Robin Bridges - The Morning Star

“Maman!”

“You have nothing to worry about, dearest.” She peered into my face critically. “Wear your pale blue silk gown; it will bring out the blue in your eyes. Rest now for a few hours and the puffiness will go away. I’ll have Anya bring up a cucumber compress.”

I sighed. Maman was sure that as long as I looked presentable, everything would be back to rights. “Yes, Maman.” Perhaps a nap was what I needed. And perhaps I could still convince her to let me stay home.

Anya’s compress worked miracles on my eyes. By that evening, there was no trace of fatigue or emotional distress on my face. And Maman was right about the pale blue silk.

But she was very wrong about the ballet program. Mathilde Kschessinska did dance that night in the Mariinsky Theater. And the tsarevitch and his brother did attend, with their mother and sister, seated in the imperial box directly across from our own. George Alexandrovich very studiously avoided looking toward the Oldenburg box.

Princess Alix and her sister Grand Duchess Ella joined us after the first act. Alix looked unhappy. “What shall I do, Katerina? I am leaving for Moscow with my sister this week. Nicholas is going to forget all about me.”

“I will miss you,” I said, wondering when I would see my shape-changing friend again. “And I am certain that the tsarevitch will miss you as well.”

“We argued at the palace the day of the luncheon,” she said. “He denied that there was anything between him and the ballerina, but I don’t know if I should believe him.”

The ballet was about to resume, and Alix realized her sister had already left our box.

“Walk me back?” Alix pleaded. “I don’t dare go alone. What if I run into Nicholas Alexandrovich?”

A glance at the imperial box told me that was highly improbable. The tsarevitch was sitting on the edge of his seat, eager for the curtains to rise again. But I knew how anxious Alix was and told Maman I would be spending the second act with Alix and Ella.

Maman, who was busy gossiping with my aunts Anastasia and Zina about the Worth gown the empress was wearing, waved me off. I told Alix to lead the way.

The upper-tier hallway was almost completely empty. Everyone had returned to their seats before the next act began. The only person in the passage was a stranger cloaked in black, with his hood pulled down over his face. He moved in front of us as we attempted to pass him.

“Duchess, it has been a lifetime since I’ve seen you.”

I recognized the voice before he raised his head. It sent a chill slithering down my spine. “Danilo? What are you doing in St. Petersburg?” I asked as Alix gasped next to me.

“I am looking for my sister. She is in the Oldenburg box, is she not?” He did not look right. The crown prince’s cold light seemed different. Brighter than before.

“The guards will arrest you if they see you.” I glanced around, hoping the guards were nearby.

Alix was glaring at the crown prince. He had been one of the wizards intent on killing her in a ritual at Vorontsov Palace. He had needed a werewolf’s heart to raise Konstantin, the lich tsar, from the dead. Alix had not forgotten, nor had she forgiven him. “Perhaps we should call out for help, Katerina,” she said.

Danilo was pale, but he laughed. “Of course, Your Highness. Let the guards take me away. But first allow me to speak with my sister.”

“Why? What has happened to you?” I asked. I knew I should not care, but I did not know how the blood bond between us worked. If he fell sick, would I be sick as well? “Is it the lich tsar?”

Danilo looked at me with haunted eyes. “Konstantin is coming soon, Katerina. And he is looking for you, his necromancer.”

“I belong to no one,” I said, a little too forcefully.

Danilo’s eyebrow raised a fraction. “Indeed?”

Alix tried to step in front of me. “You should die for the things you’ve done, blood drinker.” Her voice was so low it sounded like a husky growl.

“I probably will, Your Highness, but first I must see my sister. The Dark Court must be warned about the lich tsar’s plans.”

“And the Light Court?” I asked.

The crown prince smiled his devilish smile. “I’ll leave that to you, my dear duchess.”

Alix was not happy. But she was finally convinced we should let him speak with his sister. Then we would notify the guards.

Danilo’s sister, Princess Anastasia, was a veshtiza, a blood drinker who could turn into a moth, like the rest of her sisters from Montenegro. She was enjoying her first evening back out in society after giving birth to her son a month earlier. And she’d eagerly attached herself to my mother, the one blood drinker in St. Petersburg who was more powerful than her own sister, Militza.

I slipped back into the family box and whispered in Anastasia’s ear, “You’re needed out in the hallway. Alone.” I glanced at Maman, who was enraptured by the dancing on the stage below. She did not notice my return.

Without a sound, my blood-drinking aunt followed me into the hallway. “Dani?” she whispered when she spotted her brother. “What has happened to you?”

Alix pulled at my gloved arm. “Do you think it’s safe to give them a bit of privacy?”

I shook my head. “Not at all. And if the guards find him, they find him,” I said. “But we should notify the Light Court of the lich tsar’s threat.”

“Dani, when did you return to St. Petersburg?” Anastasia asked in a hushed tone. “Does Militza know?”

He shook his head. “I’d hoped to see her here with you. I just arrived this evening. And I must return to Cetinje as soon as possible. I have discovered troubling news about the lich tsar.”

“We must leave for the Nikolayevich Palace at once,” Anastasia said, linking her arm in her brother’s. “Militza was not feeling well enough to go out this evening.”

Alix and I looked at each other warily. Was it wise for us to let the Montenegrins depart? What if the crown prince had more information than he had already disclosed to me?

I hesitated. “Your Highness, I’m afraid you cannot wander the streets outside the theater. The imperial guard is watching for you.”

“Of course they are, Katerina,” he said with a lazy smile. “Are you concerned for me?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Alix said. “The Light Court must be allowed to hear whatever it is you are going to tell the Dark Court.”

Danilo sighed and reached up to caress my cheek. Even now, I felt the terrible pull of enchantment from him. His touch made me dizzy.

I tried to step back. “Please don’t,” I said.

“I came to St. Petersburg to protect you, my love,” Danilo said, his words soft and sad.

I looked at him, startled. “Why?”

“He is coming for you, Katerina,” Danilo whispered, his eyes haunted. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop him.” As he leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek, I was too stunned to move. “I must go,” he said. “Take care, Katerina.” He took his sister’s arm and swiftly headed toward the stairs.

Alix blinked and looked at me. “Were we just dazzled by that blood drinker?”

I stared at the empty staircase. I could still see faint tendrils of Danilo’s cold light trailing in his wake. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. “I think so.”

A roar of applause from inside the theater told us we’d missed the entire second act. The doors would be opening soon.

Alix pulled on my arm again. “Come on. I have a terrible feeling about that ballerina.” She was no longer concerned with the crown prince. She led me around the upper hallway until we came to a second staircase, which led down behind the stage. The dressing rooms were full of half-dressed dancers, their faces heavily painted and garish up close. They looked at us curiously but no one bothered us. “I want to know if Nicholas is spending time with her.”

“Surely he wouldn’t be so foolish if he knows you are here tonight.”

“I believe he’s been blinded by his infatuation for her. He doesn’t know I’m here.”

A flurry of high-pitched voices entered the backstage area. Giddy ballerinas were flirting with a few handsome young men, and a few handsome older men as well.

“Aren’t you a pretty little thing,” I heard Grand Duke Vladimir saying to one of them. “If I were only twenty years younger,” he added with a sigh.

Alix’s eyes grew big. “Is that the Koldun? What would Grand Duchess Miechen say if she heard?”

“He wouldn’t dare,” I said. “The grand duchess would cut his heart out and eat it for dinner if he were unfaithful to her.”

“Nicky, you brought me a present!” A melodic little voice carried from a darkened corner of the hall.

I watched Alix’s face turn ghostly pale.

“I hope you like it,” the tsarevitch said shyly to the faerie dancer Kschessinska. She was smiling over a tiny jewelry box. What kind of trinket had he given her?

I worried that George might be close by too. Was he also seeking comfort among the painted dancers after our fight? I didn’t think I could bear to see that. I tugged on Alix’s arm. “Please, let’s get out of here. You don’t need to see this. Maman and your sister will be looking for us.”

“You’re right,” Alix said, turning and racing up the stairs so fast she almost left me behind. The princess’s voice showed no emotion when she turned around to speak again. “I’ll tell Ella and Sergei tonight about the crown prince’s warning. They will send word to the tsar.”

I was invited to the palace of Grand Duke and Duchess Sergei Alexandrovich to say farewell to the Hessian sisters before they left for their country estate outside of Moscow. Their only brother, Ernest, and their sisters, Victoria and Irene, had arrived from Hesse to accompany them on a family retreat.

Dariya and I attended the elegant French dinner at the Sergei Palace on the Moika River. It was here, on a bitterly cold winter night almost two years ago, that Count Chermenensky, the first human creature I’d ever raised from the dead, had tried to protect me from one of Princess Cantacuzene’s undead creatures. I passed the glass conservatory with my cousin on our way to the dining hall. Seeing the door to the outdoor garden gave me chills, even on this unseasonably mild September night. The poor count had later been destroyed protecting me from Konstantin at Peterhof. How many more members of the Order of St. Lazarus would meet the same fate before the lich tsar was defeated once and for all?

“Katiya, where have you been hiding yourself?” Dariya was asking. “I haven’t seen you at the Vladimir Palace in ages. Your mother says you’ve been busy visiting the sick? Don’t you ever grow tired of illness and death?”

I looked up at her, surprised. I never grew tired of studying disease processes. Death saddened me, but I was grateful for the lessons it offered. “Is that how you see me? As a ghoulish student surrounded by misery? I am not miserable.”

Dariya looked at me sympathetically. “Then why are your eyes so sad? Why are you not seeking out the tsar’s son?”

A sick feeling bloomed deep inside. “Is he here tonight?”

Dariya shook her head. “Why are you not where he is? Tonight he dines with his brother at his uncle Alexei’s. With the ballerinas from the Mariinsky Theater.”

“How do you know this?” I asked, the sick feeling in my stomach growing worse. I hoped Alix had not heard this rumor.

Dariya smiled. “Zina told me. She was furious when she found out.”

“Why?”

“She and Grand Duke Alexei are fighting at the moment.”

I looked at her in shock. Of course, I should have known all along. “They are having an affair? Does your father know?”

Dariya shrugged. “My father is in Biarritz with his own mistress. He left me to fend for myself against the dragon Zina a long time ago. I don’t care anymore, Katiya. All that matters is that I find a wealthy prince and get a house of my own.”

I wrapped my cousin in a fierce embrace. I had had no idea the marriage of her father and stepmother was so miserable. I’d grown up naïvely in a happy household, with parents who’d also grown up in happy households. I’d always assumed I’d have the same happily-ever-after. At least there was still hope for Petya.

“Gracious, Katiya! It’s not quite so terrible!” Dariya said, surprised at my affection. “Oh good, it looks like we’re having oysters tonight,” she added, noticing the zakuski table. She picked up a glass of champagne and tipped it toward me. “Here’s to an interesting evening.”