32. Konstantin
32
KONSTANTIN
I lya is bloodless as he walks me through the explosion that killed Yuri’s half-blood fiancée and injured my governor.
“Start from the beginning,” I say, as he paces the length of my private office.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
“While we were on the train, I remembered that Volkov had stormed the castle after Atsa turned down his bid for the wagons’ manufacturing contract. So I decided to pay Volkov & Sons a visit, just to see if I could learn anything, but Tiana insisted that the prince showing up on the carpenters’ doorstep would spook them. She offered to go with Yuri instead.” My brother regards his shuffling feet. “So they went, just the two of them, while I stayed behind in the tavern across the street. The next thing I know?—”
He begins to tremble.
“—there’s this horrible boom, and then the windows of the tavern blow, and I’m tossed to the floor along with the rest of the diners. When I get up, the road is full of black smoke and charred corpses. There were children and—” He shudders. “And overturned sleighs. And…”
He shuts his eyes and breathes in deep.
“I tried to put out the flames with my magic, but I didn’t have enough water, and the fire…it…it wouldn’t stop catching, Kostya. By the time I found Yuri and Tiana, she?—”
When his voice breaks, I drag him into a hug and hold him.
“Yuri’s burns are so bad that I can see his bones. His fucking bones ,” he croaks.
“Is he alive?”
“Yes, but he’s unconscious. They rigged the place, and not just with regular explosives. There was iron. I could smell it. I could feel it on my skin. I can still fucking feel it on my skin.” The strangled sob he muffles against my shoulder wrecks my godsdamn heart.
I hold Ilya tighter, hating how selfishly glad I am that he’s unscathed. “What of the Volkovs?”
He gulps in air, sniffles, then extracts himself from my embrace. “They’re on vacation. Left West Sheva last week. All of them, with their respective families.”
Convenient. “Do any of the villagers know where they were headed?”
“No. Apparently, they just vanished in the middle of the night along with their sleighs.”
I give his shoulders a squeeze. “We’ll find them. We’ll find them, and we will make them pay.”
Ilya wipes his damp cheeks. “That won’t bring Tiana back.”
He’s right. It won’t.
“I was going to be best man at their wedding next month.” He grips the bridge of his nose and then he’s shouting a long string of fucks and dancing away from me to punch my walls until his knuckles split. “I get to kill them. Promise me, Kostya. Promise me that I get to kill every last one of those sons of bitches.”
“You get to kill them.”
“Fucking monsters.” He wipes his hand on his trousers, smearing the cool-gray wool with ruby tracks.
“Can you find out if Alyona ever traveled to West Sheva in the months prior to her death, or if one of them took a trip to Voshna to visit Svyato?”
“Why? Do you think their act of terror is delayed vengeance?”
I hesitate to tell my brother what I think, since an explanation will require a revelation. He’s in no state to contend with the news that he’s an uncle.
“Can you just find someone who’d know, Ilyusha?”
He nods, while I ponder the possibility that Mestyla might be the daughter of one of Volkov’s sons. Then again, they’re all half-bloods and my niece has peaked ears.
Who did you screw, sister?
I think of what my brother said about the sleighs being laden with luggage. What if it isn’t luggage but more explosives? What if they plan to terrorize more cities and blow up more train tracks on their way to the capital, since I imagine this is their destination. Especially if Mestyla has somehow breached my city walls.
“Have Aodhan and Imogen canvas Garaglace,” I tell him. “And have Salom alert the railway troops. I want the entire kingdom on high alert.”
“Eighty percent of Glace is mountains. Canvasing Garaglace will take weeks.”
“If we’re searching for a delegation of sleighs, they should be easy enough to spot from the air.”
“What if they’ve split up?”
“Lone sleighs are still noticeable against the snow, Ilya.”
My brother scrutinizes the framed map of Glace.
“Ask Aodhan to speak with Lorcan and see if he can dispatch more Crows up north. Even one extra set of wings would be a boon.”
Ilya nods, still studying the map as though willing it to light up with dots to pinpoint the Volkovs’ location.
“Now go find Salom and Aodhan and fill them in.”
Ilya yanks open the door to find my general looming on the threshold.
“I was just about to knock,” Salom says, arms at his sides.
Was he, or was he eavesdropping?
“I heard about what happened up north.” His lips scrunch. “I’m afraid I have more bad news for you, Kostya.”
After he delivers it and leaves with my brother, I sit at my desk and toy with my crown for a long, long while, spinning it over and over until the stones smudge into a long streak of icy-azure. I realize I promised Isla not to keep secrets from her, but I don’t want to tell her any of this.
Tiana, because of how well the two had gotten along.
Ksenia, because of how inept her disappearance will make me look.
I spend the next half-hour poring over correspondence I’ve been putting off, most of it thank you notes from Jubilee attendees to accompany the lavish gifts I tasked Izolda with sorting through. The celebration for my reign feels like it took place eons ago.
I pop open yet another wax seal, this one unadorned with a crest, then skip over the paragraphs of heavily-slanted scrawl to the signature: a concerned and loyal subject. I’m about to toss it aside, especially after catching Salom’s name near the bottom of what I imagine will be a complaint, when another proper noun sears my cornea.
Your Highness,
I hope this letter finds you well. Felicitations on your upcoming Jubilee. I am sure it will be a party to remember.
I will start by asking that you do not try and find out who I am, for my identity isn’t essential. What is essential is the safety of a girl very dear to my heart.
Though I have the means to take care of her, her father has forbidden me from making contact and intervening in their lives because of our diverging views on the world. He worries I will indoctrinate his child yet allows scoundrels with no morals near her.
The girl I write to you about is young and bright, and deserves a future not steeped in militancy.
You must be wondering: why is this person writing to me? You will understand upon laying eyes on the child.
You’ll find her in a Voshnan Tavern by the name of the Oloho Samov.
My heart stops. Starts. Stops. Its rhythm grows so erratic that even massaging my breastbone doesn’t assuage its tempo.
If you decide to meet her, please do not send General Melchanko to collect her. And please do not breathe a word of this letter to anyone, or my days will be numbered.
Respectfully yours,
A concerned and loyal subject.
I look at the date—three days before the Jubilee—and then I reread the letter from top to bottom, trying to glean which “concerned and loyal subject” could’ve sent such a missive. From the person’s mastery of Glacin grammar and the comment about having means, I suspect it must be a wealthy, educated Faerie, possibly a pure-blood. One who dares venture into the human district, so almost certainly a man.
Unless Svyato went to him ? Innkeepers need supplies. Perhaps they met at the market?
Young and bright. Deserves a future not steeped in militancy.
Does my anonymous correspondent mean that the girl has already been indoctrinated?
I know the person has urged me not to search for them, but this was before Svyato died and Mestyla went missing. What if my niece is with them now?
I sit at my desk, creasing the sheet of vellum. If only I’d seen it before the carnival, before Salom charged into town, before Svyato was found dead and Mestyla vanished and Tiana walked into Volkov & Sons .
The harsh slant of the person’s penmanship taunts me, for I think I’ve already seen it. But where?
Who are you?
With a frustrated sigh, I stash the letter inside my desk drawer and stand, then head toward the secret passageway just as Isla bursts through it, all rosy-cheeks and windswept hair. If I weren’t so certain of her affection for me, I’d worry her color had been acquired from a tumble between the sheets.
“I had to use a sigil to penetrate into the vestibule,” she says.
“I feared as much.”
“I’m glad. It means your quarters are still secure. How’s Ilya?”
“Vengeful.” I curl my arms around her, towing her into my body, and glut myself on the scent of frost and fresh pine that clings to her skin after all her flights. “There was another terror attack. One he witnessed.”
She jerks back. “Holy shit, Konstantin. Is he hurt?”
“No. Just shaken.”
She scrutinizes my face like my brother scrutinized the map earlier.
I palm her cheek that is cold to the touch. “Now might be a good time to get out of Glace and visit your family.”
She snorts. “Mestyla’s on the loose.”
So is my sister… “True, but the kingdom is under such high alert, she wouldn’t try anything. And even if she did, I have this extremely practical piece of jewelry.”
“Yes, but Izolda doesn’t.”
“Izolda has Aodhan.”
“What about Ilya? Who does he have?”
“Imogen and Vance. Your father suggested they remain in Glace.”
“You’ve spoken with my father?”
“Through Imogen last night. He’s very excited to see you, but no one more than your mother.”
Isla lowers her lashes and slides her lips.
“Go celebrate your birthday with them.”
Her lids flick up, and then her spine bows. “How did you know that my birthday was coming up?”
“I sent your parents a gift the day you were born.” I swallow. “Little did I know they’d send me one back twenty-five years later.”
She ties her arms around my neck, craning her neck some more. “You think I’m a gift?”
“Depends on the day, but generally, yes.”
She laughs.
I lower my head until our foreheads meet. “You’re the most precious gift I’ve ever had the pleasure of unwrapping.”
“Admit it. You secretly meet with Izolda’s favorite author—the Countess of Smut—and feed her the lines spoken by her male heroes.”
“You got me.” Her jest causes my mind to stir as she kisses me.
I feel like I’m missing something.
Something important.
I mentally pull at strings, which fray when her fingers journey south and grip me through my pants. As she transforms flesh to stone with the steady roll of her palm, she extinguishes what little is left of my cognitive ability.
All the more reason she must depart, but, Gods, how will I survive without her? I’m about to rescind my suggestion that she leave when my brain whirs back to life, drifting over Glace’s many tribulations. I need to put order in my kingdom before it collapses over me and my legacy.
Isla may not hunger for a crown or a new empire, but if I lost both, what would be left of me to admire?
To desire?
To love?
***
When she leaves the following morning with Lachlano, after making me swear to keep my necklace on at all times, I tell myself it’s for the best. Yet as the hours stretch on, her absence presses in on me, wrapping around my rib cage like expanding ice.
That very night, I board my train with Izolda and Aodhan. We travel to West Sheva to join our brother and to visit Yuri, who’s yet to wake, as well as each and every shaken townsfolk to reassure them that punishment will be meted out.
Colm and Fionn—the mated pair Lorcan sent over—join us on the ride home with a report that no sleighs, sleigh tracks, or pale-haired females have been spotted, but that Crows are flying over Garaglace and Voshna day and night.
The return trip is a whirlwind. Too soon, I’m back in my empty castle.
By day five of Isla’s absence, I prowl her bedchamber like some loon. I even visit her closet, hoping for a whiff of her fragrance, but her clothes either smell laundered or new. I sink my hands into my hair and drop onto the upholstered pouf in her walk-in closet. I must be going mad, because I hear faint voices.
I need sleep.
I need her .
I jerk upward and head back toward my room. After eyeing my unappealingly lonesome bed, I arrow out of my quarters and toward my brother’s. I don’t even know what time of day it is when I trounce his door with my fists. All I know is that I desperately need an activity to channel my frustration.
Ilya isn’t alone, though. However, one look at my bedraggled mien has him buttoning up his shirt and instructing his bedmate to let themselves out. Without asking what ails me—surely because he knows—he accompanies me to the underground training room where Salom taught me how to wield my first sword, and where I taught Ilya.
Tonight, we spar with bronze blades instead of wood.
Tonight, I don’t go easy on him. Neither does he.
We duel until we’re both drenched in sweat.
As we chug down tall glasses of water ferried over by one of the palace guards, Ilya sends a burst of magic into my face, startling me. His devious smile makes me respond in kind—naturally.
“She’s coming back,” he says, after we’ve respectively splashed and blasted each other a few more times.
I sweep my hand over my forehead, springing my watered-down sweat onto the mats. “Of course, she’s coming back.”
What if she doesn’t, though?
What if the prophecy has changed, and the Cauldron now sees her finger bare of my ring?
He grips both my shoulders like I gripped his the day he told me Tiana was gone. “She’s your mate, Kostya. Mates cannot live apart.”
Guilt suffocates me. I order the guards to leave the room, and then I confess that Isla isn’t my mate. Though Ilya’s hurt at first, his indignance veers to anger when I offload more secrets. Anger toward Alyona, Svyato, and Ksenia.
He begins to pace. “Do you think our runaway sister knows about Mestyla?”
“Probably.”
He jams his fingers into fists.
“Ilyusha, Isla doesn’t know that Ksenia vanished, that Tiana is dead, or that the Volkovs are involved. Please don’t…don’t tell her when she comes back. If she comes back.”
He purses his lips, then walks up to me and cuffs my shoulder.
“What was that for?”
“For being so dense, Kostya. And secretive. But mostly dense. That girl’s coming back. She’s mad about you.” Under his breath, he adds, “Gods only know why.”
I crack a small smile, the first since she left me.
Ilya drops onto the bench. “It’s a boon that you’re not mates. If you were…” His brow suddenly furrows. And then he’s emitting a hypothesis that sends my mind into a tailspin for days.
I lapse into a state of such frenzy that I bark at everyone I cross paths with, resort to moistening my throat with as much vodka as water, forgo meals, and spar with any willing partner until bloodshed.
I become a geyser about to blow.
A pitiless beast.
A moping shadow.
I’m so unwell that Ilya suggests I head to Luce with Izolda. But to head there and arrive in time for Isla’s birthday celebration, I’d need to be flown.
And to be flown, the necklace needs to come off.
I wrestle with the decision to remove it. In the end, I leave it be, and not because of concern for my survival or because of the promise I made Isla, but because I fear Ilya is wrong.
I’m not ready to find out whether my talisman is muting a mating bond.
Not yet.