The Unfailing Light

The caves at Massandra were part of the larger cave system reaching across the Crimean Peninsula. Monks had created monasteries in the caves, and Tatars had built medieval cities inside of them. And we, a few silly Russian women, were going to have a picnic there.

These local caves would one day be used as a wine cellar for the palace. The land here was very fertile and there were already vineyards that had been producing fruit since the early eighteen hundreds.

The entrance was partially hidden under a thick canopy of trees. We would have had difficulty finding it without George and his siblings' help.

Aunt Zina and Maman thanked the tsarevitch for his escort. George handed me my picnic basket silently. I tried to look cheerful, and failed miserably. "Will we see you at the dance next week?" I asked.

He did not smile either. "I'm afraid I must leave for Paris before then."

I nodded, realizing I might not see him anytime soon. A lump welled up in my throat.

He leaned closer. "We'll be together again before long, Katiya. I won't leave without saying goodbye." Once more, he was reading my thoughts. No one noticed when he gave my hand the briefest squeeze. No one noticed my blush, or the way he made my fingers tremble.

I bowed to his brother and sister, then hurried into the cave after Maman before I could tear up. Dariya looked at me curiously, but said nothing.

Neither Maman nor Aunt Zina noticed my mood. They were fussing over the ribbons on the dress Xenia Alexandrovna had been wearing. "What on earth will her mother say when she comes home dripping wet like that?" Maman was asking.

"You would think they'd have more than just the grand duchess's governess out here to look after them," Aunt Zina said.

I was surprised to discover that the caves were several degrees cooler than the air outside. My sleeves had dried already, but the damp front of my dress made me shiver. We set the picnic baskets down in an alcove near the entrance and picked up the oil lanterns to light the darkness. Aunt Zina's oohs and aahs echoed against the smooth cold walls of the caves. Dariya and I raced on past our mothers into the shadows.

"Don't run too far ahead, girls," Maman said.

But we ignored her. There was so much to see. The caves had obviously been occupied by humans before, but we did not know how long ago. We wandered from room to room, entering deeper and deeper into the belly of the cave.

"Are you going to tell me what happened out there?" Dariya asked quietly as we slid our hands over an old fresco painted on the stone wall. I raised my lantern higher to examine the figures. And so my cousin could not see me blushing. The fresco looked incredibly old. I took my hand away as some of the paint flaked off. I did not want to damage such priceless art.

I sighed finally. "There is nothing to tell. George Alexandrovich belongs to the Light Court, and I belong to the Dark. He is going to Paris and I am going to Zurich."

Dariya looked at me in shock. And then grinned. "Katiya! You are in love! I never would have guessed it! You with your cold medical journals and dull Latin textbooks!"

"And I don't suppose you've ever been in love, then?" I scowled at her.

"Oh, lots of times. But you!" She nearly knocked me over with one of her enthusiastic embraces. "Oh, I'm so happy for you, Cousin!" She pulled back to grin at me. "He's a much better choice than Danilo of Montenegro."

I snorted. "A toad would be a better choice than Crown Prince Danilo." I had to hold the lantern out so Dariya wouldn't knock it out of my hand or catch her hair on fire. "There will be no engagement," I added. "George Alexandrovich is the tsar's son."

"And you are a tsar's great-granddaughter."

I shook my head. "His mother would never approve. There is no hope for it."

"That's the best kind of love. Hopeless love." She shrugged as she let go of me. "Don't worry. You'll pine away and he'll pine away, and then you'll get over it and so will he."

I rolled my eyes. I was not in the mood for her teasing.

She turned around. "I'm famished. Do you think we could sneak some of those meat pies before our mothers notice?"

"You go ahead," I said. "I want to see the next room." I did not feel like eating. I just wanted to sulk.

"Are you sure?" my cousin asked.

"Go on. You won't tell anyone about the grand duke, will you?"

For a moment, Dariya looked as if she was going to tease me again, but something in my voice must have made her change her mind. She shook her head. "Katiya, a marriage could be secret, you know. Grand-mere married her second husband and kept it hidden from her father."

This was true. Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna married her lover, Count Stroganov, not long after her first husband died. If her father, Tsar Nicholas, had known about the unequal marriage, he could have sent Grand-mere to a convent and exiled the count to Siberia. Grand-mere lived in France and kept her marriage secret for two years until after the tsar died.

But I could not imagine marrying George and living in hiding from his father, counting the years until he died. I didn't wish for the tsar to die anyway. And George would surely grow to resent me.

And what of his mother, the empress? She would never forgive me if I took her son away from her.

Dariya gave me another friendly embrace. "Don't worry, Katiya. I won't tell a soul. And if there's any hope of things working out, I'm sure they will."

Her quick, light footsteps echoed down the corridors as she hurried back toward the cave entrance and our picnic baskets. I could barely hear Maman's and Aunt Zina's voices, they were so far away from where Dariya and I had explored. I raised my lantern again, not sure which way I wanted to go next.

There were two archways to choose from. One looked as if it led back around toward the room we had just visited. The other sloped downward, as if it led deeper into the mountainside. I foolishly chose the latter passage.

I shivered as I passed through the archway. It was even colder in here than in all of the previous rooms. I wished my lantern gave off more warmth. But the dim light it provided allowed me a glimpse of a wondrous sight. The walls in this chamber were completely covered in gold-leafed icons of saints and angels. The paintings took my breath away.

A heavy and ornately carved chair sat at the back of the room, covered in gold leaf and brightly painted. It looked as if many years before there had been precious stones inlaid along the arms and back, but they had been long ago pried off. A faded and worn tapestry stretched across the seat. It looked like a throne for a king. Or a tsar. The familiar Maltese cross was embroidered on the back cushion. Held up on either side by what looked like two angels, it was the symbol of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.

Carefully, almost reverently, I reached out to touch the tapestry weaving.

There were Greek words inscribed in gold lettering around the back of the chair. Eager to stretch my Greek vocabulary, I tried to translate as I traced the letters with my finger:

"The path to the light travels straight through the darkness," I muttered.

The lightest breeze lifted the hair on the back of my neck. Something had stirred the air in the cave. I glanced around.

"Byzantium was to be mine ...," someone hissed in my ear.

With a gasp, I backed away from the throne and looked around the room. I saw no one. I turned, but was not graceful enough to keep my balance. I stumbled backward and fell into the seat.

The room began to spin. And grow even colder. Unnaturally cold. I could have hit myself for being so stupid. Mon Dieu, why had I strayed so far ahead of the others?

"Necromancer," a sickeningly familiar voice called out to me. The cold feeling intensified. "You are able to walk between the worlds of the living and the dead."

"Stay away from me!" I shouted as I jumped out of the chair and glanced around. I did not think I was in the cave's chamber anymore, but in some terrible limbo.

Strands of cold light snaked through the air, giving everything a bluish-white glow. A few of the strands seemed to be wrapped around a large, dark figure, but he was struggling against them.

"Necromancer, you must finish what the House of Bessaraba began. Restore me to life. It is my birthright to rule this land!"

I shrank back from him like a coward, with a cold, sick feeling in my stomach. I did not know what place this was, but I recognized the wicked voice. And his face. It was Konstantin Pavlovich, the lich tsar. The Montenegrins had foolishly brought the dead tsar back this summer with a ritual gone horribly wrong. This had definitely put a strain on relations between our two countries, even if they did try to help stop him afterward.

"You c-cannot hurt me," I stuttered, not completely believing my own words. "The bogatyr defeated you at Peterhof."

"Bah! You have the cold gift. I can smell it on you. You have the ability to perform the ritual."

He moved a little closer to me, although I cannot say he actually walked. "YOU!" With a sudden roar, he recognized me from the battle at Peterhof.

He lunged forward and I jumped back and hid behind the throne, escaping his touch by inches. The thick cold-light strands seemed to hold him back. For now.

"Witch! You will pay for everything you've done!"

I backed away even farther from him. Even if I didn't know where I was going. "I will never let you return," I said. "I won't let you harm the tsar, or anyone else."

"I AM THE TSAR!"

"No!" With my heart beating in my throat, I was too terrified and nowhere near foolish enough to try to attack the lich tsar on my own. The only thing I knew how to do was run.

And hide.

"Sheult Anubis," I whispered, calling upon the one Egyptian incantation I knew, the one that I'd found in the book Johanna had given me. Instantly I was engulfed in protective shadows. Konstantin Pavlovich roared again, almost like a wounded animal, but his bindings held him fast. He was a prisoner in this place unless he could find a necromancer to help him. And that necromancer would not be me.

It seemed as if I ran forever. There were no walls, no borders or edges that I could find. I was hopelessly lost. I fought down the panic rising up inside.

Completely wrapped in my cloak of shadows, I sank down to the floor, close to panic. My heart was pounding and my hands were shaking. How would I get out of here?

I'd seen no other person in this cold-light realm besides Konstantin Pavlovich. Why was the lich tsar here? Was this place physically in the Crimea? Or somewhere not quite connected to regular time and space? The more I thought about it, I realized that I had arrived here after touching the throne in the cave chamber.

Only minutes ago, I'd been laughing and behaving in a silly fashion with my cousin in the caves. Would I ever see her and the others again?

I let the shadowy cloak fade away as I began to search for a way out.

"What in the name of the Holy Ones are you doing here?" A man's voice startled me.

I jumped up and gasped, not having realized someone else was present. "Who are you?"

A dark robed figure stepped closer to me, holding out his hand. "I can take you back to the cave, but you must come with me now." It was a young man, dark-haired, with piercing dark eyes. He had a heavy French accent.

"Do you know me? How did you know I was in the cave?"

He sighed impatiently. "Mademoiselle, you have been poking into things which are not your business. Do you want to get back to your family or not?"

I nodded.

"Then come with me, quickly." Immediately, he began to mumble something in another language, definitely not French or Russian. His words caused the cold light to dissolve into a faint silvery mist.

I held my breath and watched as everything faded away slowly. I felt cold and nauseous. When the mist had completely cleared, we were back in the cave, standing next to the throne.

"Who are you?" I asked.

He bowed curtly. "You are most welcome, Mademoiselle." He turned around and hurried off silently, back toward the cave entrance.

"Please wait!" I started after him, and heard Maman's voice.

"Katiya?" Maman asked, approaching me from the same corridor the stranger had taken. "What is it?"

I looked past her, but the man had already vanished. "Did you see anyone else in the caves with us?" I asked.

"Of course not. We've been looking all over for you. It's time for luncheon." Maman held her lantern up to get a closer look at me. There was concern in her eyes. "Heavens, you're as pale as a ghost! Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, Maman. Just hungry." I had to find out who the stranger was, and what he was doing in that horrible place with Konstantin Pavlovich. Surely Tsar Alexander was not aware of the throne, or visitors would not be allowed to visit the cave. Did I need to tell George?

I forced a smile as I looked up at my mother. "I cannot wait to eat. Did Dariya leave us any meat pies?"

Maman followed me back through the twisting cave chambers until we arrived at the entrance. Dariya and Aunt Zina stood there, holding the picnic baskets. They were more than ready to leave the chilly caves as well.

We followed the shade-covered path until we returned to the tiny stream where we'd seen their imperial highnesses that morning. "This looks like a perfect spot for lunch!" Maman said. She pulled a blanket out of the first picnic basket, spreading it out on the grass by the sunny bank.

We had cold deviled eggs and meat pies, and drank the cool lemonade our cook had prepared. I stared at the babbling stream and wished I could speak with George about the stranger. Perhaps the man had passed the imperial family as he left the caves to go to wherever he'd come from. I didn't know if I wanted to tell the grand duke about Konstantin Pavlovich, however. What could he do? And he would only worry about my safety even more. No, I would have to find out about the strange man on my own.