Tsarina Read online

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  ISBN: 978-1-101-61529-4

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  SAINT PETERSBURG

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MOSCOW

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE SACRISTY

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  THE SANCTUARY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  EPILOGUE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  For Nelson,

  who knows all the history

  CHAPTER ONE

  The rioters at the gates were loud, but no match for the music inside the Winter Palace.

  The musicians played a mazurka, a bright, full number, while couples danced along in the grand ballroom. It wasn’t my favorite dance—too much hopping—but at least a waltz would come next. I positioned myself by the wall in the meantime, spying on the dancers, taking note of who was paired with whom, who was wearing the most expensive dress, and who looked weary of her partner.

  It was hard to be critical, truth be told—everyone looked beautiful here, especially since the room itself leant a refined elegance to even the most homely of courtiers. The ceiling stretched out high above us, painted ivory and accented in a rich, dark gold that extended down to arched porticos. A glittering railing lined the upper story, set at the same level as the chandeliers, which were intricate and heavy-looking, like the sheer power of the palace held them aloft. Surrounding the room were gilded pillars, broken apart by windows that revealed an inky black world outside, given the late hour.

  I looked up as the mazurka ended, and tried to find his eyes in preparation for the waltz. He didn’t need to ask—I knew we would dance it together. It wasn’t appropriate, exactly, for us to gravitate to each other time and time again, but it was something our parents and the rest of court had long accepted. Natalya and Alexei will dance together. Which, we all knew, really meant: Natalya and Alexei will end up together.

  Where is he? I smoothed my dress. It was a beautiful gown, dark violet and made by Madame Olga’s studio, but it was immensely heavy. I suspected this was because of the thick embroidery that ran along the sleeves and skirts, a rocaille pattern of flowers and leaves. I was grateful to be going on seventeen, finally allowed to wear my hair up. When I was younger and wore it down my back, it combined with my velvet gowns to make me feel faint from heat.

  My eyes wandered, waiting, wanting—there he is. Alexei’s gaze found mine, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. The musicians started up—the waltz—but Alexei nodded his head at a corner of the room. I lifted an eyebrow, watched him nod curtly at a few men in military garb, then casually walk away from his family and into the crowd. I followed suit, heading to the corner he indicated. It took ages to get there—every few steps I was forced to stop, smile, curtsey, prattle on in French. All the nobles spoke it, though I personally saw nothing wrong with Russian. Finally, I dipped behind one of the massive pillars and began to move nonchalantly back toward the corner. A hand suddenly slid into mine; I jumped and spun around.

  “You startled me,” I scolded Alexei.

  “You ran into me,” he countered, grinning. He glanced down at our hands, then over his shoulder to be certain no one was watching us—namely, his guards, two sailors from the Imperial Navy. They had to at least put on the appearance of stopping Alexei from misbehaving, though they had a decent sense of humor where I was concerned. They knew I loved him and was ever-mindful of his condition. How he would bleed forever if he got the slightest nick, how a substantial bruise meant he’d be bedridden for weeks. For the past year, however, he’d done markedly better—though I still cringed when I saw him knock a table or miss the bottom stair.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him suspiciously as he drew me farther into the corner of the ballroom.

  “Oh, Natashenka. Don’t you trust me?” he said, using my baby name. His eyes were gleaming, bright blue, and his bone structure was fine and delicate, almost like a girl’s. His lips, however, were shaped like his father’s, and the way he held his shoulders was decidedly masculine. There was something elegant about the contradiction, something that mesmerized me. Perhaps that’s why I was so easily convinced to follow him along the edge of the room, toward the door servants were buzzing around. I cast a look back at the ballroom, at the jewel-lined skirts swirling around the dance floor before we slipped out into a hallway.

  Alexei and I rushed along, past servants who regarded him with fond exasperation. At his request, they no longer bowed, and at his demand, they never tattled on his escapades. We cut through the rotunda and then out to the tsarina’s garden. The palace soared above us, moonlight illuminating muted red walls and shining the way along the limestone path. Night air bit at my neck, my wrists, each bit of exposed skin in a way that felt delicious after the ballroom’s monstrous heat.

  When we arrived at the doors on the opposite corner, I thought for a moment we were headed toward Alexei’s apartments, a prospect too scandalous even for me. But no, we wound down halls until we arrived at a door I’d never ventured behind—the door into the tsar’s own salon. Alexei turned to me, his long lashes silhouetted on his cheeks in the dim light.

  “You’ve seen some of the Easter presents my father commissions for my mother?” he asked, voice hushed to match the stillness of the hall.

  “The eggs,” I said, nodding. “The ones the House of Fabergé makes.”

  “Yes,” Alexei said. “Well, there’s a special one. One you haven’t seen before.” Alexei rarely dabbled in secrets, and yet his voice was full of them; it threw me, left me at a loss for words. Alexei was likewise silent for a long time, like he was waiting for something.

  “Well, are you going to show me?” I relented, and he laughed—loud, so that the sound bounced up to the high ceiling.

  “Of course,” he said, and push
ed open the salon door.

  The tsar’s salon had massive windows that faced the palace’s side gates; without the music and revelry from the ball, the roar of the rioters easily reached our ears. This particular room was oddly cheery in comparison; the walls were papered in a buttery yellow damask pattern and the floors covered in garnet and emerald rugs. The ceiling was painted with sky blue murals, and chairs upholstered in silk lined the far wall.

  I glared out the window at the rioters and followed Alexei to the far side of the room, where a set of bookshelves rose to the ceiling, their shelves thick with heavy ancient tomes. Alexei reached forward and placed his hand on the spine of Pushkin’s verse novel, Eugene Onegin—not one of my favorites. I lifted an eyebrow, wondered how a Fabergé egg was going to fit into this escapade.

  Alexei froze suddenly, glanced over his shoulder at me.

  “Natalya,” he said, voice gentle. “You and I . . . we’re . . . it’s us, isn’t it?”

  This was the game Alexei and I played, the dance we spun through almost every time we were together. Each of us prancing around the words “I love you,” afraid to say them aloud, afraid to admit our future plans always involved each other. It wasn’t appropriate—after all, there was always the possibility the tsar might want Alexei to marry some foreign princess. Tsar Nicholas, however, was more progressive than the Reds thought—his children would be allowed to marry whoever they wanted, and thus, one day Alexei would marry me.

  “It’s us,” I whispered. “It’s always us.” This exchange was the closest we’d ever come to something involving the word “love.”

  Alexei smiled, inhaled, and pulled the Pushkin book toward him. It tilted slightly, but instead of falling off into his hands like an obedient book, it pulled back, more like a lever. I saw why almost immediately—it was a handle, a contraption that turned the entire bookcase into a door. It creaked out, opening for us, revealing a hidden room.

  “Surprised?” Alexei teased, and I realized my jaw was hanging open. I snapped it shut, smiled at him, then followed him into the secret chamber.

  It was small—barely larger than a closet. Tapestries bearing the Romanov double eagle hung on the walls, along with oil paintings of the royal family. The carpet was thick and burgundy, and on the far side—only a few steps from the secret door—was a dark credenza. Centered on its surface, on a white silk cloth, was a Fabergé egg. I inhaled, my breath slow and drawn.

  It was not the tiny sort of Fabergé egg that the other nobles and I wore on necklaces; like the other Romanov eggs, it was the size of my hand. The egg itself was made of cobalt glass in a shade of blue that reminded me of Alexei’s eyes. It rested atop a pillar of white stone, carved to look like a throne of clouds. Throughout the blue glass were diamonds, bright and shining, some with lines etched around them to make the gems look like stars and the egg itself a night sky.

  “It’s called the Constellation Egg,” Alexei explained. “See these stars at the top? Fabergé etched a lion there, because of when I was born.”

  “It’s beautiful. I’ve never been so close to one like this before,” I said softly. Everything about the egg gleamed and made the rest of the already ornate room look bedraggled in comparison. “What’s the surprise?” I asked. It was well known—each egg contained a surprise inside. A jade rabbit, a miniature screen with portraits of the Russian palaces, a gold statue of Peter the Great on a sapphire platform. . . .

  “The egg is the surprise,” Alexei said. I rose, looked at him curiously. He pressed his lips together, then met my eyes. Alexei’s eyes were a thing of wonder—they were like his mother’s, the color of skies and oceans, a color that seemed to go on and on forever. He trapped me in them easily, held my gaze, then walked to his father’s desk and lifted a letter opener. “Don’t be scared,” he said gently, holding it firmly in one hand.

  “Of what—”

  Before I could finish my question, Alexei yanked the sharp end of the opener across his palm. I screamed, loud, shrill, dashed to him—he’d lost his mind, clearly. Alexei couldn’t bleed; he would die—he would die right here in my arms. He stood still as I grappled for his hand, heart pounding, pressed the spot on his palm. I pulled on him, he had to get out, we had to find the doctor. I could stop the blood flow for a few minutes, but I didn’t dare try to stitch him up myself—

  “Natalya!” Alexei said, voice loud but calm. “Natalya, stop! Look.” He pulled on my arm and the motion forced me to release his palm; when I grabbed for it again, he caught both of my wrists, held me—he was stronger than he appeared. “Look,” he repeated. He slowly opened his hand, the one he cut, palm facing me.

  There was nothing. A small line of blood, which was quickly fading. Beneath the red, his skin glowed like a thousand tiny stars were in his veins. The glow brightened, then burned out, leaving me blinking, unsure if it had really been there to begin with. I stared, furrowed my brow. Alexei’s palm was fine, his skin unbroken. My lips parted.

  “I saw you,” I stammered, shaking my head. “I saw you cut yourself. There’s blood—”

  “I’m sorry,” Alexei said, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket. He ran it over my fingers. I stared as he did it, watching blood stain the white fabric. “Natalya?” Alexei said my name again. I finally found his eyes. “I’m fine. I wanted to show you. You’d never have believed me otherwise.”

  “You wanted to show me?” I asked shrilly, pushing him backward. “You nearly scared me to death.” There were tears on my cheeks, the sort not from sorrow but too much emotion bubbling up, and my heart was still racing. It was only as it slowed, as I looked between Alexei’s bloodied handkerchief to his unbroken skin and back again, that I realized what he meant—what he wanted to show me. “How did you do that?” I asked, voice rocky, doubtful.

  Alexei smiled, reached down and took my hand, folding his fingers gently around mine. I could tell he had practiced this moment for a long time. “The egg, Natashenka. It wasn’t me, it was the Constellation Egg.” He inhaled, continued in a hushed way. “Before Father Grigori was killed, he made the egg for my mother. It contains his power. It contains his love. His protection.”

  As usual, Alexei spoke of Father Grigori with kindness in his eyes. I suppose it only made sense—the man did, after all, save Alexei’s life dozens of times. When Alexei would bang into a table or nick his finger, he would bleed and bleed, fall to bed and knock on death’s door—they even prepared his death certificate once, he told me. Father Grigori—Rasputin, as everyone else called him—changed that with his strange powers, a mysticism that came with old-world charms and words uttered in a whisper. Yet I still found him unsettling: his stare, his voice, the way he spoke in riddles and thought in circles. He strode around the palace and showed up at parties like we were all his dear friends, but . . . I was afraid of him, and privately did not mourn his death at all.

  “I still don’t understand what you mean,” I said, pulling my hand from his. I placed my fingertips on the credenza and leaned down over the egg.

  “Father Grigori was a powerful mystic,” Alexei said. “He knew many at court were displeased with him and his friendship with my family. And he knew the Reds were growing louder, stronger. So he created the Constellation Egg, poured the power of the mystics into it. It keeps us safe, healthy, alive. It ties us to the land, the animals, the air, to Russia. It keeps the Reds at bay and our world safe and lifts my father’s crown ever higher.”

  He exhaled, the breath shaky, like he was nervous and excited at once. I blinked, shook my head. “And . . . it heals you?”

  Alexei nodded, grinning. He knew that for me, this was the most important bit of the egg’s power.

  “So . . . that’s why you haven’t been sick recently. It’s why the tsar and tsarina have let you dance with me, it’s why they’ve let you ride the horses—”

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s why animals eat out of Tatiana’s hand, why An
astasia can make a vase of dying flowers bloom again. It’s why my father can wish for snow and it begins to fall. It’s why Russia is ours, forever Romanov.”

  I swallowed, expected him to laugh, to smile, but his eyes were hushed just like his voice. “But . . .” A seed of doubt sprung up in my mind and grew quickly. “Father Grigori was murdered. How can his magic protect you if it couldn’t even protect him?”

  Now Alexei’s face hardened. We rarely spoke of Father Grigori’s murder, the details of which were still shady—specifically, who was responsible. Everyone knew it was noblemen who killed him, but no one was willing to point fingers because, save for the Romanovs themselves, everyone was happier with him gone. Alexei looked at the egg, swallowed.

  “They poisoned him. Then they shot him, stabbed him, and drowned him. He was very hard to kill. I suppose even the mystics’ powers can’t stop that level of intent.”

  “But,” I said, eager to turn the conversation back now that I had my answer, “it’s enough to keep you well. The bleeding—”

  “I rarely bleed anymore,” Alexei said.

  “And your mother, your sisters—”

  “It heals them too. The one the tsar loves and his heirs, inherited just like a crown,” Alexei said. “No matter where we are, no matter what we’re doing, it heals us, the same way Father Grigori healed me.” He paused, blushed pale pink. “And one day you, it will work for you, Natalya. You’ll be tsarina, and the egg will be ours. Russia will be ours.”

  Now it was my turn to blush, but I couldn’t stop a grin from spreading across my face. I opened my mouth, but before I could speak, a bright crash rang out from outside the palace. Alexei frowned, and together we turned from the egg and hurried out through the bookcase door to the window. Across the lawn, an automobile passed through the palace’s iron gates, inching into the mob that stood just beyond them. The mob jeered at the automobile and began a chant with the rhythm of a spell. Land, peace, bread! Land, peace, bread!