by Sarah Ash
“Prince Eugene is at this moment crossing the ice into Azhkendir with his armies. From Azhkendir, he will enter Muscobar. At the same time, his fleet will sail up the Nieva to Mirom.”
She snatched her hands from his, rising to her feet.
“What are you telling me? What’s happening?”
“There will be some resistance in Mirom, but Eugene’s armies will easily subdue the city.”
“He’s invading Mirom? My home?”
“Altessa, the days of the House of Orlov are over. Your father is a broken man. He has lost the confidence of the people. And you—with all greatest respect—are too young, too inexperienced, to rule.”
Astasia stared at him in disbelief.
“But we have allies. Azhkendir. There was an agreement—”
“Altessa,” he said gently, “you are a very fortunate young woman. You are betrothed to marry the most powerful man in the whole continent. The man who will soon be crowned emperor. You will be empress at his side.”
“But I don’t want to be empress!” she cried. “And you, Velemir, I thought you were my father’s trusted servant, his ambassador; what are you doing here? What of the vows you made to the House of Orlov?”
“Your father asked me to arrange this marriage; I am acting on his instructions.”
“I’m not staying here a moment longer. I’m going back to Mama in Mirom. She’ll need me.”
Astasia began to walk quickly toward the door. Velemir was quicker; he barred her way.
“Return is not only inadvisable, it is impossible.”
“What? You mean to hold me here—a prisoner?”
A gold and marble horologe struck the hour in a tinkling chime of bells.
“A guest in your future home, altessa. It is no longer safe to make the sea crossing; at any moment now, the Tielen fleet will start to sail up the Nieva. Doubtless the Muscobar fleet will retaliate. I anticipate a ferocious and decisive sea battle.”
She looked at him with loathing. She had never trusted him—and now, too late, she knew her instincts had been right.
“But just imagine how your people will welcome you back when the wedding is celebrated in Saint Simeon’s. Their own altessa marrying Eugene of Tielen.”
“How does it feel, count,” she said coldly, “to betray your country?” She no longer cared if she offended him. He was beneath contempt. “Are you utterly lacking in any sense of loyalty?”
“Indeed, altessa, I have always regarded myself as a patriot,” Velemir said smoothly. “I have only acted in Muscobar’s best interests. Your father is a weak and ineffectual ruler. The people detest him.”
She let out a little cry of outrage.
“What would you rather—to see Mirom torn apart by revolution, the Winter Palace burned, and you and your family executed? Or peaceful rule restored and a new empire forged, with you and Eugene at its head?”
“If my brother were here—” she began, tears pricking her eyes.
“Andrei is dead. Drowned,” Velemir said with brutal candor.
“Where is Madame Andar?” Astasia turned from him, hoping he had not seen her tears, determined not to cry in front of him. “No, don’t tell me. She has already left for Azhkendir.”
He said nothing.
“So I am trapped. Alone. Except for my maid.”
“You will want for nothing here, altessa. Swanholm is a marvel. Your future husband is a man of taste and refinement, and he has provided for your every need.”
This time it was she who did not reply, staring out over the formal gardens and icebound lake already shrouded in twilight mists. She heard the door click discreetly open and the sound of his footsteps receding down the corridor.
“Andrei,” she whispered to the gray gardens. “Oh, Andrei . . .”
Eugene raised the telescope and scanned the landscape. The moorlands of Azhkendir stretched away to all sides, stained the cinder colors of winter: white, gray, and brown. Jaro had told him of the wasteland Volkh Nagarian had created when he scorched the Arkhel lands to ashes—but he had not imagined the desolation could stretch so far. Even now, years after the attack, little grew here, only knotted grasses and stunted thornbushes, crushed by the weight of successive snowfalls.
Now the snowy wastes were filled with marching Tielen men; horse-drawn carts lumbered behind, drawing cannons. There was no sign of the Drakhaon or his druzhina—and nowhere for them to hide on this bleak plain.
And then through the telescope lens he spotted movement. A man, far off, ragged as a peasant, dragging himself through the snow. One of Gavril Nagarian’s spies, sent to track their progress?
“There’s a man following us. Over there.” He gestured with the telescope to two of his aides. “Bring him to me.”
He heard distant shouts as his aides caught hold of the spy and brought him to his knees. Strange. The few words he caught seemed to be in their own language, Tielen.
He climbed back onto Cinnamor and rode toward them.
“Highness! Highness!” cried the prisoner, hands outstretched. “Tell them who I am!”
One of the aides struck him. “Wait for his highness to speak to you.”
Eugene gazed down at the man. He was in poor shape. His face was smeared with sweat and blood; his uniform was charred and filthy; and yet his eyes, pale and defiant, were familiar.
“Oskar Alvborg,” Eugene said.
The man sagged in his captors’ grip. “Yes,” he whispered.
“He’s one of ours. Bring him to the camp and get him cleaned up.”
Oskar Alvborg sat hunched in a corner of a hospital wagon. He was wrapped in blankets, but his teeth still chattered.
“Can’t get much from him, highness,” murmured the surgeon. “Seems to be in shock. He’s been quite badly burned. Lost most of his hair.”
Burned. Uneasy now, Eugene approached the patient. “What happened, Alvborg?” he asked. “And where are your men?”
“Dead,” muttered Alvborg, staring into nothingness. “Dying. Don’t know.”
“And who attacked you?”
Alvborg’s shoulders began to shake. Eugene thought at first that he was weeping—and then he heard low, dry laughter. Pale eyes glinted at him, bright with malicious amusement.
“Can’t you guess, highness?”
“The Drakhaon?” Eugene had risked everything on the success of this campaign. He had to know his adversary.
The laughter died away. There was anger in Alvborg’s pale gaze now—and something else that Eugene could not yet define.
“We did exactly as you ordered, highness. We played the decoys. We led the Drakhaon and his men away from the invasion force. And what did we get for our pains?”
“Who fired first?”
“They were too close. We had to defend ourselves.”
“You fired on the Drakhaon?” He had taken a calculated risk in choosing Alvborg for this mission, and Alvborg had failed him. “You fool. Your orders were to distract him, not attack.”
“He looked just like a man, an ordinary man.” Alvborg seemed to be talking to himself now, forgetting Eugene was there. “But what ordinary man can make fire bloom from his fingertips? Fire, blue as burning brandy . . .”
The surgeon looked at Eugene over Alvborg’s bandaged head. “He’s feverish, rambling,” he said. “He should rest, highness—”
“I need to know.” Eugene gripped Alvborg by the shoulders, forcing him to look into his face. “So even the Magus’ inventions were no match for his powers?”
Alvborg flinched. “My men were burned to charred bone with one flick of his fingers.”
Eugene let go of Alvborg. His mind was buzzing. The success of his Azhkendi strategy now hinged on one man: Altan Kazimir. He knew now for sure the armies would never reach Mirom unless Gavril Nagarian was crushed.
“You have sorely disappointed me, Lieutenant Alvborg,” he said, rising to his feet. “I expected more from you. When you are recovered from your injuries, you will have
to answer to a military court.”
Alvborg said nothing. But from under swollen lids whose lashes had been singed away, he shot Eugene a look of virulent resentment.
“And you—” Eugene turned on the surgeon. “All you heard here today was the incoherent ravings of a sick man. Nothing is to be repeated, understand?”
The man nodded, eyes lowered.
Eugene pushed open the canvas flap of the wagon and jumped down to the ground.
Morale was high among the troops. They were days away from a great victory. They knew they were rewriting the history of the whole continent. He would let nothing tarnish their hopes now.
“Poison . . .”
Gavril stared blindly into darkness, sweat chill on his skin.
“I’m dying. Poisoned. Want . . . to . . . live . . .”
He felt sick and faint. Voices welled up in his mind, insidious fever voices. Screaming, shouting—
He clutched his hands to his head, trying to shut the voices out.
“It’s too late to divide us . . .”
Not voices now, but one voice alone. One voice that spoke out of his nightmares, so clearly that he was sure someone else must be in the room.
“Kill me, and you kill part of yourself.”
He had been dreaming again. The dream images, vivid, violent, still veered before his eyes in a lurid procession.
Eyes, slanted, alien—yet somehow familiar—gaze curiously into his, dazzling him with their glittering stare.
Creatures of colored light and shadow swoop and dart about him on wide translucent wings.
The air shimmers with the heat from their flared nostrils as they hover closer.
“What are you?” he whispers.
“Save. Preserve. Protect.”
The words whirl around his mind as the sky lights up with slashes of fire. Tall bronze-clad warriors, their faces too bright, too vengeful to look upon, stand below. And from the tips of their fingers shiver bolts of flame.
Too late the winged creatures spin around in the air. Too late blue fire shoots from their flared nostrils toward the golden-eyed warriors.
The flame bolts sizzle—and catch alight. In a wild whirling of wings, the burning creatures begin to thrash, to flail about—to crash to the earth. Viscous liquid sprays onto him where he stands; viscous, thick, and sticky as blood—yet blue as the phosphorescent gleam of their eyes. The air is rent with their cries, terrible howling cries of agony—
“Protect.”
The elixir must be working. It was giving him these nightmares, making him hear voices. It was purging his system of all the toxins that enabled the being he called Drakhaoul to inhabit his body. He lay back, unable to control the shaking in his limbs.
“Don’t let me die . . .” the dark, dry voice whispered in his brain. “There is so much more I have to give you.”
“You’re part of my dream. I’m still dreaming.” Gavril, trying to exorcise the phantom dreamvoice, pressed his fingers into his temples until the self-inflicted pain made him squirm.
“I am the last of my kind,” it said with sudden clarity. “You must protect me. Preserve me.”
“How do you feel this morning, my lord?” inquired Altan Kazimir.
Gavril sat slumped in a chair. He hadn’t even enough energy to get up.
“Kostya drugged me when he abducted me from Smarna,” he said, each word an effort. “I feel much the same as I did then. Sick. Dizzy. Confused.”
“Hm.” Kazimir slipped his fingers around his wrist, feeling for his pulse.
“And I kept hearing this voice in my sleep last night.” Gavril tried to focus his aching eyes on the doctor’s face. “Am I going mad? Or was it like this for my father?”
“There are dangerous toxins to be purged from your bloodstream.” Kazimir produced the syringe again, pushing up Gavril’s sleeve.
Gavril groaned. “Not more blood. You’ll bleed me dry.”
There came a sudden clamor of voices outside. Kazimir jumped, startled, and the syringe fell to the floor and broke.
“Lord Drakhaon!”
“You’re not to disturb him, Juri!” Sosia’s voice, shrill with annoyance, only made Gavril’s head ache more.
“This news can’t wait.” The door burst open and one of the elder druzhina strode in, Sosia clinging to his arm in a vain attempt to stop him.
“There’s been another sighting!” he said, hoarse for lack of breath.
“Where?” Gavril said.
“In the southern foothills. We were shadowing the Tielens, just as you ordered. And suddenly we sensed one of our own was close by.” Juri’s voice dried in his throat and Sosia poured him a mug of small beer. Juri swallowed the beer down in one gulp, swiping the last drops from his graying moustache with the back of his hand. “Grisha. It was Grisha Bearclaws. Who else can climb with such agility? He was watching the Tielens—like us—and he was so intent on his watch, he didn’t even know we were there. But he was high, high up, in a narrow gully. If we’d have gone after him, we’d have given ourselves away to the Tielens.”
“You let him go!” said Gavril in exasperation. Kazimir was on his knees, trying to pick up the slivers of glass, muttering to himself under his breath.
“He can’t have gone far. I’d guess Michailo’s hiding out somewhere close by.”
“We have a lead on Michailo?” cried Jushko from the open doorway. Kazimir flinched at the sight of him and dropped the shards of glass.
“So it seems.” Gavril had not forgotten his promise to Jaromir to find Lilias; now, at last, there was a chance he could fulfill it. “I want Lilias Arbelian and her baby caught and brought back unharmed,” he said. “Do you understand me, Jushko? They’re of vital importance to us.”
“We’ll do what we can,” Jushko said grudgingly. “But it won’t be easy with those cursed Tielens everywhere.”
“Unharmed, Jushko!” Gavril tried to push himself to his feet—but the room spun about him and he reeled, grabbing at the chair arm. Jushko lunged forward and caught hold of him.
“What are you doing to him?” he cried, rounding on Kazimir. “He looks half-dead! My lord—I beg you—stop this cure before it kills you.”
“I gave my word,” Gavril whispered, sinking back into the chair.
Eugene reined Cinnamor to a standstill and gazed back at the column of men winding away through the narrow gorge. Beneath them a dark mountain river foamed and churned over boulders stained brown with minerals. The humble beginnings of the great Nieva? he wondered. He must consult his charts. . . .
A thin, stinging sleet had begun to fall.
“What a wretched country, Anckstrom,” he said, turning his collar up to keep out the sleet. “Good thing our men are well-used to adverse conditions.”
“Well-trained, highness,” Anckstrom said dourly. His nose glowed crimson with the cold.
“We should make camp for the night.” Eugene glanced up at the fast-darkening sky.
“Isn’t this place a little too exposed?” Anckstrom gestured up at the overhanging crags high overhead. “They could ambush us from at least a hundred points.”
“And we could tramp on another ten miles and find it just the same. We knew it would be hard going through the mountains. Post extra sentinels—and issue an extra ration of aquavit to keep out the cold.”
Eugene’s aides hastily began to erect his field tent. Eugene dismounted and handed Cinnamor’s reins to his groom. Then he went among the men as they set about setting up their tents for the night, exchanging a word and a joke here, an ounce of tobacco there. Linnaius’ fire sticks were put to good use, intense flames of scarlet springing up in the gathering gloom.
When he returned to the tent, he found that Anckstrom had set up Linnaius’ Vox Aethyria on the little table beside a half-unfurled map of the whole continent.
“Any news?”
Anckstrom looked up. “We’ve just had word from the fleet. They’ve met little resistance from the Muscobites. Exchanged a few b
roadsides. Sank two frigates, shot the flagship’s mainmast in two. Admiral Janssen expects to be outside Mirom by noon tomorrow.”
“But no word from Jaromir? No word at all?” Eugene could not put his mind to the other matters until he was certain Jaromir was safe.
“Everything’s going according to plan, highness. We’ve encountered no resistance from the Azhkendi.”
“By God, if anything’s happened to him, I’ll make them pay.” The news of the fleet’s victory did not excite Eugene; it was the least he had expected of Admiral Janssen.
“They’ve kept to their part of the bargain thus far. They’ve been watching us. From a safe distance.”
Eugene nodded curtly. “I’ve seen them.”
“Biding their time?”
One of the aides brought them glasses of hot lingonberry brandy, dark red and fruitily alcoholic.
“Ah,” said Anckstrom, appreciatively smacking his lips. “That drives out the chill.”
A burst of shouting rang out, then the crack of shots.
Eugene and Anckstrom grabbed their pistols and tugged open the tent flap.
“Stay back, highness!” Anckstrom tried to block the tent entrance, pushing Eugene behind him, but Eugene, pistols primed, thrust him aside.
“What’s happened? Have we been attacked?”
One of his aides came hurrying over, torch in hand.
“Not precisely, highness. There’s some kind of skirmish farther up in the gorge. Captain Olsven has gone up to investigate.”
Lilias caught sight of the Tielen campfires in the gorge far below, little red flowers of light springing up one by one in the gathering darkness. Now she could think of nothing but the comfort of lying in a proper bed again, the warmth of perfumed hot water on her skin, hot food and wine, fine wine to drink. . . .
She was tired of being a fugitive. She was tired of Michailo and his surly moods. She wanted a bath.
She set out down the narrow stony track, heedless of the noise made by the pebbles she dislodged as she walked.
Michailo came hurrying after her, grabbing her by the arm.
“Are you mad, Lilias? Anyone can see you out here! There’s no cover!”