The Unfailing Light (The Katerina Trilogy 2)

by Robin Bridges

  “I won’t help you.” I looked all around the room, looking for doors, weapons, anything. I needed to get back to help George. Even if he didn’t need, or want, my help.

  I heard the door behind us close and the bolt slide into place. Danilo appeared. He was in on the plot as well. He smiled as he walked around me. “I will finish dealing with your grand duke later. After you have helped us raise the lich tsar.”

  “We knew you wouldn’t help willingly, Duchess,” Sucre said. “But we know you wouldn’t want anything to happen to your Smolny friend, now, would you?”

  The crown prince pushed the throne around and I saw Alix, back in her human shape and wearing a dirty Smolny uniform. She was gagged and tied to the throne. Her eye was blackened where one of the wizards had hit her. Sucre smiled a nasty smile as he showed me Alix’s ribbon and tucked it away in his coat pocket. My heart sank.

  “You don’t want anything else to happen to the Hessian princess, do you?” Sucre asked. “I will cut the bitch’s throat in a heartbeat if you do not help us.”

  “Why?” I asked Danilo. “Why would you want to bring Konstantin back?”

  The crown prince’s face was like a mask. “Thanks to the cursed talisman we used for my ascension, I am now bound to Konstantin. If I give him what he wants, I will be free.”

  “He wants to kill the tsar, Danilo. You can’t let that happen.”

  The crown prince almost looked apologetic. “If I do not, he will end up killing me. Or worse, possessing me.”

  The thought of being bound by blood to the lich tsar in the crown prince’s body made me physically ill. “Surely there is another way.”

  “We’ve run out of options, Duchess,” Sucre said. “Help us raise the lich tsar, or the German princess will die.”

  I could not allow them to sacrifice Alix. “What do you wish me to do?” I whispered.

  The princess’s eyes grew wide and she struggled against her ropes. Sucre struck her with a violent blow to her cheek. She grew very still, but I could see the tears welling up in her eyes as she fought against the pain.

  My fists were shaking. I could feel fury rising inside of me. I wanted to let the cold light loose and do something horrible to these men. They had no right to hurt us. “Let her go, and I will help you.”

  Danilo laughed. “You must be joking, Katerina.”

  “I am not.” I fought to stop trembling. I fought to keep my fears down and looked him coolly in the eye. He wanted a cold-blooded necromancer, and that was what I would be. “Let Alix go, or I won’t cooperate.”

  Sucre swore in French, and nodded to the crown prince. “We don’t need her anymore with the Koldun dead. Let her loose.”

  Danilo had the sense to look frightened. “But she’s a wolf.”

  “Not without the ribbon, she’s not. Let her go. We need the necromancer more.”

  Alix glared at me. She was still in too much of a daze from the blow to her head to hurt either Danilo or Sucre. Staggering, she stood up from the throne and somehow managed to lunge for me. I held my arms out to catch her. “Katerina Alexandrovna,” she hissed. “I would rather die than see you do this.”

  “See to the grand duke. And please find my brother.”

  I could have sworn I heard her growl as she ran past me into the Great Hall. I did not look back at her. Instead, I held Sucre’s gaze, and summoned all the cold-light power I could. It had helped to kill the Koldun. Would it work again?

  “Tsk, tsk,” Sucre said, shaking his head at me. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Duchess. The Koldun was killed not by you but by the dark spirits he unleashed. Don’t waste your precious powers trying to fight me.” He took a step closer and grabbed my hands, bruising them with his force. “It won’t work.”

  The fae cook could read my mind. I closed my eyes. “Tell me what you want me to do, so I can leave.”

  Sucre laughed. “Of course. If you would be so kind, Monsieur,” he said, holding out his hand. Papus appeared from the shadowy corner of the room. He pulled a faded scroll from the inside pocket of his vest and handed it to Sucre. It was the scroll he had retrieved from the cave in Massandra. He’d betrayed George and the Order all along.

  Papus quickly drew a magic circle around the three of us, with the throne in the center.

  I was now effectively cut off from anyone’s help. There was no way the grand duke could hear my thoughts across the magic barrier.

  “What do you hope to gain by raising the lich tsar? He will destroy us all.”

  Danilo shook his head and smiled, showing his sharp teeth. “He will be completely under my control. I have the talisman.” He pulled a necklace from under his shirt and showed me the Talisman of Isis.

  “You took it from the Koldun’s staff?” I gasped.

  “If I hadn’t, the spirits would have taken it themselves. And what kind of anarchy would that have created?”

  I shook my head. “You are insane.”

  “You do wound me, Duchess.” Gripping me roughly by the shoulders, he swung me around so that I was standing opposite him and Sucre. We made a triangle around the throne.

  “If only that were true,” I muttered. His eyebrow rose slightly, but he did not reply.

  Sucre unrolled the parchment scroll and began to read the ancient Greek text. When he paused, Danilo and I were to repeat his words. I could make out only some of the phrases he was chanting. “Open the gate” … “return to the light” …

  The two wizards focused their attentions on the throne, as if that was where they expected the lich tsar to appear. Of course. The throne was some sort of gateway to the cold-light realm, the Graylands, where Konstantin was imprisoned. I could not allow him to return to our world. Sucre and Danilo were fools if they thought they were strong enough to control him.

  I felt the temperature drop drastically in the chamber. I could see Sucre’s breath as he chanted. I could feel the cold light pulling, tugging me toward the throne. Was this supposed to be happening?

  The light was beginning to swirl over the seat of the throne. Very soon, the lich tsar would appear in that seat. My heart pounded with fear.

  I couldn’t do this. Konstantin could not be allowed to leave the Graylands. I saw the carvings along the curve of the back of the throne and realized what I had to do.

  I stopped chanting the words that Sucre was reading. Instead, I began to focus on the carved words. “The path to the light travels straight through the darkness,” I muttered. “The path to the light travels straight through the darkness,” I repeated, louder still.

  I felt another pull within my belly. The cold light inside me wanted to go, was eager even. I knew I’d probably never be able to return. But with me trapped in the Graylands Konstantin would be trapped as well. I swallowed the fear that was in my throat and read the inscription a third time. The throne seemed to hum with its immense power.

  Before Danilo and Sucre could realize what I had planned, I rushed forward and threw myself into the seat. The room began to spin, and I felt the sickening cold and clammy feeling I’d experienced in the caves of Massandra. I was gone before the wizards knew what I had done.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  The throne came with me. I knew I was doomed to die, but I still smiled. They would not be able to raise the lich tsar without a necromancer. I pulled the shadows around me, hoping I would stay hidden from Konstantin for at least a little while.

  I needed to find him, however, just to make sure the wizards could not invoke him on their own. As much as I hated the idea, I had to find the lich tsar in the Graylands.

  I had no sense of direction. The realm was dark and full of swirling mist, and I had no way of knowing where the lich tsar was. How had I found him last time?

  Within the mist were whispering shadows and strands of silver cold light. I tried not to attract their attention. But several shadows loomed taller as they drew closer to me. I held my breath. The shadows drifted past in a hurry, attracted to something behind me.
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br />   I heard moaning. It stopped my blood cold. Who was here in the Graylands with me? I whispered, “Sheult Anubis,” more to give myself courage than anything else, and made my way toward the sound.

  The mist was colder here. The moans grew louder. I didn’t realize how close I’d gotten, but suddenly a cold hand gripped my ankle.

  I shrieked.

  The mist muffled my scream.

  The cold hand loosened. “Forgive me.…” The person was prostrate on the floor.

  “Sir?” I leaned down and gasped. It was the Koldun. Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich. “You betrayed your own brother, and tried to bring back the lich tsar.”

  He was too weak to sit up. “Duchess. I fear I owe you a grave apology. I was very wrong to attempt the ritual of the wolf’s heart. The papyrus describing the ritual was a forgery. I have made a terrible mess of things.”

  My eyes went wide. “Papus and Sucre created a false ritual?”

  “I thought we were saving the tsar and destroying Konstantin once and for all. The French wizards had other plans the whole time.”

  I picked up his hand and held it. “How did you get here?”

  “The spirits brought me.” He laughed grimly. “My wife and I have manipulated the Dark Court for years. It is long past time the spirits took their revenge.”

  “But you’ve been serving as Koldun all this time. Does your brother trust you?”

  “Both Light and Dark Courts serve the tsar, Katerina,” the Koldun said. “Despite my wife’s ambitions.”

  “Of course, there is always the slightest chance something could happen to the tsar and his family,” I said, thinking of the train accident at Kharkov. “And you would inherit the throne.”

  “Anything is possible,” the grand duke said. “But now I think my wife’s fondest wish will never come true. This is the ending that I deserve.”

  “No one deserves to stay here, Your Imperial Highness. Not even you.”

  The Koldun’s eyes were sad. “There is nothing you can do, Katerina Alexandrovna. I am dead. I will remain here until it is time to meet my final judgment.”

  “Did the grand duchess know what you were attempting to do this evening?”

  “Of course not. L’Ordre du Lis Noir is the inner secret circle of the Order of St. John. The actions of the innermost circle are known only to the Coven of Thirteen.”

  “Your Imperial Highness, you should know that the Montenegrin crown prince was also part of Sucre’s plot. He stole the Talisman of Isis from your staff and was trying to raise Konstantin from the dead.”

  The Koldun turned even paler than he already was. “But they did not succeed?”

  I shook my head. “They still need a necromancer. I chose to come here rather than help them bring the lich tsar there. I guess you will have to get used to my company.”

  The Koldun did not laugh. “But you do not belong here, my dear. This is the land of the dead.”

  “And where else should a necromancer live?” I tried to sound light and frivolous, as if I did not care that I’d thrown my life away.

  “St. Petersburg. In the land of the living. Especially a pretty young thing like you.” His laugh dissolved into a coughing fit.

  If he’d meant to make me blush he’d succeeded. “Are you injured, Your Imperial Highness?” I had not noticed any bleeding or signs of trauma. How exactly had the spirits sent him here?

  His coughing settled down. “I am dying from the inside out, Duchess. Look at my cold light.”

  I looked at him closely, and saw he was correct. The cold light was dimming around his heart; it streamed outward, pouring out of his body, where it became brighter. There was nothing I could do. I felt more helpless than I had at Christmas when I saw the dying soldier in the hospital. I closed my eyes to blink back the tears. “Does it hurt?”

  The Koldun’s smile did not reach his eyes.

  I couldn’t stop the tears then. I couldn’t stand knowing that he was suffering and I was unable to help him.

  “Please don’t cry, my dear. I have lived a good life.”

  “Think of your wife. And your children.” His sons, whom I’d danced with every Christmas at the Children’s Ball: Kyril, Boris, and Andrei. His little daughter, Helena. They needed their father.

  “There is nothing you can do, Duchess. You are very gifted, especially for one so young. But to bring a person back from this realm, and not as a ghoul, would take a very powerful magic. I do not dare to hope you could pull such a thing off.”

  “Would it hurt to try?” But I already knew the risks. I could irrevocably damage his soul. And mine as well. “Do you know what I would have to do?”

  He closed his eyes, looking more and more weary. “I would not even know where to look to find such a ritual. It is blasphemous. The most unholy of unspeakable acts.” He coughed again. “Do not attempt it for my sake. It will damn you more swiftly than anything else.”

  “And was there nothing the Dark Court queen could do to protect you?” I asked. “Didn’t she have spells woven around you as the empress of the Light Court does for the Tsar?”

  The Koldun shrugged with a faint, helpless smile.

  Then he coughed again, sounding even more pitiful. I looked around me at the darkness, trying to decide what to do. I wondered what would happen if I dragged him to the throne and sent him back that way. I couldn’t go with him, because the wizards might still be waiting for me. For all I knew, they had been counting on me coming here and sending the Koldun back all along. I felt horribly and wretchedly used. By everyone.

  I was too busy feeling sorry for myself to hear the lich tsar’s daughter sneak up on me.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Suddenly I was hit with a force that knocked the breath out of me. “Necromancer! What have you done to me?”

  I tried to stand back up, and wished the darkness would stop spinning. “Sophia Konstantinova? Is that you?” I ducked as soon as I saw her rushing toward me again.

  “You took me away from my home! Now Johanna will find me!”

  “No!” I winced as I felt another sharp blow to my back. I tried to curl up into a ball. “Sophia, Johanna cannot find you here. And Smolny was not your home.”

  “Of course it was! Where else did I have people that cared about me? You even took Madame Metcherskey away from me!”

  Ouch. “I’m so sorry, Sophia.”

  “Take me back to Smolny!”

  “No.” I curled up even tighter. She had to quit hitting me sooner or later.

  “Take me back!”

  Ouch. “I cannot.”

  She stopped hitting me. “Then I will tell my father you are here!”

  “Do you know where he is?” I raised my head cautiously. She was already moving away from me. Much too quickly.

  She giggled. “Of course! Come and see him! He is dying to see you.”

  I glanced back at the Koldun, who was resting quietly with only the occasional moan. “Perhaps I should stay with the grand duke. He is not feeling well, Sophia.”

  Sophia Konstantinova giggled again, farther away this time. “Of course he’s not feeling well. He’s dying.”

  I looked down at Grand Duke Vladimir. He was much paler than before, and his breathing had changed. He was barely breathing at all. He looked up at me, cold sweat breaking out on his skin. “I will have to send you back soon,” I told him. “Or it will be too late.”

  His eyes darkened and he grabbed my wrist. “I don’t want to be a ghoul, Duchess.”

  “Think of your wife. And your children.”

  “I am thinking of them! I cannot return to them in this state.”

  I looked down at the Koldun, my thoughts torn. Grand Duchess Miechen would never forgive me for not doing everything I could to save her husband. But would she want the grand duke back if it meant he would be a walking corpse? It would be a shame for the children to lose their father. But they did not need to see him like this.

  “NECROMANCER!” The swirling gr
ay mists of the cold light parted. I knew Konstantin was drawing near.

  Had Sophia discovered a way to release him from his bonds?

  The ground below my feet vibrated. The Koldun moaned as his body shifted. “Guard … the … throne …,” the dying man whispered. “Do not let him sit down.…”

  I should have destroyed the throne when I first came across it in the Massandra caves. And if I could have done so now, I would have. “Your Imperial Highness, do you know a spell that could destroy the throne?”

  His eyes opened immediately. “Impossible! You must leave now and the throne will disappear from this place.”

  “But the wizards will be waiting for me.”

  “Would you rather face the Black Magi or the lich tsar and his daughter?”

  The Koldun had a very logical point.

  I held my hand out to him. “Your family needs you, Your Imperial Highness. The Graylands are not for you. You cannot become a ghoul if you do not die. Come back with me and we will take you to my father’s hospital. Dr. Ostrev is a brilliant physician. And we will consult the Tibetan doctor, Badmaev, as well. He seems to have an uncanny knowledge of supernatural ailments.”

  Recognition flashed in the grand duke’s eyes. “Dr. Badmaev took excellent care of Miechen when she lost the twins.”

  The roar of the lich tsar grew louder, along with the shrill laughter of a young girl. The air was becoming unbearably cold.

  “Come with me,” I said. Slowly, I helped him to stand. We had to get to the throne of Byzantium before the lich tsar reached us.

  But Sophia reached us first. She grabbed my arms, tearing at my sleeves. “Katerina Alexandrovna! You must not leave me!”

  I fought her off and helped the Koldun to the throne, where he slumped into its seat. “Hurry,” he said, his voice weak. “But do not let her come with us.”

  I turned around. “Sophia, you must stay here, this is where you belong now. With your father.”

  “And you must stay with me!” She was very strong. As hard as I tried to stay near the throne, she pulled me away.