Web of Frost (Saints of Russalka Book 1)

by Lindsay Smith

  “It’s rather grim for a celebratory event, don’t you think?”

  “Perhaps so. Or perhaps the performers mean it as a warning. A tale of the perils of hubris.”

  But Katza didn’t think Marya had been hubristic at all. She’d never stepped out of line, only fought for the good of her country, and still they betrayed her and left her for dead. It was only after the betrayal that she found her strength.

  It was a warning, then—never to become complacent. No one can betray you if you do not give them the opportunity.

  “I apologize for my harshness earlier,” Fahed said, softer. “It is very strange for me, too, to be thrust into a new role, unlike the one for which I’ve been raised.”

  Katza smiled sadly. She couldn’t argue with him about that.

  “This is your nation. You are free to rule it as you see fit. I only had hoped I might . . .” He glanced. “I might have a hand in shaping that.”

  “You are not free to shape the rule of Bintar?” Katza asked.

  “Fates, no. I have five brothers and three sisters. There are rulers aplenty for the emirate to work with. I’d always been told my fate lay abroad, and so I’d prepared for that. I know you think my ideas for Russalka are strange . . .”

  Katza looked away.

  “But I’d been preparing to serve as an emissary to Russalka for so long that I felt certain I could make a difference.”

  Katza laid her hand over his on the armrest between them. “You will always have a home in Russalka, Prince Fahed. If I were to grant you a title, or land . . . and you clearly have a knack for the Golden Court.” She swallowed. “I’m sure there is something we can arrange.”

  He raised her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “I’ll consider it, tsarika.”

  The orchestra concluded the entr’acte, and the gaslamp chandelier began to dim. Katza looked out at the audience beneath her, glittering with their sequins and jewels and swaddled in their furs. Courtiers, factory owners, the more successful artists themselves. Hundreds of them, all together.

  And yet they were only a fraction of Russalka’s whole.

  Maybe there was some truth in Elena Ulmarova’s concerns. Katza couldn’t orchestrate the will of every person in Russalka, no matter how she tried. And letting the nobles grab at every last coin in the royal coffers did nothing for the millions of starving workers locked outside the theatre’s doors. Was there a middle ground Katza could not see? Was there any way to give them an inch without letting the rest of the nation crumble to chaos beneath her?

  The drums fell heavy, and the curtain rose, revealing Marya, bloodied and resplendent, ready to strike.

  Marya danced a sharp rondeau, her shoes punching at the stage as her mouth coiled into a sneer. Even from the royal box, Katza could sense the hatred and lust for vengeance radiating from the principal dancer as she performed the Act II opener, the Ritual of Blood. She thrust the knife into the sacrificial goats and cows, a relic of peasant magic from long before the age of saints. Blood smeared her bodice, her tattered skirts, her unkempt hair. Fake blood, but Katza imagined she could smell it. Imagined its heat pouring down her own face.

  “Tsarika.” It was Nadika, tugging at Katza’s arm. “I’m afraid it’s time for us to go.”

  But Katza stared at the stage, transfixed. The Ritual of Blood ended, and Marya froze on stage. Tilted her head toward the audience to acknowledge their applause.

  Then she pointed the ritual knife at Katza’s box.

  “Death to the tsarika,” the dancer screamed. “Death to all who would imprison Russalka!”

  Shouts filled the auditorium.

  “We must go at once,” Nadika shouted. Katza could barely hear her over the noise. “Quickly!”

  The curtain fell, breaking the dancer’s baleful stare. But Katza felt pinned to the spot. They despised her—every last subject. She’d spared countless lives in the battle in the bay, and they hated her.

  O, Boj, what have I done?

  “We must leave now,” Nadika said, teeth bared.

  Katza stood and followed her on numb feet. “What’s the meaning of all this?” Fahed asked. Stolichkov blinked into the darkened box, trying to get his bearings, as Nadika reached for the door handle.

  But it was locked. They were trapped inside.

  Break it down!” Fahed cried. “Hurry! Here, let me help!”

  Nadika flung her full weight against the door; Fahed joined her with a grunt. But the box’s door wouldn’t budge.

  Katza gritted her teeth. Power rumbled through her, a gathering storm. “Stand back.”

  Nadika and Fahed rushed out of her way. Katza envisioned the door handle, then imagined it melting away. No saints. Nothing but that distant well of power, shooting through her veins. With a groan, the door popped open.

  “What the devil is going on?” Stolichkov asked. He shoved through the doorway, then yelped and leapt back. The palace guards posted outside the royal box lay slumped in the corridor, their throats slashed. Blood was spreading across the marble tiles beneath them.

  Nadika seized Katza by the arm and wrenched her in the direction of the rear exit of the theatre. As they stormed through the hall, Stolichkov and Fahed behind them, they heard desperate, anguished thumps from the other box doors.

  “We have to help them,” Katza said. “They’ll be trapped in there if we don’t. What if the agitators have planted explosives, or—or some sort of noxious gas?” She recalled the stories of the factory gassing from last spring, when agitators pumped toxic fumes into their factory manager’s office. “What if they burn the whole theatre down?”

  “Your safety is my only concern,” Nadika replied.

  But Katza closed her eyes and let her guard guide her. As they passed each door, Katza performed the same visualization of the locks melting away. It would have to be enough.

  “They meant to kill you,” Fahed said, bewildered. “They meant to kill us all!”

  “Then why didn’t they just slip inside the box and finish the job?” Stolichkov asked.

  Nadika clenched her jaw. “Because I locked it from inside as well.”

  “How did you know it wasn’t safe?” Katza asked. Her teeth rattled as they ran down the cold stone staircase into the theatre’s depths. “You came to me before anything was awry.”

  Nadika hesitated before responding. “Let’s call it intuition. Something about the way the dancer behaved. Something in the crowd earlier on the square.”

  Katza stopped abruptly and whirled toward her guard. “This isn’t the first time you’ve said as much to me.”

  “Then my intuition is rather solid,” Nadika said. “Now, come along, we must get to safety—”

  “No. No, I need you to answer me.” The power surged in Katza, rising like the floodwaters of the canals. “Either you’re working with the agitators—”

  “Your Highness!” Nadika recoiled as if slapped. “I would never—”

  “Or you have visions.” Katza stared at her, open-mouthed. “Boj in heaven. You’re a prophet, too.”

  “I don’t believe in prophets and saints.” Nadika grimaced. “Most Mozgai don’t. All I know is that what I see—” She clenched her jaw. “Never mind. We can discuss this later, Your Highness. Once you are safe.”

  They burst out the side exit of the theatre, and Katza saw what she meant.

  The canals were alive, the bridges writhing with workers and peasants who surged toward the northeast. Toward the palace. Katza clasped a hand to her mouth. With a quick grasp of Orlov’s gift, she soared above the theatre district in the direction of the palace square. Too quickly, it confirmed her fear: the palace was under attack.

  Thousands of workers filled Petrovsk, brandishing torches, pickaxes, rifles, sledgehammers, knives. They spilled from the streets into the square, climbed over the wrought iron palace gat
es, crawled through the windows in the palace’s green façade where they had punched them out.

  “Long live Ulmarov!”

  “Ulmarov rules us now!”

  “Death to the tsarika! Let the monster burn!”

  Nadika touched Katza’s arm, pulling her back to the alley where they stood. “Your Highness? What is it?”

  “The palace.” Katza was shaking; she gripped Nadika’s arm in return to steady her. “They’re storming the palace.” Boj in heaven. What about her mother? Sveta and Admiral Akuliy and Minister Lavrova?

  “Zolotov,” Nadika said. “We’ll take you to the summer house in Zolotov.”

  “No!” Katza cried. “We can’t just surrender! We have to stop them!”

  And then her stomach sank. She felt herself growing ill.

  What about Ravin?

  Nadika gripped her arm again and tugged her deeper into the alley. “The theatre’s carriage house is just this way. We’ll take someone else’s carriage so we aren’t so obviously transporting the tsarika. I can steer the horses, but I cannot defend us at the same time.” She pulled her sidearm free from its holster. “Stolichkov? Fahed? Can you fire a pistol?”

  Stolichkov stammered a few excuses and Fahed’s face looked oddly drained.

  “I can keep us safe,” Katza said. “But please—let us head to the palace. I can take it back.” Her skin was crackling, alive. “You know I can.”

  She felt like Marya, vengeance burning through her. She would rise, and damn the consequences. Marya had forged Russalka into what it was. Katza would temper it with blood if she must.

  Nadika stared at her, mouth a hard line. “That’s what I’m afraid of, tsarika.”

  In the stables, Nadika and Fahed wrestled to tighten up the reins on the first troika they came across. Stolichkov slipped a copper flask from his breast pocket and took a mighty swig. Vodok, by its smell. He held the flask to Katza, but her thoughts were elsewhere.

  She spread a net of power out around them.

  Thousands of protesters. Tens of thousands. Had Ulmarova called them to arms? But how could she, locked away in her jail cell? Each life hung before Katza, glimmering like stars in the night sky. It would be so easy to reach out and snuff them. Crush each last one. She’d done it to the gunners on the Hessarian ships. She’d done it to control the protesters before. If she did it now, she could end the rebellion before it had begun. Wipe them all out. She was strong enough now—she was certain of it.

  But a sharp pang in her skull broke her concentration. She drew a ragged breath. She couldn’t kill her own subjects. Not without becoming everything Ulmarova had accused her of.

  Maybe Ulmarova was right to accuse her. Maybe a monster was exactly what she was.

  But then, maybe a monster was what was needed to keep Russalka whole.

  “Hurry, Your Highness.” They’d finished arranging the troika, and Nadika had edged the horses uneasily out into the alleyway. “They’ll bar the city gates before too long.”

  Fahed reached out to pull Katza into the sleigh. It was a tight fit, she and Fahed and Stolichkov, but they wedged inside.

  “We can’t leave the city yet,” Katza said, as Nadika snapped the reins.

  Stolichkov groaned. “Boj in heaven. Why not?”

  “We have to find Ravin.”

  “Oh, for the Fates’ sake . . .” Fahed twisted toward Katza. “And do you even know where he’s gone?”

  Katza sank into the sleigh’s bench. The power was leaving her now, and exhaustion stretched over her like twilight. “He was looking into a matter concerning the agitators for me.”

  “Looking into them? Saint Volkov and his jaw of lies, girl. Did it ever occur to you that he might be one of them?” Stolichkov asked. “Maybe he’s been in Ulmarova’s pocket all along!”

  Katza’s head spun. He couldn’t be. He hated the agitators just as fiercely as she did, if not more. He’d been the one pushing her to unseal the limits placed on Boj’s power by the church and claim them for her own. He wanted more control, not less. And he was right to wish it. If only she’d wrenched open the seal already. She could crush these agitators, crush whatever pitiful prophets were on their side, and reclaim Russalka once and for all.

  Petrovsk’s streets around the theatre were eerily silent; hardly any buildings were lit from within. It was as if the whole city had disgorged itself at the palace gates. Now they were probably tearing through the palace halls, ripping down paintings and draperies, beating down doors. Were they seeking to free Ulmarova? Hoping to find Katza asleep in her bed? If they’d managed to break into her box at the danse sacre, would they have slit her throat, too?

  She needed Ravin. With his aid, she could stop them. Every last one.

  Katza tried to reach for the wellspring of power. She needed it now more than ever to reach out and snuff the agitators’ minds. Damn their accusations, damn Nadika and her fear. Katza could be a monster. She could have the sharpest teeth, the cruelest claws of all.

  Vengeance burned through her. Not Marya’s, not any other saint’s, but her own. She reached out to her city—her city—to feel its pulse thrumming beneath her fingertips, drawing from its strength and tasting its weakness. She had so much work to do to make her nation great. So much work . . . so much still left undone . . .

  And in her city’s pulse, she heard her city’s hatred, answering her own.

  The tsarika will murder us all, her city cried.

  She seeks to enslave us to her whim.

  I’ve read the pamphlets. She dances on the false prophet’s strings, and wants the rest of us to dance, too! They will pull Boj from the heavens and burn us all in their rage!

  Katza sank deeper into the furs of the troika. No. They were wrong. They were wrong about her. She only wanted the best for her country. She was no one’s puppet—certainly not Ravin’s, who’d awakened her true gifts. Tears needled the corners of her eyes. She was doing the right thing!

  Why couldn’t they see that it was for their own good?

  “Do not fret, Your Highness.” Stolichkov, sallow-faced and shivering, patted a hand over Katza’s own. He was without coat and hat and gloves, Katza realized. They all were, their outerwear left behind in their rush to escape the theatre. Fahed’s teeth chattered on Stolichkov’s other side. Only Nadika, driving the three horses onward, made no outward sign of her discomfort.

  But Katza felt nothing. The fire was gone. No cold could reach her; only the sour-milk taste of exhaustion overtook her now. She slumped against the side of the troika as they approached the Manilovskiy Drawbridge over the widest part of the river Zima. The drawbridge would dump them out of the city and onto the unpaved roads to Zolotov.

  As soon as the sleigh’s rails clattered down on the other side of the bridge, a fresh vision crashed down onto Katza like a wave.

  She stood once more in the forest, at the fork in the road. Silence, tangible and heavy, burned inside her ears. Snow fluttered down and speckled her woolen coat. She stood perfectly still and let the clearing take shape around her as the cold seeped into her bones and the darkened tree branches blotted out the stars.

  Finally, the setting coalesced around her. She glanced down the path she must have walked to reach this fork, but it was a dead end. A thick-trunked birch blocked the way.

  Two choices, then. Katza stepped forward, snow crunching underfoot, and peered down the path to the right.

  A knife twisted in her heart at the cheerful, all too familiar laughter she heard, echoing on the snow.

  “Aleksei?” Katza tore down the path, snow spraying around her. His name ricocheted off the pale birch trunks. “Aleksei? Aleksei?” The snow was too deep and untrodden, and she had to raise her thighs high to plunge forward, but she cared not. She followed the path’s curve toward that awkward, perfect laugh. The laugh she’d know anywhere.

  “Al
eksei.”

  Katza burst into a clearing. No, not a clearing—a room. It looked like one of the basement taverns peppered around Petrovsk, where the intellectuals gathered to talk about poetry and revolution. Gas-fed sconces burned on the curved plaster walls, throwing harsh orange light and deep shadows across the tableau. A simple wooden table, shiny from decades of use, boasted a meal of beet and cream stew, and a bottle of vodok sat half-drunk before two metal-handled glass steins.

  But no Aleksei. Katza scanned the room rapidly sealing up around her. A semicircular window set high up the wall hinted at the canal streets beyond. But she’d heard his laugh. Where was he?

  “Well. If it isn’t little Katarzyna.” Aleksei emerged from the shadows, dressed in a brown woolen suit and waistcoat. He plucked a worker’s cap off his head and mussed his thick blonde hair that stuck every which way.

  Katza’s heart wrung itself out. “O, Boj. Aleksei, I’ve missed you so much.” She rushed toward him and flung her arms around his waist.

  Aleksei laughed and indulged her for a minute, returning the hug. “All right, come on now, little tsarechka.” He patted her head, then pried her off of him. “Have a drink with me! We have much to discuss.”

  Katza sat obediently, and Aleksei took the chair diagonal to her. He crossed his legs, ankle to knee, and slung one arm over the back of his chair. With the other arm, he plucked up one of the glasses of vodok and raised it in toast.

  “To the earth, sea, and the blood they spilled between them, eh?” Aleksei smiled sadly, then gulped the vodok down.

  Katza took up the other glass. “Earth, sea, and the blood spilled between them.” She sipped at the vodok; even that was enough to set her into a coughing fit as the clear liquor scorched down her throat.

  “What is the little tsarechka up to now? Still playing with dolls? Or getting fitted for a wedding dress?” There was something bitter in Aleksei’s tone—an unfamiliar sound for him. It set Katza’s stomach in knots.

  “I—I’m not . . .” She moistened her lips and tried again. “I’m tsarika now.”

  Aleksei snorted. “Well, that was silly.”