Page 6 of Tiger's Tale
Nik shifted the armor as he walked, thinking about what kind of a man it would have to be to marry such a woman. She’d hold him beneath her thumb for sure. Verusha often complained that none of the soldiers wanted to fight her fairly, and she wasn’t wrong. But it was also true that there weren’t too many willing to take on Tsarevna Stacia. Not because they didn’t want to mar her skin either. No. They didn’t want to take her on because she was just that good.
Often, she ended up fighting the female soldiers. Stacia relaxed a bit more around them, but she seemed to have something to prove when she fought the men. She became almost bitter and cruel. It was as if she was determined to end them as quickly as possible to get her opponents out of her sight. It was almost humiliating to be beaten by her. It wasn’t so much training as it was an experience in dodging targeted lightning strikes. When it was over, the struck man wasn’t certain he ever wanted to go outside again.
Nik dropped off the armor for cleaning and polishing, leaving strict instructions. He’d be back later to check to make sure they’d followed through properly. They often didn’t do as thorough of a job as he liked, so he picked up the armor early and polished it again himself. He liked gently rubbing the oils into the metal and imagining it was Verusha’s lithe form instead. It also gave him a great deal of pleasure to know his hands had been the last to touch the metal that would cradle and protect her body the next time she fought.
As he headed back to the barracks, his mind turned again to the impossible, a life with Verusha. That meant the next order of business would be to get Stacia to accept her place on the throne. It was a tall order for a too-tall woman. But his happiness depended on it. After all, the empire would need a successor.
At the same moment, Stacia was sinking down into a just-too-hot bath, groaning as the water covered each inch of her body. Inevitably, her thoughts went down the same track. The empire needed a successor. But she wasn’t thinking of the future or of a marriage or a child; she was thinking of the now. How could she convince her sister to do the most natural thing? Marry and rule.
Verusha was pacing her room wondering how her own sister could be so obstinate. Stacia was the strategist. She was much more capable of running an empire. Veru stopped in front of a family portrait and stared at the lines in her beloved father’s face. Her vision blurred. They’d been young in that painting. Even then Stacia looked like their father, while Veru took after their mother. How could Verusha convince her stubborn sister that she was the one destined to rule?
The answer came to both sisters at the same time. As the two young women lifted their heads, they smiled in anticipation.
They’d fight.
And the loser would inherit the throne.
Unfortunately, the best laid plans, excellent though they may be, often go awry.
2
THERE ARE MANY FATHERS, BUT ONLY ONE MOTHER
The tsarina Ludmila Marianka Sashenka Stepanov set the list of potential suitors on the side table and allowed herself the tiniest moment to ease back into the plush settee and close her eyes. Her tightly laced corset and voluminous skirts didn’t permit her to completely relax, but that was for the best anyway. It wouldn’t do to show weakness. Not even to her daughters, as much as they loved her.
As her heavy eyelids closed, she smiled, thinking of how proud her husband would have been to see the twins now. Both of them were developing into intelligent, gifted, beautiful young women. Either one of them would be able to rule the empire. Truly it didn’t matter which one of them had been born first. It never had mattered to her or her husband anyway. In a perfect world, Mila would like them to rule together, side by side. But she was a realist. It would be very special siblings indeed who could share a throne, and that was only if the people could allow such a thing.
Mila knew power easily corrupted those who wielded it. Truthfully, she was proud that neither of her daughters felt ready or desired to take over. It meant they’d prepared them well. Taught them the importance of caring for the people and working for them and with them to better their lives. Being a leader meant much, much more than levying taxes, fine dining, and lining one’s pockets. A royal family needed to hold themselves to a much higher standard. They needed to set an example for others to follow.
How could she expect her young daughters to sacrifice so much when they’d barely begun to know who they were themselves? They were still finding their way, growing into the young women they wanted to become, developing their identities and gifts. Then to expect them to select a match at such a young age? How could she, or they, know for certain the one they chose would still fit in the years to come? Such a weighty, long-lasting decision should be given careful consideration. It wasn’t something to be rushed. Love comes or it doesn’t.
Mila had never believed in a perfect match. Not until she’d met the twins’ father. She’d observed that in most cases couples were somewhat mismatched. They wereright enoughto work. Only a very, very few were perfect matches. Mila had been lucky in love. She just wished she could give her daughters more time.
She sighed. Whichever daughter was willing and able to marry and produce heirs based on the very short list of matches she’d found was the one who would take over. She knew either of them would do just fine.
Yes, she realized it was too early to lay such a heavy burden at their feet. Still, Mila knew they’d be able to rise to the occasion. Her hope was that they would quickly set aside their childish squabbles and lean on one another for strength. It was the only thing she wanted, hoped—no,needed—to arrange before... well... Mila just wasn’t going to allow herself to dwell on theafter. Only thenowmattered.
Mila knew her daughters might balk at the idea of courting. But despite their many reforms, the people still expected a tsar to sit next to the tsarina, even if she and her husband had carefully prepared for the balance of power to be shifted to their daughters. And besides, a match didn’t necessarily mean a wedding was imminent. A betrothal just meant stability, not only for her daughters but for the empire itself. She couldn’t bear to think that it would be an act or an inaction on her part that would potentially cause the collapse of her dearly departed husband’s carefully built Kievian Empire.
There were many who had accused her of destroying both the empire and the tsar on the day her husband announced their own match, but Mila worked hard to prove all the skeptics wrong. In fact, the empire became stronger than it had even been after Mila’s union with the tsar, and she would be damned before she let it fall apart now. Not while there was still breath left in her body.
Names and renderings of potential matches and alliances between the empire and other countries danced across the insides of her eyelids. The faces blurred and then organized themselves in neat little rows like soldiers with details emblazoned on their uniforms like insignia. That was better. Mila liked things working in proper order. It was what first drew her to admire her husband, her very own match.
When she first met the tsar, Andrey Mikhail Stepanov II, the famed high commander of the feared Royal Guard, the young military strategist who conquered kingdoms, crushed insurgency, then smoothly charmed politically connected daughters as he twirled them around one by one at lavish parties, never committing himself to wed, but always managing to keep dozens of them trailing him by the coattails like a loyal pack of wolfhounds, she wasn’t sure she liked him.
He was too sure of himself. Too charming. Too closed off. And worse, he was far too clever. That frightened Mila. She was used to being dismissed, or simply paraded around to be stared at and then promptly tucked into a corner, which gave her ample opportunity to study people. But as she studied the tsar, she found him a particularly difficult man to read.
The man she did see though, the one effortlessly enchanting every lady he saw and sweet-talking every diplomat he came across, was the type of man Mila knew she couldn’t trust, let alone marry, not that marriage was probable with her father’s connections. Still, with her beauty, it was best not to take a risk.
What she knew about the tsar was little. Mila was aware that he had taken over the military while his father had still been alive, and it had been through his efforts that the empire had expanded to twice the size it had been in the time of his grandfather. It was the tradition of the royal family for the second- and third-born sons (and so forth) to head the vast far-off sections of the empire, studying the local languages and peoples and commanding the military in those areas to gain experience in strategy, warfare, and diplomacy.
In the case of the current tsar, he was an only child and would have normally been kept safely close to home. But apparently, this tsar-to-be wouldn’t be kept home. Not only did he head the vast legions of the empire’s military alone but he traveled to not one but all the far reaches of the empire, studying all the peoples and languages from a young age, becoming very skilled in a variety of strategies and subjects and tongues.
If only she had been born a man. A beautiful man who was a seventh son could make something of himself. That would have been preferable. Even a homely woman had a chance to live happily as a spinster in her brother’s house. But a pretty girl was sold off to the highest bidder. It was the way of things. The lucky daughters were wed to kind men. The very fortunate might even grow to love their husbands.
Mila didn’t hold out such hope for herself. So she carefully watched and waited and used her gift of assessment to frighten off those who were interested, saying just the wrong thing to turn them away. But despite her considerable abilities, she didn’t know what to say to this one. Honestly, she couldn’t even tell what interested him. He appeared to be terribly fascinated with each person he spent time with, which was a feat she knew wasn’t possible.
What she did know was that this man made her uneasy. And that he was powerful. And because powerful men tended to take what they wanted despite protocol, Mila knew she’d have to be very, very careful and assume the worst when he turned his eyes in her direction. The worst being that he’d be just as interested in her as he seemed to be in every other female in the room. Her only hope was that she’d get lucky, and his attentive gaze would be as feigned with her as she believed it was with everyone else.
