From the Ashes of Victory: The Complete Series, page 66
part #0 of From the Ashes of Victory Series
"Jesus Christ," Niamh breathed.
"But she's dead," Millie said, pointing at Alexandra like a shadowed object that was slowly revealing itself to be a bomb the more light that was shone on it.
"No. The world thinks her dead, but she survived."
"Those names she would say in her sleep," Svetlana said. "Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Alexei. Those were the names of the Romanov children. I never made the connection…" She looked at Alexandra, and her face twisted in horror before her eyes even shifted. They were only halfway gold when her entire body went slack and she collapsed to her knees. "I knew there was tragedy… death in your thoughts, but this…"
At that confirmation, Victoria felt herself go as white at Yekaterina had. "Mother of God, is that what happened to her?"
"I watched them die," said the young woman sitting alone amidst a circle of squabbling witches. "All of them."
The room was instantly silent, save for the blood pounding in Victoria's ears. She felt lightheaded, but even that was too much for her legs, and she found herself kneeling beside the young Russian whether she had intended it or not.
"Anastasia?" Victoria asked, searching her dark blue eyes for any sign of recognition, or comprehension that she'd been spoken to.
When they slowly swung over, Victoria had to keep from recoiling. Not from terror, but from the sheer grief that was there, renewed by having spoken aloud that which had caused it. The trauma that looked out from behind those haunted orbs was painfully familiar, echoing the one that Victoria had seen in the mirror every day for years, only magnified by a factor of a hundred.
"That is my name," she said, her voice small and reedy.
Out of the corner of her eye, Victoria saw Yekaterina begin to pace back and forth, her white hair trailing behind her in her haste. "This is impossible," she repeated, keeping one eye on Anastasia. "How can you know it's her? They were executed in cold blood!"
At the last word, Anastasia winced and seemed to diminish even further.
"Yekaterina," Victoria said quietly, the type of quiet that commanded more attention than shouting. Though Yekaterina had the good grace to look apologetic, she stayed silent and continued to pace.
"She is not lying," Svetlana said, her unfocussed, golden eyes bearing the incalculable weight of yet another truth they clearly had not wanted to see.
"Also, she had some of the crown jewels with her when she was delivered to me. As Sveta said, she speaks the names of her brother and sisters in her sleep. She knew about ADAM," Zoya said.
"An astonishing bit of subterfuge to fake all that," Victoria said, looking up into Anastasia's eyes again. Whatever her greater significance or titles, whatever the world thought of her, all that mattered then was that she was a young woman with a name. Traumatised, frightened, lost, she was Anastasia. Just Anastasia.
As the last Ravenwood looked into the eyes of the last Romanov, they found a haunting familiarity, and Victoria felt something within her solidify. What had been a soft, bruised kind of uncertainty about the future, who she was and her role in it became diamond-coated adamant.
'I'd like to start over.'
EVE was about new beginnings, about finding a new home. It was the bed of ashes from which the detritus left behind in the wake of an uncaring world could grow again. The lost, the broken, the discarded, the forgotten.
Together, they were no longer any of those things.
In Anastasia's eyes, Victoria saw herself. And Millie. And Elise. And Yekaterina. All of them. They had all suffered, and they all deserved the chance to start again.
Even Victoria.
"Anastasia, that's a beautiful name. My name is Victoria. You're safe here." I am worthy, and so is she, she told herself. EVE's future was her future, and Victoria grabbed hold of it with everything she had. "No-one will turn you away, and no-one will let you come to harm. You have my word."
"Vickie, what are you—?"
Jabbing a single index finger at Millie cut her off.
"You're a witch?" Victoria asked softly.
Anastasia nodded slowly, almost imperceptibly.
"Me too." A white witchlight rose from Victoria's palm. "See?"
A gasp rippled through the room as a tiny yellow witchlight flared to life in Anastasia's upturned hand.
"Very nice," Victoria said. "Can you make a white one?"
The dim little orb brightened, the rather sickly yellow joined by every other colour simultaneously. Brilliant and strong, it lit the hollows in Anastasia's eyes, breathing life into them for the first time that Victoria had ever seen.
Katya couldn't stop pacing, she couldn't stop thinking, she couldn't stop wishing her eyes were daggers so Zoya would fall down dead.
If that witch really was Princess Anastasia, then they were all in danger, and simply cutting Zoya out of decision-making was a laughably inadequate response to what she'd done.
Katya watched in a mixture of fascination and horror as the girl's yellow witchlight turned white, and Katya almost fell down dead herself.
The last surviving Princess of Russia, miraculous survivor of the cold-blooded massacre of the royal family, was a Manifested witch.
That, or she was the most perfect fraud ever conceived.
After everything that had happened, after Katya had finally managed to make some kind of peace with her past, that this should happen beggared belief.
They had been traveling with the heir to the Russian throne for months and had no idea. Katya had watched her eat half-rotten beets dug from refuse piles, stood watch while she pissed in a ditch, harangued her for not watching where she was going.
The Princess—no, she would be Queen now, if the throne still existed—had crossed into England with forged papers! They could all have been arrested or sent straight back to Russia. Surely the Cheka knew she was missing, they could count bodies. If they found out where she was…
Looking over to Inga and Svetlana, Katya saw many of the same thoughts writ in their faces. They'd barely escaped the calamity that was tearing apart their homeland even as they spoke, and Zoya had all but brought it with her. All across Europe, all of those encounters they'd had with desperate people, all the hardship, the infinite ways it could have gone wrong—and the most valuable, most politically volatile, most dangerous person in Russia had been with them the whole time.
Because she'd survived. By some miracle, Anastasia had survived, and she was a witch. Maybe because she was a witch, who knew?
It was impossible. It was so mind-numbingly, stupidly impossible that the only conclusion to be drawn was that it was true.
They'd thought themselves far enough to be safe, a thousand miles away in the centre of a country ringed by a giant moat with the greatest navy in history to defend it.
Katya shivered. She hoped it was enough.
"This is Elise, Anastasia," Victoria said as she beckoned her over. When she arrived, her face was equal parts worry and confusion. "You've seen her magic with Yekaterina. Are you in pain?"
Anastasia nodded, her hand going to her ribs.
"May Elise examine you?"
Anastasia nodded again, her eyes downcast.
"Thank you. Elise?"
She knelt beside both of them, her eyes searching for Anastasia's. "I need to touch you to examine you. May I?" she asked when she'd found them.
Anastasia's trembling hand outstretched from a dull green sleeve and settled on her knee.
"Thank you." Elise's magic was already a faint glow surrounding her right hand when it settled on top of Anastasia's. Elise's eyes closed as the solidifying, reassuring feeling that she sent out with her magic infused the younger witch, relaxing her under a stranger's touch.
"You had two broken ribs not long ago. They did not heal properly. I can re-heal them, but it will be painful." Elise's eyes fluttered open, unfocussed and disorientated a moment before they locked onto Anastasia again. "But it can wait until you are ready and it can be done in private."
"Thank you," Anastasia said.
Two broken ribs. If Zoya meant it when she'd said 'again,' Anastasia had been shot in the chest and lived.
Whether by Manifesting or by luck, Victoria knew that was a question for later. All that mattered now was that a terrified young witch needed to be welcomed home.
In the common room of the EVE residence, Anastasia Nikolaevna, the last Romanov, sat quietly in the corner with Hekabe under one hand and a tonic water in the other. Nothing about her indicated who she was, or had been. To look at her, she was just a young woman shattered by world events made horrifically personal, the same as countless others.
The only thing that gave her away as special was Inga, standing behind her as she always did in her free time now, Anastasia's tireless guardian.
Inga had shown Anastasia every bit of the deference and respect due her as a princess, even though Anastasia had refused to accept it on the basis her father had abdicated the throne and the government deposed, nullifying any claim she might have to it—if it could even be said to exist.
Given how extraordinary every woman at EVE was, Victoria found that the shock of the revelation of Anastasia's identity had worn off with surprising quickness in everyone else. As one, save Inga, they had accepted Anastasia's stance that she was no longer a princess and wanted to be treated like a witch; no more. Inga was the only holdout, her upbringing not yet allowing any legal declarations to override the blood that ran in Anastasia's veins.
But a change in identity was something every witch faced. Selene, Ivy, even Niamh, none of them were who they had been when they were born; they didn't even have surnames anymore. They had started over too many times, outlived too many people in their long lives to keep them, and Anastasia would be no different. She could no longer be a Romanov, but she would always be Anastasia.
For as much pain as she was experiencing now at the reasons, it would pass, and seeing it in someone else was helping Victoria to internalise it for herself. Turning her analysis on Anastasia was proving that Yekaterina had been right all along. They would need each other, and that that was all right.
Victoria approached Anastasia, with full approval of both of her sentinels. "Would you like anything else?"
"No, thank you. I would like to just… sit. I must remember how," Anastasia said.
I must remember, Victoria repeated in her head. Another thread that stitched them together. "All right. But if you need anything, please tell us. When you're ready."
Anastasia nodded weakly, and continued to scratch Hekabe's head.
It was hard for Victoria to tear her attention away from someone who bore that look. It was like abandoning herself, knowing what awaited when she was left alone. Forcing the issue would only breed resentment, and Victoria had to let Anastasia be Anastasia, including discovering for herself what that meant now, the same as the rest of them were doing.
So when the piano awoke, the first few notes brighter than anything Victoria had ever played, she turned to see who had let them free.
There sat Yekaterina, her hair loose to cascade down her back as she hunched over the keys, seeming to need to re-acquaint herself with them the same as Victoria had.
The song continued slowly but with increasing confidence. It was distinctly Russian, in a minor key, but with such a clear cadence that it was obviously meant to be sung.
Victoria sat down on the narrow bench beside Yekaterina, who didn't even look up. "What is this?"
"Always Kalinka, our zhar-ptitsa," Zoya answered from her corner of the room. After what had happened, Victoria had thought her in hiding from Selene's continued fury, but when Victoria looked over, the old Russian witch was smiling as if nothing had changed.
"She protests, but she loves this song," Yekaterina said as the song sped up before suddenly slowing down again. "The one or two times we came across a working piano, I had a way to help us forget where we were."
Watching Yekaterina's slender fingers, Victoria got a sense for how the song went, and began adding her part to it. It wasn't terribly complex, but the way Yekaterina was playing, it did have sudden, seemingly unpredictable tempo changes that made it feel more alive than another dreary bit of Beethoven. "Zhar-ptista, what does it mean? Why did she call you that?"
"It's from an old folktale," Yekaterina said. "It means 'firebird.'"
"As in Stravinsky?"
"That's one interpretation. There are many versions of the story, but I prefer the version where she is a shining beacon of hope," Yekaterina said slyly. "Or where her only job is to eat golden apples. I could live that life, I think."
"As long as you share them with the rest of us," Victoria said.
Yekaterina smiled. "I'm sure you'll be getting your own nickname soon enough."
"Oh? Any suggestions you may care to warn me about?"
"One or two, depending on your reaction." Yekaterina sped up the song as fast as she had yet.
But Victoria would not be deterred. "I think you have to tell me, now."
Several bars were scythed away before Yekaterina spoke again. "How about boginya? Not the most pleasant word to the English ear, I suppose."
"What does it mean?"
The song slowed down again as Yekaterina hesitated in answering, but Victoria could hear the moment of her decision, as the song went back to its original tempo.
"Goddess," Yekaterina said.
Victoria's hands stopped. "Is that what you think of me?"
"It's what you are."
"No, I'm not."
"We've talked about this. I have seen you use your magic, your eyes when you do. You can do things no witch has ever done, or even thought to do."
Victoria demurred. "You don't know that many witches," she said. "Besides, Svetlana can read minds. What about her?"
"You frighten the old ones," said Yekaterina.
"What?"
"When you are in your magic, you don't see anything else. Truth be told, when you are in it, it is hard to look away. But I have, and I see the way that Selene and Zoya look at you. The rest of us are still there after you've walked through a wall."
Victoria ignored the harshness with which she'd said the last part. "And?"
"There is fear there. Perhaps not much, but it's there. For hundreds, maybe thousands of years, it was potions and, what did you call it? kitchen witchery? with the occasional Manifest that rose above that, like Niamh's. But what they see in you is… different. You are your Manifest. Yours isn't a tool, it's an extension of you. So you can object to being called a goddess, but I cannot imagine what someone would have to be capable of to be more deserving."
"I wish you wouldn't," Victoria said, suddenly cold despite the roaring fire only a few feet away. "It makes me uncomfortable."
"I'm sorry, then. I don't want that. Sincerely. Vita, then."
"Vita?"
"Viktoriya is a name in Russian as well, and Vita is one way we shorten it. This one suits you, does it not?" Yekaterina said with a glint in her eye.
"What makes you say that?"
"Because in learning English and French, I picked up a bit of Latin along the way."
Victoria dredged up the lessons she hadn't thought about in a decade. "'Life?'"
"Fits you well, I thought. You overcame death. Twice."
"Yekaterina, I—"
"Katya. Call me Katya. I insist."
"Katya. I'm just a witch, the same as you. Please don't make me out to be more than that. There's a fine line between gods and monsters, and I've been a monster already."
Katya looked over at Victoria through her hair and had a thought she couldn't read. Nodding slowly, Katya looked back down at her fingers as they moved over towards Victoria's side of the piano. "I'm sorry."
They played a few more bars before Victoria spoke again. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"Your friendship."
Katya smiled her ethereal smile. "Well, for that, you are very welcome. Now try to keep up."
From the bottom of the stairs, Millie watched Vickie and Yekaterina together and still couldn't believe what she was seeing.
Selene could.
"But she's a stranger," Millie protested. Even after everything that had happened, it still felt that way. A bit petulant, perhaps, but Yekaterina hadn't been there for anything that had happened to Vickie, she'd just swooped in afterwards to fix it like the world's most helpful vulture.
"Look at them together," Selene said. "Does she look like a stranger?"
Quite the opposite, they looked like they'd been friends a lot longer than since their trip to London. They interacted like two people who hadn't been at each others' throats until then. Or worse, had never been. What could account for such a remarkable change? Every attempt Millie had made to find out why had been met by simple replies of 'we talked,' and myriad variations.
But why was she so surprised? Millie had picked a physical fight with Inga, and now they were thick as thieves. What was so different about Vickie and Yekaterina? The answer, Millie was ashamed to admit, had nothing to do with either of them: Millie wasn't the one Vickie was talking to anymore.
"You have Elise now. Of course she was going to find someone else to turn to," Selene said matter-of-factly. "That doesn't mean she loves you any less. Do you think she's lying when she says she's happy for you?"
"Of course not."
"Then believe her. Millie, the three of you are bonded unlike any Coven I've ever seen. She's not going anywhere. But what Victoria needs right now is someone who hasn't been with her through all of it, as strange as that may sound to you. Fresh eyes. She wouldn't be here right now if it weren't for you, and she knows that. Maybe too well."
"What does that mean?"
"You saw her at her absolute nadir. You know what she went through. She can't talk about it in her own terms because you already have yours. As do I," the ancient witch finished quietly.
A stark-white head leaned in close to a jet-black one and Vickie smiled, something Millie hadn't managed to coax from her in what felt like ages.
"But what if she…" Millie couldn't finish the sentence. Just thinking it, she felt childish. What if she chooses her over me?
