Page 98 of The Tsarina's Favorite
A small brown sparrow flew past me and perched on a twig of the bare rose bush.It studied me, the little head tilting and bobbing from side to side.
“Little friend,” I cooed at it, “you should be south by now, enjoying the parasol pines in the Varnasian sun.If I could but fly like you, that’s where I would be, not here in this miserable land.”
It stared at me as if it understood what I said.I couldn’t remember all the lore of The Kind and Fair, but didn’t Otherland animals sometimes serve as messengers?
“If you are of the Otherlands, little friend, could you take a message for me?”
“Am I not a sufficient recipient for your message?”asked someone behind me.
I spun around.My heart beat frantically.I had been caught, found out, not just out of her apartments as if in another escape attempt, but speaking, and all would know that there was something else wrong and unnatural with me.And maybe others would figure out that I had once been Mikhail.Alaina would abandon me, and I would again own all the shame of before in a shameful form.
But it wasn’t the tsarina, and it wasn’t a guard.
Someone stood off to the edge of the tsarina’s garden, as pale and as brilliant as the white roses that graced the bushes in summer.The stark white hair lay coiled in a loose braid over their shoulder.They wore pale gold robes flecked with silver thread.Their mask and gloves, also pale gold, bore heavy, intricate metallic embroidery.Although nothing shimmered or glowed, the light reflected off them in a way that almost caused me to step backward.This had to be a Kind and Fair Protector.An impressive one.
The sparrow flew passed me again and took perch on The Kind and Fair’s shoulder, studying me from its new vantage.
“Forgive me, my lord.”I lowered myself to my knees and bowed my head.The Otherlands had answered, and this was no mere underling sent to relay a plea for help.“I did not realize that you had arrived.I have never done this before.”
“Do you not find us worthy of your offerings?”
I did not look up to confirm my impression, but I could feel the assessment.My heart thudded against my ribs for a different reason than being caught by the tsarina.The tsarina could order things to be done, and people, earthly people, agreed to see her words carried out.This being, this Kind and Fair, possessed true power, the like of which needed no other to see it come to fulfillment.
“I have never needed to ask for anything until now,” I said.“I never realized that I could.”
“What then would you ask of me?”
I should have had my requests well-rehearsed and ready to offer.But I didn’t believe that I would get this far, and I didn’t have anything eloquent prepared.Words abandoned me in the presence of a being whose existence I had not believed in.
“As if I need to ask,” the Otherlander continued in my fumbling silence.
“No,” I said with the surety I could not muster for anything else.I looked up at the Otherlander.“I have nothing to ask for myself.”
“But you are human.Do you not wish to be again?”
“Fixing this,” I held my hands out to him, “fixes nothing.”
“I see.”The tone grew more serious.“How came you to be this way?”
“I am not permitted to speak of it.”
The Otherlander stepped forward and leaned down to get a closer look at me.He reached a gloved finger out to catch one of the leather ties on my wrist bindings.Then he withdrew.
“Who keeps you collared?”he asked.
“The empress.”
“As a pet?”
“And more.”
The Otherlander stiffened at that, his body poised in tense rigidity.His eyes narrowed.Waves of fury rippled off him.
I bowed my head again.Although I was not the target of his rage, I did not wish to further his frustrations and have them aimed at me.
“As you ask nothing for yourself, what is it you want?”he asked again after a long pause in which he regained his composure.
“There is a princess here at court who has become dear to me,” I began.The wish sounded infantile now that I put words to it, unworthy of the power of this being who protected nations, but it was the only desire that deserved attention.“I fear for her safety here in Ilyichia.I desire her protection above all else.”
