by Jane Kindred
He’d have to use every card she put down to win this game.
It was time to play the hand he held in reserve.
“If you don’t mind, Your Supernal Majesty, I’d rather not.” He
waited a beat, let the audacity of his statement permeate the room.
The response was utter silence. “To tell you the truth, I’m not even
sure where she is. I sent my companion to confine her in a monastery
in Siberia—the earthly Empyrean—for Her Supernal Highness’
safety, and for the safety of Heaven. Her mind is like a child’s, and her temperament is wild. She can barely speak. She hallucinates. No one
would know her for an angel of the House of Arkhangel’sk.”
He lowered his voice and laid down the final card; in this delicate
moment, he’d win or lose his bid. “How would it be if after the tragedy that took her family, the citizens of the Firmament saw her returned a raving simpleton? They might begin to doubt the sanity of the entire
House. Better to let Her Supernal Highness’ memory lie in peace,
and hope Heaven’s representatives in the world of Man can bring her
tranquility within their cloistered walls.”
Behind the queen’s quicksilver eyes, he sensed a quiet seething.
“Our cousin,” she said, laying out each clause like cards of her own, “is
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in a house… of the god… of Men.”
“Yes, Your Supernal Majesty.” As Heaven’s representatives in the
world of Man, the clergy were granted even greater immunity from
interference than the rest of humanity. Though Belphagor joked about
being struck down by lightning, the truth of the matter was quite
the opposite. Anyone who took refuge within the church’s sacred
buildings was granted sanctuary from the Hounds of Heaven for as
long as they remained there. Many a demon had joined the priesthood
or sisterhood for the safety of its walls.
“And you, a demon, presume to advise Us on the welfare of Our
kin. Of Our very throne.”
“I am but a humble servant of the Crown.” He gave her an
obsequious bow. Any game worth playing, was worth playing well.
“I risked bringing Your Supernal Majesty the ring to make certain it
didn’t fall into the wrong hands. I’d hate to think of the uproar that might ensue if someone unworthy tried to use it to pass herself off as the grand duchess and lay claim to the throne. With the ring safely in the hands of Your Supernal Majesty, not even poor, mad Anazakia
could prove her legitimacy.”
“Indeed.” The queen sat back against the throne, her mouth
curving into a shrewd smile. “You have been most helpful, Belphagor
of Raqia. Nevertheless, you have made so familiar with ‘poor, mad
Anazakia,’ even presuming to decide Her Supernal Highness’ fate
and thwarting Our rightful duty to Our kin, that We are afraid this
willfulness, however well-meaning or even beneficial to the Crown,
cannot be ignored. Therefore, We remand you to the custody of Our
Seraphim to be dealt with however they see fit.”
He thought he’d been prepared for this possibility, but the finality
of her pronouncement made his flesh break out in a cold sweat. He
swallowed hard to keep the rising hysteria in his throat from escaping.
The Seraphim manifested behind the queen.
Belphagor bowed his head to avoid the glare of their brilliance.
“If I may be so bold as to ask that Your Supernal Majesty grant me
one thing?”
“You try Our patience, demon.”
“My companion has no idea I’m here or who the girl is. He cared
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for Her Supernal Highness only out of kindness to a poor waif and
loyalty to me. I beg Your Supernal Majesty’s mercy in allowing him to
go his way unmolested by your Seraphim. I will be eternally in your
debt.”
Queen Aeval laughed. “You are already in Our eternal debt.” Her
eyes twinkled with delight. “You are, in fact, Our slave.”
Belphagor looked up, squinting with one hand above his eyes,
certain he’d misheard.
“Poor thing,” she cooed, as if he were a bird with a broken wing.
“Did you think We meant to punish you with death by remanding
you to the care of Our Seraphim?” Her eyes glinted in the fire of her
attending angels. “You insult Us to suggest We are without mercy,
even gratitude for your loyalty in returning Our property. You have
been given the great honor to serve at Our pleasure—unless you give
Us reason to change Our mind.”
Two Seraphim approached and impelled him backward through
the doorway. Belphagor nearly tripped over his own feet, stepping
into the corridor without the aid of his eyes, and stumbled into
someone behind him. Shocked silence filled the room around him, and
Belphagor turned to see the principality. Slight and fair like all of the House of Arkhangel’sk, Anazakia’s cousin stared at him as if he’d just seen a dog talking and walking upright. Belphagor was too rattled to
give the proper obeisance.
Kae stepped aside with a dramatic sweep of his arm, and gave
Belphagor a mock right to pass. “How terribly clumsy of me.” His
stare was a cold echo of his queen’s, with more than a spark of malice.
“I’m sure I shall be utterly unable to rest until I have devised a way to repay you. Do give me your name.”
Too late, Belphagor bowed low. “Belphagor of Raqia, Your
Supernal Majesty.”
“Belphagor of Raqia,” said the principality. “I shall remember
you. Count on it.”
THE FALLEN QUEEN 161
Pyatnadtsatoe: The Last Grand Duchess
from the memoirs of the Grand Duchess Anazakia
Helisonovna of the House of Arkhangel’sk
Day and night had become an insignificant distinction in the
weeks since the aurora, the sun climbing barely halfway into the sky
for a few short hours at a time. The only hours that mattered to me
were those spent in the arms of a demon.
In his bed, the frigid air of Arkhangel’sk was immaterial. The heat
of his body radiated around us, and it was almost tropical in the room we now shared. Vasily delighted in the fact that I’d taken his undershirt from him and worn nothing but that garment since we’d first come
together—when I wore anything at all. The undershirt was long on me,
and fell past my hips, but gave him instant access to my body when he
desired it. I loved waking to a sudden state of arousal, to find Vasily’s warm tongue at my breast or between my thighs.
When our growling stomachs eventually reminded us we’d
neglected our other needs, he swept me up in his arms, blankets and all, and carried me to the sitting room to wrap me up by the fire, instantly lit with his flame. He made me breakfast of steaming bowls of kasha or little fried blinchiki cakes with jam and smyetana. We called all meals breakfast, for there seemed little reason to eat other than the breaking of a long fast in which we fed our other senses.
I couldn’t dwell on what this intimacy meant. Were I still a grand
duchess of Heaven and had I still a family to honor, I might have
been mortified at my own behavior. I had allowed one of the Fallen
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to defile me, in the parlance of my upbringing. I was, as the forest syla of Novgorod had said, Fallen, after all. But in Vasily, I felt r
edemption rather than damnation.
His arms enveloped me in the comfort of family and safety I’d lost,
and he too seemed transformed in some way, lifted from the despair to
which Belphagor’s leaving had condemned him. More than once, after
we curled exhausted together or before he possessed me again, he’d
held my face in his hands and called me his angel of mercy.
In those rare times we weren’t tangled within each other’s limbs
or wrapped together in hibernal sleep, we read together beside the
fire. On one of these afternoons I found a book among the pile that
was somewhat beyond my abilities, but the title captured my attention: Anastasia, The Last Grand Duchess. Warming myself with a cup of tea, I began to read the story of the youngest daughter of the last tsar of Russia.
At first, I struggled over the words, but I was determined. Over the
next few days I discovered a history so similar to my own I couldn’t
understand how the writer had taken so many pages from my own life.
The grand duchess’ relationship with her sisters, who called themselves collectively “OTMA”—the same initials as my sisters and I—and her
closeness with her sickly younger brother Alexei were equally familiar.
I gripped my locket while I read, momentarily transported to the days
before my world was drowned in blood.
Tsar Nikolai Romanov was too tenderhearted to comprehend
the degree of unrest poisoning his empire—as my father had been.
The tsar allowed poor counsel to mislead him, unwilling to see guile
in others. His beloved empress Alexandra, clinging to any hope for
the precarious health of her son, allowed an opportunistic “holy
man” to use her influence to undermine the stability of their empire
even further. Like my mother, she chose not to see that which was
unpleasant.
The story was heartbreaking. The holy man brought the empress’
child back from death’s arms more than once, sometimes with
only a word sent from far away while she watched over the certain
deathbed of her boy, helpless to stop his cries of pain. What mother
wouldn’t believe? In a world where the belief in a god who worked in
THE FALLEN QUEEN 163
mysterious ways demanded unquestioning faith, how could she have
done anything else?
The Russian empire had fallen around them, and the Romanovs
had become the scapegoats for all its ills.
When I learned the fate of this family that so resembled my
own, I felt my cousin’s sword nestled within my ribs, and I couldn’t
breathe. I saw the imperial family putting on their coats in the middle of the night and their jailers leading them down to the basement of
the house where they were imprisoned. I saw the girls lined up beside
their father, believing they posed for a portrait, their ailing mother and brother in chairs beside them. I heard the cries and smelled the
chaotic discharge of earthly weapons as three inept assassins opened
fire upon the family and their servants.
And in my abdomen, I felt the stab of the bayonet that plunged
into the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of the House of
Romanov after a hail of bullets ricocheted from the jewels sewn into
her coat and failed to kill her.
I dropped the book and rose from my chair, and the world spun
beneath me.
“Nazkia?” Vasily spoke from a thousand miles away.
“Please,” I gasped, “I’m not dead.” The solid earth beneath my
feet gave way.
I came to myself in darkness, covered in heavy blankets. Believing
for a moment I was buried alive, I screamed.
Vasily was beside me in an instant, taking my hand. “Hush. I’m
here. You’re all right.”
“Have I died?” I whispered. “Is this hell?”
Vasily climbed into bed and gathered me in his arms, and I clung
to him, still feeling my breath trapped in my breast by that blade.
“Don’t speak that way. Of course not.” He kissed the top of my head
and spoke against my hair. “I shouldn’t have let you read that book. I didn’t know it was there. I didn’t realize… ”
I tried to stop my tears. “I don’t know who I am.”
“You are the Grand Duchess Anazakia Helisonovna of the House
of Arkhangel’sk,” he said fiercely. “You are alive, and you are here
with me.”
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“Why is she so like me?” I pleaded. “Why did my family meet the
same end?” He couldn’t answer, as I knew he couldn’t. “Belphagor
told me it was an echo.” I felt Vasily’s pulse quicken at the mention of the name. We didn’t speak of him often. “Is that all I am? An echo of
this other grand duchess?”
“You’re not an echo, Nazkia. I don’t know why your lives are so
similar, any more than I know where the Aurora Borealis comes from.
But you are unique in the universe. I promise you that. You are not
meant to meet her fate.”
“I should have died with my family.” I began to sob.
“Stop it.” Vasily kissed me roughly, as though he could take my
misery from me by force, but I could only weep against his mouth,
limp in his arms. “Must I bare your bottom?” He growled in my ear.
“Must I use the birch switch Bel left me?”
I gasped, so startled I forgot I was weeping.
Vasily’s eyes glinted with fire. “I thought that would give you
pause.” He flipped me onto my stomach and pushed the undershirt
above my breasts. His nails raked down my back and across my
buttocks, and I shivered against the sheets, my breathing shallow with apprehension. He rose from the bed, and I heard him cross to the
bureau and open a drawer. Then he was behind me, drawing the cool
switch across my skin. I flinched, waiting for the blow, but none came.
He stretched his body over me instead and wrapped me in his arms
with the switch grasped tightly in his fist. His hardness pressed between my legs. I raised my hips to accommodate him, and he entered me and
took me ferociously, his teeth nipping at my nape.
I sobbed again, but this time with relief instead of despair. Our
lights danced together, rising with our passion, and we climaxed as
one. Vasily relaxed against me afterward, holding me until we drifted
off to sleep. When I woke some hours into the night, he’d rolled onto
his side with the switch still in his hand.
I slipped out of bed and hurried to my room to pull on the clothes
I’d barely worn in weeks, making sure to grab the woolen cap. At the
front entry of the dacha I put on my boots and coat, wrapped Vasily’s
scarf around my neck, and shoved my hands into his heavy gloves. I
rarely went out and we’d never bothered to purchase a set for me.
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I stole outside and went around to the garden beneath my window.
The biting wind stung my nose and cheeks while I sat shivering on the
iron stool staring up at the stars, wishing the aurora would come again.
I couldn’t stop thinking of that other grand duchess, and somehow,
under the vast Russian sky, I felt closer to her.
“Anastasia.” My breath lingered in the air like a ghost.
I focused on the patterns of ice and frost on the leafless trees
surro
unding the dacha, on the snow weighing down the branches of
the evergreens. For a moment, the trees seemed to move, though there
was no wind. I blinked, looking harder, heedless of my breath freezing against the scarf pulled up around my face.
The rime-covered branches shifted and sparkled under the stars
as though dusted with slivers of shattered crystal. Shapes formed—
the shapes of women. I held my breath and watched the solid figures
emerge from the trees, each woman naked and pale blue with a wreath
of holly in her hair. They curtsied and gathered around me, apparently more in awe of me than I was of them.
One reached out her icy fingers and touched where the locket lay
hidden beneath my clothing. “The flower. The queen shall take the
flower of the fern.”
“You’re syla,” I breathed.
“Snegurochki syla,” she corrected.
“I don’t understand.” I’d read the tale of Snegurochka, the Snow Maiden, among the books Vasily had brought me. Snegurochka was a girl made of snow come to life, who in her eagerness to live and love
like other girls, had melted leaping over an Ivan Kupala bonfire.
“We are syla of this season,” she said. “Our sister syla you meet.
They are mavki, spirits of the summer wood. When their season
comes, we melt away and they are born. When ours comes, they fall
with leaves and we are born. We wait for queen who will return the
flower to Heaven.”
I shook my head. “To Heaven, I am a dead grand duchess. The last.
I will never be a queen.”
The syla looked at me with an expression of both kindness and
sorrow. “You dream of the dead ones of the House of Roman.”
The sharp blade pierced my heart again. The Romanovs. “Am I
166 JANE KINDRED
one of them?” I kept my voice low, afraid Vasily might hear me. “Am I
the dead grand duchess from this world?”
The syla spun into a spiral and conferred amongst each other,
becoming insubstantial wisps of snow before materializing once more.
“You are the pryazha on the spindle. We spin the threads anew with each new breath.”
“But I have not come before?” I insisted. “I am not… Anastasia?”
The syla began to weep, tears sparkling on her powder-blue cheeks.
“Not that one. Little shvibzik, she is dust and ashes.” She touched my cheek with a tremulous hand. “You remind us of our shvibzik. Four cords we spin in the world of Man, but each one is cut short. We spin