Anastasia

by Sophie Lark

It’s not that I wanted to misbehave, but the most interesting things were always forbidden. My curiosity was a demon that lurked inside me, awake and watching.

My father warned me, “A court is no place for kindness.” Kindness could get you killed.

“You wish to know your future because you think you’ll never be satisfied…” Rasputin said. “You believe you must choose between one kind of happiness and another …”

“Find the one who can beat you where you thought you’d never be beaten … the one who was lost and then found

I saw four butterflies, lilac, sage, rose, and sapphire … They fluttered across a bed of flowers until hit with a blast of wind that

I felt sadness and the weight of rock crushing down on me. I saw a clock with the hands spinning faster and faster. Then a boy, his face twisted in anger, a sword in his hand … The boy’s face changed, his jaw wider, neck thicker, shoulders filling out. Now he was a boy no longer, but a hardened warrior, eyes dark as pine, the scars of battle on his face, chest, arms … He lifted one hand, stripping off a leather glove. The flesh beneath was just as black, dripping darkness like ink.

Really what I most often felt was curiosity, gnawing at me like hunger, like a need to run. I wanted to see everything, know everything, do everything.

“The gods have a sense of humor when they choose our position in life. How rarely we suit it.”

“It hurts because we love him. That’s the balance of life, hard as it is to accept. A heart open to joy is a heart vulnerable to sorrow. There’s no family without loss, no love without pain.”

he’d allow the devil himself into our house if he could heal Alexei.

Women had never been my vice and never would be, as long as touching them led to nosebleeds, vomiting, and passing

“I can hear them screaming,” she gasped. “In the basement.”

Like memory-keepers were doomed to store the last words of loved ones about to die.

Even though we fought all the time and agreed on nothing, he was my best friend. Every time I saw him, I lit up inside.

something flashed at me from Rasputin’s mind: dark berries on white snow.

Only a full-blooded Romanov can walk through the fire.” That was the real security—not the guards outside the door.

“It concerns me, Anastasia, that you think love matters more than the sacrament of marriage.

said, “I don’t want to hide from fate. Nor do I want to run to meet it.”

“Shave your head, then. If you lose, at least I’ll have a laugh at my funeral.” I grinned right back at him. “That does sound pretty funny.”

“Every mark on you is something you survived to get back to me. You have never looked more beautiful.”

“I made you mine.” She closed her eyes, letting out a long sigh. “I was yours all along.”

Now Damien was the ruler and Damien was at home. Perhaps it was my turn to be death.

It floated on the surface, curling in on itself in a loop before sinking under the water. When I dropped in my own hair, it sank straight to the bottom.

“If you follow that girl … you’ll never come back.” Maybe that was why I’d always felt dread at the prospect of my own future. Maybe I’d always known. But … the Phoenix survived. I could kill Rasputin. And save Anastasia.

A thread doesn’t see the weaving, it doesn’t know its own color and pattern. But it takes its place all the same.

Even if we couldn’t shine together, she was going to shine after I was gone.

I wanted her in that house more than I wanted myself in it. I’d rather be her ghost than have her be mine again.

I began to dread that I might have to kill her brother in front of her.

I’d been teaching Anastasia to shoot. She wasn’t very good because she tended to shoot first and aim after.

Spring had retreated; it was colder today than a week ago. The animals seemed to be hiding—we saw a few old tracks from deer and hares, but nothing fresh.

“One heart, one mind, one soul. What is joined by choice can never be torn apart.” She looked up at me, her face my whole world. “You’re mine, and I’m yours. Yesterday, today, and forever.” I kissed her to seal our vow. We were alone, but that only made it more real.

If the dead feel anything, it’s the joy of the living. We must glow like lanterns to them, through the screen that separates us all.

My face flashed at me but it wasn’t my face—the eyes were too pale a blue. Something squirmed in the back of my head.

Under our hands, the tree came alive again, warm bark and fresh green leaves. Life spread through its branches and down through its roots. Clover bloomed beneath our feet.