Yuri’s mouth dropped, and he caught her as she barreled straight into him. “Liliya—”
“You’re back, Firebraids!” she cried, reaching up to pull at his ponytail.
The tips of Yuri’s ears flamed red. “We agreed you would stop calling me that,” he muttered, but tugged back at one of her gold pigtails. “And I told you to stay—”
“Who’s that?” The girl—Liliya—now turned to Ana, her eyes wide.
Yuri looked helplessly at Ana.We’ll talk later,his expression said as he tousled the girl’s hair and told her, “Liliya, this is Ana. Ana, this is Liliya, my sister.”
The girl grinned toothily at Ana, looking every bit like a smaller version of her brother down to the freckles on her nose. “You’re the princess!” she squealed, and sank into an awkward curtsy with her peony-patterned skirts. “Kolst Pryntsessa!”
But the greeting only tightened a string inside Ana’s chest. She didn’t look at Yuri as she smiled and dipped her head.
More footsteps thudded from the back; moments later, a woman emerged. She had Yuri’s solid build and heated gaze, softened by wrinkles around her eyes that made her look as though she were smiling already. Her bright red hair was swept back in a bun, and she held a wooden ladle in her sturdy hands. “Liliya,” she was shouting, “I told you to never leave the butter by the cooking stove or—”
The woman broke off as her gaze fell on Ana. Her eyes widened.
“Ma, this is Ana,” Yuri said. “Ana, this is my mother.”
“Please,” Yuri’s mother said, turning as red as her hair as she sank into a curtsy. “Call me Raisa, Kolst Pryntsessa.”
“Please, call me Ana.” A sudden surge of guilt clutched at Ana’s chest as she dipped her head and bid the woman to rise.
Back at the Palace, Yuri had always mentioned a mother and a sister in a village down south. She had never given a second thought to them, but now they were here, in the flesh. For most of her life, she’d thought of Yuri only as her friend, and a servant at the Palace. Never the fact that he had a whole family, a whole life, outside of bringing her hot ptychy’moloko and keeping her company. That he’d lived away from it all when he’d been with her.
Ana looked at Raisa’s linen kirtle, a faded red covered with splotches of various oils and sauces, at the woman’s swollen wrists and ankles, her hair spilling from her bun. She looked at the modest furnishings in the restaurant, the air smelling like grease and batter. At Liliya, whose sleeves were rolled up and whose hands were covered in soap water.
Up until now, the livelihoods of ordinary citizens of her empire had never seemed real, never seemed more than a sentence in a dusty tome or a letter of law penned in expensive black ink.
It all felt like a dream as Raisa ordered Yuri into the kitchens to set up some breakfast, and then led Ana up the rickety stairs to the wash closet. They passed a second-floor landing spaced with many rooms. “This used to be a boardinghouse,” Raisa explained, “but now Yuri’s children live here, and I provide room and board.”
“You mean the Redcloaks?” Ana asked as they squeezed between a plain clay tub, a gently steaming bucket of hot water, and a number of neatly organized drawers.
Raisa exhaled sharply. “A fancy title they give themselves. Most of them are young, with nowhere to go, believing in a cause too big for them to bite. I do what I can for them.” She rummaged in a cabinet. “Here—a medical kit. I can tell you have a wound from the way you move. Sit down, child; let me help you.”
Raisa’s hands were gentle as she peeled back Ana’s shirt and the bandages she had applied herself. “When Yuri got the post at the Palace, it was the best day of our lives,” she murmured, lathering warm water from the bucket and cleansing the wound. “We had moved down south because we heard it was safer down here for Affinites compared to the north. The Empire’s policies against Affinites are looser down here because it’s so far from Salskoff. Not,” she added quickly, glancing up, “that there was anything wrong with them.”
Ana caught Raisa’s gaze. “There was so much wrong with them,” she said gently, and Raisa’s shoulders loosened.
“He spoke so well of you,” Yuri’s mother whispered, her fingers nimble as she applied salve from a tin can and began to wrap fresh gauze around Ana’s midriff. “He said you are kind, and fair, and just. No matter what, I am glad for your friendship with my son.”
Ana’s throat tightened. “Thank you.”
They continued pleasantly, the clay tub sturdy as Ana leaned against it, Raisa telling Ana stories of her children punctuated by her warm, booming laughs and her chiding commentary.
By the time Ana went downstairs, the clock hanging over the faded cream wallpaper announced it was a little past eight hours, and the sun threaded orange through the winding streets of the Southern Cyrilian town.
Yuri and Liliya had set up a mouthwatering spread of food at one of the booths. Ana sat down, and it was all she could do not to lunge at the steaming pelmeny dumplings and golden pirozhky oozing with potatoes and minced beef. The interrupted conversation with Yuri felt like a distant past, mended with Raisa’s gentle hands and tender words.
Liliya had retreated upstairs. Yuri sat across from her, silent, his gaze distant. Ana poured herself a cup of koffee from a worn metal samovar. The hot liquid soothed her stomach. “Your mother has quick hands and a quicker wit,” she said into the silence. “And Liliya has stolen my heart. I’m glad I met them.”
Yuri’s hands tightened around his mug. “Ana,” he said, and finally looked up at her. “Things can’t be as they were. You understand that.”
Just like that, the dreamlike peace of the morning shattered. The soft beige wallpaper, the creaking wooden table, the warmth of her koffee dissolved into a familiar nightmare: cold, shadows, a blade between her ribs, and a familiar whisper.The monarchy must die.
“Not as long as you lay claim to the throne,” Yuri continued. “I believe Seyin made that clear.”
Crack.She’d knocked over her mug. Black koffee spilled across the tablecloth, warm and sticky on her fingers.
