sweet sorrow

“Well – you don’t have to”, she cooed. And he truly, truly didn’t. He only needed to look pretty, and perhaps not be an utter bore. Tatiana didn’t know whether she held much hope for the second part.

There was a smile, then, satisfied as they came. The irony to the title went over her head and Tatiana was only triumphant, a cat with a mouse under its paw. She took the kvas with a languid gesture, flattered by what she could only see as subservience.

“Yes…” Had she not been so bored and his refusal wouldn’t have held her interest. As it was, Tatiana took the chance to bite. “And what of yours? Most men are fond of their drink.”

Well, you don’t have to. He snorted. How very gracious of her to permit him so generous an allowance. Who was she to grant him anything? To deny him anything? A self-proclaimed queen, she took to tyranny like dew took to rose petals, and Luka was certain that they would make a poor pair, the two of them—the duchess and the pyro. She knew only how to reign, and wildfire boys knew no dominion.

“And most women try in earnest to hide their fondness of drink,” he shot back, one eyebrow cocked. “You don’t.” A statement, not a question. And then, if only to satisfy the cat’s curiosity (he suspected she wasn’t the sort to leave a stone unturned, a query unanswered), he said, "I don’t drink.” And that was that. He didn’t care to elaborate, and he hoped in vain that the duchess wouldn’t pry.

For a creature of solitude, he’s never been very good on his own. A poor swimmer who’s been treading water for the better part of his young life, he’s grown dependent on his bandit-brothers to keep him from drowning: Valerian, his anchor, always grounding him; Shona, his compass, always steering him; Arsen, his sail, always driving him forward and onward. But he’s anchor-less tonight, and sail-less and compass-less, too, so he’ll have to make do with a substitute. 

Like calls to like, and Luka calls to the squaller nearest to him—a sweet-looking slip of a thing with a swollen belly and eyes of honeysuckle. They look gentle, perhaps even more so than he, and he’s fascinated by the Grisha’s outpour of tenderness. The crowd buzzes, but the squaller—Belov, he recalls, Stasya Belov—does not, and he likes them all the more for it. He’s in desperate want of a distraction from the festival of horrors and the ensuing fever of awe that’s infected most of the Fete’s guests. Stasya Belov, he decides, will make a fine distraction.

He scans the ballroom once more for his bratvas, and when he finds none of them, he sidles up next to the squaller. “I reckon you and I are the only two in the entire palace not drunk on kvas at this very moment,” he murmurs by way of introduction, eyes drifting pointedly to the slight swell of their stomach. He doesn’t drink, not ever (he’s too reliant on self-control to sacrifice small freedoms to inhibition), and he’s glad to have found company of equal sobriety. “S’pose that means we’re stuck with each other for the remainder of the evening, moi trezvy drug.”

Perhaps some might have been ashamed, taken aback by the polite rejection. To Tatiana, it was little more than a dare. She could never be less than thrilled by someone’s hesitance to be in her company. She was owed a tinge of fear after all, from the blood and the name and the beauty. The possibility that the little grisha might simply not want her company didn’t even cross her mind and his companions didn’t merit more than a passing glance.

“Perhaps”, she mused, “but I want to talk to you.”

Tatiana had picked her trinket for the night, and may the Saints help anyone that tried to pry it away from her greedy hands. She needed someone by her side if Ilya were to show his face in the ballroom and lay his grey eyes on hers, if she was to let him know she could entertain herself just fine without him.

“So why won’t you quit being dull and sit by my side?”

There was no ambiguity to her tone, then. Duchess Tatiana Lantsov was giving an order.

She didn’t speak the language of rejection, it seemed, and he reckoned that she wouldn’t be able to define the word “no” without the aid of a dictionary. Her tongue knew only the dialect of decrees, and he shouldn’t have been so surprised, really, that his brush-off was utterly lost on her. 

I want to talk to you. I want, I want, I want. Did the girl know no other words? “I can’t imagine why,” he grumbled, brows furrowing. He was taken aback by her confession (or was it a command?), for Luka was a half-alive ghost, a quiet creature of translucence who moved about the shadows of the Little Palace unnoticed, and his company wasn’t particularly in high demand. Her motives were unclear, her wants even less so, and he wasn’t quite sure how to field her demands. But Luka was smart, smarter than most, and he knew a lost cause when he saw one. There was no arguing with the likes of Tatiana Lantsov, it seemed, and so he obliged her. Who was he to deny the wants of a make-believe princess?

“As you wish, printsessa,” he sighed grudgingly, taking a seat beside her, spine erect and jaw clenched. It was an infectious thing, indulgence—and she practically dripped with it. Her eyes were honeyed and hooded with excess self-gratification, and Luka, a crusader of self-control, had to make a conscious effort to remain unaffected by the Lantsov girl’s greed.

A tall, lanky man approached the divan with two glasses of kvas balanced on a gilded tray. Luka, wanting to spare the servant Tatiana Lantsov’s notorious ridicule, took one of the glasses and passed it to the ill-tempered duchess, muttering, “For you, I believe.” The servant moved to offer the remaining glass of kvas to Luka, but Luka held up a hand of refusal and thanked the man kindly, sending him on his merry way—and wishing he could follow in suit.

He’s always tired, Luka, and tired boys oughtn’t wake before the blush bloom of dawn, but some habits are harder to quit than others, and habits learned from Iskra Raevsky cannot be quit, not ever, not really. He remembers early mornings christened by the greeting of insistent lips and impatient mewls, his sleeping body summoned to life by the smell of honeysuckle and the sound of bells. “Sobachka,” she’d whine, eyes bright with life and spirit. And she’d gnaw on his earlobe, or nuzzle his cheek, or kiss him. And he’d groan, or curse, or shoo her away. But Iskra is nothing if not persistent, and before long, Luka began waking at dawn each daybreak, finely attuned to Iskra Raevsky’s clockwork. The habit stuck, as did Iskra, and Luka yet wakes at dawn each daybreak.

He yet wakes at dawn each daybreak, and this morning is no different than all the others. Slumber never grants him peace for too long (that would be too generous a kindness, one better suited for the likes of a Sankt, not a sinner) and today, he rises before the sun, tired and aching, full of sorrow and fatigue. His muscles and bones groan in protest as he dresses and begins the short trek to the training room, and he has to make a conscious effort to keep his heavy eyelids from shuttering closed. He should sleep more, really—Saints know his body could use the rest—but he’s restless, always, and he knows that no amount of sleep will cure him of the half-moons beneath his eyes (no, that particular malady requires treatment of the heart and spirit, not of the body). The Little Palace still sleeps, and so Luka seeks sanctuary in the training room. It’s quiet there, and still, and what’s more, it’s thatness-less—a refuge of normalcy wherein the curse of the Small Science is outlawed. His demons are always quieter in the training room, where he and break and bleed and feel, and he visits as often as he can.

But so does she, and he’s not sure why he ever thought that the stars would be kind enough to write him a fate where Luka Mravinsky and Iskra Raevsky don’t cross paths. Silly boy, the constellations croon, star-crossed lovers will always cross stars. Sunlight pours through the ceiling-to-floor windows, painting her in a hazy halo of gold that shifts and shimmers in tandem with her swift movements. Mornings have always suited Iskra—she’s full of suns, and the brisk light of daybreak falls about her like drizzled honey. Nights have always suited Luka—he’s full of dying stars, and the moon’s faint glow cloaks him in shadows, lets him hide. She was born for summers, and he, for winters. They were destined for damnation from the start.

It’s too late to leave unnoticed now—he’s lingered a little too long, stared a little too long. Iskra will have detected his presence by now. He hovers near the entryway, one shoulder propped against the doorframe and arms crossed over his chest (he does this often when he’s near her now, and he supposes that’s because he doesn’t trust his hands enough to let them wander free around her). “I can go,” he calls out softly, sounding too gruff and too gravelly, like he doesn’t quite know how to use his own voice anymore (like he doesn’t quite know how to talk to her anymore). And then, a bit cheekily—although, given present circumstances, it sounds not-so cheeky and very-so bitter—he holds up his hands in mock surrender and adds, “Your wish, my command.” 

And it was, once. 

And maybe it still is. 

It’s all a little nightmarish, the Winter Fete—and a little blasphemous, too.

The Fete’s gracious hosts, ever frivolous, dress up the evening prettily, presenting to guests and performers alike a grandiose festival, a kaleidoscopic carnival tailored to the wants of its patrons. And for a moment—but only just—even Luka is deceived by the guise of fine things, mesmerized by the twinkling rainbow of gems and opals, enchanted by the lyrical cacophony of violins and pianos. But he knows well the Grand Palace’s parlor tricks (he’s one of them, isn’t he?) and his wonder soon wanes, awe yielding to horror.

He’s a mangled heap of agony and apprehension tonight, and his frayed nerves have robbed his cheeks of their flush and his eyes of their spirit. The prospect of taking the stage to play with fire doesn’t quite appeal to Luka, and unease is written all over him, etched in the hard set of his jaw and the unhappy slant of his lips. He looks hollow and tired, but he’s still Grisha, still lovely, and otkazat’sya guests still moon over him, still gawk at him, still ogle him.

And, in the case of Rhea Teresh, still hunt him.

The stars have never been kind to Luka, always writing him fates full of tragedy, but this happenstance—crossing paths with Rhea—is unequivocally one of the constellations’ crueler tricks. Luka Mravinsky is a sinner of the worst sort, and Rhea Teresh is his penance. She looks particularly hungry tonight, the little wolf—red-lipped and wild-eyed and sharp-toothed. It’s his mistake and her good fortune (or her good opportunism) that he’s not near his bandit-brothers, for a lone boy makes for fine prey. 

Too late to cry wolf now.

“Rhea,” he sighs by way of greeting, sounding equal halves weary and wary. He has half a mind to shove past her, but she’s a small slip of a thing, and he hasn’t the heart to jostle so slight a girl. And perhaps that’s why she’ll win this little game of theirs—because Luka hasn’t the heart, and Rhea has no heart. “To what do I owe the pleasure, valchonak?” To what do I owe the punishment?