go tonight.”

  After that Katia is silent, worry turning her mouth down and filling her eyes with fear. The cold and the silence seep into every part of me, and so when I give her a nod and climb down from the bunk sometime later, every brush of my furs across the iron frame sounds like the grating of the roof being rolled back.

  I ease the folded sheet I took from the laundry out from under the mattress and secure it in the waistband of my trousers. I press my face to the bars, looking left and right. The cellblock is full of deep, flickering shadows. Sasha’s cell is as dark and soundless as all the others.

  Mila was wrong about not trusting anybody. I see it for the first time since I came here, and in spite of what happened with Natalia. I can trust my sister. I can trust my friends. That’s why Mila never made it out of here. And it’s why I will.

  I slip the keys out of my boot, separating the cell door key from the others, muffling the rest of the bunch with my bandaged hand. My fingers hurt where Natalia squeezed them, but whatever Dr. Lenina put on my hands is wonderful, because all I feel is a dull pulsing.

  I look over my shoulder at Katia’s tense face.

  I hold my breath to stop my hand from shaking and press the key forward a fraction of an inch at a time, as though letting it touch the sides of the lock will make lightning strike me.

  I turn the key. The lock on my cell door opens.

  CHAPTER 15

  I grasp the bars and push the door. It swings open slowly, throwing long stripe
d shadows across the wall. Katia sits rigid on the bed, her hands pressed over her mouth. I blow out my breath silently and step onto the narrow ledge outside the cell. The gulf on the other side seems wider and deeper than in the daytime, when girls rush past it to get into the food line.

  I peek into the cell next to ours. The girls are dark shapes, huddled on their bunks. They breathe quietly, exhausted from the day’s work. I grasp the keys, take one last look at Katia, and sneak away into the shadows that line the cells.

  My eyes strain to pick out the sleeping figures in each cell as I move along the row. When I make it to the steps that lead down to the door, I’m lightheaded from taking shallow breaths. I make myself breathe deeply as I hug the wall, picking my way down the steps. I hurry past the lone torch, tensed in anticipation of any inmates seeing me.

  Someone shouts out a single word that freezes me and sends the pulse in my neck bounding. I wait and wait, but nothing happens. Someone calling out in her sleep. At the narrow door to the cellblock, I listen. Is there a Peacekeeper stationed outside? Or are they patrolling the grounds right now?

  There’s no way to find out but to unlock the door. I’m shaking, poised to run back to my cell. I untuck the white sheet, drape it around myself so it covers my dark clothes, and twist the key.

  An icy wind blows in and makes my heart race even faster. But I keep my eyes glued to the crack. There’s no Peacekeeper outside. The grounds are empty, the snow crisp and white. Torches burn brightly all around the top of the wall. Something moves, blocking one of the lights. A Peacekeeper walks slowly along the battlements where I saw Prince Anatol arguing with his sister. Where I shot the arrows that saved his life.

  Atop the wall, the Peacekeeper walks past, and I see my chance. I slip out of the smallest possible gap I can create with the door and close it, wincing at the tiny noise it makes as it shuts. Then I crouch in the snow and run, praying the white sheet pulled over me is enough to stop my movement from catching the Peacekeeper’s eye.