Page 58 of The Tsarina's Favorite
I could lie to her.But I already had to lie about so much.I longed for truth since the palace and the court that surrounded me thrived on lies and manipulation.But I couldn’t just tell her that I was simply the same disgraced prince in a different kind of costume.Even if the tsarina lied to me about there being a way out, I didn’t want to wear the name Mikhail and bear the burden of his shame anymore.And if she knew any of that, if anyone knew any of that, I would again have no company and no respite from the mockery that would again come my way.
“I am not an immortal Kind and Fair creature, if that’s what you think.But I am touched by the Otherlands,” touched by its magic at least, “so I doubt you will find another of my kind easily.”
“I knew it.”
“So you believe in The Kind and Fair despite having invoked the Great Holy...twice, I think, in my company?”
“Is that offensive to you?”
“Not at all.I am just curious how you can believe in both.”
“Politically?”She laughed.“I don’t.In Ilyichia, I do as the Ilyichians and give offerings only to The Kind and Fair.”She lowered her voice.“In my homeland, I give offerings to both, The Kind and Fair as a supernatural intermediary on earth, and the Great Holy as a deity above all of us, The Kind and Fair included.”
Varnasia, like Ilyichia, only acknowledged one while condemning the other.What might have been different if I didn’t have to choose?I didn’t know much about Altania, but I liked the sound of its open-mindedness and spiritual inclusivity.
“I have never seen a Kind and Fair though,” she confessed.“Have you?”
“No.”
“Even though you're an Otherland creature?”
“Currently, I am baser than the worm that freely wriggles through the dirt.No Kind and Fair would find me worthy enough to appear to me.”
“They are supposedly capricious.You must always give them a great amount of respect and a healthy dose of wariness.And if you leave the proper offerings, they will decide what is worthy.”
“The proper offerings?”
“It’s not much different than honoring the Great Holy, truly.Food is customary, but blood is supposedly best, although I never offer blood.Maybe that’s why I haven’t gone home yet.But it doesn’t feel right giving pieces of me away.”
The tsarina used blood with the roses when she issued our game.She had invoked The Kind and Fair, and if roses were linked to magic....Someday, I would have to go to her private rose garden and see what I could do.The Kind and Fair would probably not listen to me, but it might be worth a try.After everything else, could it hurt?
“Perhaps,” I began, “when next you give The Kind and Fair an offering or you speak to the Great Holy in private, you might mention me in your prayers?”
“What is it you would have me ask?”Her face twisted in confusion.“Better food?Less attention from the tsarina?The Great Holy does not listen to prayers from animals, but—”
Her confusion over what I could possibly desire and the dismissal as an animal struck me as cruel, a testament to her casual, self-absorbed lack of empathy for anything beyond her own wish to be free.
“Nevermind,” I said, turning away from her.“I’m sure no one would listen to prayers on my behalf anyway.No one ever has before.”
Ilay silent and stillwhile the tsarina finished, my contributions, pitiful and unenthusiastic though they were, having long been spent, and the sound of bells long muted.I couldn’t find the will to pray during the midst of my trials, so I examined the ceiling painting as I had years before when the tsarina kept me on her bed instead of the floor.
My own home — former home — had paintings on almost every ceiling too.Different themes, of course.Many of them legends of Ilyichia instead of the more commonplace pastoral allegories popular throughout the continent.And there was the Karilitsyn crest over every major doorway.I didn’t miss the family seat.In my heart, it was still my forefathers’ house, as any possible son of mine might have considered it more mine than his.
I would never have children now.The tsarina would not be fool enough to become pregnant. Even if the tsarina could be trusted about the Alfinian baby, that child would never know me.There would be no other life for me beyond the tsarina’s menagerie, and no one else would share the tsarina’s unique proclivities to bed me, even if I were amenable.Which I never thought I would be again.Not after this.The mere idea of lying beside anyone in such intimacy inspired intense nausea.
“You might at least pretend to enjoy it,” the tsarina said as she rose from me.“I don’t waste my time with just anyone.”
“Do you not have your Allemandian lover?”I pushed myself onto my elbows.At least she had kept her word about leaving my wrists unbound when I visited her.“Why do you have need of me?”
“Why should I eat pork every night when I can have fowl on occasion?”She wandered out of the bed enclosure to begin her morning ablutions.“You are going to join me today.My ministers are going to bore me to tears if I don’t have more pleasant distraction.”
“They aren’t going to want me in your meetings.”
“What they want doesn’t concern me.”She wiped her hands and face on a cloth.She came over to the railing that wrapped around the bed and stared at me.“Do I need to muzzle you, or will you stay silent?”
I didn’t want to be muzzled, but I also didn’t know how I might be tempted to break the illusion of tsarina’s pet.I had a proven record of not being able to keep my mouth shut and opening it at the worst times.
“I’ll feed you from my plate today if you behave,” she added as she disappeared into her dressing room.
