As his eyes passed over the pieces of glass and broken window frames, he finally located Anastasia’s window, and his heart stopped. It was shattered — but it looked different than all of the other windows.
While most looked like the glass had been blown out, pieces of the wooden frame were hanging off hers. It was as though someone had battered their way out of it.
Or like someone had been thrown out of it.A dark thought crossed his mind, possessing him until Mikhail forced himself to turn back to the guards that were staring at him.
There were even fewer of them now, feebly holding up their rifles. The crowd was roaring behind him like a sea of animals. He watched as the flames began to consume more and more of the palace.
His thoughts turned from revolution to revelations as the only thing that occupied his mind was finding Anastasia.
“I would suggest,” Mikhail’s voice echoed over the empty palace courtyard as he stared at one of the guards, “That you put down that gun.”
He nodded in the soldier’s direction, his eyes wild. With the people behind him, his figure backlit by the night sky and the flames, he looked every inch of the cursed priest — like the dreaded man they called Rasputin.
“You do not want to see what becomes of you.o you know the sound a man makes when a demon enters him?”
The threat was idle but landed with its intended effect. The soldiers within earshot immediately dropped their weapons and ran. Those who hadn’t heard Mikhail over the din saw their fellow comrades leaving and departed swiftly.
Mikhail laughed, turned to the crowd, and raised the rifle above his head. “Tear it down!” He pointed to the gates behind him.
Now that no rifles were pointing at them from the other side of the gates, the people rushed at it without hesitation. The crowd surged upon it like a tidal wave, moving as one as hands gripped the metal and began to pull.
One woman held the lock steady while another man smashed against it with the butt of his rifle. It took one… two… three cracks before it broke apart. The gates swung open and part of the fencing fell, eliciting a cheer from the crowd.
The ice was melting all around them as the palace began to burn, a third of the windows now lit with flames. The city was on fire. The air was hot. Sparks, embers, and ash rained down on them like snow.
Mikhail stood on the center of it all, bursting forward as the gates fell. He wasted no time and ran through the front doors of the burning palace, a thousand people at his back.
People immediately began looting the palace, ripping frames off of the walls and pulling gold from the baseboards.
The front hall was empty only mere moments later. Mikhail didn’t care in the slightest… He was off, running down the hallways, bending under smoke and collapsed statues. He was looking for Anastasia.
28
Mikhail ran through the palace, grateful for once that he knew each wicked turn by heart.
The people flooded in behind him, and with each step, he heard the building being dismantled piece by piece.
It brought him a sick sense of satisfaction as he thought of the Tsar and Tsarina’s precious finery being torn down, ripped away, and the rest of it burned. His thoughts were occupied by Anastasia, growing anxiety sinking into his gut as he raced towards her suite.
As he passed through the halls, Mikhail grew more anxious, the flames spreading around him. Some of it was contained to rooms, smoke billowing out from underneath the doors, and in other corridors, it raged openly.
Boyars and royals were fleeing from their bedrooms and hideouts, people in various stages of opulent undress flooding the halls. He heard their shouts of surprise and cries when they ran into the mob that had amassed behind him.
Mikhail paid none of them any attention as he picked up his speed, clearing over rubble and fallen drapes. He finally turned the corner and found Anastasia’s wing, the doors shut. He said a quick prayer when he realized that these rooms didn’t seem to have been touched by the fire.
A man possessed, he stormed over and kicked the door open. Weakened by the heat and the flood of Anastasia’s magic, it collapsed and fell forward with a loud thud. Mikhail pushed inside, his eyes immediately scanning the room. It was empty.
God damn it!He cursed, tearing through the rest of the apartments. He checked each door, ripping the bedrooms apart and tossing the furniture to the side.
“Fuck, Anya,” he muttered under his breath, realizing she was nowhere to be found, “Where are you?”
Mikhail left the suite, jogging back into the hall and following the sounds of mayhem. The entire palace now looked like it might come down around them at any minute.
There were people everywhere — it was as full as he had ever seen it — and even though he had only been in Anastasia’s rooms for a few minutes, the world around him seemed to have transformed.
It was chaos, like a living thing around him, as the smoke gathered at the tops of the halls and the noise threatened to drown out his thoughts.
No one paid him any attention, the full strength of the impoverished crowd descending upon the seat of a dynasty.
