Chapter 26 #2
The crowd cheered and hissed as the tsar grinned, waving to the soldiers who lined the gates. Two of them stepped forward, and once again, weaker men started dragging Mikhail from where he wanted to be.
The crowd was growing toward a fever pitch, rattling up against the iron. Parts of the gate started to creak. Guns shot into the air. A flaming torch was thrown over the top. They got louder and wilder, their voices and stomachs clamoring for blood.
The tsar didn’t show a moment’s panic as they pounded at the gates, some of their hands reaching through the bars to grab for Mikhail’s body as it came closer.
The soldiers could barely pry the metal apart, and multiple guards were needed to hold it in place. They opened it just enough to toss Mikhail into the crowd.
His body disappeared like dark magic, hands grabbing at him from everywhere, in every which direction, raining down on him. The last of the light left his eyes.
He was in the middle of a crowd, torn down and pressed up against bodies all around him.
He didn’t hear the clanging, empty sound of the gates as they locked behind him.
He only managed one last glimpse of the sky as he angled his head, trying to see if he could spy Anastasia’s apartments.
The crowds descended, and breath left him as the earth shook.
???
Anastasia watched from her bedroom window. She refused to believe the people were going to call for the murder of Mikhail. They had been so focused on her father that they hadn’t considered the seeds he was planting behind their backs.
Neither of them could play the court game of intrigue like he could, warping all the gossip that arose around Anastasia and Mikhail's magic usage. All that was left was a twisted, dark, cruel reputation for the man Rasputin—a man who didn’t even exist.
When her mother appeared on the palace's steps, a dangerous hope arose in Anastasia’s chest. As she watched her father ask the crowd who they would rather take, her heart sank.
Anastasia couldn’t keep her eyes off Mikhail, muttering prayers under her breath. For the first time in her life, the prayers were genuine. Her chains rattled against the glass panes of the window as she slammed her fists against it, watching her father torment and touch Mikhail’s broken body.
I will murder him. I will murder him, and I will end everything he has ever brought about.
Anastasia’s heart ripped apart in her chest, a panicked feeling threatening to consume her.
She was tired of her own idle threats. She was tired of saying she’d move against her father and doing nothing. She was tired of letting herself slide backward in his presence, of letting his fear overtake her.
It didn’t matter that Mikhail wasn’t with her now. She knew who she was, and it was time for vengeance.
She watched in horror as time slowed down. Her father’s soldiers grabbed Mikhail and pulled him towards the iron gates.
Her hands started to shake, slamming against the windows repeatedly; she didn’t notice when he fingers began to bleed.
When her hands failed her, she threw her body against the wind. The soldiers in the room started backing away slowly. She screamed, haunted, breaking sounds.
“Mikhail!” The glass cracked. She launched her shoulder against it, a shard fragment cutting her forehead.
“Mikhail!” Another thud, another crack. One of the soldiers dropped his weapon and left. She was possessed. The shackles around her wrists started to bleed.
“Mikhail!” The glass finally shattered. Her body was bleeding from the shards, but she didn’t feel it. The iron gates were open.
People were grabbing for him, desperate to pull him apart. From the open window, she could now hear the chaos and the din of the crowd unbuffered. They were mad. Her father was controlling them all with nothing but words and charisma.
Mikhail’s body disappeared amongst the people. Anastasia was in a frenzy, half hanging out of the broken window as she released a blood-curdling scream.
It was an earth-shattering, world-ending kind of sound that haunted the soldiers who heard it for the rest of their lives. It was a broken woman at the edge, being reborn. Anastasia’s vision reduced to a single point: the last place she had seen Mikhail’s body disappear into the people.
Her scream continued, rippling over the night sky. Without warning, the earth shook, and every window in the Winter Palace shattered.
The sound came in a bang, the lights flickering out as some exploded into bright bulbs of light and smoke. Fires broke out in some of the dark rooms with broken windows, further escalating the chaos.
The tsar looked up; his eyes fixed on Anastasia’s window. He saw her, half hanging out of the windowpane, bloodied and screaming for her lover.
The irons he had specially made were glowing hot around her wrists, but did not seem to be burning her. If they were, she did nothing to betray it.
Her eyes were centered on the crowd, her magic sending a shockwave over the palace, ripping down the doors. The tsar stumbled back, falling down the steps as he looked up at the half-ruined palace.
The crowd had gone silent for only half a second before they erupted in panic.
“It’s an act of God!” Someone cried, their voice laced with fear.
“We’ve chosen wrongly!”
“This man is innocent!”
“We should have taken the tsarina!”
Echoes started to ripple through the crowd, no one noticing Anastasia hanging out of the window. The soldiers finally got their wits about them and yanked her back inside.
All the crowds could see was the blood on their hands, as glass rained down on them like one of the plagues of Egypt.
Anastasia was ripped from the window, crying and bellowing out for another glimpse of Mikhail. She still refused to believe he was dead, even as her nose bled and her head ached from the sudden outburst of her magic.
My magic! Her eyes went wide as she pushed against the soldiers who were still acting like they were afraid to touch her for too long. The chains my father had made…
They don’t work. The voice inside Anastasia’s head was not her own. She started looking around the room like a woman possessed, searching for the woman’s voice.
“Asya?” She cried out, looking crazed. “Asya!”
One of the soldiers dropped her arm. “I’ve had enough of this,” he backed away, making the sign of the cross. “She’s possessed!” His comrades agreed with him, and they fled.
I’m here, child. Asya’s voice returned. Those shackles will never work. Your father tried to invoke magic he didn't understand.
Anastasia fell to her knees, weeping softly into her hands. “What do I do? Mikhail?”
Take the shackles off, Anastasia. Asya’s voice rang clear as anything she had ever heard. Free yourself.
The voice went away, fading out softly, just as abruptly as it had arrived. She looked around the empty room and down at the chains around her wrists.
She held all her focus on them, imagining herself free of the restraints. She felt herself rising above everything that had ever happened to her.
“I am Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova,” her voice was steady, “and my father cannot keep me in chains.” The bonds started to vibrate, heating up continually, although they didn’t burn her.
Anastasia sat up taller, feeling a significant swelling in her chest as she heard Asya’s words echoing in her head.
She remembered Mikhail's calm touch on her back.
“I am Anastasia Nikoalevna Romanova, and my father cannot keep me in chains!” The bindings turned an even brighter orange, the joints where the metal was forged beginning to melt. Drops of molten iron hit the marble floors underneath Anastasia and hissed.
“I am Anastasia Nikoalevna Romanova. My father cannot keep me in chains!” She screamed it, yanking her wrists apart and letting out another cry when the chains snapped in half.
There was an explosion of golden light as her magic flooded back, erupting from her fingertips and bathing the room with its electric current.
Anastasia sagged, covered in a gold cloud as the chains dissolved in front of her. She tried to stand on weak legs, black spots dotting her vision.
“I am Anastasia…,” her voice cracked, her throat sore. Anastasia collapsed to the floor of her suite, drenched in her magic, and lost consciousness.