Web of Frost (Saints of Russalka Book 1)

by Lindsay Smith

  “I understand Petrovsk is poorly situated,” Fahed said.

  “Petrovsk’s location was chosen by Boj,” Katza said with a shrug.

  “An odd choice, then. Is it not built on swamplands? And prone to flooding in the summer months? That’s what they say in Bintar.”

  “Summer months? You say that as if there is more than one.” Katza grinned, and he laughed. She felt lighter at his laugh, as if she had finally made a clever play in checkmates. “The canals do flood from time to time, when the snow melts and fills the bay. Our poets like to commemorate each flood like a condemnation of all of Russalka, but it is the price we pay to live upon such a beautiful waterway.”

  “The canals are very lovely,” Fahed agreed. “The Jewel of Bintar rests upon white stone cliffs, so we can only glimpse the ocean from its edges, or the tunnels that run down to the port. And beyond the Jewel, we’re surrounded by a sea of ragged mountains. I love it, but it is good to change one’s view from time to time.”

  “Perhaps we can visit the Jewel of Bintar sometime,” Katza said. It felt like something she was meant to say, though the words tumbled out clumsily. But he was surely homesick—she would be, were she in his place.

  Fahed stared out at the bay. “Perhaps.”

  Katza took a deep breath and wracked her mind for something else clever to say. “You—you mentioned that you follow the design of the Fates.”

  “That’s right,” he said, watching her from the corner of his eye.

  “Are you still . . . pleased with their design?” Her cheeks reddened as she said it. “I mean—I wish to make sure you are happy. And ask if there’s anything I might do to make you feel more at home.”

  Slowly, he smiled, regarding her. “Worry not, tsarechka.” He snapped his horse’s reins. “I think the Fates’ designs are weaving exactly as they ought.”

  They returned to a luncheon with yet more courtiers who were eager to lay eyes upon the tsarechka’s betrothed, and Katza’s heart leapt to see Duchess Andreeva among them. It had been nearly a month since she spoke to Ravin in the garden, and she was eager to tell him how well his guidance was working in helping their spies uncover the agitators’ plans. She was eager to—to see him. To feel that certainty in herself that he’d made her feel.

  Yet the duchess’s prophet was not with her.

  Ravin’s absence burned inside Katza throughout their meal of cucumber and sour cream finger sandwiches, pickled herring, pastries, and chai. Finally, when the conversation flagged and she could stand it no more, she looked down at her sponge cake and asked, light as she could: “And where is your prophet these days, Duchess? Curing the sick once more?”

  The Duchess Andreeva laughed. “Off praying, as usual. To tell the truth, I’m considering dropping his patronage.”

  Katza raised one eyebrow, but tried to hold in the rest of her shock. No. She couldn’t let him vanish once more.

  “Don’t misunderstand me,” the duchess said, “he is a marvel—but he’s done his job so well, I hardly need him to heal my gout anymore.”

  Fahed set his teacup down with alarming weight. “There are no other services he can provide you, Duchess?”

  “Well.” The duchess chuckled to herself and hid her smile behind her napkin. “He does bring a certain beauty into my townhome. I am sure the tsarechka knows what I mean.”

  The duchess ribbed Katza at that, trying to share a conspiratorial laugh, but Katza’s face turned beet red. She wasn’t about to conspire in any such thing. Fahed’s darkened expression made her quite sure of that.

  The luncheon wound down, and Katza felt a desperation clawing at her, wheedling her to find an excuse to venture to the palace chapel to find Ravin. But there was no time to seek him out. She was expected at the dressmaker’s shop along Nikonovskiy Prospect to begin the construction of her wedding gown.

  Fahed walked her to the stables, and kissed her knuckles with his usual heatless charm. “I look forward to seeing the end result,” he said, “though I do not envy you the process.”

  “And what will you be wearing on our wedding day?” Katza asked.

  “A traditional Bintari wedding suit.” Fahed tapped one finger to his nose. “Don’t worry. You’ll see soon enough.”

  Katza suspected it would be far too soon.

  The carriage ride toward the dressmaker’s shop revealed greater Petrovsk to be a city transformed. Katza pressed against the carriage window with a growing sense of dread in her stomach, oily and cold. Fewer people and horses than normal filled the boulevard—that much was odd enough, but could easily be explained by the encroaching winter. It was the way they moved that unnerved Katza. Darting across the street, tossing glances over their shoulders—it was as if all of Petrovsk was dogged by some unseen attacker.

  Then she spied the plainclothes city guards dotting each street corner, as motionless as lampposts and about as friendly. The blessings her father had woven on them pulled at Katza as they rolled past, and their heads turned as one to assess her carriage as if for a threat. Their hardened gazes sent a chill down her spine.

  Near the Russalkan Treasure Gallery, two guards conferred behind upturned coat collars, then one fell into step behind a young woman walking with an artist’s easel beneath her arm. The guard wrenched her back by the shoulder and began to demand to see her artwork. Katza gasped, covering her mouth with her hand, and craned her neck trying to watch the scene, but they were already rolling past it.

  “Something the matter?” Nadika asked.

  “That—that woman the guards seized. She was just an art student,” Katza said. “What would they want with her?”

  Nadika pressed her lips together. “Who do you think makes those posters painting your family as village fools?”

  Katza hadn’t seen those posters. She’d seen one of her mother, though, as a master checkmates player, Hessarian features cruelly exaggerated, moving her father and brother around on her board. But she supposed Nadika’s point remained.

  “Your father has turned to more aggressive tactics to quiet the agitators,” Nadika said. “But those with nothing to hide need not fear the guards. If they’re innocent, it’ll be proven quickly enough.”

  Katza nodded, and tried to ignore the sinking feeling in her gut.

  At last they reached the dressmaker’s shop. The master tailor was an amiable fellow by the name of Pushnikov who had made a few gowns for Katza when she was younger. He’d offset his fair skin with a velvety suit in a luscious shade of plum today, but his tie was crooked and wisps of white-blond hair stood stubbornly up from his head. Now that Katza looked around the shop, in fact, she noticed the bolts of fabric unspooled and bunched up along the walls, and the upturned boxes and crates that spilled buttons and strands of beads all along the floor.

  “My darling tsarechka!” Pushnikov dropped into a sweeping bow as Katza entered the shop, flanked by Nadika and several of the palace guards. “I apologize, we are still somewhat out of sorts today from the—the city guard’s inspection—”

  “Ransacking is more like it,” muttered one of his shop’s attendants. She was standing on her tiptoes, trying to wedge a hatbox back into place on a high shelf.

  “What do you mean?” Katza asked.

  Pushnikov laughed, though it came out frantic. “Apologies, Your Highness, my attendants have quite the overactive imaginations. In any case, I am delighted you have selected me for this high honor.” He drew the shop’s curtains shut. “Strip down to your smallclothes so we can get to work!”

  The next hour’s proceedings reminded Katza all too much of the humiliation of her dancing lessons without any of the relief of physical movement. In fact, each time she tried to move, whether to scratch her nose or shift her weight off of her cramping foot, Pushnikov would nudge her with a ruler or accidentally poke her with a straight pin.

  “I’d forgotten what a wiggler yo
u are!” He laughed, but his shop attendants just looked on with dark scowls upon their faces. Katza lowered her gaze, trying not to meet their stares, and wondered why they seemed determined to resent her.

  Finally he’d arranged the muslin form for Katza’s bodice just so. “We need strong, curvaceous lines to flatter you. I’m thinking lace sleeves that come to a point over your knuckles. Seed pearls sewn into the lace, naturally. Everything will be a delicate cream color to complement your auburn hair, and we’ll add some gold trimming on the bodice’s seams . . .”

  Katza nodded, feeling her eyes droop and her knees lock up.

  “Vika. Come over here, help me place the template for the skirt.” Pushnikov snapped his fingers at one of the shop assistants, a sapling of a girl with dark hair and pinked skin.

  Vika shrank back as if repulsed. Fleetingly, she glanced toward Katza, and the look she shot the tsarechka was foul enough to curdle milk. “I . . . I can’t.”

  Pushnikov’s ears went red at the tips. “Excuse me a moment, tsarechka.” He jabbed a pin to hold the skirting in place, then spun on his heel and approached Vika, shoulders hunched. “What is it now?”

  Vika dropped her voice as she and Pushnikov ducked behind a screen to speak. Thoughts of Saint Tikhona flitted through Katza’s mind. No, it wasn’t her business why the girl seemed to hate her so. But then—if there was something she could do to make it better—

  Saint Tikhona’s blessing wrapped around Katza and pulled the world tight, like a thread. She heard the shush of fabric as one of her guards shifted his weight and the distant thud of horse hooves against cobblestones outside. And she heard the low tones of Pushinkov and Vika, as loud as if they whispered right in her ears.

  “It’s wasteful, all this fabric and labor, just to truss up murderers and liars,” Vika said. “I told you I want no part in it.”

  Katza stood up straighter at that.

  “Your desires aren’t important here. We are obligated to do this,” Pushnikov said. “If this is about your brother—”

  “It’s not just him. They’re rounding up everyone. It’s a bloody disgrace.”

  “Well, causing a scene won’t free him,” Pushnikov said. “We must carry on.”

  Vika growled in her throat at that. “Ulmarov says we must resist—”

  “You want to get paid, don’t you?” Pushnikov snapped. “I don’t see your Ulmarov putting food in anyone’s mouths.”

  Vika tore her arm free of Pushnikov’s grasp. “And the Silovs do?”

  Katza took a step back, and felt the skirting start to pull away beneath her heel. She thought Ulmarov’s followers were the idle poor—bored students or cast-out miscreants from the factories, looking for someone to blame. Not the truly desperate and starving souls whom Katza sought to aid, like the protesters who’d stormed the palace gates. And certainly not girls who worked in shops and bore false smiles to the tsarechka.

  “That’s enough. See yourself out.” Pushnikov’s tone turned icy. “The back way, please.”

  “No. No, I think the spoiled tsarechka needs to know.” Vika stormed out from around the screen. “I won’t serve the despot tsar!”

  Nadika reached for her revolver, yanking it from its holster. “Wait.” Katza reached out to steady her friend’s arm, straightpins jabbing her torso. “She doesn’t mean any harm—”

  But it was too late. Two of the palace guards were already grabbing the girl between them, dragging her away from Pushnikov. Vika tossed back her head and screamed. “Murderers! Tyrants!”

  Katza sucked in her breath. “Please, this is not necessary. Let her be.”

  “Not necessary? You think she can’t cause you harm, tsarechka?” The first soldier sneered. “I’ve seen a dozen like her as of late, drawing up detailed plans to storm the palace and murder you in your sleep.”

  Cold terror poured over Katza. Her father had said only that his spies had been successful. But she never imagined the protesters could look like this—like any other girl she might pass on the street. “You can’t be serious.”

  The second soldier shoved Vika to her knees in front of the dressing stand. “Apologize to your tsarechka, wretch. Beg her for forgiveness, and maybe your sentence will be light.”

  “Please. This is uncalled for.” Katza’s voice wavered; as fearful as she was of the agitators, she couldn’t quite reconcile them with the sobbing girl bent before her. “Maybe you could just—report her to the city guards, or some such—and we can be on with our business.”

  The soldier quirked his mouth as he looked over Katza. She became painfully aware, again, of how ridiculous she looked, pinned up in muslin and stuck in place. “A word of advice, tsarechka, if I may.” He narrowed his eyes. “Do you wish to appear weak?”

  “N—no. Of course I don’t.” She swallowed. “But—”

  “Then this is your chance to be strong.” He shoved Vika further down. “Swear your fealty to the Silovs. They are the only true leaders of Russalka. They bear blessings in their blood. Your Ulmarov is a pretender, and when we find him, I’ll put his head on display in the palace square myself.”

  “Go ahead!” Vika cried. “Another dozen like him will rise in his place. I’ll give my head if it frees Russalka from these monsters and their cursed ‘gifts’!”

  The soldier tried to shove Vika’s head down, but she glanced up at Katza, defiant tears dripping from her chin. Katza’s heart wrenched, even while her temper simmered. But then Vika began to laugh.

  “You want me to swear fealty to this? Look at her. She’s afraid of being pricked by the straight pins.”

  Katza bit back a cry. The girl had a point. Hadn’t Ravin and Fahed counseled her to be strong, even when her instincts fought against it? To show an iron will, no matter what discomfort it brought. Yet here she was, weak and humiliated. It burned her to let people—to let an agitator—see her this way, all her armor and commandingness stripped away.

  Boj in heaven, it terrified her.

  Katza closed her eyes, trembling like a plucked harp string, and began to pray. Did she wish for a saint of mercy, a saint of strength? But the more she dwelled on it, the more certain she became she wished for something else. These agitators wanted her dead, they wanted her family’s power for themselves. She had to put them in their place.

  Show me the way, Saint Marya. Martyred tsarika of old. You gave your people everything, though they tried to kill you for it. Give me the strength to make the hard choices you made.

  Katza’s bared skin burned then, as if licked by unseen fires. Her bones felt harder, sturdier, as Marya’s blessing slithered its way into her blood. Vengeance—that was Marya’s gift. The strength to take the respect that she was owed and turn it back to her will. If Ravin were here, he would encourage Katza to give in to this gift. To become a force all her own like Marya.

  The pins’ pricks heightened her senses and strengthened her. A reddish haze passed over her eyes as something flooded her with a kick like a swig of vodok. Katza clenched one fist and opened her eyes. She’d never felt a blessing as powerful as this—and it felt like coming to life.

  “Kneel.”

  The word clanged like an anvil being struck. The soldiers sucked in their breaths; Vika’s laughter stopped.

  “Kneel,” Katza commanded once more. She raised her fist before her. Vika jerked forward as if on a leash. With a deep heave of her chest, Katza watched her. Forced her—there was no other word for it, for the feeling she had, as if she were in control now of the girl’s limbs. The sensation of it bubbled inside Katza’s blood, so much more powerful than any blessing she’d experienced before. Vika dropped to one knee, foot jutting strangely, and slumped forward in fealty.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, tsarechka.” Vika’s tears fell anew, clogging her words. “My brother was arrested for keeping foolish company—he’s the one who listens to Ulmarov’s speec
hes, who pays the scribe to read his pamphlets to us. I simply wanted to support him. But I was wrong now, I can see the error of our ways—”

  Katza’s blood was burning inside of her. She was lying, they were all lying—the agitators were everywhere. This girl sought the Silovs’ death as much as any of the rest. And in her red-tinged sight, Katza could see the truth.

  “Do not lie to me.”

  Katza’s conviction was a slippery thing, moving around inside of her. It forced the words out of her and kept her skin aflame. But it felt good. It felt powerful and real. This was what it meant to be a Silov, to pull blessings down from the saints and act as the mouth of Boj in heaven. This was true power. Russalka simply needed a reminder.

  “You’re right.” Vika choked on her pitiful sobs. “I’m sorry. I was so wrong!”

  Katza turned her head from Vika. The red was roaring around her, clamoring, washing her clean with its burn. She breathed, feeling the anger pulse through her like a dirge. “Take her away.”

  Vika didn’t so much as cry out as the soldiers dragged her from the shop.

  Pushnikov worked in utter silence after that. No one in the shop dared so much as breathe. Katza didn’t know how much time passed; all she felt was the heat of fury and the wash of red, though slowly it abated, sapping her energy as it did. When at last they removed the template from her, she almost collapsed right there on the fitting stand. Nadika swooped in to clothe her and usher her back to the carriage.

  Each rumble of stone beneath the carriage wheels pulled Katza a little further back into herself.

  She blinked into the nearly dark afternoon. What had just transpired? Saint Marya had answered her, clearly, but the rest of it was a blur. Strength, anger, righteous fury and retribution—those were Marya’s trademarks, yes. But now Katza felt curiously hollow. Drained, even.

  She felt ashamed for what she’d done. Vika was foolish, like all the agitators, but she was also young, and acting out of fear. Katza shouldn’t have let the soldiers goad her so. Oh, but she hadn’t wanted to look weak. She had so much to prove—to the soldiers, to her father, to the people of Russalka. And she couldn’t deny the thrill of satisfaction she felt when the soldiers dragged her away.