Against a Brightening Sky (38 page)

“I've had word that the fighting is getting closer.” Yuri stepped back and gestured toward the stairs. “You will wait for the trucks in the basement. No one from the village will see lights on or wonder why so many people are up and about at this hour.”

Yuri led the way downstairs, guards flanking my family when the corridor was spacious enough, and following when it narrowed. I went last and trailed a few yards behind my sisters, not from any reluctance to leave the mountain house, but to keep my sister's dog from growling and snapping at the guards. Two of the guards stayed close to me, as if I might attempt to stay behind.

I paid them little attention. My heart was pounding too hard, my stomach churning with fear. We'd moved at night before, but this felt different. And I couldn't forget Yuri's smile.

My parents had already started down the steep steps into the basement when the dog wiggled free of my arms and ran back the way we'd come, disappearing around a corner almost immediately. I raced after her, not stopping to think or ask permission. My sister's heart would break if her dog didn't go with us. And there was the chance that Yuri would give the order to kill the dog rather than try to catch her.

Yuri shouted for the guards to stop me, and the one closest gave chase.

A door along the corridor stood open, a large temptation for a small dog with the urge to run. She sped inside and I sent up a prayer that other doors in the room were closed. I ran after her, thinking of nothing other than catching her quickly and rejoining the family.

The guard with the crooked nose caught me, yanking hard on my arm and pulling me off balance. He clamped a hand over my mouth and instead of hauling me back toward the stairs, dragged me into the room. The door closed behind us, shutting out the lights in the hall. Another man partly raised the shade on a small tin lantern. Not much light escaped, but enough to show me a girl holding my sister's dog and a tall bearded man standing in the corner. We were in an unused parlor or office, the furnishings all covered in dusty canvas.

I twisted and fought, trying to break free, but the man holding me tightened his grip. He spoke next to my ear, each word rushed and quavering and spoken in Dmitri's voice. “Be still, Maria! I've come to take you out of here. You're safe, I promise.”

“Listen to him, Your Grace. We don't have much time before they come looking for you.” The man holding the lantern set it down. Light fell across his face, showing me a man I'd known all my life. Count Aleksei Nureyev was a distant cousin and had visited my father's court often. Now he was dressed in a scruffy uniform that could have passed for one of Yuri's men or an officer in any of the local militia. “Trust us and we'll get you away from here.”

Rescue was something I'd often dreamed of, but never dared hope would really happen. I did trust Aleksei and believed he'd keep his word. So many thoughts, so many questions about how he'd get my family away from Yuri's men crowded my mind. I wanted to ask each and every one, but Dmitri kept his hand clamped tight over my mouth.

Aleksei motioned the girl with my sister's dog forward and pulled a small pouch out of his shirt. She stood toe to toe with him in the small room, trembling with fear. The sound of coins clinking came to me as he stuffed the pouch down the front of her dress. “That's all I promised and a bit more for getting word to me in time. Now, stand still, Alina. Are you ready, Josef?”

The tall stranger, Josef, stepped forward and touched Alina's face. She flinched and tried to pull away, but Aleksei shoved a pistol into her back. “You've no choice but to keep your part of the bargain. Hold still and this will all be over.”

Dmitri's arm tightened around me to the point I could barely breathe. Josef whispered in a strange language, each harsh word I couldn't understand making my heart stutter. I wanted to scream, to run from the sound of that voice.

Alina's eyes clouded over and her features went slack. She didn't see Josef cup her face in both hands, or Aleksei loop an arm around her chest to keep her from dropping the dog as her back arched and her body convulsed.

Pain burned through me and tears flooded down my face, the sensation of bones shifting under my skin more than I could bear. Dmitri murmured in my ear, a string of nonsense words a parent might use to comfort a child waking from a nightmare. I couldn't move or see, helpless to escape or understand the torture visited on me.

Josef's whispers stopped and so did the pain. I sagged in Dmitri's arms, fighting the urge to weep uncontrollably and holding on to hope, cracked and fragile. Aleksei would explain. He would save us all.

Dmitri rested his cheek on the top of my head and spoke next to my ear. “The worst is over. We're leaving soon, I promise.”

My vision cleared and I saw that Dmitri had lied. The worst was far from over.

I stared at the woman standing with Aleksei, the woman who had been Alina just a moment before. A doppelgänger wearing my face—my eyes, my hair,
my skin
—stood in Alina's place, hugging my sister's dog close. I screamed, the sound muffled against Dmitri's hand.

Aleksei reached down the front of my double's dress, retrieving his bag of coin and tucking the money back inside his shirt. She didn't react, staring toward the closed door with a blank expression. He tipped her chin up so that she looked into his eyes. “Remember this. Your name is Maria. You went looking for the dog and came back to join your parents as soon as you found her. You never meant to cause trouble. Hurry to the basement now before the guards come looking for you.”

My double turned on her heel and rushed from the room, the sound of footsteps running toward the stairs echoing in the empty hallway. Not long after, my sister's dog barked and a guard shouted. “I found her!”

Muffled, angry voices came from the hallway. Aleksei stood with his ear pressed to the door, pistol drawn. Yuri's shout carried over all the rest. “Get her downstairs! We're running out of time.”

Silence filled the small room, tense and expectant. I heard a door slam on the ground floor, heavy footfalls, and the voices of a large troop of guards. One of them laughed loudly, but the voices moved away before I heard more than a word or two. Aleksei and Dmitri traded grim looks, but Josef smiled.

Aleksei flinched when the gunshots began and crossed himself. My sisters screamed and screamed, the terror in their cries filling the whole house. I surged against Dmitri's hold, desperate to fight my way free and go to my family. Yuri shouted orders for his men to keep shooting, to use their rifle butts and bayonets.

I couldn't let Yuri murder my parents, my sisters and brother. I stomped on Dmitri's foot and bit his hand.

Dmitri shoved me against a wall, trapping me between faded wallpaper and his body. He whispered in my ear, his voice breaking. “I'm sorry, Maria, I'm so sorry. I couldn't save them all, only you. Don't cry, it will all be over soon and they will rest with God. Soon you won't remember.”

Aleksei swore violently, and hit the wall with a fist. My sisters' screams and the sound of gunfire went on forever, my heart breaking a little more each second. I prayed for their souls and that I'd remember more of them than agony and fear.

I added Alina to my prayers. She was dying in my place.

Silence, paired with the gloating tone in Yuri's voice as he issued orders, told me when my sisters died. My knees gave way and I slid down the wall. Dmitri pulled me into his lap and held me, his hand over my mouth to muffle my sobs.

Josef and Aleksei argued violently in hushed voices, but I didn't pay attention to why or what they said. Trucks pulled into the yard below, men swore and made jokes at my father's expense, and the trucks drove away again. I huddled against Dmitri, numb and wondering if hiding in airless rooms was the only future ahead of me.

“Get her on her feet.” Josef's voice was sandpaper on my skin, awaking pain. Dmitri did as he was told, pulling me up to stand next to him. Josef touched my face and I whimpered, all the fight in me draining away. The feel of my body changing, shifting, was less painful but still unpleasant. “Take her out the front door. The guards will see one of the kitchen girls, not the grand duchess. You know what to say if the guards question where you're going. Alek and I will meet you at the truck.”

“I know what to do.” Dmitri dried my face on the hem of my dress and pulled pins from my hair. He took my hand. “Yuri took all but three or four men with him. The men left behind are well on their way to being drunk by now.”

Aleksei opened the door a crack, peering down the hallway before stepping out. “Even more reason to be cautious, Lieutenant. Drunk men don't hesitate to cause trouble.”

Dmitri led me down the steps to the front door. He paused before going out, checking his pistol. I caught a glimpse of myself in the entryway mirror and stared. Panic at what Josef had done penetrated the fog I moved through.

The woman I saw was older, thicker through the middle, and not as tall. Her dress was low cut, her breasts threatening to spill out the laced top. Dmitri caught me staring and turned me away from the mirror. “Forgive me for anything I say or do out there. Yuri's men need to see what they expect.”

I couldn't speak. Dmitri wrapped his arm around me and pulled me close before we stepped into the courtyard.

Dmitri was right; the guards were already drunk. Men in sloppy uniforms lounged against a parked truck and passed a jug of wine between them. They eyed Dmitri as we drew even and leered at me. One of them said something, his voice too low for me to hear, and the three of them burst out laughing.

“Wait a moment.” A short round guard pushed away from the truck, moving toward us on unsteady legs. The guard's black eyes glittered in the moonlight. “What have you got there?”

Dmitri's arm tightened around me, his other hand resting lightly on his pistol. “Have you been away from your wife so long you don't recognize a woman when you see one?”

The two guards still leaning on the truck laughed and passed the jug of wine again. Dmitri tugged me forward a few feet, and the round guard stepped in front of us again. “You haven't answered my question. I want to know who this woman is and where you're going with her.”

“All you need to know is she belongs to me.” Dmitri nuzzled my neck, his breath hot on my skin, and stepped between me and the guard. He loomed over the shorter man, his voice a low growl. “As for where I'm going with her, I'm taking her home and to bed. Is that a problem?”

They stared at each other, each scowling fiercely. Finally the round-faced guard stumbled back a few feet and waved in the direction of the front gate. “Go on, then.”

All three guards made jests at Dmitri's expense, calling after him and making drunken suggestions about how to spend his time with a woman. His jaw tightened and he gripped my arm harder, but he called back crude comments of his own. Once we'd passed out of sight, he hurried me along faster.

The streets of the village were deserted, windows on the houses blank and dark. July nights were warm even in the mountains, but bone-deep tremors threatened to rattle my teeth. I wanted to lie in the road and wail at the full moon, to give voice to all the pain and fear trapped inside. Dmitri kept me moving, not allowing me time to grieve.

A small lane led off the main road. Aleksei and Josef waited for us next to a truck much like the one that had brought me to the mountain house. Dmitri helped me into the back and pulled the flap closed. He held me as the truck lurched around corners and labored up inclines, moving higher into the mountains. Sleep was impossible. I couldn't get the sound of my sisters' screams out of my ears.

Dawn was brightening the sky when the truck stopped. Aleksei opened the back flap and Dmitri handed me down. A smaller truck was parked just ahead. Wooden slats held a load of turnips and cabbages in the back, a weathered piece of canvas thrown over the top to keep off rain.

Josef paced the road, his fists opening and closing with each step. He came to meet us, his smile making me shiver harder as he reached for me. I struggled against the hold Aleksei and Dmitri had on my arms, frantic to keep Josef from touching me again.

“Don't fight us, Highness.” Aleksei nodded at Dmitri to let go and wrapped his arms around me, hugging me to his chest. “This will be the last time. You'll forget all that's happened until it's safe for you to remember.”

They didn't keep me from screaming this time, but there was no one to hear. The shift of bones and flesh took longer, but when Josef stepped back, the faint reflection in the truck window belonged to me, not a stranger. Numbness stole over me, pushing grief and memory into the background.

Dmitri helped me into the truck and shut the door. He turned to find Aleksei pointing a pistol at him. Aleksei motioned him away from the truck, but I missed him stepping away. What I saw lurched, skipped ahead like a cinema film that had slipped the projector sprockets. I watched from a distance as Dmitri knelt at the side of the road and Aleksei put the gun to the back of his head. His body was facedown in a water-filled ditch the next I knew. Tears welled up in my eyes, but I couldn't remember why.

Raised voices made me turn my head. Aleksei had his back to my side of the truck, his shoulders stiff with anger. “I let my emperor—
my friend—
and his family die because that's the price you demanded for saving one of his daughters. Dmitri is the last life I owe you for your services, Josef. Even a necromancer must get his fill of death. Kill the others yourself, I won't do it for you.”

Josef smiled, his clouded eyes empty and cold. “You don't understand, Count Nureyev. You've no choice but to pay my price.”

“I have a choice.” He pointed the gun at Josef. “I should have made it sooner.”

The shot echoed, scattering a flock of rooks roosting in the pine trees. Aleksei fired again before coming around and climbing into the truck.