Web of Frost (Saints of Russalka Book 1)

by Lindsay Smith

  Like a spark catching, their cheers of delight turned into screams of pain.

  Katza closed her eyes. She could almost see them through her eyelids like pinpricks of light, clusters of nerves flaring as she squeezed them with Saint Marya’s fist. Saint Marya, who came back from the brink of death to get revenge on the boyars who’d tried to have her killed. Saint Marya, whose righteous fury scorched a path straight to the palace gates. Katza would be all of that and more. She’d be unstoppable. Indelible.

  “Silence,” Katza boomed.

  She opened her eyes to find every face tilted her way. Not that she had given them a choice. She commanded them like strung-up kukulikov.

  “Russalka gives and gives to you,” Katza said. Her nails bit into the railing. “What do you give Russalka in return? You murder my father in cold blood. As he was headed to do something for you—something you demanded of him!”

  The rage filled Katza’s belly like a warm stew in the depths of winter. It numbed her pain and seared away her sadness. She was nothing but that fire now, looking out on the crowd of her ungrateful subjects. Ungrateful. She would give away all her light like Saint Morozov to keep her people warm, and this is what they thought of the Silovs?

  “You threaten my family. Threaten Russalka’s way of life. You would tear our entire country down on the word of a liar who poisons you against the tsars.”

  She stared down at the unblinking faces turned her way. Marya’s grip held true, but Katza’s fire was burning; burning itself out.

  “It’s heresy. It’s petty resentment. Russalka must be more. We must be one people, Russalka against the world that would destroy us. Now, more than ever, we must!”

  The lights were flickering in Katza’s mind. But she had to make them understand. They had to know how important it was for them to comply.

  “The Hessarian beasts are coming for us by sea, it’s true. But the real monsters in this world? They are already among us. They are you—and you—and you.” Her upper lip curled back. “We cannot fight them when we are tearing ourselves apart. I am your tsarika now. You have seen to that. And now, you will do as I command.”

  She was trembling, now, swaying on some internal frequency of her rage.

  “I will find who took my father from me, and I will make them pay. But we will all work together to keep the Hessarians at bay.”

  Some of the fire in her belly had cooled; she was losing her drive. But it mattered not. She’d done what she intended to do.

  Katza relinquished her grasp on Saint Marya’s blessing and the crowd fell into a stupor below her. She turned away from them and stormed back into the palace.

  Her feet faltered beneath her and she swayed forward, utterly drained. She barely managed to catch herself on a thick curtain and hold herself upright.

  Numerous members of the Golden Court were standing behind her: Secretary Stolichkov, Admiral Akuliy of the Pechalnoe fleet, the minister of agriculture, Nadika, and Fahed. They were all staring at her with eyes wide and glassy, almost as if they, too, had been seized by Marya’s fist. Stolichkov trembled, knuckles white where his hands gripped one another. Fahed’s face was slack and pale, while Nadika had pulled her jaw so tight Katza could almost hear her teeth grinding together. And then there was Father Mikhail, making the sign of the Saints’ Wheel.

  “Tsarechka! You cannot call on the saints this way. It isn’t done.”

  Katza thrust her shoulders back and stepped toward him.

  “I am the tsarika now. And I will do what’s necessary.”

  “The Patriarch won’t stand for this,” Mikhail said. “I know you are grieving, but we cannot risk Boj’s wrath—”

  “I have no time to grieve. It is time to rule. And I will rule however I must to protect Russalka.”

  Fahed shrank away from her. The vim he’d so readily shown her father, time and again, seemed to have all drained away. Good, Katza thought. Let him learn his place around here.

  Nadika shook her head. “What have you done, Katza?” she whispered.

  “What was needed to make them listen.” Katza turned away from her, though her friend’s words stung like a cold gust. Katza hoped in time Nadika would understand it was necessary.

  And then she saw Ravin, waiting for her at the back of the parlor, and all of Katza’s fear and doubt melted away. He raised his hands, beatific, and clasped her face as she drew nearer.

  “The saints truly guide your path, tsarika.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead; it bloomed on her skin like springtime. “Boj has called on you to serve Russalka. Now,” he said, “you are ready to rule.”

  Katza was beginning to lose sensation in her knees. For three hours, she’d knelt before Patriarch Anton in Saint Kirill’s side chapel as he kissed his medallion and mumbled an endless string of prayers. It was not every day, she acknowledged, that a new tsar or tsarika was prepared to be crowned, but even for such an event, she wondered if this wasn’t a little excessive. Much about her coronation preparations seemed excessive. She adjusted her weight on the kneeling bench and stifled a sigh of relief as the patriarch issued the final benediction to Boj.

  “Thank you, Father,” Katza said—quickly, lest he find a new cycle of prayers to recite. “With your blessing, I know Boj will hear my prayers and guide me along the best course for Russalka.”

  Anton sank into a pew with the snap and pop of old joints. Katza rose uncertainly, wondering whether she was being dismissed. This was only a preliminary blessing, after all; Patriarch Anton would perform the full rites at her coronation in a few days’ time, and then again at her father’s funeral once he’d lain in state for the requisite twelve days. But as she started to turn toward the chapel’s archway, Anton raised his hand. “Wait, tsarechka.”

  Katza bristled, but turned back toward him.

  “I must confess . . . I harbor grave concerns regarding your future as tsarika.”

  For all her own self-doubt, it rose her hackles to hear someone else express it. Anger sparked through her, but she clenched her jaw until it passed. “I know it has been a long time since a woman last ruled—”

  “No. It is not only that.”

  Katza rocked back on her heels. So it was partly that.

  “It is the way you use the saints’ blessings.”. His leathery face creased with worry. “You rely on them far more than is virtuous. I know you encouraged your father to use Saint Raskriy’s blessing to help root out dissenters—”

  “Which it did excellently. We foiled numerous plots—”

  “Except for the one that truly mattered.” Anton frowned. “Doesn’t that tell you that it was not Boj’s will to use the saints’ blessings thus?”

  Katza gripped her taffeta skirts, the stiff fabric crunching between her fingers like shards of ice. “I was able to use their blessings to quell a rebellion at the palace on the eve of Aleksei’s funeral.”

  “And then you held an entire mob in your grip through Saint Marya.” Anton gestured to the smaller icons displayed on the side chapel. “Saint Marya is not well-received in some orders. As patriarch, it is my duty to honor all saints that have been canonized by my forebears. But many find Marya acted contrary to Boj’s wishes. She defied the warning signs sent to her by Boj in heaven that her boyars’ betrayal was imminent.”

  Katza hesitated; she still felt conflicted about calling on Saint Marya, though each time her blessing came a little easier. “Many tsars before and since Marya have acted contrary to what their patriarch wished,” she said at last.

  Patriarch Anton’s mouth popped open and he inclined his head. “You are no longer the shy, subservient little tsarechka who knelt at that bench and thought no one noticed when you misread the prayers, are you?”

  “No. I no longer have that liberty.” Katza released her death grip on her skirts. “If you have nothing more to say to me, Father . . .”

 
“I have plenty to say. And while I cannot order you, little tsarechka, I and the other prophets can petition Boj. And if Boj wills it, we will bar your access to Boj’s gifts. We will retake your crown.”

  Katza stilled. She’d never heard of such a thing being done. Surely there was no precedent for it—some law must forbid it.

  And if Ravin was right, then Boj’s power was hers alone to claim. Try and stop me, she found herself thinking, though the thought came laced with shame.

  “You cannot disregard Boj’s will,” Anton said. “You must show restraint when you use the blessings. I cannot force you to comply, but Boj has ways of enforcing what is needed for all of our good.”

  “If Boj sees fit to grant me the blessings, then there is no reason I should not use them,” Katza snapped. “If it’s for the good of Russalka—”

  “There is plenty reason you shouldn’t, even if you’re too inexperienced to see it. I fear for you and your boldness because I wish to see Russalka survive, too.” Anton wrapped a bony hand around a candelabra spindle. “You’re far bolder than that little girl who could scarcely grasp a single blessing. But bolder isn’t wiser.”

  “It is still a far sight better than timid,” Katza said.

  “Perhaps. But I fear this prophet of yours is making you too bold.”

  Katza drew herself up to full height, anger serving as iron in her spine. “I beg your pardon?” Her body was still alive with Boj’s power from when she had trained with Ravin that morning, as she had every morning since her father’s death. Fire and ice and the power to call down lightning through Saint Molniya—again she felt it crackling in her fingertips, as it had when she used it to split a tree in the churchyard outside Zolotov. She liked having that power at her beck and call. She liked having some way, any way, to assert herself after seventeen years of silence and shadows.

  “I feel you deserve to be spoken to plainly,” Patriarch Anton replied smoothly. “And who better than a man of Boj?”

  “Has Boj warned you against me?” Katza asked, her voice still crackling. “Has Boj or the saints granted you visions warning you against what I do?”

  Anton took nervous gasps of breath between his words. “We’ve had visions. Indistinct ones, but they warn of dire things.”

  Katza bit back a venomous retort. Not the wolf in the clearing. She pleaded to Boj that he would not speak of a wolf slain in a clearing. “What kind of warnings?”

  “The Petrovsk Harbor bathed in flame, a cloud of smoke shrouding whatever battle was taking place. And then a figure plunging into the murky depths of the sea, swallowed in the cold water. Good people, languishing in prison, tortured, starved. They cried out to be heard.”

  Katza let out her breath. “And how do you know they are good people? They were in prison, after all. Are you saying they were imprisoned unjustly?”

  Anton sighed and propped his hands on his knees. “I will be watching you. As will Boj and all of the saints. I am sure they will issue their verdict accordingly.”

  “If the saints disapprove of my methods, I’m sure they—not you—will let me know. Boj will let me know.” But Katza wondered, now, if that were true. She’d felt the well of power that Ravin had spoken of; she’d felt it consume her and merge with her. Whether it was Boj she grasped when she wielded it, she couldn’t be sure, but it was incredible—that much she knew. Under Ravin’s instruction, she’d become a conduit for that power. One even the prophets could not stop.

  “Perhaps Boj already has. With your brother. And father, too.”

  Katza reeled back as if slapped. Fury swelled up behind her eyes, pressing in, tinging the world in red. But before she could respond, Anton made the sign of the Saints’ Wheel—dismissing her. “I will see you for your father’s funeral, and the coronation after. All the prophets will be watching you now, tsarechka.” He frowned. “Saints bless your path until then.”

  Katza tugged her cloak around her, the fabric snapping harshly, and swept from the chapel to the main sanctuary.

  Saint Kirill’s Cathedral soared high overhead, its marble and gold columns and painted, vaulted ceilings reaching for Boj’s heavens. The gold leaf winked at Katza from shadowed corners like starlight as incense smoke wisped around her feet. With each step, her anger was softening, and with it came that familiar ache, that emptiness that followed a surge of certainty and power. The hollowness rang with all her old doubts. Was the old patriarch right, that Boj would scorn her for her misuse? Was she only tempting her visions to come true?

  But Ravin’s teachings had given her choice where before she’d had none. She had no need for these other prophets who’d try to hold her back. That power was her birthright, hers to seize—it was the greatest tool she had to tame her country.

  She only wished that doing the right thing, the just thing, did not sometimes leave her with that lingering film of wrongness stuck to her skin.

  Katza strode up the empty aisle toward the apex of the cathedral. The organ pipes shimmered to her left, brassy soldiers waiting to be commanded; to her right, the icons of the saints watched over her steps. And in the center of the altar lay her father’s casket. Sealed, given the circumstances of his death. Katza pressed her hands against the cold oak edged with gold and drew a shaky breath.

  Father, I am doing my best. I toil night and day for the good of Russalka—to learn all you did not have time to teach me, all I should have known to follow in your steps. I will do everything in my power to make you and Aleksei proud.

  When she exited the main cathedral doors, Nadika and Stolichkov were waiting with a fleet of palace guards to usher her back to the palace.

  “We’ve brought some decoy carriages this time,” Nadika explained, as Katza tilted her head to study the row of identical carriages. “After what . . . happened to your father, we thought it prudent. We’ll send them in different directions through the city to scramble any would-be assailants.”

  Katza swallowed and looked from her guard to her secretary and back. “Is that really necessary?”

  “Let us pray it proves for naught,” Stolichkov replied.

  Katza nodded and allowed him to assist her into one of the carriages. Nadika climbed in as well. She had an extra ammunition pouch in her holster this time, Katza noted, and her hand had yet to leave the pistol at her hip.

  The carriage lurched into motion and began to execute a series of maneuvers on the cathedral square, weaving around the other decoys as they moved. Katza’s stomach sank as she spied the canal bridge where her father was attacked at the far end of the square. It was still blocked while a group of laborers conducted repairs to the masonry. Finally, the carriages completed their maneuvers and set off on their different routes.

  Katza sank back into the carriage cushions and tried to relax, but the electricity in her fingertips had morphed into a restless sort of energy, setting her leg twitching. “Have we received word from the Narrows yet about whether the Hessarian fleet approaches?” she asked Stolichkov. Mostly to give her something to distract herself.

  “I’m afraid nothing yet. They’ll send word by pigeon, so we’ll hopefully have at least a day’s warning.”

  “And no luck tracking down the agitators responsible for . . .” Katza trailed off, feeling once more the choking fist of grief.

  Stolichkov shook his head. “We’re particularly interested in finding this Ulmarov fellow—his name seems to be perched on every known agitator’s lips, and bandied across the factory floors. He has quite the following. That’s the last thing we wish—some sort of unity amongst all the discontents.” Stolichkov drummed his fingers against the leather cover of his ledger book. “I assure you, it is our top priority, after preparing the troops for a possible invasion.”

  “I want him dead,” Katza said, with a viciousness that surprised even herself. But she meant it, with every dark corner of her soul. “He must be found and stopped before he
can wreak any more havoc.”

  Stolichkov shifted awkwardly on his bench. “Might I—perhaps suggest an alternative course, Your Highness?” He moistened his lips. “He is so revered amongst the working classes that he is seen almost as a sort of saint. If we kill him, then they will see him as a martyr, too.”

  Katza stared at him. “He killed my father,” she said slowly. “The tsar of Russalka. And you wish for him to live?”

  Stolichkov’s lips peeled back like a frightened dog. “Well, Your Highness—he didn’t plant the bomb himself. That we know of, I mean.”

  “But he inspired the people who did. And he’s sure to inspire many more. Isn’t that what all . . . this is about?” She gestured to the carriage around them as they rolled to a stop, waiting for another laden wagon of grain to roll past under heavy guard from the city’s soldiers.

  “Yes, my tsarika.” Stolichkov swallowed. “I suppose it is.”

  “Hey—hey, boy! What the devil do you think you’re doing?”

  Katza craned her neck to look out the carriage window. One of the soldiers had broken away from the shipment he guarded and seized a young boy by the arm, wrenching him away from a building’s side. The boy clutched a colorful piece of paper in one hand, crumpling it as the soldier dragged him toward the street.

  “Please, sir! It’s a poster advertising the new danse sacre at the Velikov Theatre! They paid me to post it, I swear!”

  “Nonsense. The Death of Marya? Sounds like agitator dreck to me.”

  Katza turned her head away, indifferent, as the carriage rolled on. She had no more time to feel pity for everyone who’d been swept up in the anti-tsarist movement. They knew well enough what they were doing. They’d made their choice, and must live with it. It was a calming feeling, Katza thought, to no longer be burdened with uncertainty.

  That burden only snuck up on her as she slept, and in the dark moments when the saints hesitated to answer her call. But those were growing fewer. Ravin’s teachings were making it all clear. Any doubt she had, he quickly dispelled by showing her the power of Boj’s will. Of her will. The gift in her Silov blood.