Romanov(85)

So then why was I the one who felt freed?

“Don’t you dare kiss when I’m in the room,” came a feeble voice.

I jerked away from Zash so forcefully we both lost our balance. But as I landed hard on my elbows, I had eyes only for Alexei. He’d hardly moved from his supine position. But his head now angled toward me and he managed a weak wink.

“Alexei!” I screeched. I bolted to his side, careful not to touch him, not wanting to interfere with the spell. The ink was nowhere to be seen. It had soaked into his body just as Dochkin had said. “You’re alive! You’re alive!”

“Well, you did tell him to hang on.” Zash grinned, coming up beside me.

Alexei frowned at me. “Someone hit you in the face. You look like a plum.”

“I won’t even tell you what you look like.”

His gaze moved to Dochkin’s body on the floor. “Is he . . . ?”

I knelt beside Dochkin. “I did what I could.” I placed a hand on his chest but felt no movement. The slice in his neck had sealed. “I think he’s gone.”

“Wait.” Zash joined me and held Yurovsky’s blade under Dochkin’s nose.

“What are you—?” A tiny cloud fogged the knife blade. I gasped. “Is that . . . breath?” The cloud came again. Another breath. “He’s alive!”

“Why is it taking him so long to wake?” Alexei asked.

I racked my brain for my meager knowledge of spell mastery. “Likely because he was so close to death, he’s old, and I used only a tiny splash of your healing spell on him. Let’s be careful not to move him.”

The swelling in Alexei’s head had mostly gone. All his wounds were closed. “How are you feeling?”

“Better by the minute. Weak, though.”

“You’re prolonging the inevitable,” Yurovsky rasped through swollen and cracked lips from his spot on the floor.

Zash recoiled, despite Yurovsky’s bonds. Even I backed up a step, Yurovsky’s voice as threatening as his fists or blade or bullets had been.

“Well, let’s all wake up at the same time, shall we?” Alexei said.

“He’s been sickly his whole life—never able to rule.” Yurovsky wouldn’t even address Alexei as his own person.

“I don’t need to rule,” Alexei retorted. “That is not my future. I’m not trying to get the throne back—I listen to the demands of my people, even if they demand my disappearance.”

“They demanded your death.”

“No, that was you,” Alexei said calmly. “You received an order to disobey the laws of our Russia. No trial. No proper burial. You slaughtered the royal family and tried to defile our stories.”

“Your story is ended, little tsar. What future can you have without your family? Without your papa to carry you around?”

“Can someone please gag him?” Alexei asked.

I threw a spare blanket onto Yurovsky’s head and enjoyed watching him writhe with bound hands and legs to get out from under the itchy material. None of us were willing to go close enough to gag him.

Dochkin’s breaths grew stronger. His chest visibly rose and fell now. My risk taking had worked. When, finally, his eyes opened, they crinkled into a frown. “Wasn’t I supposed to die?”

“Something you should learn about us Romanovs is that we like to defy supposed tos.”

“Indeed.” He struggled to sit up and Zash helped prop him against the bed frame. “Well done, Grand Duchess.”

“Thank you,” I whispered. “But there is one last thing I must do.” I pulled the memory spell from my dress pocket and unstoppered it. My breath quickened.

“What’s that?” Alexei asked.

“This spell . . . Dochkin made for me.”

Zash watched the unstoppered spell tremble in my hands. “Please don’t do this,” he said softly. “Let me help you heal. Let me help you understand. We can heal together.”

Yurovsky had escaped the smothering blanket and squinted at me through the dried blood with his good eye. “With every spell you use, you condemn yourself further. The Red Army will find you all and finish the job.”

“Isn’t it interesting how the Red Army focuses all their efforts on murdering the noncompliant rather than actually serving the people?” Dochkin mused.

“Dochkin, you are to hand yourself in to the Soviets.”

“You have no way to take me in, little Bolshevik,” Dochkin said, not even giving him a glance. “And your slice with that knife proved the Soviet has no interest in negotiation.”

“If I die, you will be hunted!” Yurovsky shrieked.

“I’ve been hunted my whole life.”

Yurovsky’s and Dochkin’s voices passed through my consciousness like a distant echo. I stared at the memory spell. It flickered. Flowed. Called my name. Romanov. Romanov. Romanov.

It wanted to serve me. I gripped the vial with resolve.

“Nastya, what are you doing?” Alexei asked quietly.

Zash reached for the spell. “Wait. Please.”

I yanked it back. My throat burned. My eyes stung. The spell gurgled and climbed its way toward the opening, as though sensing I was ready. “None of us deserves to live with the pain and grief that is now woven in our stories.”