Chapter 26 #2
When the tsarina departed the night’s entertainment, her disregard and typical sour expression giving no indication if she had been dwelling on my attendance or not, others followed her lead.
We remained until the performance ended.
Having been deprived of amusement the bulk of the year, I did not eagerly surrender my seat.
And although Alaina could not know of my prior trials, she probably guessed at my desire to enjoy being outside of her rooms without being confined to restrictive measures.
As the crowd thinned, Alaina patted my shoulder, leaving her hand there to keep me seated until we were nearly the last in the room. Then she lifted her hand and stood.
She yawned, an impressive noise partnered with a shudder that shook her entire body, although she gracefully endeavored to keep both under control. Her eyes, red-rimmed and eager to hide behind her lids, betrayed her valiant efforts at staying awake.
I stood also, taking her cue, and she wrapped herself around my arm.
She did not gesture or direct me, far beyond thought of managing me in the midst of her drowsiness.
Fortunately, few people were about, and fewer people cared so late into the night.
I led her through the public rooms and up through the wing to her apartment.
She stumbled a few times, losing her grip on her dress, and when I did not think we would pass anyone else in the halls, I gathered her into my arms, confident it would result in fewer bruises and a faster return.
She curled up like a child and buried her fingers around a gold braid fastening.
She snuggled her face into the blue brocade.
When I adjusted her up against my shoulder, she tucked her face as much against my neck as she could between the fur and the collar.
I squeezed her, keeping her tight against my chest, better now on my taloned feet than months ago.
She was as light and as fragile as a bird herself, and I wished she could fly away home before someone in Ilyichia crushed her.
My initial motives consisted only of expedience and safety, but with her tucked against me and my arms put to pleasant service, I allowed myself to enjoy the brief connection and physicality this configuration offered.
No one else could see it lest I reveal too much of my understanding, but I never wanted to put her down.
It had been such a long time since I had held a woman in my arms, and this was a woman I wanted there.
I didn’t expect that in the lowest point of my life, my dearest and truest friends would reveal themselves, but despite all, I could be grateful for them.
I loved Klessa and Drook and all my friends who made my initial fall from grace bearable.
And I loved Alaina, who had made my second fall, this time from humanity, so much less lonely.
I loved Alaina.
I was an idiot Ilyichian prince who never learned his lessons, it seemed.
Alaina, who the tsarina had tried to recreate in her own image, would be the last person in the world the tsarina would tolerate being the recipient of my affections.
So, of course, who else would I love but Alaina?
If the tsarina ever found out, she would have both our heads.
I did not love the tsarina, not because someone else took pride of place in my affections but because the tsarina had never evolved beyond the stage of conflating ownership and obedience with love.
She had not been asked to step aside because I loved another.
She had been bypassed by all because she made herself impossible to love. She just refused to see it.
It wouldn’t matter that my love for Alaina, or anyone else, did not preclude me from loving another.
I could love infinitely in infinite ways.
My love for Alexei was not the same as my love for Drook.
My love for Drook was not the same as my love for Klessa.
My love for Klessa was not the same as my love for Alaina.
And my love for Alaina was not the same as my love for Irena.
It couldn’t be. Yet my love for all of them coexisted peacefully within me, did not drain my supply or impede my capability, and perhaps rather enhanced them.
It wouldn’t matter that Alaina didn’t reciprocate. Although if I said the words first, maybe Alaina would say them in return. And if Alaina reciprocated....
If Alaina reciprocated. If she told me. If the tsarina wasn’t lying about there being a way out of wearing feathers and a beak for the rest of my life....
If Alaina reciprocated and we were still in Ilyichia, the tsarina’s fury would be all the greater.
There had never been a promise of freedom, at least not beyond not being a bird, not for me.
And no promises had ever been made regarding Alaina.
And even if the tsarina made promises, they could not be trusted.
I paused just outside of the door to Alaina’s apartment and gazed down into her sleeping, peaceful face. Oh, to share in a moment of that tranquility!
What if the tsarina told me the truth? What if, in her drowse, Alaina murmured the words?
Would I condemn her to greater suffering at the tsarina’s hands by returning to my natural state?
Surely, the tsarina would have to have everyone who bore witness to my continued existence executed to preserve her lie that I was dead.
I could only think of one absolute way to ensure that Alaina would never say those words to me. I could tell her who I was.
Still convinced that the tsarina was lying to me, I could be worrying about all of this for nothing.
There was no way out. There would be no physical manifestation that someone had dared to tell me they loved me as I currently was.
There would never be a trace that I had once been the disgraced prince Alaina so reviled.
But if the tsarina wasn’t lying to me, telling Alaina who I was would both remove any possibility of the hope of changing again, which at this juncture might be the more merciful action, and it would ensure that she could not risk greater peril on my account.
Maybe I would tell her that I was Mikhail then.
It would hurt. Oh, Great Holy, would it hurt!
When my confession hit and recognition finally settled, I would be unable to look at her, unable to bear her disgust. She would put distance between us.
She would relinquish my care back to the tsarina.
And why wouldn’t she? She never wanted anything to do with a man in a costume, especially one he could not remove.
But it would assuage my conscience. And Alaina would be safe again. Well, safer than now.
I spied the door lever and gripped Alaina more tightly to my chest, preparing to go within. I wouldn’t get many more opportunities like this to hold her, to be gentle with her, or to care for her while she would allow me. I pressed my cheek to the top of her head.
I would tell her in the morning. For now, I would let her dream of her friend, the one she wanted clad in feathers and with wings.
“Even if you end up hating me, I really am trying to do the right thing,” I whispered to her. But I didn’t know what I was doing. I had never had to navigate a plurality of identities before. I never had to pick which choice of all possible wrong choices was the least bad. “I’m so sorry.”
“Kvasnik?”
My head jerked up. My back stiffened. Alaina stirred in my arms. A shiver traveled through my spine. That the speaker did not use Mikhail pricked at my skin. A call for Mikhail could mean any Mikhail. But she used Kvasnik, and Kvasnik could only mean me.
No. There could be no way. Granted, perhaps the timing between Mikhail’s execution and my appearance on the scene might have been a little close together, but one did not immediately follow the other.
I had been unconscious and detained for who knew how long before I ever showed up inside the palace again.
And I had shown up as a different creature.
I had been on display in the audience chamber, in the foyers, at the tsarina’s feet, in council, through the halls, outside in my enclosure.
Everyone had seen that my feathers were part of me.
Everyone had seen that my wings were attached.
Everyone could see that this wasn’t another, more extreme costume forced onto a man.
How then could anyone guess? Was magic something others believed in?
I had never seen it. I had never even heard of it spoken of seriously.
It wasn’t something people witnessed. And if it had not altered me in undeniable ways, I might still not believe in it.
How then did someone else identify me when I had been so careful?
“It is you, isn’t it?”
I turned to look at the speaker.
She was a plain woman, perhaps around my age, dark eyes, her posture and manner straight and upright.
Dressed like most other servants with a simple dress, apron, and covered hair, I could not place her.
She had not been one of the servants to guide me in the early days of my disgrace.
Perhaps she attended Alaina or the tsarina when she was ill.
But why then would she call me Kvasnik? That was my name among friends, and I did not know her.
Alaina stirred again. She gathered the robe in her fist, dug her fingers into my chest, and murmured something.
I glanced between the sleeping princess and the servant who used my private name.
I wanted to interrogate the servant, determine what her relation to me had been that she might still see through this disguise, discover if one of the jesters had hired her to find out if it was truly me.
But I could not do it in front of Alaina.
If Alaina knew....
But Alaina was going to know tomorrow because I was going to tell her.
“I know it’s you, Mikhail.”
My public name, after the private, struck me like a musket ball, and I took a step back as if it truly had weight and force behind it. This wasn’t a servant slipped a few coins to prod at me. This was personal.
I shook my head and fumbled for the lever handle of the door. When it clicked open, I shouldered my way into the apartment and closed it on the woman before she could say anything else. I leaned back against it to ensure she would not follow us in.
My heart raced. My hands shook.
Why wouldn’t that woman just let Mikhail be dead?
Someone in the palace knew me, and she could tell others.
She could humiliate me all over again by forcing me to bear the shame that came before in addition to the shame of now.
She could tell the tsarina who would blame me and kill half a dozen others to keep it quiet.
Worst of all, she could tell Alaina, and Alaina would abandon me.
Hadn’t that been what I was planning to do anyway?
Having my old name waved in my face showed me the painful idiocy of that impulse.
I couldn’t tell Alaina. I couldn’t own that life anymore because it wasn’t mine. I wasn’t Mikhail. Mikhail was dead. Executed in disgrace. I was Kaylay, nothing but a sad Otherland creature in captivity.
Was it truly a lie of omission if I didn’t tell Alaina?
Would that make me dishonorable for not being upfront about my disowned history if I expected to wear feathers the rest of my days?
In the end, it didn’t matter. So long as I was not Mikhail ever again, I could never burden her with my humiliation.
Even if it meant I had to continue to lie about everything to everyone, I would do it. And I could live with that.
I just needed that woman not to tell anyone of what she thought she knew. Alaina hating me now would be the most painful punishment I had yet endured.