Chapter 33
XXXIII.
The guards split the crowds for us, holding back the nobles as they made way for our small wedding party.
Although the binding of my hand to Alaina’s ensured that we would not separate in the crowd, she clung to my arm.
Her serenity, so perfect and unshakable at the head of the room, crumbled when faced with the harsher reality of our situation.
Even Drook and Klessa, bearing the brunt of the staring as they made the way for us, did not loosen Alaina’s hold on me.
While I had spent nearly a year becoming accustomed to derision and humiliation from those around me, Alaina had not done this before.
I patted her hand on my arm, told her to breathe as Drook had once instructed me, and promised she was not alone.
Klessa even fell back to let Drook lead alone while she took up position on Alaina’s other side, shielding her from the crowd physically during that long march to the hall’s main doors.
The blast of freezing air from the courtyard when the doors were thrown open gave Alaina another moment of collection. She released her death-grip on my arm, glanced up to Klessa and smiled, a show of gratitude she had not yet found a way to verbalize.
Outside, more guards greeted us, although they were our sole reception with the courtiers still within the ceremonial space and the common throng outside the courtyard gate.
The processional line-up itself, just inside the gate and waiting to be ushered out into the city, offered no reassurance.
The participants had no thought for us, although Alaina and I were to be a hilarious focal point for the tsarina’s subjects.
A guard came over and unbound our hands. Several others, loaded with furs and coats, followed behind, handing cloaks and coats to Drook, Klessa, and Alaina, followed by hats and gloves. Nothing was offered to me.
“He will be out in the cold like the rest of us,” Klessa pointed out to one of the soldiers when she realized the oversight. “He needs something too.”
“It has feathers,” was the reply from the disinterested guard who walked off so that he would no longer be subject to complaints.
“It matters not,” I assured her. “Nothing fits over the wings.”
The negligence about garments to keep me warm served only to remind me of the malice behind this entire situation. The tsarina understood my objection to being cold, so what better way to ensure my discomfort until it finally killed me? I did not doubt that it had been intentional.
“You need gloves at least,” Klessa insisted. But of the three of them, no one had hands my size, and none of the guards would voluntarily give up theirs. She switched her hunt to a muff and could not find anyone in ready distance who possessed one. “I worry about frostbite.”
I might have been more worried about frostbite too, if I had any hope of surviving through the night. My feet, even more than my hands, burned in the cold. But I only needed to keep Alaina alive, and I could do that even with frostbitten extremities.
“I will keep him warm,” Alaina assured her.
Another detachment of guards approached from the end of the processional, and I gave Klessa and Drook another round of embraces. They did not willingly release me, even when the guards stood at my back.
“Tell the others,” I charged them. I let go and stepped back so that they would not be subject to any physical redirection the guards might inflict due to my delay. “And pray for us.”
The guards separated us, guiding us to our respective places: Drook and Klessa toward the rear of the processional, Alaina and me toward the front.
Alaina wrapped herself around my arm as if I had any idea more than she did about where we were to go.
I followed our guards, glancing behind us when the sounds of others began filling the frozen air.
Alaina glanced over too and then buried her face against my arm.
I understood her shame and embarrassment and fear. I no longer shared in it, but I hated not being able to shield her from it.
The guards marched us to a rolling staircase, several people holding the base beside an elephant.
“Look.” I directed Alaina’s attention to it. “Is that Ivan? Should I introduce myself?”
She lifted her face away from my arm to see what I pointed out. She brightened a little at the recollection of earlier conversations, before everything had gone horribly wrong.
“Up,” said a guard behind us, likely wanting his portion of his duties to be over so that he could get out of the cold.
Alaina went first, reaching for my hand so that she could be assured I was not far behind her.
I followed her up the staircase. At the top, she backed into me.
A golden cage, fitted with braces and blankets and belts to keep it atop the elephant, awaited us.
Outfitted like a carriage with two small stools, the door hung wide open.
“I can’t,” Alaina said.
“It’s traditional to carry a bride across the threshold, is it not?”
I scooped Alaina up, unwilling to let the guard have an excuse to touch or mistreat her, and carried her through the cage door. He shut it behind us. The lock engaged.
Alaina still wrapped up in my arms, I sat on one of the stools, a detail deliberately considered since there was enough space for wings and tail.
“They locked us in,” she whispered.
“I am accustomed to this,” I reminded her. “I’m sorry.”
“How?” she murmured, prying herself slightly more from my arms so that she could look at me. “How do you bear it?”
“I didn’t think I would at first.” I released her lower half so that she could better sit, although she seemed disinclined to release me fully. “Drook and Klessa reminded me that, no matter my circumstances, I was not alone. And then, when deprived of their company, a princess came my way.”
“This princess,” Alaina said, curling up against my chest, “did she make life better for you?”
“She tormented me to the point of distracting me from my troubles.”
“Hmm. Surely, no princess I know then.”
Ivan shifted beneath us, alerting me to the commencement of our procession.
I cast a glance down to the elephant’s attendants, also bundled in fur coats and accessories, who were leading the creature.
No one had much thought for us. Doubtless, they too thought this a ridiculous demonstration and longed to be inside and in front of a fire.
Alaina grabbed my right hand, free from holding her, and tucked it into her coat. I appreciated the gesture, but I did not think a little momentary warmth would help much with the trial ahead of us.
“Do you want my hat?” she asked, gesturing to the white fur that sat atop her head. “I know how much you hate being cold.”
“You keep it.” She needed it more than I did, and all of this would be for naught if anything happened to her. “Having my wife tucked up against me is keeping me sufficiently cozy.”
“Your wife,” she repeated as if she forgot that we had just been married.
Ivan lurched, and the cage rocked on his back. Through the gates and into the crowd, the shouts and cheering and noise flooded us as if the courtyard walls held back a tide.
Alaina took a glance around at our audience and returned her attention to me.
“Kaylay?”
“I’m here.” I squeezed her. “I have you.”
“I couldn’t do this alone.”
“If you had to, you could.” I put my cheek on top of her head. “We learn things about ourselves in trial. You’re so much stronger than you think.”
“I don’t feel strong,” she admitted. “I feel pathetic and weak.”
“You’re not. You and the tsarina have been through the same trials, the same exile, and the same court derision.
In her elevation, she has let her bitterness rule.
You will not surrender to the petty cruelties that have twisted her.
You do not have that in you. Not now. Not when you have your throne. ”
“If I get my throne. I am so afraid,” she confessed. “I know I have reason to be afraid, but that is not what bothers me most.”
“What then?”
“I hate that they’re all staring. I hate feeling so ashamed, especially when I’m not ashamed of anything I’ve done.”
“They’re staring at me,” I told her. “None of these people have seen a firebird before, remember? They probably haven’t seen Ivan before either. Can you imagine how fantastical this must be to all of them?”
“I still feel their stares.”
“True,” I agreed. “They may never have seen a real-life princess before either, but — and I apologize — I feel like a princess pales in comparison to an elephant and a firebird.”
“You’re probably right, as much as I hate to admit it,” she said, giving me a smile although she mustered it up from the depths. “Is there a plan, or is the plan just to survive?”
“From here to the palace, we are under lock and guard, and will not have an opportunity to escape into the crowd. From there, I know not what is in store.”
The wind howled around the bars, and I spread my wings to keep it from reaching us. I couldn’t feel my feet by now, and I tucked my right leg up behind my left. My left hand too, still holding Alaina and exposed, began to lose sensation as I buried it in the folds of her coat.
“We will have to escape the palace then,” she mused. “Even with guards, there will be no crowds tonight. No one will wish to be out in such chill.”
“If we wait until the small hours, our guards will also not be at their best.”
“So, morning, we make our escape?” She gazed out over the heads of the onlookers, getting her bearings. “Fortunate for us that the palace sits along the river. We can follow it to port.”
What kind of captain would give fare to a bedraggled princess and her strange pet? Surely, no sane one. Perhaps, I contented myself, she would not have a strange pet in tow because I would have fulfilled my purpose by then.
“Alaina, if I should die—”
“No,” she said. “No. I won’t hear of it. I’m going to live, and so are you. Do you understand me?”
“Yes. We will both live,” I repeated. “But, if I should not—”
“Stop. Please.”
“Alaina.” I waited a few moments to see if she would speak over me again. “I need to ask a favor of you. And as you say, I will not need it. But still, please listen to me?”
She glared at me, but she remained quiet.
“When we escape,” when, not if, because if it came to my last wish or her survival, I needed her to choose her survival, “and when we make it to safety, if I should take ill or it looks like I may not make it, I want two things. I would like you to have my collar removed, and I would like to be wearing my wedding band.”
She shifted out of my grasp, took her place on the opposite stool, and grabbed at me so that she could see my left hand. My bare left hand.
“Oh, Kaylay, did she take it?”
“I didn’t trust her not to. I have it tied into my wristband.” I pulled out the ties with a talon to show her the glint of gold. “See that it finds its way onto my finger if I cannot do it myself.”
“I understand, and I will see that it is done,” she assured me, “but it will not come to that.”
Alaina’s face set so sternly and so resolutely that I almost believed her. If will alone could ensure our survival, then I would have had no doubt.
I reached out and took her hands in mine.
“Of course it won’t,” I lied.