41. Konstantin
41
KONSTANTIN
M y arms stiffen around Isla. Am I hearing voices again?
“Brother?” Ksenia’s voice goes from croak to howl. “Kostya!”
Before I can break Isla’s delicate bones, I set her down and pull on my slacks and shirt.
My sister, who has been hiding from me for weeks, who has encouraged rebellions against me, is standing right outside Isla’s door. Could this be some trap? Has she littered the hallway with the corpses of my guards and is waiting for me with an army of her own?
“Unhand me,” I hear Ksenia snarl. “Do not touch me.”
My guards mustn’t be dead.
I start toward the door but halt and travel to Isla’s closet instead, returning with the first thing I find—a long black slip. She raises her arms, and I pour the sheath over her. Once she’s clothed, I head to the door, adrenaline flooding my system. As I reach for the handle, I catch Isla ambling my way, fingers toying with her spiky earring, readying herself to bloodcast.
“Don’t cross the threshold,” she murmurs to me.
I jerk my head in a nod, then draw the door wide, torn between relief at the sight of my breathing guards restraining my sister with vines, and horror at the sight of her.
“Kostya!” Ksenia’s chest rises and falls in frantic bursts. “T-Tell them t-t-to unhand me.”
Every hair on my body stands on end as I take in her slashed eyebrow that dribbles blood down her freckled cheek and onto the fur collar of her cream cloak, which is dappled in more sanguine splatter. “What happened to you?”
“I go-got into a f-fight.” The whites of her eyes are so pink they give her irises a ghoulish tint. “With our niece.”
My ears start to hum. “Our niece?”
“Mes-Mestyla. The g-g-girl you’ve b-been?—”
“We know who Mestyla is,” I snap.
Isla’s violet eyes press against my ticking cheek.
“She attacked me,” Ksenia whimpers. “Please tell the guards to loo-loosen their restraints. At least, the ones around m-my”—she grimaces—“chest.”
“Keep her wrists bound behind her back.”
When the three vines around her chest vanish, she expels a sigh of relief. “Thank y?—”
“Where is Mestyla?” My tone is so clipped it shears through her pathetic gratefulness.
She lowers her gaze to the space between our boots and twists her mouth. “She’s dead.”
“Impossible,” I whisper.
“I killed her.”
“You lie!” I growl.
“Why do you think I’d l-lie about this? I k-killed our niece! The last piece of our si-sister!”
Isla’s warmth licks up one side of my stiff form. Though it doesn’t magically crack the ice netting my skin, it does serve to ground me.
“Where’s the body?” she asks.
“On the hill.” The tip of Ksenia’s nose is red from emotion and blood.
“Which fucking hill?” I snarl.
She squeezes her eyes shut. “Don’t…don’t scream at m-me.”
Trying my fucking hardest to poleaxe my tone, I repeat, “Which. Hill. Ksen?”
“The one leading up to the Lo-Lodge,” Ksenia replies flatly. “She was hiding there.”
The buzzing in my ears grows to a crescendo. She was so close she may as well have been hiding in the castle.
I try to catch Isla’s stare, but it’s fastened on nothing and shining like my fire orbs.
“Is anyone with the body?” she asks.
“Why? Do you think I lied about killing my niece?” Anger levels her stutter and heightens her color. “Most of the blood on my hands and cloak is hers.” Ksenia nods to her soiled frock. “By all means, sniff it, if you don’t believe me.”
Isla snaps out of her daze. “I’m not a blood hound, which is a shame, for it would’ve helped me locate the two of you. So I repeat: is anyone with the body?”
The frame of Ksenia’s heart-shaped face grows harsh. “I told the guards where to find her when I made it back to the castle, but with your wings, you’d probably spot her sooner.”
I thread my fingers through Isla’s, a silent refusal for her to go anywhere without me. I don’t trust Ksenia. I don’t trust that this isn’t an ambush.
I look at one of the hovering sprites. “Go check and report back.”
“Immediately, Vizosh.” The winged Faerie is already whizzing down the hallway.
I turn back toward my sister. “Is that also where you were hiding, Ksen?”
“I wasn’t hiding. I was?—”
“Do not bullshit me.” The magic under my skin beats violently enough that if unleashed, it would surely rid the surrounding hills of snow and tow the sun back across the horizon.
“I was trying to make her see reason. I was trying to get her to meet with you, Kostya. To talk.” The fur trim of her hood trembles around her blood-streaked neck. “If I’d known just how steadfast she’d be in her hatred of you, I would’ve brought her in immediately.”
My sister’s betrayal whets any residual tenderness her despair might’ve produced in me. “Liar.”
“No.” Ksenia stops quivering entirely now. “I don’t lie. I didn’t realize that her plan was to steal your amulet.”
I barely succeed at quelling my snort. “She wanted my amulet?”
“She wanted you amulet- free .”
I don’t ask how Mestyla knows about the magic in my necklace, since I imagine I’m staring at the how . “What intent did you think she had, Ksen? Braid daisies into my hair and swap childhood tales?”
“I thought she wanted a place in our family, but then she started to speak about a revolution, and?—”
I tilt my head. “Funny. The way I hear it, you filled her mind with revolutionary vitriol.”
“I spoke about reforms! I’m always speaking about reforms. Never about a revolution. I can see you don’t believe me, but I’m not lying, Kostya.”
My sister’s irises spangle with fresh tears, a bearing surely meant to soften me. She’s out of luck, though, for there’s no give to either my body or heart where she’s concerned.
“Am I to understand that my loyalty to you will be for naught?” she asks.
“What loyalty?” I sneer.
“I killed her!” she shouts. “I killed Alyona’s daughter to protect you .”
“You wouldn’t have had to protect me had you not invited the enemy into our home.” My nostrils flare over a breath meant to calm, but which only serves to feed my anger. “Do you realize what you did when you gave her refuge on castle grounds? You endangered our siblings! You endangered Isla!”
“She had no quarrel with them. Only with you, and only because she didn’t understand why you couldn’t have shown Alyona mercy. But more importantly, I didn’t give her refuge. She stole one of Bohdi’s sleighs and traveled to the capital on her own.”
Bohdi …not Bohdan. How interesting.
“How did she propel the sleigh? Mestyla’s element is— was fire,” Isla points out.
“Horses,” my sister says, with no hesitation.
“I’m curious. How on earth did she manage to slip past the heavily-guarded city walls and reach the Lodge undetected?” I ask.
“Why assume she wasn’t detected…?” Ksenia lets her voice hang, just as she does the implication that someone in my army aided our niece.
“How did you pass through them?” Isla asks.
“I disguised myself as Izolda.” My sister beholds me as she adds, “I was worried Salom would kill me like he killed Olena and her brother otherwise.”
I erupt. “Salom did not kill Svyato!”
“Just like he didn’t burn down the tavern?” she asks, almost sweetly.
“Stop trying to stir discord!”
Isla’s cool fingers give my white-knuckled ones a quiet squeeze. “How did you know where to find her?”
“Lucky guess,” Ksenia replies.
My knuckles crack.
“The Serpent and—three soldiers”—the sprite’s face is glossy with sweat from his brisk flight—“are with the body!”
“Ready a sleigh!” I command, spinning on my heel and crushing Isla’s palm to mine. “Drag my sister! I want her on that sleigh.”
“Wh-what?” Ksenia stammers as one of my guards buoys her body and floats her down the hallway. “At least let me walk. Kostya, pl?—”
“So you were saying… You guessed . How?” I prompt.
“Let me walk, and I’ll tell you everything.”
“How did you fucking guess, Ksen?”
Realizing she’s depleted my compassion, my sister stops trying to save face. “I told Mestyla the story of when I took refuge in the bunker beneath the Lodge to avoid your wrath for having brought Ilya to visit the human lands without a soldier delegation.”
The memory fires across my lids, along with another bout of fury as I relive the fear I’d felt when Aodhan had reported Ilya missing.
“So you find Mestyla and play sardines?” Isla deadpans as we stride into the game room.
“I wasn’t playing sardines,” Ksenia scoffs. “I wasn’t playing at all.”
Isla leans forward to look my floating sister in the eye. “You’ve been MIA for almost three weeks.”
“I was attempting to reason with her.”
I tilt my head. “For three weeks?”
“I had to nurse her back to health first. She was dehydrated and starving from her slapdash excursion.”
“Open your mouth,” I command.
“What? Wh-Why?”
“One of you, feed my sister salt.”
Ksenia flushes. “You think I’m lying?”
“Open up.”
Her lips stay sealed.
“I said, open up ,” I snarl as we reach the library.
She parts her lips and a guard upturns a pouch of salt hooked to his belt. She gags.
Once it’s taken effect, I ask, “Do you want my crown?”
“No.”
“So you don’t want to be queen?”
“No.”
“Would you like the monarchy to be abolished?” Isla’s more general question makes my sister grimace.
“N— Yes .” Ksenia licks her lips. “But I don’t want my brother killed.”
“Did you stay in the bunker to give the Volkovs a chance to arrive?” I ask.
Her lashes click wildly, and then she’s writhing, wriggling, trying to break free. I flick my fingers, tipping her body until she hovers horizontally. “No. I didn’t even know they were coming. Why are they coming?”
“How about you tell us?” I snap.
Her lashes sweep so high they knock into the gash above her eyebrow. “Because they had a sleigh delivery?”
My molars clench.
“Those brutes are armed to the teeth,” she hastens to add. “And you cannot start to imagine the reach they have. The support… You have to find them before they find you.”
My sister cannot lie under the influence of salt, but can she fake dread? I glance at Isla, trying to surmise her thoughts.
“Did one of them father Mestyla?” Isla asks.
Ksenia’s forehead pleats. “Alyona never told Olena who the father was.”
Here, I had been so certain their hasty departure from the north had been spurred by Mestyla’s disappearance. “Did you stay in the bunker for three weeks?”
“No. I came in and out to replenish our supplies of food and to use the bathroom upstairs, since the bunker was designed without one.”
Because it wasn’t some hostel. “During the past three weeks, did you interact with anyone aside from Mestyla?”
“Yes. Twice. I drew Izolda’s feather on my cheek and added stripes before going into town to purchase supplies. Edible supplies. Not weapons.”
Though Ksenia’s hair is shorter than Izolda’s, and her nose, a touch crooked—unlike Izolda’s—to most, the sisters cannot be told apart. What does give them away is their pitch: Ksenia’s is slightly raspy, while Izolda’s is on the breathier side. I suppose only those well-acquainted with my family would pick up on the different tonality.
“So, you haven’t communicated with the Volkovs?”
“Not recently,” Ksenia says. “Not since?—”
“—you ended your tryst with one of the sons?” Isla finishes for her.
Ksenia seals her lips but the salt leads her to reply, “I saw them a few times after.”
“I hear they frequently visit their cousin Bohdan in West Sheva,” I say.
Her throat contracts. “Just business dealings. To aid their dwindling trade. Ever since my grandfather got the monopoly of the railway construction?—”
I flap my hand. “So they come down to West Sheva regularly. They wouldn’t happen to do more than deliver sleighs, now, would they?”
Ksenia’s jaw turns V-shaped from the vigor with which she strains to snuff her answer. “I don’t—I—TheyhelptheZaslofskyswiththeirshipments!”
A shadow bolts into the library floor, materializing instantly into a man.
“You’re all right!” Aodhan pants, his complexion stark.
Since the sight of blood doesn’t make him squeamish, I fathom distress that something had happened to me is to blame for his unusual pallor.
“Have you seen the body?” Isla asks him in Crow.
Aodhan nods.
“Is it Mestyla?” she asks.
“She looks so eerily like Alyona that I’m going to venture a yes .”
“Where’s Izolda?” Isla’s tangible worry causes my skin to crawl.
I neither want her exposed to her slain niece nor to her crazed, blood-soaked twin.
“She’s giving Elio a tour of the castle’s art gallery,” Aodhan replies.
“Make sure she goes into much detail,” she urges him.
“Already done.” He scrutinizes Ksenia, upper lip hiked up in disgust. “Why did Ksenia execute her little disciple?”
“Because her little disciple apparently wanted to rid me of my necklace,” I murmur in Crow.
Isla slides her lips, probably to keep from adding that it wasn’t only my necklace she wanted to rid me of.
“Have the Lodge searched from top to bunker,” I say, sidestepping him and leaving my sister’s handling to my guards. “Where’s Imogen and Salom? Have they arrested Bohdan?”
Aodhan’s cheeks hollow. When his eyes dart toward Ksenia, a chill of foreboding slinks up my spine. “They’re not back yet.”
It’s been well over two hours since Salom left with Imogen and Borat to arrest Bohdan, who couldn’t possibly have gotten far on his sleigh by the time they set out.
To keep my sister in the dark, I say—in Glacin, “Tell Imogen I’ll join them as soon as I see my niece. And, yes, she can torture him.”
I study my sister’s face for a heartbeat. Blank. No reaction. Is it possible that I’m wrong about her partnering up with Bohdan and his cousins?
Aodhan falls into step beside me, his face twisted toward Ksenia. “Is that where you were hiding all along? In the fucking Lodge?”
“I wasn’t—Fine, yes, I was hiding,” Ksenia admits. Because the salt flakes give her no choice? “But only because I was trying to reason with Mestyla.” Her jaw twitches. Oddly enough, it isn’t shame or grief that she exudes, but anger.
Anger that I didn’t extoll her assassination?
Anger that we dare question her allegiance?
“If Salom hadn’t reduced Mestyla’s home to cinders?—”
Ksenia’s decree snaps my vertebrae into such tight alignment that I come to a screeching halt in the Great Hall.
“For the last fucking time, Salom didn’t set fire to the tavern!” My exclamation vibrates the crystals on the chandelier above our heads.
“Bohdan’s element is fire,” Isla remarks. “So is Mestyla’s.”
“He’s not her father,” Ksenia blurts out.
Isla tilts her head. “Funny that you’d jump to that conclusion, when all I was suggesting was possible culprits of the tavern conflagration. Come to think of it, Ekaterina mentioned Lev was her husband’s only legitimate child…”
A nerve strikes my sister’s jaw.
One that makes me think Mestyla is indeed Bohdan’s daughter. “How will he react to the news you killed his daughter?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care,” she mutters.
“Aodhan, the next time you shift”—my tone is as taut as fabric stretched to its tearing point—“reach out to Imogen and tell her to inform Bohdan that Ksenia murdered his daughter.”
Ksenia huffs, pants, face luminous with sweat. “Are you trying to get me killed? Is that it? I suppose that if someone else stops my heart, then at least you won’t have another sibling’s blood on your?—”
The burst of magic I lob at her jaw to pin it shut is so powerful, it causes blood to dribble past her lips and hatred to ooze from her stare. A moment later, her mouth puckers—not around a scream but around a spit. On a crimson glob, she ejects two cracked teeth.
As Isla studies the lump reddening my stone floor, her brow crimps.
I’m about to ask why when Ksenia diverts my attention with a garbled, “While you’re at it, you should warn Imogen to keep an eye on Salom. He’s an exceedingly ambitious man.”
“Salom might not be a benchmark for sainthood, but he cares deeply for our family. He would never do anything to put me and mine in jeopardy.”
“Yes, yes. Salom is so fucking good and blameless.” Ksenia spits once more, spewing only bloodied saliva this time. “You may believe me a villain, brother, but compared to your general, I’m a saint.”
My nape prickles from her insinuation.
“Might want to say that when you’re not wearing the contents of another person’s veins on your person,” Aodhan points out.
A sour smile kinks her sullied mouth. “Funny that you’d defend the man, considering how suspicious of him you are.”
Aodhan stares long and hard at her. “I’m suspicious of everyone, save for your three siblings.”
Ksenia nods to Isla. “Even of her?”
“ No .”
How I explode then… “How many fucking times do I need to repeat myself? Stop trying to reap discord!”
The skin around my sister’s eyes tightens.
“Oh, Lev’s dead by the way. He died today.” Aodhan drops the news in with such nonchalance that it makes even me flinch.
But no one flinches harder than my sister. “Wh-what…?”
“Your ex-boyfriend. Is. Dead,” he repeats, hammering each word.
My sister sucks in her cheeks and whirls those large eyes of hers in my direction. “You killed him, Kostya?”
“No. My bargain didn’t end his life.”
“Did your sword?” Her missing teeth warp her voice but not her livid tone.
I find it comforting that she cares. “No. Bohdan’s did.” Though still only speculation, I want to see what reaction she’ll have.
Her cheeks fill out. “Bohdi would never…”
“Why would Bohdi never ?” I parrot.
“Because he loved his son.”
“Didn’t you care about your niece?” Isla asks.
“All I felt for that girl was pity.” Is Ksenia still under the influence of salt, or has it lost its effect?
“Do you hate shifters?” I ask to test the possibility that the truth serum has waned.
“Yes. They’re our natural predator.”
“Glad I needn’t take your contempt personally,” Aodhan says. “Now, shall we go see what you’ve done to a person you did not hate but felt pity for?”
It’s only once we start up the stairs that I note Isla’s state of undress. “A coat! Someone bring my wife a coat!”
“ Wife ?” Ksenia lisps.
My misstep makes me stiffen.
I’m about to apologize to Isla when she squeezes my clammy hand. “Don’t worry, Ksenia. You didn’t miss the wedding. We’re just waiting on my family to arrive. They’re on their way over, actually.”
Is it me or does my sister twitch at the news? Then again, she loathes shifters on such a profound level that she surely abhors the idea of sharing air with more of them. Not that she will see much of them from the underground cell I intend to lock her in until she’s ready to broaden her narrow mind.
“Here you go, Vizosh.” A guard proffers two sky-blue coats lined with fur.
I drape one across Isla’s shoulders and button the collar, then stab my arms through the other but freeze midsleeve.
The prophecy has played out.
Isla’s free to depart. Will she?