Chapter 26
Anastasia bit back another scream as her father exited the room. She was alone with a small battalion of guards. She turned to look at them, the fire inside of her feeling like it had been dosed in gasoline. She refused to consider the possibility that Mikhail was dead.
One of the guards gripped her elbow and tried to force her over to the window, Anastasia digging her heels into the ground. She spun towards him and spat in his face.
“I will go,” she hissed, “You would do well to remember that I am still Romanova.”
Something changed in her voice. The way she was standing. She didn’t have Mikhail with her, and she didn’t need him. She wanted him. Despite the horrors she was navigating, his absence enraged her; it didn’t cripple her. She would escape from her manacles and burn everything to the ground.
Anastasia would get Mikhail back and have her revenge against her father. They had been dancing around one another for too long. It was time.
The guard’s eyes widened as he released her and took a step back, wiping his face with his sleeve. Whether her magic was bound or not, she realized they were still afraid of her.
Good. She thought to herself, looking around the room. I will make sure they all fear me. Fear what they have taken from me.
“Go on then,” one of the other guards lazily waved a pistol in her direction as someone else pulled the heavy curtains open. Anastasia took a few steps towards the window and gasped.
From her vantage point, she could see the front doors and the lawn of The Winter Palace. The city was burning. Anastasia and Mikhail had only been trapped in her room for one whole day, but the tsar had not been exaggerating. St. Petersburg’s revolution had begun.
As far as the eye could see, smoke and flame rose from different parts of the skyline. It was the crowd; people were everywhere.
Thousands of people were pressed up against the iron gates of the Winter Palace. Some had torches, others waved knives, rifles, even sticks or pieces of metal.
It looked like the entire city grabbed whatever they could find. They were poised and ready to rip down the luxury standing in front of them.
The contrast it provided was stark; the Winter Palace, with its gilded inlays and hundreds of rooms, versus the thousands of people in front of it, wearing shoes with holes and torn coats. Anastasia hoped the crowd would find a way to break through.
There was a sudden, rising cry from the crowd. It sounded like a natural disaster, the sound of a thousand desperate, angry people.
Anastasia’s blood ran cold as she scanned the crowd, praying she didn’t recognize any of the faces within it. It was too dangerous.
It all deserves to burn, but so many of you might go with it!
The crowd grew even louder, shaking their weapons in the air, and a few of them fired off into the night sky.
Anastasia turned towards the palace's front door, trying to see what had sparked their outrage. The tsar had appeared on the front steps.
Oh my God… he’ll be shot. The thought didn't bother Anastasia, but she wanted to make sure he was held accountable for his chaos and ruin.
She wanted to look her father in the eye and make him understand he was responsible for every child who went to bed hungry. He needed to atone for everything that had been done to her. A stray bullet from the steps of his monument to opulence was an ending fit for cowards.
Her heart stopped as she realized he was pulling Mikhail forward, his bloody body stumbling. But he was stumbling; he was moving on his own accord. He was barely conscious from the looks of it, but he was alive.
The tsar gripped him under the arm as they descended the steps, tossing Mikhail on the ground. The crowd let out a voracious roar as if they were watching gladiators.
They do want to kill him. They really believe in these wild legends of a priest named Rasputin.
The realization spread cold over Anastasia. Every time he had escaped death, every time she had saved him, the forged letters… it had become a masterclass in the tsar’s court of public opinion.
Her father had painted a picture of a man possessed, a man with her magic, and he was going to let the people tear him apart in a religious frenzy.
???
Mikhail tried to stand on shaky legs, but he collapsed back onto the cold ground.
It had started to snow, but his body was on fire.
He was weak. The tsar had cut him to the quick, both physically and mentally, as he ripped open his old scars.
Mikhail looked up at him, his face full of contempt, unaware Anastasia watched on.
“Are you the one they call Rasputin?” The tsar proclaimed, more of a declaration than a question. He raised his hands out as if he were Pontius Pilate himself.
“It seems that you have already said I am,” Mikhail hissed. His eyesight blurred. His face contorted as another shockwave of pain radiated through his nerve endings.
“Do you not know the charges brought against you?”
Mikhail did not answer, not responding to a single comment. The tsar stared at him in a befuddled and angry confusion. He turned to the people, ever the showman, deciding he would make the people choose him, whether they realized it or not.
The crowd was screaming for Mikhail’s blood, but only half of them believed he was a man possessed, leading their country astray. The others were ready to tear down the gates and burn the inequity at its roots. The tsar addressed the crowd.
“Who do you want me to send to you?” His voice dripped with pompous sanctity. “This Rasputin? The man who calls himself a priest?”
The tsar was no fool; he knew only the most religious zealots in the crowd were the ones calling for Mikhail’s head. He wouldn’t give them a second option to lock onto.
There was a sudden interruption as the front door to the Winter Palace swung open, the crowd going into an absolute frenzy, as the tsarina stepped out to join her husband. He turned and looked at her, rage coating his face while his back was turned to the crowd.
“What do you want?” he hissed, grabbing the tsarina’s arm, “Go inside.”
“I don’t want anything to do with this man,” the tsarina’s voice had a deathly tone. “I’ve had a vision—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” the tsar grunted, gripping her tighter instead of shaking her in front of the crowd, “Not another one of your blasted visions.”
“I’m serious,” she looked up at him with wide eyes. “He’s innocent. This man has done nothing wrong, and it will bring about our ruin if we let this happen. Think of Anastasia!”
“I’m the only one who has ever considered Anastasia,” the tsar countered. “Everyone else simply lacks vision!”
The tsarina paled as she looked at the crowd that had gathered beyond the gates. She paled further as she saw Mikhail struggle to breathe on the ground, bleeding out into the fresh snow. Her hand flew to her mouth as she winced. The tsar spoke up, addressing the people.
“Who do you want?” He raised the question again, this time turning around and grabbing the tsarina’s wrist and raising it in the air. “This demon they call Rasputin or your tsarina, whom has he tricked?” His voice was loud enough to ring out in the smoky night sky.
The tsarina nearly collapsed as she looked at her husband, the fullness of his depravity washing over her. If he tossed her into this mob, they would rip her limb from limb. The crowd roared at the offering of the tsarina. And yet, their choice was clear.
“Rasputin!” The din from the people seemed to shake the ground. The tsar seemed a little disappointed but shrugged.
“What shall I do with the one they call Rasputin?”
“Execute him!” The cries were impossible to ignore. It was a crowd that was starving, for both food and violence, who had lived off political executions more often than bread.
“Do you know what he has done?” The tsar yelled out to them. He ran his hand down Mikhail’s exposed back before flinging his blood out towards the iron gates, like a perverse priest and holy water.
“He has avoided death. He has corrupted my darling Anastasia. He has seduced the tsarina with his wickedness!”
“Execute him!” The crowd was officially lost to their madness, giving in to mob mentality. The hunger ate them alive, and they were thirsty, but in a crowd of thousands in a burning city, they could no longer distinguish food from violence.
The tsar turned and looked at Alexandra, “I am innocent of this man’s blood. They chose him over you. If anything, you shall bear the responsibility.”
His grin was infectious as he turned back to the crowd. He raised his hands in the air, and a cheer went out. He was a master manipulator, able to exploit every wayward emotion.
Mikhail heard the roars, and his only thoughts were on Anastasia. He could barely remember where he was, hissing in pain as he felt the tsar’s hand on his back. He didn’t know how much blood he had lost, but it wasn’t going to improve.
For the first time in Mikhail’s life, he prayed. He prayed for Anastasia. He prayed for the time they did not have and what little time they shared. He prayed for her magic and her heart. That the two would never be separated again.
He prayed for her future and her past, that the latter would never intrude on the former once more. He prayed he would be nothing but an encouraging footnote in her destiny, in the whole life she would live.
In his heart of hearts, as he heard the crowd of people on the streets twisted and manipulated into calling for his blood—the blood of a name that wasn’t his—Mikhail prayed.
The tsar turned on his heel and walked back towards Alexandra, nodding towards the front door.
“Get the fuck inside and be grateful I’ve saved your reputation.”
There was a moment where it looked like she was going to push back against him, but Alexandra took one fleeting look at Mikhail, her eyes filled with pity, picked up her skirts, and fled inside.