“She will always come back to you,” the woman’s voice was quiet, almost trancelike. Mikhail took a step closer and realized that her eyes were glazed over, “Remember, Mikhail, all you need to do is help nurture her magic. She will do the rest. She will do everything. Just love her.”
The words rang into Mikhail like they were aimed straight at his heart as his mother’s words from years ago rang back at him.
He leaned down and studied the innkeeper’s face, his hand going to her shoulder as he peered into her gaze. He felt his breath catch in his throat.
“…Asya?” He dared to speak his mother’s name, but it broke whatever spell had been over the innkeeper. She blinked rapidly and looked up at Mikhail with a slightly confused smile.
“Can I get you something, dear?”
“No, no,” Mikhail stood up to his full height and looked around for Anastasia. “That’s alright. Thank you, you’ve done enough.” The woman, satisfied with the response, slipped off into the kitchen.
Anastasia was sitting on a couch in the sitting room waving her pointer finger in a circle as her magic restitched the edge of some stitching.
“Good as new,” Mikhail murmured, coming up behind her and going to put his hand on her shoulder. He paused for a moment, suddenly cursing as he found himself now hesitating to be as intimate with her as freely as he once was.
“Don’t pull back from me now,” Anastasia looked up at him with a small smile, the irony not lost on her that she was the one now encouraginghimto trust her. He couldn’t help but let out a deep chuckle, nodding his head as his hand slid effortlessly to her shoulder.
“Are you ready to go?”
Anastasia nodded, following him towards the door — the innkeeper somewhere in the kitchens as they slipped out.
Once they were back out on the street, night had fallen, and people were moving about more freely under cover of dusk. The air was oppressive.
Groups huddled near trash cans with lit fires, under street lamps with broken lights, tattered clothes moving about them like ghosts.
They could see people infiltrating groups, speaking momentarily, and then sliding away. The spies for both sides were painfully obvious to spot.
Amongst the poor man’s espionage and the scattered clusters of light, people and dogs were fighting over the same scraps of food.
What had once been a crowded, quaint street had become overrun as society was caving in all around them. Dozens of people seemed to hang out of door frames and windows, every house turning into a shelter. There were young boys no older than fifteen tossing rifles to one another from second-story windows.
Anastasia felt her heart clench as she saw the children hanging off their mothers and pleading with grown men for scraps of food.
Mikhail and Anastasia exchanged looks, both looking somber as they took in the chaos that the city had descended into.
Anastasia thought that she had seen it before when she had snuck out over the years, but it had never been this bad. She was pulled from her thoughts, a sudden commotion breaking up the crowds of people as a massive Delaunay-Belleville touring car pushed through the crowd.
A troupe of imperial soldiers marched in front of the car and behind it shoving people out of the way. It took only a moment for Anastasia to recognize her father’s favorite touring car. The soldiers aimed at the civilians, pushing them out of the way and threatening them when they didn’t.
She grabbed Mikhail’s hand and tugged him further off the sidewalk, desperate to make sure they weren’t spotted. Of course — that assumed that the Tsar was looking. So many soldiers surrounded the car it didn’t seem as though he could even see the street he was driving down.
Maybe that’s the whole bloody point.Anastasia grumbled, another wave of righteous anger rising in her.Does he think that everything is fine? They’re organizing a rebellion in the street around him!
A shot rang out. The sound was sharp and hollow, followed by chaos as the crows scattered. No one knew who fired first — but someonehadfired.
Screams came from the soldiers, their bayonets stabbing wildly into the crowd as more shots rained down, this time from above. Men had grabbed rifles and were hanging out of windows, firing aimlessly into the crowd.
Anastasia watched with a panic-stricken look of horror on her face as her father and his men pushed through the masses as if they were cattle.
“Come on,” Mikhail urged quietly, his arm moving around Anastasia’s waist as he attempted to tug her out of the chaos. “We don’t want to get caught in the crossfire. Let’s go!”
His voice grew louder as Anastasia fought to hear him amongst the rising madness happening all around them. It was chaos. It was hellfire.
The soldiers had begun firing at will into the crowd, the crowd moving like a hive, sending wave upon wave on top of the soldiers, only to be met with fire and blade. Bodies began to pile up as the street ran red.
Anastasia nearly vomited as the car made a sickening thumping sound, and she realized it was the sound of the Delaunay-Belleville running over bodies.
“No,” she turned and looked at Mikhail, her mind made up. “I need to help.”
