The Conspirators of Krasnovska

1. One Fell Swoop

"Polya?" Lara had picked up on her suspicion.

"What now, Lara?" Polina sighed, her exasperation growing as an irrational sense of dread welled up in her throat.

"There was something...odd about that man who just ran through," she whispered hoarsely, too proper (and scared) to say it directly.

She sighed again. This was not the time for her sister's tendency to beat around the bush to kick in. "I know, Lara. I saw that he was carrying a dagger. Strange, yes, but not enough to scare me." She said it with as much bravado as she could muster, but she couldn't even fool herself. Ordinarily, she may have been willing to brush it off as an odd coincidence, but with Lara's panic, and the pieces falling into place so neatly, she no longer felt sure. An armed man at a wedding, running through a crowd towards the door, around which the entirety of the Dosinskiyan royal court were gathered...she didn't want to believe they might be in danger, but was all too clear. Not one of the gruesome tasks she'd had to carry out as a court doctor could compare to the clammy fear that seized her heart when she glanced up and saw the man shoving past the King's guards.

Lara seized her sister's shoulders, her face contorted with panic. "It is more than strange, being armed at a wedding, and someone - any of us - could be in grave danger right now! Did you notice anything else? What direction was he running?"

"He is trying to get past the guards. Whoever he is going after is not going to escape." Polina could only hope that would be enough to satisfy Lara. She did not want to have to spell out what she was thinking.

"That is exactly what I was trying to warn you of! We have to warn Dmitri-"

An unearthly shriek reverberated through the hall. Too late for that, Polina thought in one last moment of clarity before the realization set in. There was a pause. A silence. And then a stampede of thousands of feet pounding out the door. The shouts of the guards taking off in pursuit of someone. An unmistakable flash of orange disappearing into a dark corridor. Polina shoved her way through the crowd, fearing the worst. An ominous lump formed in her throat. She had seen the man flee. All that was unclear was who he had been after, but she had a sinking feeling she knew. Her sweat-dampened black hair began to fall from the elaborate arrangement she had set it in as she ran. Taking the hem of her skirt in her hands, she elbowed her way through hundreds of people, thinking of nothing but Dmitri - her Dmitri, the most inept of crown princes, the rash young man rushing headlong into a controversial marriage driven more by love than political strategy, the one who hadn't left her side since the day their mothers both perished in a single epidemic when she was only six years old. Panic reigned both outside and inside her mind, and it clouded with an inescapable sense of urgency. She shouted his name, unlikely to be heard over the noise, but unwilling not to try. She did not give a thought to the impropriety of addressing the Prince by first name in public; it was unlike her, but panic had a way of wringing any sense of decorum from her brain like water from a mop.

"Lady Polina!"

She stopped short at the sound of her name. Half the crowd's eyes swiveled and landed on her. She did not recognize the voice, but nevertheless, she frantically ran towards it.

"Lady Polina, come quickly!"

Wait. She came to a sudden stop. This voice was different. Even with her panic-clouded mind, it took only seconds to realize who it was.

"Dmitri? Where are you? I'm coming!" She shouted. The crowd parted around her as she pushed through it. Another wave of panic seized her mind. If her fears had been legitimate, if anything had happened to Dmitri...

His voice broke through her thoughts. "Just outside the door! You must hurry!"

Why he was asking for Polina, and not one of the twelve million guards (it seemed, at least, as if there were that many, just milling around), she did not know. Maybe he had heard her; she suspected it was purely coincidental. If he's shouting, at least he isn't dead or dying, she thought, but she could not allow herself a sigh of relief yet. Whoever the assassin had been targeting was in dire straits, and as a semi-trained physician, she would be expected to treat the victim if a more qualified doctor was not present. Unlikely, she thought, but then again, her suspicion (or lack thereof) about the man in orange had been proven wrong.