I didn’t know how to answer him. The iron taste of blood wetted my mouth. I pinched my nose harder. “Of course I’m more than your reflection.”
He leaned forward. “Then I beg you, find that space within yourself and hold on to it, or you will not survive the emperor. If there is one thing I will share with you about my mother, it is that she always said I was the mild-mannered child.” He raised his brows and gave me a knowing look. “Think on that.”
Without another word, he whipped the three horses. The troika slid away into the countryside gliding through the powdered snow. I bumped along in my seat, but felt like I’d been tossed aside in a snowdrift for how stunned my mind was, how nimbly Anton had put me in my place. I yearned to dig in my heels at every mile we advanced toward Torchev. The emperor of Riaznin grew nearer to me, and with him the intense foreboding that I was sure to meet my death. The only thing that kept me from flinging myself off the sleigh and making a run for it were the images of Dasha’s and Tola’s faces and the idol in the pillow slip at my feet. I kept my leg pressed against it. My promise to Yuliya gave me strength. And what brought me more was the remembrance of my friend’s calm courage in the moment of her death. I would not let Anton frighten me with his words. I would find that quiet space within myself, and I would cling to it.
Emperor Valko would not be the end of me.
Anton, for all his determination, could not stay awake to drive the troika through the second night. The third time he nodded off and tugged the reins askew, I demanded to drive the sleigh myself. The idea was abhorrent to him, even when I explained my experience with horses. The livelihood of the Romska caravans depended on their horse trade, and with my ability to sense auras, I had an uncanny skill for taming a wild horse. If I could ride bareback, surely steering a sleigh couldn’t be so difficult.
None of that mattered to the prince. Perhaps he thought I would drive the troika along a cliff and kick him into oblivion. The idea had crossed my mind.
At last he resolved to spend the remainder of the night at a small inn between villages. Removing his cape, he pulled a woolen cap over his royal head and wrapped his mother’s blanket around his shoulders, taking care to conceal its finely embroidered edges. He handed the innkeeper three coins and asked for one room to share with his wife. I blanched at that and the small bed the innkeeper revealed when he opened our door.
I needn’t have worried. As soon as the innkeeper left, Anton gruffly muttered, “Get some sleep,” and nodded to the bed while he rolled his mother’s blanket for use as a pillow on the floor. I watched him a moment, deliberating on whether or not I could take the bed when he was more sleep deprived and of nobler blood. But when I saw him settle onto the floor planks to barricade the door, I flopped down on the bed and stretched out, giving an exaggerated sigh of pleasure. He hadn’t given me the bed out of kindness. He didn’t trust me. I hoped the floor worked knots into his back.
Something jostled me at the shoulder and wakened me when the room was gray and hazy in the light before sun. “What is it, Yuliya?” I asked, my arm thrown over my face in the position I always slept in.
“We need to be going,” came the deep rumbling voice of the prince of Riaznin.
The loss of my friend crashed down over me, fresh and acute. My heart squeezed from the weight of it. I didn’t move my arm. I didn’t want Anton to see the tears clouding my eyes. “I just need a moment,” I whispered.
His warm hand, still on my shoulder, lifted away. His footsteps receded until he stood by the doorway. I took measured breaths as I fought to exhale all my grief. Either that or trap it back inside. Now wasn’t the time to lose myself. Once I reached the palace, I would have my own room, my own place to mourn in solitude.
Anton didn’t say a word, not even when my emotions got the better of me and a quiet sob escaped my labored breathing. He kept his back to me and his head bowed during the several minutes it took me to collect myself. His finger twisted around a loose thread of embroidery on his mother’s blanket.
At length I sat up, matted down my tangled braid, and crossed to the door. Anton’s chest expanded as if he was about to say something, but I couldn’t bear to listen. He’d told me I needed to control my emotions if I wanted to succeed as sovereign Auraseer. I couldn’t endure another lecture. I opened the door and left the room.
We walked silently to the stables. I sat in the troika while he hitched up the three horses. The sun emerged above the rolling, snowy horizon as we set off on the last leg of our journey. Because we had traveled through a good portion of the nights, we would arrive earlier than I’d anticipated.
“We’ll reach Torchev by the afternoon,” Anton said.
Those were the last words he uttered until the massive walls of Riaznin’s capital towered over us, and the troika, with its three tired horses and two heart-heavy passengers, crossed into the city of the emperor.
CHAPTER SEVEN