Romanov(55)

Yurovsky patted down my physical body none too kindly. First, he found the Matryoshka doll husk in my sleeve—the one I’d already used. Only a moment later, he found the rest of the doll tucked into my corset. He pulled it free, then snapped his pocket watch closed. I could do nothing but watch him steal from me.

He held the Matryoshka doll in front of him as though it were a priceless jewel. His eyes glowed with greed, his hands trembled with victory. “Clever little Nastya. You may have protected Dochkin for a little while, but now that you and your family are snuffed, you’ve been bested at your game.” He examined the shell of the ajnin spell, then shoved it into his satchel.

My fingers lifted to my ghost clothing. I still felt the doll there, tucked into my camisole. But I also saw the doll—the physical version of it—in Yurovsky’s hand. Reflected in his shining eyes. I couldn’t pull mine from my camisole. I couldn’t remove it from its spot. Who truly had it? Yurovsky or me?

He tucked the doll away. This item alone he did not place in his office or write a report on. He kept it for himself. He said something about finding Dochkin. That must be why he needed the doll. Somehow it led to the spell master. And Yurovsky would surely kill him.

Yurovsky climbed into the truck. Soldiers held the door open to the palisade and it rumbled through. Another truck with a bed of shovels and canvases and cartons of acid followed. Alexei and I climbed into the back just in time to ride after our family.

To ride after our enemy.

To ride away from our prison and into the deadly unknown.

As we passed through the gates, I caught one soldier muttering to the other, “So this is the end of the Romanov dynasty.”

Alexei and I sat like two defiant ghosts, determined to live and prove them wrong.





24


I wish we hadn’t followed.

Where did I think we would be taken? Yurovsky and the men transported our bodies not only to bury us but to destroy all evidence that we even existed. Now I knew where he went on horseback so often—to scout out a burial ground.

His choice of grave left me ill.

It was a mine shaft. Set in the muddy center of the dense Koptyaki forest. It had taken us over two hours to reach it because the trucks continued to get stuck in the mud. Yurovsky was furious. They took the bodies of my beloved family and stripped them of their clothes so as to burn them, then dumped them in the mine shaft.

Next came the acid, dumped down the shaft and sprayed all over them to destroy their names. Their legacy. There would be no royal burial. No mourning of the people still loyal to us. Perhaps the world would never even know we had died.

“I can’t watch this,” I croaked, only then realizing that we’d joined the entourage because I wasn’t yet ready to bid farewell. But what good were we doing? “We must go, Alexei.”

“What of our bodies?” Alexei stared at the men working over the mine. We heard Yurovsky shout that the mine wasn’t deep enough. That they’d need to haul the bodies back up and find a new site.

“The spell will likely wear off.” I squinted at the midnight sun now dipping back up over the horizon, even though it was not yet morning. The sickly light revealed Yurovsky’s twisted attempts to conceal evidence. “And when it does I expect we will probably return to our physical forms. Or perhaps we will die.” I shuddered at the idea of returning to my body at the bottom of that mine with the rest of my family’s corpses.

“We need to lead the White Army here. To the grave.” Alexei spun to face the forest. “Tell them what Yurovsky did, so the truth doesn’t die with us. Yurovsky is trying to keep our execution a secret—probably because it will ignite the Whites.”

“How can we do that when no one can hear or see us?”

He took my hand. “I have to try.”

I remembered when he and I sat talking about his purpose, and how helpless he felt as an ill soldier. He’d trained to be a leader but had no one to lead. Now he did. Me. He may not have a throne, but he was the rightful heir to one if it existed.

And it was my duty to support my tsarevich. To help him find the White Army. To help him survive. “Lead the way.”

We hurried into the forest back toward Ekaterinburg. Away from our family. No exhaustion came from our efforts. No resistance from the undergrowth of the forest. No splashes from the puddles of marshy floor. We ran and ran and ran, never tiring, hardly having to breathe. Despite our sobering and desperate situation, Alexei ran with a wild ferocity. This form was the healthiest he’d ever been.

“Look at my legs,” he said as he leaped over a log. “Watch this.” He attempted a terrible cartwheel. “And this!” He wove between trees like obstacles in a race.

“You are exquisite.” It was all I could offer before the terror of our impending end reclaimed my mind. I didn’t want to return to our physical bodies. I didn’t want to wake trapped in that mine or back in Yurovsky’s truck. I would rather we died. Please, Iisus, let it be death.

We had been running for well over an hour when the trees began to thin. This forest held none of the nostalgia of home. Instead of inviting me into a fresh, earthy embrace, the taiga felt more enemy than friend.

I slowed and my senses went into high alert. I threw out an arm to halt Alexei. “Listen.”

By the time we stopped and focused on the sounds of the forest, the noise I thought I’d heard had faded. I didn’t have to wait long until another sound came. A guttural groan. Human.