The Gathering Storm kt-1

by Robin Bridges

  As we were shown to our seats, I was shocked to see the tsarevitch and his brother being seated at my table—next to Elena.

  I whispered to Princess Militza, “To what do we owe such an honor?”

  “It is the tsarevitch who is honored tonight, dining with daughters of King Nikola,” she answered. Militza tended to think the universe revolved around her father’s tiny kingdom of Montenegro.

  “Oh. Then I am honored as well,” I said with a reverent bow of my head to her. She nodded regally, oblivious to my sarcasm. On the other side of me, Dariya snickered softly.

  The food had been prepared under the direction of the empress’s French chef. The soup was excellent, the fish not so much. I discreetly pushed it around on my plate, certain no one would concern themselves with what a silly Smolny student ate or did not eat. The empress was entertaining her Danish relatives at her own table, the tsar having already returned to his private quarters after a brief appearance.

  Besides, I knew all uneaten food would be given to the beggars outside at the end of the ball. I believed I was doing my part to help them by leaving more food for the poor. I just hoped they liked fish more than I did.

  I glanced around our table, where Elena was laughing and batting her eyelashes at everyone. She caught my eye and winked. The tsarevitch was talking to a young officer to his left. Elena turned to his younger brother the grand duke George Alexandrovich, on her other side, and whispered something.

  He looked toward my plate and nodded. “Not fond of the salmon, Duchess?”

  All eyes at the table were suddenly on me. The devil. Elena winked at me again as she slipped something out of her locket and sprinkled it over the tsarevitch’s plate. Was that the charm my maid had seen her with earlier? With a dead moth? She had deliberately diverted everyone’s attention toward me. Was she really trying to cast a spell on the tsar’s son? Mon Dieu!

  I couldn’t let the princess harm a member of the imperial family. The tsarevitch was a kind young man. He did not deserve to be bewitched.

  I stared at my own dinner plate with a cold, clammy feeling in my stomach. I took a sip of wine, knowing there was one way I could ruin her spell. For as long as I could remember, I’d had a terrible curse. I’d never told my parents about it, even though I sometimes wondered if I’d inherited it from my mother. I was too ashamed to ask her.

  I hadn’t purposefully used the curse since I was ten. But I suspected that there was something dead on His Imperial Highness’s plate, so I knew I could ruin Elena’s spell. There was no other way to stop her.

  The tsarevitch laughed at something his brother had said, and lifted his fork again. I had to hurry. I focused my attention on his dinner plate, hoping no one would notice.

  And that God would forgive me.

  As I concentrated, the dead moth crawled out from under the tsarevitch’s fish.

  “Good Lord!” he said. As he moved to poke the insect with his fork, it flew up at Elena, who shrieked. A mortified servant whisked the tsarevitch’s dinner plate away.

  Dariya, who discreetly hid her face behind her napkin, looked startled at first, then tried very hard not to laugh.

  The grand duke George frowned at me with his mysterious blue eyes before turning to his brother. “Didn’t fancy the fish either, Nicky?”

  “To be honest,” Nicholas said, “it did have a queer taste.” He laid his napkin on the table.

  “Yes, it certainly did, now that you mention it,” Princess Militza said, glancing at her sister.

  Elena grew unhappy. She would have to find another way to charm the tsarevitch. He would think me insane if I told him what had happened, if I warned him about the Montenegrins.

  The servants finished clearing the rest of our dishes from the table and brought out fruit compotes. Still slightly nauseated, I picked at mine. Elena ate her compote glumly, smiling only when someone spoke to her.

  It was not long before the empress had finished dining and risen from her table, signaling a return to the dancing. Militza grabbed my arm and hissed in my ear, “Walk with me, Katerina Alexandrovna. You must see the beautiful fountain in the winter garden. It’s just at the other end of this hallway.”

  An icy chill slid down my spine. I was terrified that someone would discover what I’d done. Especially one of the Montenegrin princesses.

  The garden was in a large two-story glass room, full of heavily scented flowers and lush greenery. In the center, an enormous multitiered fountain babbled soothingly.

  “Can you keep a secret, my dear?” Militza asked as her cold and perfectly manicured hands clutched mine.

  “I’ve been known to keep them before,” I replied, still shaky from what I had done to the moth. Years earlier, I’d promised myself I would never do such a horrible thing again. It was unnatural.

  “I believe there is an evil presence here at the ball tonight.”

  My heart pounded. “Evil?”

  “Yes. Evil. Nothing else could have disrupted Elena’s spell,” Militza said, watching my face very closely.

  “A spell!” I gasped at her recklessness, wondering why she would admit to such a thing. “Elena could be exiled for witchcraft!” I added.

  “Not if the Romanovs do not find out. And I know you will not tell them, Katerina Alexandrovna.”

  “Why should I protect her? She was casting a spell on the heir!”

  “Because your magic is far more terrible than ours. The tsar holds my father in high esteem. And you would not want the tsar to discover your nasty little secret.”

  My mouth went dry and my palms began sweating inside my white kidskin gloves. “You must be making fun of me,” I said, trying to be as lighthearted as possible. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “Come now.” Militza narrowed her eyes. “Several people in that dining room could sense that something deliciously wicked had just happened. Especially the empress.” She paused and seemed almost gleeful at the look of horror on my face. “You are fortunate there are so many witches and other … creatures present tonight. It will take weeks for the tsar’s men to discover it was you, an innocent-looking viper.”

  I was speechless. The Montenegrin princess could see the fear in my eyes.

  Militza smiled. “Necromancy is the most vile, the blackest of the black arts, Duchess. Certainly you cannot think the tsarina could allow one such as you to remain under her roof? Or indeed, even to continue attending Smolny?”

  She had me trapped in her web. “What do you want from me?” I whispered.

  She smiled once more and put her arm through mine, leading me back toward the ballroom. “I want you to meet the rest of my family. My mother would put your talents to good use. Come home with us for Christmas holidays.”

  I tried to pull away from her. “But my parents—”

  “Will be very shocked and disgusted if they discover what their clever daughter has been doing. Unless they already know? Do your parents know how to raise the dead as well?”

  “Of course not!” I felt the panic rising in my body. “And they know nothing of my problem.”

  “Problem?” Militza laughed. “In my family, it would be considered the greatest gift. You’ll see.”

  As soon as we returned to the ballroom, Militza joined her fiancé for a waltz. I retreated to the pretty winter garden. I had no desire to dance anymore. I just wanted the night to be over.

  I stood in front of the fountain, lost in my own thoughts, and did not know anyone else was in the garden until a voice whispered in my ear, “Whatever spell you are casting now, I promise you it won’t work.”

  I spun around to see Grand Duke George Alexandrovich glaring at me. My heart dropped to my stomach as I curtsied feebly. “Your Imperial Highness, I can assure you—”

  “Your aura is tainted with the blackest magic. You have been doing something sinister and I know my brother’s dinner was involved.”

  I squirmed under his intense gaze. I wanted to tell him that I’d just saved
his brother from the clutches of the Montenegrins, but I was terrified they would come after my family.

  Nor did I want my parents and brother to incur the tsar’s wrath. What had I gotten myself into? And how did the grand duke know the color of my aura?

  There was a power struggle, subtle but deadly, within the aristocracy of St. Petersburg. There was a Light Court and a Dark Court, each presided over by a powerful faerie. Everyone within the nobility aspired to be claimed by one of these ladies. One could be loyal either to the empress or to the grand duchess Miechen, but everyone was loyal to the tsar. The Romanov dynasty had traditionally been aligned with the Light Court, even though none of the tsars had ever married a faerie until Alexander married Dagmar of Denmark in 1866. His brother shocked the entire Romanov family by marrying the Dark Court faerie Miechen in 1874.

  All that was known of the faeries was that they were ethereally beautiful and tended to read minds. No one knew the full extent of their powers. The superstitious lower classes knew only that our tsar was incredibly strong, and that our empress looked as young and beautiful as she had when she’d married the tsar.

  And who knew what mysterious gifts the tsar’s son standing in front of me had inherited from his mother? “Your Imperial Highness, please forgive me. It … it was nothing more than a schoolgirl dare.”

  “A dare? Meddling with magic? Against my brother?”

  “It was extremely foolish. We … I mean … I meant him no harm.” If he did not see the auras of the Montenegrins and recognize Princess Elena for the witch that she was, I would not be the one to enlighten him.

  He glared at me as I tried to remember how old the grand duke was. Seventeen, perhaps? A year older than me, but surely not as old as my brother. He certainly made a handsome faerie. His soft brown hair fell down into his eyes, which, although not as kind as his brother’s eyes, were quite attractive. Mon Dieu, where had that thought come from?

  He took my gloved hands in his as I tried in vain to stop trembling. “Black magic is punishable by exile,” he said.

  “And any attempt to cast a spell on a member of the imperial family is punishable by death.” He stared at me, no doubt seeing much more of me than I wished him to. “I am certain this will not happen again.”

  Punishable by death? I felt weak and nauseated and realized he was holding me up. “Never again, Your Imperial Highness.”

  “Very good, Duchess.” With a click of his boot heels, he made a sharp bow and left me. Of course he did not offer to escort me back to the ballroom. We did not want to start any more rumors that evening.

  I wondered about the auras he claimed to see. The popular author Marie Corelli wrote romantic novels in which pulsing bodies of energy surrounded all living beings. The grand duke might have been able to see auras as well as Princess Militza, but I saw something much more ominous surrounding everyone.

  The light I saw was not life but death. A cold light that seemed to grow stronger as a person drew nearer to the end. When a person died, sometimes the cold light was all that remained: the ghost of an individual. Perhaps it was the doppelganger I had read about in my cousin Dariya’s German romances. Perhaps it was an aura that I saw detaching itself from a dying body. Everyone has a cold light. Little by little, we are all dying every day.

  I used to sneak out of my bedroom and watch my mother conduct séances at her parties. Spiritism may have been fashionable, especially among Maman’s friends, but reanimation of the dead was another thing entirely. What I had done tonight was unholy. I swore to myself I would never do such an abominable thing again.

  I might have saved the tsarevitch from a malicious love spell, but from the moment I had used my terrible power, the cold light of everyone at the Winter Palace had grown brighter. Death was now closer than before.

  CHAPTER THREE

  That night, after the ball, I dreamed about hundreds of moths, fluttering through my bedroom window and down the dark hallways with their gray paper wings. One slipped into each room, landing on the mouth of the sleeping girl inside. What they were doing on all those girls’ lips, I could not tell.

  I woke up to a cold room, my breath visible in the gray light of early morning. The last remnants of the strange dream faded away as freezing air shocked my lungs. Someone had opened our window again in the middle of the night. I tiptoed across the icy floor and shut it before anyone became sick.

  Dariya suspected Elena, who shared our room, but I believed it was the headmistress, who insisted night air was beneficial for young girls’ growing lungs. I could never find any medical studies proving her theory. I felt a little rebellious closing the window against Madame Tomilov’s wishes. But I hated waking up with frost on my quilt.

  The following week, everyone swarmed around Elena with a thousand questions about the tsarevitch. The teachers were just as curious and excited as the girls were. Madame Tomilov asked her to lead the younger girls in the mazurka during dance lessons. At tea, the servants gossiped with her about the tsarevitch’s favorite foods. Elena enjoyed the attention.

  I tried to put the ball out of my mind. Especially everything Princess Militza had said to me. She had called me a necromancer. It chilled my heart to think of it—especially since I knew it to be true. Even more terrifying, I was not sure of the scope of my abilities. I’d never wanted to experiment. It frightened me to imagine what I might be capable of. What I’d done at the ball was horrible. I’d resurrected a dead insect. But there were certainly worse acts I could have committed. A thousand times worse. It wasn’t as if I’d meddled with a human soul. Deep in my heart, though, I feared that I had the power to do so.

  The last time I’d purposely used my powers, I was ten years old, and I’d believed it was for a noble cause. I resurrected Maman’s poor cat Sasha. I’d found him in our garden, his neck broken from a fall from a tree. I knew that the loss of her beloved Sasha would break my mother’s heart. Not wanting Maman to be sad, I wished Sasha back to life. Maman never noticed the subtle difference in him afterward. Not the dull look to his eyes, nor the way he hissed every time I came near. Even at that age, I’d known what I’d done had been terribly wrong. I’d sworn I would never do such a thing again. But I had.

  I was traveling down a dangerous and dark path. I had to stop myself. But I knew that if faced with the same choice again, I’d do exactly the same thing. I wasn’t sure if that meant my soul was at risk or my allegiance to the imperial family was such that I’d gladly brave the worst to save them. Maybe I was just hopelessly stupid.

  I focused on reading the Latin book Madame Orbellani had given me. She knew my dreams of studying medicine, and without the headmistress’s knowledge, she had begun to encourage me. She’d seen me struggling with the medical books I’d liberated from my father’s library. Even though I was supposed to be reading Pushkin and Tolstoy, she found me a musty-smelling textbook of beginning Latin. She told me stories about the first Russian women to receive medical degrees, in the 1860s, Maria Bokova and Nadezhda Suslova. As a young girl, Madame Orbellani had idolized them as pioneers in women’s higher education.

  Elena did not forget about my invitation to Montenegro, much to my dismay. She cornered me several weeks after the ball. “You made quite the impression on my older sister,” Elena whispered as we were passed by several Browns. “She told me that you have some … unusual talents.”

  “Princess Militza is imagining things,” I managed to say, my heart beating hard. I did not want Elena to think I had anything in common with her.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “Your secret is safe with me, of course. Militza has written to our mother and Mama is anxious to meet you. She is also sending a letter to your mother to formally invite you to our home in Cetinje for Christmas. I know my brother is eager to meet you as well!”

  “Your brother?”

  Elena smiled ominously. “Yes. Danilo. He is nearly eighteen, very handsome, and is Papa’s heir. Very exciting, no?” She pulled a golden locket out of her bedside tab
le drawer and handed it to me. Inside was a portrait of a dashing young man with dangerously black eyes.

  “There’s … a strong family resemblance,” I said, nearly at a loss for a reply. I had no desire to know any more of her wicked royal family. It was bad enough that they were plotting to steal my uncle George Maximilianovich for Princess Stana.

  Now Elena wanted me to meet her brother. I had to come up with an excuse to remain at home for Christmas. If Maman found out about the handsome crown prince Danilo, she would no doubt ship me off to Cetinje with my wedding trousseau already packed.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It was Dariya’s idea that I enlist my brother Petya’s help. She knew I had no desire to go to Cetinje with the Montenegrins. And she did not think it wise for me to do so. “Have him speak with your parents, Katiya,” she told me. “I’m sure he has heard the gossip about them.” I was too scared to tell Dariya everything that Militza had said, and I had not mentioned the grand duke’s warnings. I didn’t want my cousin to think that I was a monster.

  Petya’s regiment was headquartered at nearby Vorontsov Palace. If I could get word to him, he could intervene with Papa on my behalf. He and his fellow officers frequently walked in the Tauride Gardens, near our school. Elena and the Bavarian princesses, Augusta and Erzsebet, joined me and Dariya the next afternoon as we set out.

  Bundled up, we strolled along the iced-over fountains as Augusta asked Elena and Dariya endless questions about the tsarevitch and his younger brothers. I pretended to be more interested in the barren bushes and birch trees along the sidewalks.

  “His brother George Alexandrovich is not so handsome,” Elena said. “He is sharp-tongued and mean-spirited. I should like to introduce you to the youngest one, Mikhail Alexandrovich. He is a true gentleman. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I should marry the tsarevitch and you should marry Mikhail?”