The Gathering Storm

Miechen's Christmas ball was an annual tradition for the younger set, who were allowed to dance polonaises and mazurkas and quadril es but no waltzes. I was hoping this would be the last year Maman dragged me along, as I was now attending the grown-up balls, which were silly enough.

"Come along, Katiya!" Maman called up the stairs.

Anya was finishing my hair.

"Please be careful, Highness," she whispered. "Even with the Montenegrins out of the city, there is always evil about. I overheard the footmen talking about recent grave robberies. Who would do such a wicked thing?"

I frowned at myself in the looking glass. I'd heard Papa discussing the same thing with my brother. The graves had belonged to two princes, both decorated war heroes. I couldn't fathom what possible good could come from digging up someone's grave.

Even more distressing, what possible evil could come of it? I shivered with disgust and then sighed. I could not contemplate such things now. I had a command performance to attend.

I stood up, twirling my skirts a little. "I'm sure it is quite safe to attend a ball at the Vladimir Palace," I said.

The grand duchess Maria Pavlovna, wife of Grand Duke Vladimir, was known as Miechen to her family and friends. A fierce rival of the empress, the faerie was a German princess from the darkest Brothers Grimm story.

No one threw a more spectacular party than Miechen. And the empress knew it.

Maman loved any excuse to see and be seen, and the Christmas ball was no exception. Maman had long been friends with Miechen and the empress and had managed all those years to remain cordial with both.

She tried to stay neutral, but her fondness for seances and the occult drew her to the Dark Court's favor. Both faerie queens scared the skirts off me. I tried not to draw either one's attention.

Maman's deep red gown matched the ruby tiara sparkling in her dark hair. She looked paler than usual in the rich-colored velvet. Maman had her mother's Romanov features: the piercing dark eyes and the long, narrow nose. I had my mother's eyes but my father's pudgy nose. My cousins had teased me mercilessly about it when I was younger, knowing it disturbed me. I wore a white velvet gown, similar to my Smolny dress. I looked forward to the day when I could wear any color in public other than white.

White was innocent. My soul was not.

Miechen was dressed in a dark purple ball gown, with her famous Vladimir tiara, which dripped diamonds and pearls. She saw Maman as soon as we were announced, and came toward us.

"Yevgenia Maximilianovna, darling, I am so glad to see you." She held out both of her slender gloved hands for Maman to take. "And your daughter, Katerina Alexandrovna," she said, smiling down at me.

"Your Imperial Highness," I said with a curtsy.

"Your daughter is growing up," Miechen said, studying me with her dark violet eyes.

"She is, indeed," Maman said with a dramatic sigh. "We have been so fortunate with both of our children."

"And how is the younger Duke of Oldenburg?" Miechen asked.

I glanced across the crowded ball room as the women chatted. The orchestra was playing Tchaikovsky. Some of the youngest Romanovs were dancing a quadril e with my cousin Dariya. She caught my eye and winked.

"And how are your children?" Maman was asking.

Miechen glanced across the ball room. "Kyril is over there, talking with his uncles. And Boris and Andrei are torturing their poor sister." From the way my mother's eyes lit up, I could guess she was wondering about a marriage between me and one of Grand Duchess Miechen's sons.

Never mind that the eldest, Kyril, was only thirteen. He wasn't bad-looking, as far as thirteen-year-old distant cousins went. But I would not marry just to satisfy my mother's social ambitions.

I envied Petya that he did not have to be here with us. He was attending a dinner party with his fell ow officers, having a much more amusing time, I was certain. Maman was still scheming, however, even as she perused the young guests. If my brother wasn't careful, she might match him up with Miechen's pasty seven-year-old daughter, Helena.

The grand duchess looked at me. "Katerina Alexandrovna, I am sure Kyril will be looking for an expert dance partner for the quadril e. I heard the empress was most impressed with the way you danced at the Smolny Ball.

Would you be a dear and accept when he asks you?"

"I'd be honored, Your Imperial Highness," I murmured with another curtsy.

The empress had noticed me? Mon Dieu. I took a glass of punch from the silver tray a nearby servant offered. This would be a long night.

As I looked for my cousins, the imperial family was announced, and the empress appeared at the entrance to the brightly lit ball room. The orchestra immediately began to play the empress's favorite procession, the cortege from Rimsky-Korsakov's The Snow Maiden. As everyone present curtsied and bowed, Miechen glided away from Maman toward the empress.

Both faerie queens were the perfect illusion of grace, pretending to forget their usual hostilities toward each other. Miechen's son, Kyril Vladimirovich, followed his mother. I realized then that all five of the empress's children were standing behind her.

Dressed in a white velvet gown embroidered with silver thread, Grand Duchess Xenia looked almost exactly like her mother. They shared the same dark eyes, but there was something mischievous in the daughter's glance. She was only thirteen, yet already beautiful enough to break some poor prince's heart.

Maman and I made our way to the empress so we could give our greetings. I noticed Xenia laughing at something her brother George was telling her.

I sensed the empress's gaze on me as my mother and I curtsied. "Good evening, Your Imperial Majesty," Maman said. "We hope you and your family are well this holiday season."

I trembled a little under the empress's piercing stare. She was using her faerie sight. I could feel it shimmering over me, ill uminating even the darkest stains on my soul. I grew slightly dizzy. And a little sick.

The orchestra began to play a Christmas carol. Kyril Vladimirovich stepped up and asked the grand duchess Xenia to dance. I had been spared for now. "Of course," she said, eyes twinkling as she allowed him to lead her to the dance floor.

The empress turned and spoke a word to her three sons before moving on to greet the next noble family waiting to speak with her. The tsarevitch remained with his mother, greeting Miechen's guests, while the younger two grand dukes strolled out to the floor, immediately choosing partners.

George Alexandrovich's eyes met mine, briefly, and then he took Dariya's hand and swept her across the ball room.

"Your Imperial Highness, will you do me the honor of this dance?" I turned to see Miechen's twelve-year-old son, Boris Vladimirovich, looking at me solemnly.

"Of course," I said with a polite curtsy. Angels and ministers of grace, defend me.

Many of my distant relatives, and even my closer cousins, whom I only saw on occasions like this, were present. I glanced around the room as Boris and I danced. Uncle George's son Alexander Georgevich looked uncomfortable, unable to excuse himself from chatting with the elderly princess Cantacuzene.

"I hope we get to eat soon," Boris murmured as he stepped on my foot a third time. "Aren't you hungry?"

"Katiya!" Dariya rushed up to me, out of breath, as the dance concluded.

Boris bowed, thanking me graciously, then skipped off to find something sweet to eat. The servants had just laid out a tray of iced pastries and sugar-frosted fruits. Dariya was dressed in a white silk dress embroidered with tiny pearls. She wore large ostrich feathers in her hair and in the bustle of her skirt. My cousin was so much more beautiful than I was. Her long dark blond hair was a tumble of curls down the back of her head. All the young men flocked around her.

Dariya and I made our way out of the overheated ball room and walked through one of Miechen's elegant parlors. Here several small tables were heavy with canapes and caviar. We helped ourselves to cups of punch and sat on the damask-covered settee to catch up.

"I am so glad you did not have to go to Cetinje," Dariya said. "I don't see how Elena could possibly think the crown prince is the man of your dreams."

I shrugged. "Please do not mention him again. Or Cetinje. It is all Maman talks of."

"I'd rather go to Paris," my cousin said. "I hear it is a beautiful city." We'd both been to visit our grandmother's vill a in Biarritz, a resort town on the Atlantic coast, but neither of us had seen the capital of France.

Dariya and I used to play French Revolution when we were little. We'd take turns being Marie Antoinette. Our grandmamma caught us once and had us whipped for revolutionary sentiments. We were six years old at the time and had no idea even what revolutionary sentiments were.

I tried to avoid the imperial family during the ball, but Grand Duchess Xenia was getting punch in the grand rotunda and spotted us. She gave us a knowing smile. "If the two of you are together, there is mischief in progress," she said. "Are Auntie Miechen's dogs safe?" During a children's ball Maman had thrown many summers earlier, Dariya and I found a kitten that had wandered upstairs and we tried to get it to dance a mazurka with Maman's French bull dog, Lola. The kitten wanted nothing to do with the mazurka or Lola and scampered up Maman's silk curtains. Lola ran downstairs, in the opposite direction, then straight through the orchestra and under the violinist's legs. Fortunately, Dariya and I did not get punished, but we were not allowed to play with Lola anymore. The curtains, alas, were never the same.

Xenia was still laughing at us when her brother walked over. "Georgi, do you remember when Katerina Alexandrovna and Dariya Yevgenievna brought the kitten to a ball?"

I hadn't noticed the grand duke approaching. Dariya curtsied prettily.

"Katiya's mother wouldn't let us play together anymore after that," my cousin said.

"I thought your mother disal owed it," I said, surprised.

"Both mothers were very wise," George Alexandrovich said, his lips pressed tightly together, almost as if he was trying not to smile. "You two are an extremely dangerous duo."

"Nonsense." Dariya smiled. "Nothing bad has happened tonight." The grand duke was looking straight at me when he said, "But the night is young."

I met his eyes evenly, expecting to see disdain, or even hatred. Instead, there was heat, an intense but strangely wonderful fire. It frightened me even more.

Xenia giggled and then squealed with delight. "Sandro is here!" she said, running off to dance with her older cousin.

Her brother frowned. "If you will excuse me." He bowed slightly and followed his sister.

"How disagreeable he is!" Dariya murmured as we both watched him leave. "Though he does dance well."

It felt as if the wind had been knocked out of me. I shook my head, trying to get the grand duke out of my mind. "We should rescue Alexander Georgevich from Princess Cantacuzene," I said. "She will talk him to death."

The elderly princess sat on a velvet sofa in the rotunda outside the main ball room. Alexander was grateful when we offered a cup of punch to her.

"Thank you, dears," the ancient woman said. still in mourning for her late husband, she was wearing a black high-necked ball gown. He had died long before I was born.

Princess Cantacuzene patted Alexander on the knee. "Young man, you must go and dance with one of your pretty cousins! Take Dariya Yevgenievna. Katerina Alexandrovna will be happy to sit with me." Dariya smiled as she and our cousin hurried away, glad to escape back to the dancing. I sat down next to the princess, cursing my luck. There would be no one to rescue me from the addled woman's rambling stories.

She was a frequent member of Maman's seance parties.

"My dear, I fancy a turn in the gardens. Would you oblige me?" she asked.

"Of course, Your Highness."

She rose regally and took my arm as we exited the ball room. "You have drawn the attentions of the Montenegrins, I hear," she said.

I let out a heavy sigh but remembered not to slump. "My mother has been gossiping."

The princess cackled. "I heard it from others, my dear." She grabbed my arm with an icy, bony hand. I could feel the cold even though she wore the softest black kidskin gloves. "You are in grave danger, Katerina Alexandrovna."

"I beg your pardon, Your Highness?"

"The crown prince Danilo is in line to follow his ancestors, the Vladiki.

They have ruled their kingdom for hundreds of years."

"The Vladiki?"

She nodded. "They use the darkest magic to hold on to their throne.

They are blood drinkers."

Surely I had not heard her correctly. I looked at her in disbelief. The old princess had gone mad. "Vampires?" I whispered.

Princess Cantacuzene nodded. Her silvery white hair was pulled into a severe knot high atop her head, tied so tightly I wondered if it hurt her. "The females are the blackest of sorceresses," she went on.

We stopped as we approached the orangery. The heavy scent of orange blossoms perfumed the humid air.

I had to sit down, feeling a little queasy. I never once had thought such repulsive creatures still walked the earth. Maman's tale about Tsar Nicholas and his treaty with the vampires seemed so long ago. "Why would a vampire prince want to marry me?" I asked. "My family is not that important."

The princess laughed as she joined me on the ornately carved garden bench. "Katerina Alexandrovna, who said anything about marriage? Still, I'm glad to see that you sense it is not your bloodline that makes you so valuable." She took one of her rings off her finger and placed it in my hand.

"This will protect you. You and your special talent are a threat to the Vladiki."

Marble statues of griffins glared at us from under the potted palm trees.

Only the grand duchess Miechen could have such a sinister-looking garden room.

"I-I have no special talent," I stammered. The ring she offered was a shiny black obsidian in a gold setting.

The princess's eyes flashed. "Do not be ashamed of it, Katerina Alexandrovna. You have the power to defeat the Vladiki. I have long suspected this, even when you were younger. You can stop their quest for dominance and save the lives of many innocents."

"How can I save anyone?" I asked softly. I carried a curse and the princess had known all along. There was no salvation to be found in my horrible talent.

"You alone are the secret weapon against the blood drinkers. The heir of the Vladiki cannot drink blood until his ceremony of ascension, on his eighteenth birthday." Her fingers were icy as she clutched my left hand and slid the ring onto my finger. "Kill Prince Danilo before his ascension and you will save many, many lives."

I gasped. "I could never kill someone, Your Highness." I was now certain Princess Cantacuzene was thoroughly and utterly mad. She was thin and ancient. The poor woman must be senile. I glanced around for members of her family who would be able to take her home. Married to a long deceased and forgotten Prince Cantacuzene, she had no children of her own, but spoiled all her nieces and nephews. Perhaps one of the latter had escorted her to the Christmas Ball.

We walked back toward the rotunda. "There is your dear mother," the princess said. "She has recently been ill, has she not?"

"Yes, but she is much better."

"You must be on guard, Duchess. I have attended many seances with your mother, and she has attracted the attentions of many unhappy spirits.

The cold light of the dying surrounds her."

Princess Cantacuzene gathered her black skirt as my mother approached us. "We will speak again soon, Katerina Alexandrovna," she said. "I can tell you much more about the Montenegrins."

"Your Highness, it is so good to see you." My mother curtsied before the princess. "How are you?"

My mind was reeling. A cold light? The madwoman spoke as if she saw the same things I could see. I stole a glance at Princess Cantacuzene and searched her cold light. It shined brightly, much as any other elderly person's would. I could see nothing unnatural about her. But then again, the empress and the grand duchess Miechen had cold lights that appeared ordinary to me as well. I was unable to distinguish human from fae, which put me at a disadvantage to the faeries in the ball room.

While my mother and the princess chatted, my cousin Alexander Georgevich asked me to dance the cotil ion with him. The Gypsy orchestra was playing a lively piece by Rimsky-Korsakov. My cousin was a perfectly elegant dancer, like his late mother, Aunt Therese, who had died when Alexander was only two. Aunt Therese had been one of my father's sisters, so Alexander was my double cousin. He told me his father planned to announce his engagement to Princess Anastasia of Montenegro after Christmas.

"I hope she makes a kind stepmother," I told him. I worried about the disturbing stories Princess Cantacuzene had told me. But I did not want to alarm my cousin. Surely the princess's tales about the Montenegrins could not be true.

"Father intends for me to enter the Corps des Pages next year, so I will not be around the princess that often." Alexander smiled. "When Father introduced me to her last month, she was very kind."

"Give him my best wishes, then," I said, smiling politely. He led me back to Maman after the dance ended. It had been the final dance of the night. I said goodbye to my cousin, then followed Maman to make our adieus to the grand duchess Miechen.

As I curtsied, the grand duchess spotted my ring. "What a beautiful trinket," she said, seizing my hand. "A family heirloom?" Maman did not notice, as she was speaking with the grand duke Vladimir.

"No, Your Imperial Highness. It was a gift from a family friend." I knew Maman would insist I return it to Princess Cantacuzene if she saw it. The ring seemed to glow, reflecting the lights of the ball room chandeliers.

"You must be careful with such a precious stone. Obsidian protects one from evil spirits and vampires." There was a certain malice in the grand duchess's smile. "It makes me curious. Why would your friend believe you need such protection, Katerina Alexandrovna?"

"An old woman's superstitious nonsense, I'm sure," I replied, my heartbeat pounding in my ears. I was aware the grand duchess could see much more in my aura than I could see in hers. Still, I noted a strange thing when I saw her cold light. Two smaller, brighter lights were entwined with a larger, dimmer light, like a delicate, shimmering braid of light, coiling around her. It was beautiful, but frightening to look at.

I fretted over everything on the sleigh ride home. Princess Cantacuzene was the second person to refer to my curse as a gift. And she spoke as if she too possessed this terrible gift. No one else would see it that way.

Certainly not my parents. And not the imperial family.