Anastasia turned to face him, her voice deadly quiet as her eyes lit up. "If you tell anyone about this, it will harm them more than it ever harms me," her voice was foreboding. "Do you understand? No one knows about this, but you... well, you're hardly a priest."
"Hardly," Mikhail nodded, wondering why Anastasia brought them to the street that he had grown up on. She let out a shaky breath, and Mikhail leaned closer to her, his mind spinning a million miles a minute.
"I'm sure you were told a myriad of things when you were hired," she pulled them to the side of the street to get out of the way. "The first time my magic... exploded," she chewed over the word as if they didn't feel right, "I killed someone."
Mikhail stopped, unable to move, unable to think, unable to breathe.
"It was my lady-in-waiting," Anastasia's voice cracked, and she bit her lip hard. "Her name was Asya. She was the only person I loved in the whole world. And it was during another one of my mother's fucking lessons!"
Anastasia released half a sob and choked the rest down like rotten food, her hand going to cover her face as she looked anywhere but Mikhail's gaze.
"The priest had put some sort of binding spell on me, I don't know... it all happened so fast. Asya broke into the room and tried to help me all while my mother went after her with a knife. I screamed; I was so scared… then it all went dark."
She doesn't know Asya was my mother,he thought as he watched her tremble.
Anastasia wiped at her eyes, breathing shakily and Mikhail eyed a tremor in her hands, still frozen to the spot in front of her. He couldn't believe what she was saying after fifteen years of holding onto one singular notion of how that fateful night had gone.
"When I woke up, my whole life changed. They told me that I had killed Asya, or, I suppose, my magic did. I have been cursed by the Devil himself. The only woman who ever showed me kindness... it was an accident. And I killed her."
"Anastasia...," Mikhail reached for her, but she stepped back.
"It gets worse," she hiccuped and began wringing her hands together. "She had a son, you know. They had to send him away, ship him off. He saw it happen. I ruined his life. I tried, over the years, to get them to bring him back..."
Mikhail paled, unable to breathe as his world unraveled in front of him.
She... she had no idea. It was an accident? An accident? Did she send for me? She sent for me!
"I know," he said, looking up at her and trying to catch her gaze. When she refused to look him in the eye, he leaned forward and captured her chin with his thumb. "Anastasia," he said again, "I know."
They stared at one another, so close now that they were almost touching, as realization dawned over Anastasia — this man had Asya’s eyes. She shook her head repeatedly, choking the words out as tears began running freely down her face.
"No, no, no, no...," she gasped, her hands going to his wrist near her face. "It can't be."
He nodded, "I think we've both been living in our own prisons for a very long time, Your Grace." His voice was dangerously detached and calm as he stared at her, unable to stop thinking about how utterly captivating she was when she cried.
"Could... could you ever forgive me?" Anastasia's voice was quiet and sad, a demure quality to it that didn't suit her. Mikhail hated it.
"I don't know if forgiveness is the word for it," he shook his head, abandoning himself to fate at that moment and unable to process. "Maybe the best we can ask for is acceptance."
Anastasia nodded, "It was bold of me to ask. You must hate me." She stepped back, and they released their holds on one another.
"I thought I did," he said quietly, so low that she could barely hear it. She knew not to press him on the statement. "Answer me this, Anastasia. What are we doing here?" He waved his hand around them, looking at the streets.
"I come here every week. I have been for the past few months," she said quietly. "Thedvorovyereturn to their families on Sunday, if they're lucky, before going back to the fields and their lords."
Mikhail looked around and got a sick feeling in his stomach as he saw, for the first time, the serf boys running around wearingrogatka;spiked, iron collars that would ensure they returned to the farms to have them taken off.
"I give them all the money I can. I’ll smuggle a few trinkets out of the palace," she shrugged quietly. "I can use the littlest amounts of magic, sometimes, if it works. Help their families with their chores before they say goodbye to their sons. It's... horrid. This system, Mikhail. You must know."
"I do," his voice was somber, yet filled with confused awe, as he found himself completely at a loss for how to respond to this version of the woman he thought he had hated.
"I need to stop it," she said quietly, and Mikhail's attention snapped to her immediately. "I don't know how."
He suddenly remembered his mother's vision, the last of the oracle gifts she had given him, toprotect the Romanov magic.
"I can teach you, Your Grace," he gave her a soft smile, "...if you require a tutor."
9
