Why in God’s name am I going to try this?! I’ve killed someone with this fucking magic.
Her thoughts raced, yet there was something in her overriding it, an instinct, that drove her to abandon those fears as soon as they arose. It kept coming back like the tide and she grew nervous at the ebbing and flowing of the terror and magic within her. As she approached the fireplace, she let her mind go numb and extended her hand out.
The stranger watched on in awe as Anastasia let the magic flow through her fingers, causing the embers to glow hotter until they erupted into flames. Her cheeks grew hot and she felt herself grow weaker, as she watched on in equal awe as the woman next to her.
“My God,” she muttered, before turning up and looking at Anastasia with tears in her eyes.
For the second time in her life, Anastasia had used her magic for someone else. It was unpredictable but had never come as easily.
6
“This is the definition of insanity,” Anastasia muttered under her breath as she stared at her fingertips with a defeated sigh.
It had been three weeks since she saved Alexei’s life and seemingly ended her own. Anastasia thought her world before that incident had been controlled, but she was unprepared for the gilded cage that her parent’s acceptance of her power brought her.
Tolerance is more like it.
Anastasia fought the palpable urge to scream as loud as she could for as long as she could, avoiding the gaze of the newest tutor that had been assigned to her.
True to her father’s threats, Anastasia had been removed from court. There had been no formal announcement or any decree that described her absence, which led most of the nobility to believe that she had gotten pregnant out of wedlock.
They whispered the Tsar was trying to save face. Her father doubled down on controlling her meals; someone in her father’s cabinet suggested Anastasia keep a “clean mind” to pursue her curse — no, it was agiftnow.
While the hundreds of guests and nobles in the palace gorged themselves on caviar and sturgeon, Anastasia now survived on cold oats for breakfast and buckwheat cutlets for the rest of the day.
Her mother had assigned a new priest to her side, one who was more “proficient” in the magical arts. Anastasia knew better and rightfully assumed this simply meant he had a proficiency for dark magic rituals that ultimately looked terrifying and completed nothing.
She was moved back to the Winter Palace alone while her family spent a few more warm weeks at the summer property. Even though the Winter Palace was not the court seat — court was held wherever the Tsar went— she was only allowed to leave her chambers for a walk in the gardens once the social hours ended.
The bottom of the upper class lingered around the out-of-season palace, regardless of the official royal schedule, effectively reducing Anastasia’s walk schedule to the middle of the night, if that.
Daily messengers were dispatched to the Summer Palace with updates on Anastasia’s progress, and to date, not a single letter held any real news.
Anastasia felt the last remnants of the fire in her soul begin to flicker out like a gas lantern on its last few drops when it would suddenly flare again for a few brief seconds. She felt like a defunct, rusted weapon, locked away in ten-room chambers, lined with precious metals that left a disgusting, metallic tang in her mouth.
She stared at her hands and couldn’t decide if she wanted something or nothing to happen. The idea of using her magic still terrified her, as someone always seemed to die when she tried.
If she ever got her magic to work, that also meant she would quickly be deployed like a warhorse in her father’s army, so her life was lost to her either way.
Nothing happened as she rubbed her palms together, feeling a warmth between them but nothing else; even the sparks that she used to entertain herself with as a child never appeared again.
She snapped her fingers to see what would happen and was ripped from her thoughts as a switch struck across her upper back. She hissed but swallowed her reaction as best as she could, turning around to face the tutor that never left.
“Don’t do that,” the priest hissed — Anastasia refused to remember his name as her sole act of defiance — and he shook his head, brandishing the switch like a broadsword. “You musttell mebefore you do something.”
Anastasia grinned as she studied the look on his face. He was afraidof her.He had no clue that she didn’t have the slightest idea how to use her magic. None of them did.
She smiled wider, mimicking the cruelty in the faces of those she had grown up around, and waved a hand in front of her. Nothing happened and the priest fell backward as he tried to scramble away from her.
Anastasia felt the last of her resolve begin to crack and she started to laugh. It was not a joyful or merry sound, but a heartbreaking one, the sound of a soul resigning itself to nothingness and expunging any sounds from their lungs that could mimic mirth.
She began to laugh louder and louder, spinning in circles and throwing her hands out wide in every which way.
“Stop that!” The priest screamed, waving the switch at Anastasia haphazardly, managing to get a few hits in, the pain dulling with every blow as she let herself slip into the delusion. She kept spinning, spinning, spinning… until she didn’t even realize she had started crying, falling to her knees, and screaming for Asya for the first time in years.
Anastasia didn’t know how long she had sat there in her chambers, delirious with the shambles of her life and the heartbreaking knowledge that there wasn’t a single person alive who knew who she was, including her.
She tipped her head back and screamed as loud as she could… when suddenly, a wave of power burst from her fingers and sent shockwaves across the chambers. Every mirror broke and the lights were extinguished, sending glass and sparks flying around her.
