Sinners don't dream easy.
When did I start thinking of myself as sinner instead of saint?
Even as I lie there, so incredibly happy, I can't help but wonder. Even as my fingers trace along the emperor's spine, I wonder...
How much does Nikola know? The people?
No, she has Russia in her eyes. A throne made up of her own blood. She knows it all. She does. There's too much. I was reckless.
"No..." I whisper, running a thumb against his shoulder blade. Alexandr shifts, rolling over so he faces me. His knee against my stomach, curled in on himself like a child.
A child.
The children. The older ones are clever, so terribly clever. I'm so proud of them for it, but when will they start resenting me? Surely, they'll trust their gossiping aunts and uncles more than they would trust their strange governess. Believing that I'm a waste of breath and flesh and nothing more.
I hide my head in my hands, dark hair slipping past my fingers to hide the pain that blossoms and tingles across my face. Pain of knowing, knowing how I ruined it all. God might forgive me, but the court wouldn't. Not the scheming duke. Not the cousins of the tsarina. I should have remembered what happened to other foolish mistresses who thought they were invincible, shielded as they were in a royal's love.
The wolf devours the scheming fox.
"Matryona?" Alexandr breathes against my hand. I'm tracing his face, not even realizing it. "Why are you crying?"
"Tears of joy." I reply, trembling slightly even as I hide beneath the covers. "I'm so happy it hurts."
"Why should something so wonderful hurt?"
I smile at that. "Because all the best things do."
YOU ARE READING
Rasputina and the Witch's Tsar
FantasyThis is the Emperor. I think. Alexandr. Queen Victoria's grandson, the foreign British power. I feel his blood beat, thin, beneath his paper skin, in those blue veins. Something amiss. Something that's too weak in the Russian snow, the turned earth...
