by Jane Kindred
Azel had a bath in a large room dedicated to the purpose, with a full tub of warm water in which to soak himself, and servants to scrub him. He thought it fantastic, and at the same time, recalled a thousand uneventful baths that had come before it—which was absurd, for he was hardly more than a thousand days old. That he suddenly knew how many days were in a year and how to multiply them, he tried not to notice.
All of this thinking and unthinking was quite tiresome, and by the time he’d been presented to the principality of Vilon—who bowed to him instead of the other way around—and a grand feast had been prepared in his honor, he had to be carried off to bed. An ordinary valet came to dress him instead of the Cherub who’d attended him along the way to Arcadia, and outside his door, two Ophanim stood guard to protect him, their cold white illumination glowing under the door when he’d been left alone.
He’d forgotten all about Ola until a whimpering sound penetrated his consciousness as he lay in bed nearly asleep. He sat up, looking for the source, wondering if he’d dreamt it. The only furnishing in the huge room besides the big oak bed and a chamber pot cabinet holding a washbasin and pitcher was a massive wardrobe at the opposite end of the room. Azel got up and went to the wardrobe, and sure enough, the box was inside.
He forced his small palm against the hasp of the latch until it popped, and pushed open the lid of the trunk. Ola cowered in the corner, disoriented, as though under the effects of a sleeping draught. The contents of the glass bottle the Cherub gave her every morning and evening must be exactly that. The poor little thing had soiled herself.
Azel hoisted her out and set her on the floor. She was quite small and he’d grown rather large for his age, and this was easier than he expected. He brought the washbasin and pitcher and found a flannel in the cabinet drawer to bathe her with. The ragged gown couldn’t be salvaged, so he took off his sleeping gown and put it on her, and put his day clothes back on.
She was barely responsive. Azel pressed the back of his hand to her clammy cheek and forehead. Rather than running a fever, she felt cool to the touch. A surge of anger rose in him at Helga. What right had she to keep his niece with less care and dignity than one would keep an animal? No—no, not his niece. He didn’t care if the other boy in his head had recognized the pretty lady in the picture as his sister. He was not twelve years old, he was three. He was Azel Kaeyevich. He didn’t know what his mind was talking about.
He took Ola’s hand and led her to the bed, boosting her up until she climbed into it groggily and lay down.
“Move over, Ola,” he groused, and pushed her until she curled into a ball on her side and made room for him. He slept like a stone until her murmuring woke him some hours later. He thought she was talking in her sleep, but when he opened his eyes, he found her sitting wide awake on the end of the bed holding the ragged paper with the picture of her family, salvaged from the pocket of the cast-off gown.
She glanced up in the pale glow of pre-dawn through the shuttered window and began to point at the figures on the paper, though their images were smeared and dulled from wear.
“Papa. Mama. Ola. Beli.”
“Is that all you can say?” he grumbled, crabby from being woken.
“Where Lub?”
He crinkled his eyes at her in consternation. “What is that? What’s ‘Lub’?”
Ola pointed at the paper and he nearly snatched it from her as she went through her recitation once more: “Papa, Mama, Ola, Beli.” Then she pointed to the side of the paper as if beyond its margins, and said, “Lub” insistently. “Where Lub?” Apparently, someone from her family was missing.
“I don’t know. I’m Azel.”
Ola climbed across the bed and startled him by wrapping her arms around his neck. “Azly,” she said with an air of satisfaction.
“No, it’s Azel,” he repeated, but she didn’t seem to mind that she’d gotten it wrong.
She sat next to him and pulled the covers over the long sleeping gown and around them both as if they’d sleep that way. Ola liked him, he realized. No one had ever liked him before. Helga seemed alternately to find him bothersome and to treat him as if he were a prized possession, like the locket she cared about so much. When she acted kindly toward him, he felt it wasn’t him she was fond of, but the other boy, as if she wished he’d go away and leave the “real” Azel in his place.
In a few hours, the Cherub would come and put Ola back into her box and give her the drink that kept her quiet. Azel had a sudden surge of anxiety. He couldn’t let them put her in the box again. He couldn’t. She liked him, and it wasn’t nice. If it was for her protection, she was too young to understand, and it frightened her. If bad men were looking for her, then he’d hide her himself. He wouldn’t let them put her in the box.
“Come on, Ola.” He took her hand and pulled her with him from the bed. After putting on his new boots, he led her to the window and opened the shutters, pushing on the window frame until the two panes in the center opened outward enough for them to climb through. The window opened onto a garden, its flowers grey with the colorless light before dawn.
“Go see Mama?” she asked as he helped her scrabble over the low sill. She still held the paper in her hand and he took it and folded it up to put it in his pocket.
“Yes, Ola. We’ll go see your mama.” Lying was all right, he supposed, as long as it was to someone very young. He had a vague memory of sneaking out of such a room before, and knew enough to conceal the way in which he’d gone out. He didn’t bother trying to push the memory away since it had helped. As long as the thoughts crowding in his head didn’t overwhelm him, he would let them stay.
He led Ola through the garden, careful to wait behind the wall until the sentry walking past had gone some feet in the opposite direction, and then pulled her along the path to the row of hedges at the edge of the lawn beyond. Ola stumbled several times and had difficulty keeping up, and he wondered that she didn’t know how to walk any better than this, but the other Azel in his head thought, Of course. Her muscles have atrophied, poor thing.
He was amazed when they reached the drive without detection and then made it out to the cobbled main street of Arcadia. They had easily evaded the sentries on duty at each position. Perhaps it had never occurred to them to watch for two small children trying to get out.
The sun glittered on the horizon and people were starting to move about as he headed onto the street. Azel found an alleyway to navigate behind the shops, but the long gown tangling about Ola’s feet as it dragged behind her further hindered her gait. Coming upon a horse and cart in the alley, unattended while its owner delivered something to the shopkeeper inside, Azel climbed into the back with Ola and hid among the burlap sacks piled beneath the driver’s seat.
When the driver returned, Azel peeked through a gap in the sacks and saw the red circle patch with the black star inside it on his sleeve. Helga had told him this meant he was one of the Fallen, and the Fallen, his unbidden memories told him, meant Raqia, and Raqia meant Elysium. And Elysium was home.
Devyataya: The Blood of Angels
from the memoirs of the Grand Duchess Anazakia Helisonovna of the House of Arkhangel’sk
We rode into Elysium as we had into Iriy, without meeting resistance, but not because Elysium had decided to lay down its swords and welcome its lost daughter with open arms. They were well prepared for our arrival and well aware of our numbers, and the Ophanim Guard at the Winter Palace was fortified by a heart-sinking formation of soldiers ten rows deep.
Before we’d reached the palace, however, our cavalcade proceeded up Palace Avenue amidst a hail of hurled epithets and garbage, most of which were aimed at me. They booed and derided me as Bloody Anazakia, and though I’d expected as much along the road to Elysium and had been pleasantly surprised to be lauded instead, it stung to hear such hatred from the people who had once regarded me as an adored grand duchess. Perhaps I’d been sheltered from the true opinions of the people. Perhaps they’d always resented a
nd despised me, and Aeval had simply given them the opportunity to express their true sentiments.
I bore this with my head held high and instructed my men to ignore it, though their regal presentation was being sullied by stains of rotten eggs and spoiled fruit. Angry rabble wasn’t what we had to worry about. Or so I believed.
Lively alerted me to the trouble. She’d insisted on being on horseback for the entry into the city, afraid of being trampled if fighting broke out before we had her safely away from the troops. We’d constructed a step of blocks so she could mount the horse, and Margarita had helped her up. The Virtues thought it madness, as did I, but it was I after all who’d brought a pregnant woman to a battle, so I let her do as she thought best. It turned out to be a fortunate decision, for she rode just behind me when the first wave of demon Liberationists appeared among the crowds. Unlike an organized, well-funded army, they had no uniforms and couldn’t be distinguished from civilians.
Lively pulled her horse up beside me as we neared the square. “The alleyways.” She nodded toward one. “No one’s throwing anything at you.”
I glanced about. “Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Not when you can’t see their hands.”
I saw now what she meant. In the shadowed, narrow alleys along either side, men identifiable as demons by the patches on their sleeves stood waiting with hands in pockets. Who knew how many alleys behind us we might not have noticed? If I’d had any doubts about Lively’s loyalties before, I no longer had them now.
I turned back in the saddle. “On your guard!”
The Virtues behind me had only an instant to prepare themselves before the demons swarmed out and darted into the ranks, slashing and stabbing at the horses’ hindquarters with knives and skewers, or pieces of jagged metal—evidently, whatever they had at hand. Margarita leapt from her horse and blocked any attacks from the front with a combination of expert swordsmanship and dizzying kicks and leg-sweeps to any who came near. It seemed she focused her defense on Lively, but I could hardly blame her. It would be far worse for Lively if her horse went down than it would for me. All the more reason to get her out of the fighting as quickly as possible. It was time for her to carry out the task for which she’d come.
“Margarita!” I kicked at a demon’s knife and tried to keep control of my horse. “Naberezhnaya Robespyera, now!” We’d arranged this code beforehand. Elysium, of course, had no Robespierre Embankment, though the layout of the city was much the same as the city of St. Petersburg in the world of Man. The palace, in particular, bore a stunning similarity to its earthly counterpart. As well acquainted with the city of St. Petersburg as I was with Elysium, Margarita worked with me to make a plan to deliver Lively to the Celestial Boulevard façade of the palace on the bank of the Neba—known in both worlds as the Palace Embankment—at a discreet private entrance near the western garden. Half a league east of the palace in the world of Man, the embankment was dubbed the Robespierre.
Lively, on her own and dressed in rags, would appeal to the guards at the entrance, claiming the father of her child was a palace servant who’d promised to meet her there to elope and hadn’t shown. While they argued with her, she would cry out in terrible pain with premature labor, and even spill a hidden bladder of liquid beneath her skirt to make it seem her water had broken. Even in the midst of a standoff in the square, they couldn’t refuse a woman in such obvious distress.
Once they’d helped her inside, Lively would undertake the most ambitious spell of her career: she would cast a sleeping influence over everyone within the palace. If we were lucky, it would extend as far as a two-hundred-yard radius around it. Everyone in my battalion had been equipped with charms that would make us immune. With the Supernal Army incapacitated, we would enter and occupy the palace without having to shed a drop of blood. We’d have far better odds defending the palace from inside until our full brigade arrived in Elysium than if we tried to maintain an assault on the palace with five hundred men against their thousand. With the addition of the demon fighters at our backs, such a battle would be lost before it began.
Margarita incapacitated the nearest demon attacker with a swift elbow to the larynx, grabbed hold of the reins of Lively’s horse, and mounted behind her. They galloped away onto a side street and disappeared among the tall stone walls of residential gardens. I suffered a brief moment of panic as I thought of what Love had told me about Margarita’s infatuation with Lively. What if she simply rode away with the demoness, protecting her from my mad plan? I had to believe her sense of duty and honor would override any passionate impulses. And Lively, regardless of her own feelings, was too stubborn to take the easy way out of anything.
The swarm of attackers increased and we’d ceased to make forward progress. Cursing as a demon slashed my leg, spreading blood across the heavy white woolen uniform, I turned in my seat and fought him away from my mount. A number of my Virtues were now fighting on their feet, having fallen as their horses were taken down or dismounted to take the demon fighters on, and the avenue was packed and chaotic. The blood of angels, demons, and horses sparkled in the summer sun on the broad, adamantine expanse of celestial pavement.
The Virtues of my flank guard were trying to keep the attackers from closing in on both sides, but with Margarita gone, the front was vulnerable, and a pair of demons rushed in on either side of my horse. The demon on my right went for my horse’s throat with his long knife. Margarita had chided me for weeks on my hesitancy with a sword. Hearing her voice in my head, I swung downward and caught him under the ribs. It was the first real engagement my blade had made with living flesh and I stared as he fell to the ground, cold sweat breaking out on my skin.
“Your Supernal Highness!”
I turned at the shout from a Virtue to my left and stepped my horse aside in time to avoid the makeshift spear of a demon lunging toward me. The Virtue on foot stabbed him in the side, looking almost as green as I felt as he unseated his bloodied sword and knocked the demon away from me. We had to get harder than this, and quickly.
I found myself wishing Kae were here. Though it had often angered me while I watched them drill, his cold, unyielding manner with the Virtues had been precisely what they needed and I was a poor substitute for his leadership.
With the way ahead of me clear for the moment, I urged my horse forward. The Virtues on foot pushed back the demon fighters, and those still on their mounts followed in my wake, while the rear guard dismounted and overtook the demons who tried to pursue.
As we broke through and poured into the entrance to the square, my heart sank at how many of the queen’s men awaited us. The square couldn’t hold them all, and they’d spilled down the side streets in impressive columns of deep jewel green. There was room for no more than a single rank of my Virtues to face them. I couldn’t indulge in hesitation or doubt. I only hoped Lively had made it inside.
Steadying my horse and my nerves, I declared myself. “I am the Grand Duchess Anazakia Helisonovna of the House of Arkhangel’sk, the rightful heir to the throne of the Firmament of Shehaqim and All the Heavens. By whose orders do you bar my ingress to the supernal domicile?”
The queen’s brigadier stepped forward. “By the orders of Her Supernal Majesty Aeval, Queen and Autocrat of All the Heavens. The Firmament of Shehaqim does not recognize any claim to the throne from the House of Arkhangel’sk. Your Supernal Highness has been found guilty of high treason against the throne of Heaven, and you are hereby ordered to surrender yourself and your band of mutineers to the Supernal Army of Queen Aeval.”
Margarita rode up from somewhere behind me with a nod at my unasked question: Lively had made her mark. She dismounted and the Virtues did the same, my personal guard closing ranks around me.
Margarita drew her sword. “Step aside for Her Supernal Highness the Grand Duchess Anazakia Helisonovna of the House of Arkhangel’sk, or prepare to defend yourselves against the Virtuous Army of the Princedom of Aravoth.”
A murmur of laughter f
ollowed, cut short when our first rank charged on my signal. The deviation from the official rules of engagement caught the Supernal Army off guard. Heavenly forces were to form an orderly line and draw their swords as one, crossing them over their chests, and take five steps forward to meet in the neutral field with a bow honoring their opponents, but mine had simply rushed forward, drawing as they ran, and met the enemy on their own ground with swords lunging. It wasn’t what the Supernal Army had expected of the punctilious Virtues.
White and emerald uniforms clashed, and for a moment, the white had the upper hand, before the enemy recovered from the surprise of such a disorderly attack. The lines blurred as both sides surged forward without regard for protocol, and Palace Square rang with metal against metal and the shouts and groans of dying men. From my uneasy mount, I sent my men forward in crushing waves as the ones before them went down. Margarita’s red braid swung behind her like sparks of fire as she lunged and spun and thrust, keeping the emerald uniforms from getting close to her commander. Not for the first time, I wondered if she had some firespirit blood in her Nephil line.
From the advantage of height, I saw Lively’s spell begin to work. At the back of the enemy lines, the Ophanim were the first to succumb to it. I’d never seen an Ophan asleep before and wasn’t certain they ever did, but the magic Lively had spun was as sure as a lullaby to an infant. As they dropped, the next rank of soldiers fell and the spell spread outward through the square like a wave on a lake. I tapped the charm in my breast pocket beneath my leather armor to be sure I had it as the front lines of the Supernal Army sank to the ground.
And then my Virtues began to go down. They dropped in graceful succession, like dancers in a curious ballet. This wasn’t supposed to happen; Lively had given them all charms. I clutched at my breast as the irresistible tug of sleep pulled at me.