Robin Bridges - The Unfailing Light

For a moment, Dariya looked as if she was going to tease me again, but something in my voice must have made her change her mind. She shook her head. “Katiya, a marriage could be secret, you know. Grand-mère married her second husband and kept it hidden from her father.”

This was true. Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna married her lover, Count Stroganov, not long after her first husband died. If her father, Tsar Nicholas, had known about the unequal marriage, he could have sent Grand-mère to a convent and exiled the count to Siberia. Grand-mère lived in France and kept her marriage secret for two years until after the tsar died.

But I could not imagine marrying George and living in hiding from his father, counting the years until he died. I didn’t wish for the tsar to die anyway. And George would surely grow to resent me.

And what of his mother, the empress? She would never forgive me if I took her son away from her.

Dariya gave me another friendly embrace. “Don’t worry, Katiya. I won’t tell a soul. And if there’s any hope of things working out, I’m sure they will.”

Her quick, light footsteps echoed down the corridors as she hurried back toward the cave entrance and our picnic baskets. I could barely hear Maman’s and Aunt Zina’s voices, they were so far away from where Dariya and I had explored. I raised my lantern again, not sure which way I wanted to go next.

There were two archways to choose from. One looked as if it led back around toward the room we had just visited. The other sloped downward, as if it led deeper into the mountainside. I foolishly chose the latter passage.

I shivered as I passed through the archway. It was even colder in here than in all of the previous rooms. I wished my lantern gave off more warmth. But the dim light it provided allowed me a glimpse of a wondrous sight. The walls in this chamber were completely covered in gold-leafed icons of saints and angels. The paintings took my breath away.

A heavy and ornately carved chair sat at the back of the room, covered in gold leaf and brightly painted. It looked as if many years before there had been precious stones inlaid along the arms and back, but they had been long ago pried off. A faded and worn tapestry stretched across the seat. It looked like a throne for a king. Or a tsar. The familiar Maltese cross was embroidered on the back cushion. Held up on either side by what looked like two angels, it was the symbol of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.

Carefully, almost reverently, I reached out to touch the tapestry weaving.

There were Greek words inscribed in gold lettering around the back of the chair. Eager to stretch my Greek vocabulary, I tried to translate as I traced the letters with my finger:

“The path to the light travels straight through the darkness,” I muttered.

The lightest breeze lifted the hair on the back of my neck. Something had stirred the air in the cave. I glanced around.

“Byzantium was to be mine …,” someone hissed in my ear.

With a gasp, I backed away from the throne and looked around the room. I saw no one. I turned, but was not graceful enough to keep my balance. I stumbled backward and fell into the seat.

The room began to spin. And grow even colder. Unnaturally cold. I could have hit myself for being so stupid. Mon Dieu, why had I strayed so far ahead of the others?

“Necromancer,” a sickeningly familiar voice called out to me. The cold feeling intensified. “You are able to walk between the worlds of the living and the dead.”

“Stay away from me!” I shouted as I jumped out of the chair and glanced around. I did not think I was in the cave’s chamber anymore, but in some terrible limbo.

Strands of cold light snaked through the air, giving everything a bluish-white glow. A few of the strands seemed to be wrapped around a large, dark figure, but he was struggling against them.

“Necromancer, you must finish what the House of Bessaraba began. Restore me to life. It is my birthright to rule this land!”

I shrank back from him like a coward, with a cold, sick feeling in my stomach. I did not know what place this was, but I recognized the wicked voice. And his face. It was Konstantin Pavlovich, the lich tsar. The Montenegrins had foolishly brought the dead tsar back this summer with a ritual gone horribly wrong. This had definitely put a strain on relations between our two countries, even if they did try to help stop him afterward.

“You c-cannot hurt me,” I stuttered, not completely believing my own words. “The bogatyr defeated you at Peterhof.”

“Bah! You have the cold gift. I can smell it on you. You have the ability to perform the ritual.”

He moved a little closer to me, although I cannot say he actually walked. “YOU!” With a sudden roar, he recognized me from the battle at Peterhof.

He lunged forward and I jumped back and hid behind the throne, escaping his touch by inches. The thick cold-light strands seemed to hold him back. For now.

“Witch! You will pay for everything you’ve done!”

I backed away even farther from him. Even if I didn’t know where I was going. “I will never let you return,” I said. “I won’t let you harm the tsar, or anyone else.”

“I AM THE TSAR!”

“No!” With my heart beating in my throat, I was too terrified and nowhere near foolish enough to try to attack the lich tsar on my own. The only thing I knew how to do was run.

And hide.

“Sheult Anubis,” I whispered, calling upon the one Egyptian incantation I knew, the one that I’d found in the book Johanna had given me. Instantly I was engulfed in protective shadows. Konstantin Pavlovich roared again, almost like a wounded animal, but his bindings held him fast. He was a prisoner in this place unless he could find a necromancer to help him. And that necromancer would not be me.

It seemed as if I ran forever. There were no walls, no borders or edges that I could find. I was hopelessly lost. I fought down the panic rising up inside.

Completely wrapped in my cloak of shadows, I sank down to the floor, close to panic. My heart was pounding and my hands were shaking. How would I get out of here?

I’d seen no other person in this cold-light realm besides Konstantin Pavlovich. Why was the lich tsar here? Was this place physically in the Crimea? Or somewhere not quite connected to regular time and space? The more I thought about it, I realized that I had arrived here after touching the throne in the cave chamber.

Only minutes ago, I’d been laughing and behaving in a silly fashion with my cousin in the caves. Would I ever see her and the others again?

I let the shadowy cloak fade away as I began to search for a way out.

“What in the name of the Holy Ones are you doing here?” A man’s voice startled me.

I jumped up and gasped, not having realized someone else was present. “Who are you?”

A dark robed figure stepped closer to me, holding out his hand. “I can take you back to the cave, but you must come with me now.” It was a young man, dark-haired, with piercing dark eyes. He had a heavy French accent.

“Do you know me? How did you know I was in the cave?”

He sighed impatiently. “Mademoiselle, you have been poking into things which are not your business. Do you want to get back to your family or not?”

I nodded.

“Then come with me, quickly.” Immediately, he began to mumble something in another language, definitely not French or Russian. His words caused the cold light to dissolve into a faint silvery mist.

I held my breath and watched as everything faded away slowly. I felt cold and nauseous. When the mist had completely cleared, we were back in the cave, standing next to the throne.

“Who are you?” I asked.

He bowed curtly. “You are most welcome, Mademoiselle.” He turned around and hurried off silently, back toward the cave entrance.