Page 50 of My Trojan Horse Majesty

“Suits. Slacks. Sweaters.”

That reminds me of a place Tim talked about sometimes—Beckett and Robb. It’s supposed to be the nicest custom clothing in Utah. I’m not sure whether they sell anything from the rack, but a quick search on my phone shows they aren’ttoofar from me. We could at least try it. “I have an idea. I bet it would be perfect for you.”

“While you drive, I’ll start answering your question.”

“Okay.”

“But please pay attention to the road.”

I can’t help glaring at him. “Of course.” I roll my eyes.

“I was born in the eighteen hundreds.”

“What?” I swerve into the next lane, and the large red SUV next to us honks.

“I told you to focus on the road.”

I say a few select words. “You don’t look hundreds of years old.”

“Very late eighteen hundreds,” he says. “And I’m not hundreds of years old. I’m right around a hundred and thirty, but I’m also just right around thirty.”

“That makes no sense.”

“It’s a strange set of circumstances,” he says. “Which is why I said it might take some time to explain.”

“Well, I’m listening,” I say. “Go ahead.”

“Of course, when I was born, I had no idea about any of the crazy things that would happen in my life. All I knew was that we were very poor, that I didn’t have a mother or any siblings, and that no one really liked my father.”

“Why not?”

“My father—I’m not sure what they’d say about him today. At the time, he was all I had. I knew nothing different, so I didn’t question it. He told a story to anyone who would listen. I can still recite it verbatim, I heard it so often.” Leonid’s looking out the window as we drive past the various streets of Salt Lake.

“I’m not sure about things here, but Ivan the Terrible’s a ruler most children in Russia have heard of. He was the last great Rurikid ruler. He had three sons with his wife Anastasia. The first son died in infancy. The second son was named Ivan Ivanovich. The third son was Feodor. The records show that the second son, Ivan, was strong, brilliant, fierce, and Ivan the Terrible’s choice to replace him on the throne. However, it also shows that after an altercation, Ivan the Terrible struck his son and killed him.”

I gasp. “He killed his own son?”

“He was called ‘the terrible’ for a reason.” Leonid shrugs. “It’s in all the records, but my dad’s story starts here. He says Ivan didn’t kill his son Ivan. He says they got into a huge fight, and the son Ivan stormed off. When Ivan the Terrible fell ill, some time later, one of the boyars later spread the story that he wasn’t ill. He was quite strong, and in fact had recently been fighting with his own strong, hale son and struck him down.”

“That’s a terrible story to use to convince people you’re not sick.”

“It is, but I fear that was more telling of the time they lived in. You were strong, or you were at risk. In any case, not long after, when Ivan the Terrible died, he and his son had not made up, so his sickly, mentally ill son Feodor was made the new czar. When he had no children, the Rurikid line was said to have died out. Only, my father said it didn’t. Ivan, who had left Russia, tried to return. He made every effort, but the boyars, desiring to run the country themselves, prevented it.”

“If that’s true, that’s pretty sad.”

“Ivan, whom everyone believed to be dead, was instead hiding in Europe. By the time his descendants finally returned, no one believed that they were who they said they were.”

“Because how could they prove it?”

“Precisely. My father had an amulet, a scepter, and a crown he claimed were given to Ivan by his father when he was made the heir. My father, generations later, still had them, but he hid them all the time. He would only get them out when he met someone he thought might help him retake his crown. At the time, they were his only proof.”

“What did they look like?”

“They each bore the symbol of the Rurikid line, a trident. The same symbol also resembles a three-pointed flame. They all have large, brilliant, blood-red rubies set into them, and I could tell they were valuable.”

“What’s the point of a three-pronged flame?”

“The three points were to represent the magic in our bloodline, our divine right as the original Rus conquerors of the area, and our ability to claim animal and human dominion.” He shrugs. “Also, when Rurik took the throne originally, he did it with two brothers, but he was the only one to survive—the point of the flame.”

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