I almost turned around. I thought about heading straight for Veliko’s no man’s land, finding Pavel Viktorovich.
But before I could make up my mind, one of the guards spotted me loitering. He used to work on the palace grounds. Recognized me. Wondered if I could help him get a posting back at the palace.
When he said that, I was sure I lost a full inch in height as my muscles all unwound at once. If he thought I had any pull with Aksana, at least the guards at the gate hadn’t yet been told to hogtie me on sight.
“His Highness is hurt,” the guard said as I limped toward the gate. (That was not the proper way to address me; I was only a lord, and that only nominally—Lord of Nothing, quite literally—but his mistake both gave me a hint as to why he had been relieved of his duty at the palace and made me much more secure about my own current status there.) “Let me arrange a palanquin, or—or, I’m sure we can come up with a horse at least for Knyaz Aksana’s nephew.”
And so I was conveyed to the palace in a rickshaw, which I found embarrassing but my ankle thanked me for. I didn’t dare take my boot off just then—I didn’t want to see the damage when I didn’t have any energy to take care of it.
I was expecting that as soon as they saw me at the palace, I’d be whisked off to see Aksana immediately.
Though it should have been a good sign, I was almost irritated to find that upon my arrival, I was whisked nowhere. I had to limp to the great hall myself, and once I was there, Nestor and Agafya informed me that Aksana was too busy to see me.
I stayed there agitating for a while, convinced her refusal to see me meant Vasilij had already been in her ear, and I needed to get in and advocate for myself if I wanted any hope of living to see the next day, but when I stopped alternately insulting the guards’ mothers and complimenting their good breeding to take a breath, it occurred to me that if Aksana didn’t have time to see me and she hadn’t had me bonked on the head and dragged into a cell, then perhaps she really just didn’t have time to see me. Perhaps I was not something that rated as important to her right now. Perhaps Vasilij had not said anything.
But was it that he hadn’t said anything yet, or that he wasn’t going to say anything? He’d had two days. If he were going to tell her, he would have by now. Wouldn’t he?
I sighed heavily, hunched over with my hands on my knees for a moment, then straightened up and limped away with as much dignity as I could muster, Nestor and Agafya laughing at my retreating back.
The sun was down by now, and it was too late for me to go beg a chicken off the livestock stewards to fix my ankle myself, and I didn’t want to bother Yuliya so late. I started hobbling towards Dasha’s and Semchik’s rooms.
Semchik wasn’t in, but Dasha was, and she seemed strangely pleased to see me.
“Yushka! I heard you were coming home.” She opened her door herself, smiling beneficently.
“Where’s Marina?” I asked, bracing myself on the door as I hopped over the threshold.
“What do I need Marina for now? Unlike you and Semchik I manage to dress myself. What happened to you?” She looped her arm around my waist and helped me to a chair.
“I haven’t had anyone dress me in over a year, all right?” I said, wincing as she started to pull off my boot.
“Yes, and it shows,” she said.
“I twisted my ankle getting home. Guess I was running too fast.”
“Twisted!” she said, pulling my sock off with a bit more gusto than I thought the situation called for. “The thing’s the size of a melon. How long have you been running on this? Why were you running at all? You had to have run the whole way here; we just heard you were coming two days ago.”
“Just couldn’t wait to see you,” I said, letting a little whimper escape as she took my ankle between her hands.
“I can’t fix this. Not entirely. But I can patch you up until Yuliya Aksanevich can take a look at it.” My ankle felt cool all of a sudden, and the pressure from the swelling went down.
I groaned and relaxed into her grip. “Thank you, Dasha. That feels amazing.”
“Don’t say that or I’ll stop helping. I’m not giving you a foot massage,” she said sharply.
“No, it doesn’t feel nearly that good.”
“Oh, now you’re insulting me?” She dropped my foot. It only hurt a little when my heel bounced on the floor.
“Oww, never!” I writhed in exaggerated pain and, while she got up, dusting her hands off, leaned over to take a look. The ankle was still sore, still purple, but less swollen. Less tender to the touch.
“I’ve got something you’re going to love,” she said, going to her desk and beginning to root through it.
“Oh yeah?” I was still poking at my ankle, counting my blessings that Dasha had become distracted before prying more into why I was in such a rush to get home, so she really only got my attention when she said, “Put out your hands and close your eyes.”
“Huh?” I looked up.
She stood in front of me grinning like a barracuda, almost dancing in place, hands hidden behind her back. “I said, ‘put out your hands and close your eyes.’”
“...And I may get a big surprise?” I laughed.
“That’s right.”
I knew from growing up with Dasha that I was not going to like whatever surprise she had for me. I just hoped it didn’t bite. I sighed and did as she commanded, squeezing my eyes shut and cupping my hands in front of me.
I felt her come closer, and then, too quick for me to do anything about it, I heard a chain clink and felt cuffs close over my wrists.
“What the fuck?” I nearly fell over backwards in my chair jerking away, but Dasha had already locked them in place.
She doubled over laughing. “Your face!” She pointed at me.
I was curled up at the back of the chair, hands up to my chest. The metal, despite Khorizova’s warmth, was cool and biting on my wrists. I had to sit there watching her laugh for a long moment before any of the blood returned to my face. Even when I got my breath back, something felt wrong. “Dasha, what the fuck, take these off.” I thrust my hands out at her.
She straightened up, wiping a tear from her eye. “Calm down, Yusha. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Take them off; I don’t even wanna know why you have manacles in your bedroom but I know I don't wanna be involved in it.”
“Don’t be disgusting.” She crinkled her nose. “I was going to take them off, but now I think you can just stay in them for a while.”
“You’re a bitch,” I said, “but fine. I’ll get them off myself.”
She stood back and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Go ahead.”
I didn’t have much myortva left, not enough to heal my ankle, but maybe enough to break the chain. Certainly enough to pop the locks on the cuffs, but I’d rather break them. For the drama.
I pushed myortva down my arms and pulled.
Nothing happened but the iron biting into my wrists. It was like the myortva was just sucked out of me. Used up to no effect.
“What the fuck?” I repeated, pulling the manacles up to my eyes. With what little myortva I had left, I tried to pop open the lock on the left cuff. What came out of my fingertips was absolutely nothing.
“The fuck!” I flailed, jerking my hands around and making the chain jingle wildly. I flung myself back in the chair and glowered. Then my curiosity got the best of me. I sat up, rubbing my fingers over the thick cuffs. “What is this?”
“What do you think this is?”
I looked up at her smugly smiling face. “It’s the returner. You got—”
“Yuliya Aksanevich brought some back. She managed to work it into a kind of glaze, or—well, I’m not really sure, but isn’t it amazing?”
“It is.” I was forced to agree. “Now, can you take them off?” I felt the weight of the returner bottle in my pocket.
She sat down in the chair next to mine and scooted it closer, grabbing the chain and pulling my hands to her.
“How is your back? How have you been, in general?” she said, digging in her pocket (for the key, I hoped).
“Fine,” I said. “Got tired of the cold.”
“So the running was to keep warm, then? And that’s why you’re still wearing the coat, too?” She drew the key out of her pocket, finally, and put it in the left cuff’s lock.
“Can’t get anything by you.”
She paused, key half-turned. “Yushechka, if you did anything in Gorakino, please tell me.”
“I didn’t,” I said. “Wouldn’t Knyaz Artyom have sent a message if I was running from them?”
Dasha shrugged, still looking at me, key still half-turned. “Maybe he did, and Mamushka just hasn’t told me.”
“He didn’t. You can send a message to them yourself if you want. But…” I hesitated. “I did come home for a reason.”
Her grip on my wrist tightened—unconsciously, I think.
“There’s something I heard in Gorakino that I had to tell Mamushka myself. She was too busy to see me when I got back.” My eyes rose from the half-turned key to smirk at Dasha.
She was not smiling. “What? What is it?”
“Tsura was funding—is still funding, maybe—the insurgents in Veliko. It’s a land-grab.”
“How do you know that?”
“I overheard it.”
“From whom?”
“Vasilij Artyomovich.”
“And how did you hear a conversation Vasilij Artyomovich was having about Tsura? I assume he wasn’t discussing it strolling through the training grounds.”
“No. I was—I was in Aleksandr Artyomovich’s rooms when he came in.”
“And he said this in front of you?”
“He didn’t think he was. I was… hidden.” I widened my eyes and jutted my chin forward.
Dasha’s brow furrowed, and then her eyes mirrored mine and a cackle escaped her mouth. “I knew it.”
“Don’t tell Mamushka that part.”
“Of course not.” She turned the key and the cuff fell off my left wrist while she made quick work of the other. “But we have to tell her the rest. Now.” She pulled me to my feet.
***
I had less trouble getting past Nestor and Agafya with Dasha towing me—helping me, I’m sure she’d say.
If Aksana was surprised by what I had to say, her face didn’t betray it. She asked a few unintrusive questions and thanked me for my report. Then she told Reskov to go make tea and, when he stepped away, asked me to approach the throne.
When I got there—perhaps exaggerating my limp just a bit—she rose and took me into her arms.
For the first time, when she hugged me, the top of my head rose over hers.
“It’s so good to have you home,” she said, her eyes warm as she pulled back, taking me by the shoulders to look me up and down.
“It’s good to be home, Tyotya.”
“How are you, Yushka? You’ve gotten so tall.”
“It’s the thin air,” I said. “Less pressure compressing me.”
“I guess your hunting hasn’t made you too serious, then. How could it? What are a few ghosts to our Yushka?”
“The ghosts are nothing compared to the Gorakino cooking. I ran home so fast hoping I’d get here in time for dinner.”
“We shall have to have another tomorrow, then. In the meantime, I’ll have Chinovnik Reskov get the kitchens to bring something to your rooms.”
“Pelmeni?” I said hopefully.
“You’ll take what you can get. For now.” She brushed my hair over my shoulder. “Tomorrow, I’ll make sure we have pelmeni. How long can we expect the pleasure of your company?”
“I said I’d be back three weeks from the day I left.”
“Then we’ll have plenty of time to catch up.” She smiled warmly.
“What are you gonna do?” I asked as she turned away.
“Hmm?”
“About Tsura.”
“Oh. That’s something that’s going to take more time to consider.”
“Will you talk to Knyaz Artyom about it?”
She arched her eyebrow. “Why just Knyaz Artyom?”
“Just, that’s where I heard it. So he must know.”
“And if he knows, shouldn’t he have talked to me about it?”
I hesitated. “I didn’t—did you know about it already?”
“Whether I knew or not, I’m pleased that you brought this to me. Thank you.” She patted my shoulder. “I should be asking you that question.”
“Huh?”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“I’m—I’m not.”
She nodded. “You came home to see your family, right? Nothing else.”
I nodded.
“And at the end of three weeks, you’ll go back to Gorakino right on schedule, right?”
I nodded.
“And you’re not going to mention anything about this to anyone.”
I nodded. I didn’t have any more questions. It didn’t matter anymore, did it?
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