The Morning Star kt-3 Read online

  “Katiya?” His voice was weak as he emerged from his berth. “Did I wake you?”

  “Of course not,” I lied. “Let me ring for the porter. I’ll get you a glass of water.”

  He reached out and touched my sleeve. “No, don’t. I’ll be fine in a moment. It’s always like this in the mornings.” He looked up at me and grinned boyishly. “I hope you can get used to it.”

  I couldn’t help blushing, even though his breathing worried me. “How long have you had this cough?”

  “Since the duel,” he said grimly. He took my hands in both of his. “I am putting my faith in you, my lady doctor.”

  I kissed his knuckles. “I swear I will find a way to make you well.”

  The train’s whistle blew and the engine lurched as we sped through the dark green forests of Latvia. We would soon be in Riga. “Hurry up and get dressed, Katiya. We’ve got a priest waiting on us.”

  I scrambled into the dressing closet with my baggage and paused. What should I wear today to be married in? Not the blue satin or the brown walking suit I wore to see Dr. Badmaev. And certainly not my imperial court dress, which I would have worn if I were getting married properly in St. Petersburg. I shook out the white linen dress I’d worn to the last ball I’d been to in the Crimea.

  Even though it was slightly warmer here than it had been in St. Petersburg, it was still chilly, and I realized Maman would never forgive me for wearing linen in October. Even if she did forgive me for eloping. I finally decided on my soft gray blue silk gown, the one that matched the color of George’s eyes. I had little difficulty putting my hair up without a maid’s help. But I missed Anya all the same.

  George was waiting for me in the dining car. “We do have time for a short breakfast,” he said as he took a sip of coffee. “The tea is tolerable and the bread is fresh, but we will have better provisions once we reach Paris.”

  But I couldn’t eat. I was sipping my tea impatiently when the train finally rolled into the station in Riga.

  George began coughing again and stood up, patting his coat pockets. “I think I’ve misplaced my handkerchief.”

  “I’ll get it for you,” I said, rushing back to the sleeping car. I looked in his berth and was shocked to see drops of blood on his pillowcase. Horrified, I snatched up a clean handkerchief and returned to him. “George, you’re bleeding!”

  “I cough it up sometimes.” He frowned. “It’s nothing.”

  “It could be tuberculosis,” I pointed out.

  “Or it could be a Vladiki poison that infected me when I fought the crown prince.”

  I wasn’t sure which option frightened me more.

  We stepped off the train, arm in arm, and George hired a carriage to take us to the chapel. He squeezed my hand comfortingly. I smiled, trying to be brave. I couldn’t help thinking he was making the worst mistake of his life. But if he was willing to risk so much for me, it would have been cowardly of me to back down. Together, we would face the brunt of our families’ ire. After the lich tsar was defeated and George was healthy.

  The young and extremely nervous black-bearded priest refused to marry us before he’d heard both of our confessions. I could not imagine what George had to confess. But I was terrified of speaking to the young man. I had brought dead people back to life. Would it be better or worse for my soul if I lied during my confession? He would surely throw us both out of the chapel if I told him all the terrible things I’d done.

  I sat on a wooden bench, twisting my hands, my stomach a mass of knots while I waited for George to finish. All I could hear from the confessional were low, soft male voices. George was taking forever. Mon Dieu, how many sins did he have to confess? My nerves could not handle it anymore, so I stood up and stepped outside for fresh air.

  I looked up at the brilliant sky on that golden autumn morning and took a deep breath. The air was crisp, and I could detect smoke from some nearby fireplace. But leaving the chapel was the worst mistake I’d ever made.

  A black cloth was placed across my face with a sickeningly sweet and vaguely familiar odor. The last thing I heard as I quickly slipped out of consciousness was a voice, also sickeningly familiar: “We’ve found you, my love.”

  14

  I awoke with a throbbing headache and a feeling of dread in my stomach. I was on a train. With Crown Prince Danilo. “What have you done?” I screamed at him, which made my head hurt a thousand times worse. The pain brought tears to my eyes. Or perhaps it was the fact that he’d stolen me away from my fiancé. What would George think? That I’d had a change of heart? I squeezed my eyes shut. Perhaps he could hear my thoughts and would be able to come for me.

  “You belong to me now, necromancer.” Danilo’s voice was deadly soft, not like the lich tsar’s had been earlier. And yet I still knew it was Konstantin speaking. He’d claimed Danilo’s body.

  “Danilo, can you still hear me?” I pleaded. “I know you must be in there. Fight him!”

  The crown prince slapped me across the face with such force I was knocked back against the wooden panel behind me. I saw stars.

  I heard a young female voice laughing and opened my eyes. A girl sat across from me, not far from Danilo, dressed in the black habit of an Orthodox sister. The headdress she wore was simple and covered her hair. The girl’s soft, gray eyes glittered dangerously. Was she fae or some more-dreaded creature? I’d have to be wary of her.

  “Where are we?” I asked. The bright afternoon sunlight stung my eyes.

  “Almost to Trieste,” the crown prince said. “The chloroform kept you sleeping for almost two days. I am sure you must be hungry, Duchess. I will have them bring you a tray.” He nodded at the girl, who slipped out of our cabin.

  “Who is she?” I asked the crown prince.

  “She is your chaperone, and that is all you need to know at the moment. When she brings you dinner, you must eat.”

  I shook my head, and the tiny cabin began to spin. I did not want food. I wanted a bath. And a bed. In my own home in St. Petersburg.

  George. I blushed as I realized I should have been a married woman by now. Two days? Had my grand duke tried to look for me? Trieste, Georgi, I thought as hard as I could, hoping he could hear my thoughts from hundreds of miles away. He’s taking me to Trieste.

  I received another slap to the face as the veiled girl returned. “There is no reason for you to tell the tsar’s son where you are, my love. He will not bother to come looking for you now that I have you.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I said. But deep in my heart I was frightened by Danilo’s words. George would want nothing to do with me if he thought the crown prince had compromised me in any way. And since I’d been unconscious for so long, he would not have been able to hear my thoughts. My hands were bound tightly together; I had no hope of escaping, and no way to defend myself against Danilo.

  No, against Konstantin, I corrected myself mentally. Danilo’s greatest fear had been that the lich tsar would use their bond and possess his body. I did not know which of them was my greater enemy. The lich tsar inhabiting a powerful Vladiki’s body would be unstoppable. All he needed was a necromancer bride and his return to power would be complete.

  “Yes, you will become my bride, Katerina. Not the grand duke’s.” He was able to read my thoughts so easily. My head hurt far too much for me to focus on keeping him out.

  “Why are you taking me to Trieste?” I asked. “Why not back to Montenegro?”

  “All in good time, my love. I would not want you to give away our secrets to the tsar’s men.”

  I stopped trying to hold on to consciousness as the train rocked gently. I couldn’t fight the oblivion any longer.

  15

  When I woke again, the train was pulling into a new station. It was daytime, most likely midmorning by the position of the sun. Danilo put a fur muff over my bound hands and wrapped my coat around my shoulders. With an iron grip, he steered me off the train and toward a waiting carriage. “Do not make a sound. I don’t want
to mar that pretty face of yours again.”

  The girl in the black habit followed us silently. She would obviously not help me if I tried to escape.

  My head was still throbbing. I wondered if my face was bruised from where I’d been hit. Would people notice? “Where are you taking me?” I asked.

  Danilo squeezed my arm tighter, and I worried that he would actually break it. Mentally I listed the bones in the arm: ulna, radius, humerus. The hand: carpals, metacarpals. I stumbled a little as he guided me into the carriage.

  I had no idea how much time had passed since the last time I’d been conscious. One day? Two? I knew we were in Trieste from the signs at the train terminal, but what was in this godforsaken city? I smelled signs of the sea as we rode in the carriage through the streets. We approached a crowded harbor.

  “Are we boarding a boat?” I asked.

  Danilo smiled, but the green eyes gazing back at me were Konstantin’s. “You are at the start of a long journey, Katerina,” he said. “Already you are quite a ways from home.”

  I remembered Militza’s tarot card. Had she known what was happening to her brother? And what he had planned? “Your sisters must be worried about you, Danilo,” I ventured.

  His eyes changed back to the crown prince’s piercing black. He looked confused.

  “Can you fight Konstantin?” I whispered. “Do you know where we are?”

  “We’re going to Egypt. He’s looking for the sword.” Danilo looked dazed, and scared. Of himself.

  “What sword?” I asked, but before he could answer, the lich tsar was back in control. “Think about your sisters, Dani,” I begged. That seemed to help him hold on and concentrate. “Militza and Anastasia are worried about you, I’m certain. They will come looking for you.”

  But Danilo was gone again. The lich tsar sneered at me. “They have no power over me, Duchess. Your powers are the only ones I am concerned with.” His hand reached out and I flinched, but this time he was chillingly tender. He only caressed my jawline. “Soon I will show you what delightful wickedness a necromancer is born to do.”

  The carriage had pulled into the chaotic harbor. I was alarmed. Egypt was thousands of miles away from St. Petersburg. Why would Konstantin take me there? Was the sword he searched for the same one George had spoken of? Surely it couldn’t be a coincidence.

  The harbor was teeming with people shouting in all sorts of languages. I heard threads of conversations in German, Italian, French, and even some Greek. The sea air was hot and damp, uncomfortable for a day in late autumn.

  Two strange-looking men met us at the docks. They gave the crown prince three boarding passes for the steamer in front of us. With the boarding passes in one hand, Danilo gripped my arm again with his other and guided me toward the steamer. The girl in the black habit followed behind, directing a man carrying luggage whom I had not noticed earlier.

  For less than a second I thought about crying out for help; Danilo had already heard my thoughts. “If you want your family to remain safe, you will stay quiet and do exactly as you’re told,” he warned. “These men have comrades stationed in St. Petersburg awaiting my orders. I’d hate for some sort of accident to befall the Duchess of Oldenburg. Or your proud papa.”

  I felt sick but remained silent. Who were these men who would follow such madness? They looked odd, not quite right. Not undead, as I had first thought, but not human either. They had no cold lights at all. What could it mean? I tried not to stumble as he pushed me up the gangplank. Danilo showed our boarding passes to the ship’s purser, who welcomed us aboard.

  “Allow me to show you to your cabin,” a young man in a smart sailor’s uniform said. He led us to a suite on one of the upper levels. It appeared we would be sailing in comfort, and perhaps for a long time.

  “Why must we go to Egypt?” I demanded as Danilo pushed me into my room. “That girl is not an appropriate chaperone. I don’t even know her name.”

  He ignored me. “You’ll find your new trousseau has already been taken care of.”

  I noticed a trunk in the corner of the cabin. “I will not marry you, Danilo.”

  He smiled, and once again the crown prince’s sad eyes stared back at me. “It would make your life so much easier if you stopped fighting me, my love. I will untie you as soon as the steamer puts off.” He turned to go but stopped to look back at me with another grim smile. “It would not be wise of you to try and swim back to Europe.”

  I sank down onto my bed, my wrists raw from the tight ropes, and stared in horror at the trunk on the floor. This had to be a nightmare. I prayed to wake up, safe in St. Petersburg. George, I thought miserably, please find me. Hurry.

  My cabin was cramped but elegant, and must have cost Danilo a small fortune. The bed was made with soft French linens, and there was wooden paneling on the walls. I looked out the tiny window to see the brilliant blue waters of the Mediterranean. I refused to think about what awaited me at the end of this journey.

  I fell asleep on the bed waiting for Danilo to come and untie my hands. It was dark by the time he returned. The strange men were with him. “Who are you?” I asked, looking at one directly as I rubbed my newly freed wrists. He remained silent.

  “They are servants of the sword, Duchess,” Danilo said. “They are loyal to me, and when I possess the sword known as the Morning Star, their brothers will all be compelled to follow me. We will return to St. Petersburg in triumph and defeat Alexander Alexandrovich once and for all.”

  The crown prince was losing control over his body. I worried that his personality was starting to melt with the lich tsar’s. Would Danilo be lost forever? There had to be a way to defeat Konstantin Pavlovich without destroying Danilo.

  The Morning Star must have been the weapon of which George had spoken. A weapon to be wielded only by a necromancer. “What sort of creatures are these men?” I asked the crown prince.

  “They are the Grigori. Their kind has been in hiding for thousands of years.”

  I’d heard of them before. George and the French wizard Papus had mentioned the Grigori when we’d been in the Crimea last year. But they had not told me who the Grigori were. “Are they blood drinkers?” I asked.

  “Of course not!” Danilo said.

  “But they are not alive.”

  “They do not die. But it is not the same as being undead.” Danilo was in that strange limbo, where he was not quite himself but not quite Konstantin.

  “Why must a necromancer carry their sword, then?” I asked.

  “Why must a necromancer perform the ritual to summon the bogatyr?” he countered. “Both require your ability to manipulate cold light.”

  “But the Grigori do not have a cold light.” None that I had seen, anyway.

  The lich tsar’s eyes gleamed in Danilo’s face. “The Morning Star provides them with cold light.” He stood up and looked out the tiny window at the setting sun. “You should dress for dinner. I will return to take you to the ship’s dining room at eight o’clock.”

  When I was left alone, I sighed and opened the trunk to examine the dresses Danilo had provided. There were expensive gowns from Paris, smart English riding suits, and flimsy nightgowns that made me blush. I decided I would sleep in my own clothes, in the gray-blue gown I had intended to wear at my wedding. My heart twisted as I slipped out of the dress and laid it on the bed. I had to believe that George Alexandrovich was searching for me. That I would be rescued soon.

  I selected a pale rose gown for dinner. Its neckline was the highest of all the gowns in the wardrobe, even though it was much lower than any of my gowns at home. I carefully put away the others, praying this trip would be over soon and I would not have to wear anything else that Danilo had bought me.

  16

  Danilo escorted me on his arm up to the first-class deck, which held the dining room, the smoking room, and the billiards room. I heard one of the passengers in the hallway mentioning a library as well. I hoped I’d be allowed some freedom while we were on board. It wa
s obvious I could not escape back to Russia from here.

  The dining saloon for the first-class passengers on the steamer was a beautiful mahogany-paneled room with heavy velvet drapes blocking out the blazing setting sun. The plush red carpet was decorated with golden medallions. An enormous chandelier swayed gently as we passed beneath it. We had been lucky to have calm seas on the Mediterranean so far.

  The oyster pie and beef Wellington were both excellent, and I enjoyed dinner despite myself. Of course, it had been days since I’d had a proper meal, and the chloroform was now completely out of my body.

  Danilo signaled to the waiter to refill my glass of wine. “You look beautiful tonight, Katerina.”

  I was suddenly suspicious of the wine. I decided not to drink any more and sipped from my water goblet instead. Ignoring his compliment, I asked, “How long have you been planning this journey?”

  “Ever since I discovered the existence of the sword.”

  “How did you learn of it?”

  “An ancient book of Johanna’s. And something Militza discovered during her honeymoon in Egypt.” His voice was strange again. Not quite Danilo’s, not quite Konstantin’s. He was turning into a completely new personality altogether. The thought frightened me. I would have never believed such a thing possible. “Johanna had a book about the Grigori and their years of service to Vlad Dracul. The Impaler at one time wielded the Morning Star himself.”

  “How did he acquire it?” I asked as the waiter whisked our plates away and replaced them with berry compotes and a plate of cheeses and fruits.

  “He stole it from the Ottoman pasha. Unfortunately, the Ottomans stole it back at Vlad’s deathbed.”

  “How did the sword end up in Egypt?” I asked. The compote was heavily spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg and something else I could not place.

  “It’s believed to be hidden in the ruins of an ancient Coptic chapel. Or it could be hidden within the Graylands.”