Romanov(83)

Lastly, I applied one to myself.

The slices on my palms stung as they sealed but didn’t fully heal. Other parts of my body—my neck, my ribs, my feet, my face—snapped in protest too. Once I finished, I returned to Alexei. No visible change. The spell ink hadn’t even sunk into his body. It floated among his blood like a film of oil.

I slid to my knees and moved to take his hand but then remembered that Dochkin said not to disturb his body. So I pressed my forehead to the bedcover beside him and closed my eyes. “Please, oh please. Don’t leave me.”

Scuffles of cloth on wood came from behind me. I spun and scrabbled for where I’d left the dagger. But the movement wasn’t from Yurovsky. It was Zash, climbing gingerly to his feet.

I was no longer alone.

And I was no longer strong.

He took one look at me, his eyes shining, and opened his arms wide. “You did it.”

I stumbled into his embrace and pressed into the tight safety that came from his presence. The tears came and I tried to muffle them against his coat. He didn’t ask me what was wrong. He didn’t ask if I was okay.

“I d-didn’t. Zash, I . . . I failed.”

“No,” he said forcefully. “No, you didn’t. You are alive. I am alive. Yurovsky is dead. That’s because of you.”

I shook my head. “He’s not dead.” I wished he was. With all the blood gushing from his eye wound, he should be dead.

Zash held me at arm’s length. “I should tie him up, then. We don’t want him waking.” I shuddered and let him bend over Yurovsky’s body. He loosed his belt and wound it around Yurovsky’s ankles.

“I think . . . I think Alexei’s gone,” I said.

Zash’s hands stilled, but he didn’t look up. Not at me. Not at Alexei. “Don’t give up hope yet, Nastya.”

Words. Just words. There was no reason—no extra knowledge—behind his assurance. Empty soothing.

The grief in my heart welled as it did moments after my family’s execution. The double feeling of being hollowed out and refilled with all things shadow and darkness. The pressure climbed from my midsection to my lungs. Up my throat and demanded release. I didn’t have the strength to swallow it. An aching groan tore from me and I doubled over.

I couldn’t handle this. I couldn’t live with this.

I needed to pour my sorrow somewhere else—into another vessel. My tight gaze found Yurovsky’s body. And I released my sorrow into a vessel of fury. He hadn’t killed me, but he’d still won. I wanted Yurovsky dead. I wanted him to bleed out and decay under the open sky where vultures could turn up their beaks at the disgusting meal he would make.

“We need to kill him,” I growled.

Zash faltered in his tying.

I didn’t care if he disapproved. “He’ll wake soon and might escape his bonds—”

“Not likely.”

“Even if he doesn’t, what will we do with him? Take him with us?” I talked as if we had a future. As if Zash and I would walk away from here and start a new life. But my mind had drifted through the window and started searching the bushes for the memory spell that Dochkin had made me. That was my end. That was my future. “We can’t let him continue hunting spell masters.”

“I agree.”

I strode across the room and pulled Dochkin’s pistol from the cupboard. Once back over Yurovsky’s body, I slipped a bullet from the strap on Yurovsky’s belt, loaded it, and aimed toward his head. My heart pounded with the anticipated relief the gunshot would bring.

Nastya. Papa’s voice echoed in my mind, and I remembered how he abandoned the Ipatiev House rescue plan because he refused to risk the lives of any of the soldiers. Any of our enemies.

But this was Yurovsky. This was a leader. He murdered spell masters. Zash’s grandmother. He murdered my family. And yet . . . Papa would tell me to forgive him. Even my own words from a lifetime ago echoed in my head. “I am a Romanov, and I will value life.”

I clenched the pistol, my finger tightening around the trigger—half wishing I would accidentally pull it and blow him to pieces.

“Nastya.” Zash placed his hand on my arm and pushed until I lowered the gun. “Let me do it.” His own hands trembled as he took the pistol from me. He held it in his lap for a long moment. “Perhaps you should go outside.”

And there was my release. My opportunity to go find my spell—my freedom. To let someone else do the dirty work.

I wanted to see if the blank spell had broken. I wanted to hold that opportunity in my hands. It was Dochkin’s gift to me. Everything would be erased the moment I used it. I would be pain-free.

I nodded and moved toward the door, but not before Zash said quietly, “Come back to me.”

He knew I was going to search for the spell. I couldn’t bring myself to respond. The door creaked on its hinges as I shut it behind me.





38


Resting in a bed of grass beneath the sill of the open window lay the vial. Whole. Shining. Beautiful and full of promises.

I scooped it up and relief mixed with the sorrow swirling in my heart. Straightening, I took in the garden. The sun hung in the sky like a newly blossomed daffodil. My surroundings were like stepping back home. Back into Papa’s arms. A small trimmed lawn of flowers and a creek bed lined with stones. Around all of this—forest. But not the brown taiga forest we’d been traveling through the past three days. No, this forest glistened under the sun, reaching for the sky and embracing it the way I wished I could.