The Tsar cleared his throat, standing tall as if he was giving a Shakespearean monologue. “I kiss your hands and lay my head upon your blessed shoulders… all I want to do is to sleep, sleep forever on your shoulder… in your embrace.”
The Tsarina felt like she would be sick as her pen moved of its own accord across her stationery.
“Careful now,” one of the men warned, “You don’t want to go so fast that your penmanship doesn’t look like your own.”
“Maybe that’s best,” another one of them laughed. “It looks like she is writing in an impassioned plea for her lover.”
The noble's voices prodding her on made the Tsarina feel like the pawn she was, acting in a sideshow of power for these corrupt men.
Suddenly, all of her religious games started to feel dreadfully silly as it dawned on her all at once that the Tsar never cared.
As much as he had encouraged her to do it ‘for the good of the empire,’ she could see now that it was only ever to keep her distracted. She swallowed thickly and put the pen down before looking up at the Tsar for further instruction.
The Tsar had poured himself a glass of vodka and was sitting on the edge of his desk. He looked every inch the Tsar who was enjoying himself.
“My darling, my one true star…,” the Tsar carried on, the councilmen bursting into laughter as they cheered him on, “How I weep the nights you spend apart from me… each moment your body is away from mine, I tremble for you.”
The Tsarina had to bite back a gasp at the words, her hands growing sweaty as she scrawled out the letter exactly how the Tsar had dictated.
This went on for well over an hour while the Tsarina scratched out line after line — growing increasingly explicit — of fake letters to Rasputin.
Eventually, one of thedvorysvastovolunteered to write for Rasputin, and the whole cycle of laughs started again. The men got increasingly drunk, forcing the Tsarina to stay in the room as they tossed ideas back and forth to one another.
In the end, there were well over twenty letters of correspondence between the Tsarina and the priest. The Tsar and hisdvorysvastowere rip-roaring drunk. They began passing the letters around the room, jeering and cheering with one another whenever they reread a sentence they found particularly enjoyable.
It was late in the evening when they finally dismissed the Tsarina who fled the room. She hid in her chambers and refused to come out for three days. Meanwhile, the letters had been strategically dispatched and began to circulate.
???
On the other side of The Winter Palace, Mikhail looked down and grinned at the sight of Anastasia sleeping in his arms.
For the first time, he didn’t feel as if they were standing on some fragile precipice. It had always been two steps forward and one step back with them, each of them afraid of something that they hadn’t been able to admit.
Mikhail had struggled to let go of the idea of whom hethoughtAnastasia was, a spoiled woman whose tantrum had murdered his mother.
Even in the face of the truth, the exact opposite, that she was a prisoner of her own circumstance — like he was — his brain struggled to rewire its conditioning.
He felt as if he was a traitor to his mother’s memory every time he looked at her. It was only when he had been able to accept that people were flawed, accidents happen, and to move past his ownhurt…he had seen who she really was.
And God, she’s magnificent.
Anastasia’s powers were something that was a new mystery every day. They were inherently hers. There was nothing that Mikhail could truly do to control them or change her. Every spark, every flicker — it was Anya.HisAnya. That’s what he loved about it.
The only thing she ever needed to step into the full extent of her power was an unwavering sense of herself.
Mikhail was the first person to admit that all he ever did to help her find her magic was simply show her to herself.
Sure, sometimes that involved a little bit of antagonizing, but only when she had been able to set free of the jailed bars that she had around her heart and soul was she able to discover who she truly was.
If Mikhail had to spend a little bit of time making her angry enough to pull at the cage — he was more than happy to do it.
Anastasia stirred, blinking her eyes and finding herself blissfully entombed in an embrace. She didn’t know when she’d been held like this last… if ever. She had half a mind never to leave Mikhail’s arms.
Her magic had never flowed as easy as when she was around him — but it was only because of the support that she felt with him behind her. He couldn’t do anything directly for her; at the end of the day, she knew she’d always been able to summon her magic. He simply pointed her in the direction of herself.
“Mikhail,” Anastasia’s voice was sleepy as she reached up and stroked his face, “Do you think we’re on borrowed time?” She hated to ask the question.
For once, their relationship felt like the foundation beneath her feet, and it was everything else that was beginning to crumble. It was creeping in on her.
