The Gathering Storm kt-1

by Robin Bridges

  The doctor looked happy to see me as well. “Duchess! What a pleasure! You are looking much better than when I saw you last. How are you feeling?”

  “Actually, I wondered if you have any medicine that will help me sleep more deeply at night. I have been having horrible nightmares lately, and I’ve not slept well in over a month.” Not including the two days I was unconscious at the Vladimirichi Palace.

  “Hmmm.” He scanned through his glass cabinet full of brown and green glass bottles. “Here is one I feel comfortable with you using. But only take one dropperful each night before going to bed. And it would be better if you do not use this every single night, as you will become dependent upon it.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” I said, taking the green bottle he handed me, feeling only a little remorseful about deceiving him. If one teaspoon would knock me out, I wondered how much it would take to knock out an undead soldier.

  As Anya and I were preparing to leave, the head nurse rushed in. “Doctor, you must come quickly! They have brought in Prince Demidov!”

  Princess Aurora’s cousin. I set my things down and followed Dr. Kruglevski into the triage area, where they had laid the prince on a stretcher. There was blood everywhere. Anya began to swoon.

  “I need a bottle of saline and some gauze, quickly!” Dr. Kruglevski barked out orders to his associates.

  “What has happened to him?” I asked. The prince was still breathing, but it was very shallow. His face was snow-white.

  “Katerina Alexandrovna, you should go home now,” Dr. Kruglevski said. “You should not have to see this.”

  “I want to help,” I said. “Tell me what I can do.”

  The doctor did not waste any more time arguing with me but handed me a large bundle of gauze and told me to place it over the young man’s neck. “Hold pressure on the wound,” he said grimly. “There is a major artery there that is bleeding out.”

  The gauze bloomed a bright red and became saturated. I still put as much pressure on his neck as I could.

  The doctor cut the patient’s clothing off, revealing a young, muscular chest. I sucked in my breath. I had never seen even my brother’s chest before. The room was getting a bit warm. Fight it, Katiya, I told myself. You are not going to pass out just because there is a half-naked, bleeding man in front of you.

  The doctor handed me more gauze, and I used it to reinforce what I already had pressed up against the severed blood vessel. The doctor started an intravenous line in the prince’s arm and attached the bag of saline, trying desperately to replace the blood the prince was losing.

  Suddenly, the prince awoke with a cry and a spasm. His eyes rolled back in his head and he stiffened.

  “He’s seizing!” the nurse cried.

  But the prince did not seize. He fell limp with a rattle in his chest. There was no more shallow breathing. He had just died. In my arms.

  I swooned. I tried not to, but I did. One of the nurses behind me held me up. “It’s all right, dear,” she said calmly, as if she was used to seeing young men die. She tried to lead me to the bench in the hallway, where Anya was sitting. But I didn’t want to leave.

  “I’m fine, thank you,” I said, angry at myself. I was angry at the doctor for not being able to save the young man. And I was angry at whoever had killed him. “What kind of wound is that on his neck?” I asked. “It almost looks like an animal bite.” But there was so much blood I really couldn’t tell.

  “It does appear to be an animal bite,” the doctor said, cleaning away the blood with saline. “Who brought this man to the hospital?”

  “His companions are out in the lobby,” one of the nurses said, and hurried off to find them.

  I did not recognize the soldiers who had accompanied Prince Demidov, but I was certain they knew my brother. I hoped he was not in any danger. I could hear the doctor asking them questions, but I could not hear the soldiers’ answers. They were in shock. One of them was pale and shaking. He didn’t look much older than I was.

  Feeling steadier now, I moved closer so I could hear the conversation.

  “We were walking in the woods, behind the palace,” said the first soldier.

  “Something jumped out at us,” the younger one finished. “It was enormous.”

  The doctor looked skeptical. “In broad daylight? You must have gotten a very close look at it.”

  “It was dark in the woods,” the first soldier said. “I cannot say for sure, but I believe it was a wolf.”

  I felt a little nauseated. Had a wolf caused all that damage to the prince’s neck? Wolves were normally too shy to approach humans, especially in broad daylight. I thought about the slender silvery gray wolf we had seen coming home the night of Le Bal Noir. The wolf’s fur had gleamed in the light of the full moon.

  “I’ll test the body for rabies. This is the first wolf attack I have seen in years. Were either of you bitten as well?”

  They both shook their heads. I felt sorry for the soldiers, knowing they could do nothing to save their friend. As they turned to leave, I saw a white cross flash from a bearded soldier’s chest. The Order of St. John of Jerusalem. I rushed back to the room where the dead soldier was. Dr. Kruglevski had ripped the soldier’s clothing off to inspect him, and I found the tattered, bloodstained uniform on the floor. There, on the right breast, was the white Maltese cross. This prince had been one of the tsar’s knights. Like Count Chermenensky.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  I had to get a message to the grand duke George. He most assuredly already knew about Demidov, but I wanted to tell him about the Dekebristi. I suspected they were behind these attacks on the Order. According to Grand Duchess Miechen, the Romanov family was certain the Dekebristi had been eradicated. If they had indeed returned, I needed to find out where they were hiding.

  Elena was not at school. I breathed a sigh of relief, not eager to face her.

  Dariya was helping a grieving Aurora Demidova pack her things. Her family was coming to take her home later that day for her cousin’s funeral. The princess did not expect to return to school for some time.

  Erzsebet and Augusta walked with me in the snow-covered gardens of the school, discussing the ballet of the previous weekend. They wanted to know what plans I’d already made for the wedding. I sighed. Maman would not let me say anything publicly about my broken engagement just yet. So I merely said something vague about flowers. And cake.

  “Ooh! Our cousin Princess Sophia had a lemon cake at her wedding that was twenty feet high!”

  “It was not!” Erzsebet said. “It only looked like that to you, because you were only five years old.”

  “Maman said it was twenty feet,” Augusta said, pouting.

  The princesses’ chattering was giving me a headache, and I wished I could go for a walk in the woods alone. The attack on Prince Demidov frightened me, however, and soon enough Madame Tomilov would learn of it and forbid anyone from leaving the school grounds.

  “Is your handsome brother coming to visit you soon?” Augusta asked. “He always brings his handsome friends with him.”

  I winced, remembering Demidov’s last breath. And Count Chermenensky’s swagger. No more of the tsar’s knights would die if I could do anything about it.

  “Did you know your brother’s friend told us about their scary school? The count said that there is an enormous portrait of Tsar Pyotr the Great in the Great Hall of the Corps des Pages, and the portrait comes alive and walks the palace at night.”

  “It wasn’t Pyotr the Great,” Erzsebet said. “It was Pavel.”

  “Or was it Alexander the First?” Augusta asked. She was arranging rocks in a pretty pattern in the snow. A heart.

  I stopped walking. It was definitely Tsar Pavel. My brother had mentioned the portrait before. And if the tsar walked the Great Hall at night, I needed to speak with him. I stopped in my tracks. “I’ve forgotten something important,” I said as I turned to head back to the school. “I must send a message to my brother.”

 
“Oh, do ask him to come,” Erzsebet said. She and Augusta giggled as they skipped along behind me.

  I needed to see the portrait of the tsar in the palace of the Corps des Pages. Women were not allowed in the palace, but I wouldn’t let that stop me. I could borrow my brother’s clothes and disguise myself as a boy to get past the guards.

  Never had I wanted to speak with the dead, raise the dead, touch the dead, or even think about the dead. But it was imperative that I speak with the tsar’s ghost. He could tell me how to protect the Romanovs from the Dekebristi.

  I returned to my room to compose my letter. Elena was there, waiting for me. She was not angry, as I had expected, but was very upset.

  “Oh, Katerina! How could you?” There were large tears pooling in the corners of her eyes.

  I sighed as she rushed forward and embraced me. “I’m so sorry,” I told her. “As much as I admire your brother, I don’t believe we could be happy together.”

  “But you were happy!” she said. “Did he say something to upset you? Tell me and I will make him apologize.”

  I shook my head. “He cannot apologize for being who he is.” An arrogant and dangerous soon-to-be blood drinker.

  Hastily, I added, “He is the crown prince and needs to have a bride who will be a proper consort for him. I’m afraid I am not the right choice.”

  “But who wouldn’t want to become a queen?” Elena demanded. She looked sincerely puzzled. It was her only ambition in life to become a queen or a tsarina herself.

  “Me.” I smiled sadly.

  Elena sighed. “I do not understand you, Katerina. I think you will change your mind when you realize how much you love Danilo.”

  My cousin walked in as Elena left. They had been cool toward each other ever since Dariya had returned from the hospital. Her father and stepmother had wanted to withdraw her from Smolny, but Dariya had wanted to come back. “Who else is going to look after you?” she had asked me. I was glad to have her here, but I still worried. We had no way of proving Elena had done anything wrong. And what was to prevent her from poisoning Dariya again?

  Dariya’s stepmother, Countess Zina, was as fond of séances and tarot cards as Maman, and had given Dariya her own card deck for Christmas. Dariya had thought the occult was merely a fashionable hobby until she met the Montenegrins. Now she knew better.

  I told my cousin about the ghost in Vorontsov Palace.

  She agreed that we should try to speak with the ghost. “The opera is this Friday night,” she said. “We could sneak away from the performance.” My cousin was devilishly clever sometimes.

  Dariya came home to Betskoi House with me for the weekend. We sneaked into my brother’s room after dinner and I opened up his wardrobe. “Help me find an outfit to wear.”

  My cousin shook her head. “Katiya, dressing as your brother to get into the palace might work, but there is something else you can do that would be far more stylish.”

  Mon Dieu. My cousin always had her own priorities. She was so much like my mother.

  Dariya pulled a small torn book from behind her. “Your mother told me I could borrow any book I found in the library, and I picked this one up, thinking it was a new Marie Corelli novel.”

  I took the book from her and shivered as I read the cover. A Necromancer’s Companion. How could she have possibly thought it was a romance? And how had it ended up in the library? Maybe one of the maids had found it under my bed and placed it on the shelf, thinking that was where it belonged.

  I opened the Companion and began leafing through the pages, but Dariya stopped me. “There are things in this book that we probably shouldn’t know, Katiya,” she said. “Talismans, incantations, rituals for terrible things.”

  I wanted to tell her that Princess Cantacuzene had given the book to me, but then I would have to tell my cousin everything. About me. I dreaded how she might react. And I believed she was safer not knowing. For the moment, at least.

  Then Dariya smiled mischievously. “But there is a spell for creating a shadow around oneself. Wouldn’t that make a clever disguise? Of course, you’re no necromancer, but what if it works anyway? We could use it to sneak into Vorontsov Palace!”

  We hurried back to my room. Dariya rang for Lyudmila and opened the door to my closet. “We shall dress for the opera and go with your mother. We can slip out during the first act and take the carriage to the palace.”

  I nodded, scanning through the pages of the book. There was a spell for a sheult, which was Egyptian for “shadow.” There were incantations to Egyptian gods and goddesses. Drawings of talismans and sigils. A ritual for letting the dead rest in peace. My heart stopped as I looked up at Dariya.

  I couldn’t tell her about the count. But there was a ritual in the book that might be able to help him. I berated myself for not consulting it sooner.

  “Where on earth did your mother find the Companion, Katiya?” my cousin asked. “Should I ask her tonight at the theater?”

  I swallowed in alarm. I couldn’t allow Dariya to mention the book to Maman. “I don’t even know if she’s seen it,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Princess Cantacuzene gave the book to me, though I certainly can’t imagine why. I had forgotten all about it.”

  My cousin shrugged nonchalantly as Lyudmila entered and started to fix Dariya’s hair. “I found a drawing in there of something called the Talisman of Isis,” Dariya said. “Don’t you think that would make a wonderful title for a romance novel?”

  I rolled my eyes and flipped through the book again. Something had been written in the margin of one of the pages. I had no way of knowing if it was Princess Cantacuzene’s handwriting.

  You must always, always return from the darkness. Always return to the light.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  My mother nodded off in our stuffy box at the Mariinsky Theatre, making it easy to slip away during the second act of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. Dariya told the footman we were to pick up my brother at Vorontsov Palace, and the poor footman believed her.

  I twisted the obsidian ring around my finger as our carriage made its way through the streets of St. Petersburg. The Vorontsov Palace, which housed the Corps des Pages, was one of the oldest buildings on Nevsky Prospekt and sat back on enormous gated grounds. Our carriage rolled through the imposing gates and up to the chapel entrance on the eastern side. Dariya held the Companion open on her lap. “Say ‘Sheult Anubis’ three times and you will be protected by your own shadow.” She looked up from the book. “Are you sure you want to go through with this? Your mother’s séances are diverting, but this might be dangerous if it works.”

  “I believe it will work, Dariya. It has to. Think of my brother and the other members of the Order. The ghost must be awakened to look after his knight-commanders.”

  Dariya shrugged. “You don’t even know if there’s anything a dead tsar can do for the Order.”

  “But there’s a chance. I have to try.” I whispered the spell three times. I felt the darkness begin to close in and fought a surge of panic rising inside. This was my first conscious experiment of my powers as a necromancer. I was a bundle of nerves—especially as I understood the importance of what I needed to accomplish. It was strange how I could feel the shadows enveloping me and yet I could still see everything.

  “Mon Dieu!” Dariya said, crossing herself. “How frightening! You just vanished! It worked!”

  “Now you try!” I said, wondering what would happen.

  Dariya looked down at the book in her lap. “Sheult Anubis,” she whispered. She repeated the words rapidly twice, but nothing changed. She held out her hands and wiggled her fingers. “I’m still visible! Perhaps that’s best. What if your mother wakes up to find us both missing?”

  I opened the carriage door and stepped out into the frigid February night. There must have been a new moon, for there were millions of stars in the inky-black sky.

  “Good luck,” Dariya whispered. She was heading back to the theater, where she could keep an eye
on Maman. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

  I pulled my cloak closer around me, thankful to be shrouded in shadows, and stepped into the portico in front of the chapel as the carriage pulled away. There had been no guards at the outside gate, and the pale young man on watch at the chapel entrance was hiding just inside the portico, snoring loudly. He never stirred as I tiptoed past him and hurried inside.

  I knew the younger cadets were in the far western wing of the palace, sleeping, so I had to be very quiet. I hoped the tsar’s ghost would not speak loudly.

  The chapel was very beautiful, added on to the palace at the tsar’s request by the same architect who had designed my parents’ Betskoi House. Gold icons depicting the twelve apostles decorated the walls, flanking the arched Gothic windows. The stained glass in the windows portrayed the Holy Family, guarded by several seraphim. I crossed myself before approaching the altar, then exited through the side door into the Great Hall. This was where the portrait of Tsar Pavel stood, watching over his cadets and the future knight-commanders of the Order.

  The painting loomed at the end of the hall, the very romantic-looking tsar in the robes of the Grand Master of the Order. The Maltese cross on his insignia gleamed in the dim candlelight.

  I sat down on a cold mahogany bench to wait. After what seemed like an eternity, a clock somewhere began to chime, announcing midnight. I held my breath, not sure that His Imperial Majesty, the rumored ghost, would even deign to speak with me. He would not be pleased to hear what I had to say. I discovered I was able to drop the shadows around me by repeating the Egyptian spell again.

  The clock chimed a twelfth time and the Great Hall grew silent again. There was no sign of the tsar. No movement from the portrait at all.

  Several long minutes passed. I heard nothing but the soft ticking of the clock. I had the growing feeling that the ghost story was nothing more than a legend. I had put Dariya and myself in danger for nothing.