Epilogue

Alexey

I stared at the not-so-distant city between the slats of wood that made up my prison. The sun was getting low behind the palace, lighting up the white stone and golden domes in a brilliant shade of orange. If I hadn't been inside it that afternoon, I could almost imagine it hadn't changed.

But I had been there, and it had changed. A giant chasm split the throne room floor. The bodies undoubtedly still lay at the bottom of that pit where they'd fallen. I shuddered to think how close I'd been to becoming one of them. Then again, how unwelcome would that death be compared to what awaited me? Death by hanging was a strong possibility for my future. Exile, possibly, if I was particularly lucky. I didn't want to be exiled, but I supposed, when considered with detachment, it was preferable to death.

I heard footsteps approaching, but I didn't turn. More guards, or possibly more prisoners. It was too early after the battle for executions to begin. No one would be coming for me yet.

"Alexey."

I heard my name, half-whispered, and turned so quickly something in my neck cracked.

Sofia.

She stood there watching me. Izolda stood next to her, I noted in the back of my mind, but I only had eyes for Sofia. A scarf was tied around her head, and my fingers ached to tear it off, to see her beautiful hair.

She wore an apron, too, and I saw smears of blood on it. Her own? My eyes narrowed as I scanned her for any wounds. Nothing obvious. She wouldn't have been in the battle. She'd probably been working in the med tent. Unsurprising. She wasn't the type to sit quietly and wait for things to happen. She had to be involved somehow.

Izolda muttered something I couldn't hear and turned to leave. Sofia looked after her as though she wanted her to stay, but she didn't say anything. After a moment, she looked back at me.

"Why are you here?" I asked, more harshly than I intended. Not that I didn't intend it to be harsh. She was the reason I was here, at least in part. When she didn't answer, I stepped closer, pressing her for an answer. "Did you come to gloat?" Vicious, beautiful woman. She'd used me, played me like the fool I was. And I'd gone along with it willingly.

"I'm sorry." Her voice was breathless. "I'm so sorry."

Something in my chest cracked. "Was any of it real?" I'd asked her the same thing yesterday morning, when I'd helped her escape from the tsar's dungeons. She hadn't answered then. I watched her face, searching for a response. She couldn't have fabricated everything. The taste of her lips, how she felt in my arms…those were tools she'd used against me, yes. But the tears she'd shed in front of me, the laughter, the admiration in her gaze. I couldn't have imagined all of it. She had to feel something for me.

The first time I'd kissed her, when she fell apart with fear from some remembered trauma; that had been real. As had the rest of the evening, when she let me hold her as she cried away her pain on my chest, sitting out in the frigid air overlooking the ocean.

And the tears of fear and shame in her eyes when she'd let me take her to bed the first time, before I left for battle? That was the most real of all. I'd never understood her. Loved her madly, needed her desperately, but never understood her. I watched her face, wishing she would answer my question, or at least give me some sort of a sign.

"I'm married."

I flinched as the words left her lips. Married? She couldn't be married. She'd given herself to me. She was mine. Fully, completely, in every way. She was mine, dammit!

Father's Blood, I'd lost my mind over this woman. She'd used me so skillfully, I hadn't even noticed I was being used.

"I see," I said, praying my emotion didn't show in my voice.

"Alexey, I—" She reached through the slats of wood, but I stepped back. If I let her touch me, I'd be well and truly lost.

"Don't." She couldn't touch me. Talk. I needed to talk. "Who is he?"

She pursed her lips, and I glanced away, trying not to remember the feel of those lips on mine. "A commander in the tsar's army."

"Not Tsar Miroslav's, I take it." Of course not. I'd been making love to her, telling her all about Tsar Miroslav's strategy, trying to impress her, so she could pass it all to her husband, a commander for Borislav. What a damned fool I was. A besotted, idiotic fool.

"Miroslav is dead."

"I know. I was there." After the pit had opened up in the floor of the throne room, after most of the tsar's court was dead, Miroslav and Borislav had faced each other. Tsar Miroslav hadn't had his right-hand man to protect him anymore, no Lord Kazimir to keep him safe.

"He was a monster," she whispered.

I could have laughed at that. Miroslav was no saint, I knew, but after the carnage from that afternoon, it was hard to imagine anyone thinking Borislav was an improvement. "And your tsar is so much better."

She straightened her spine at that. Never one to back down from a fight, my Sofia. Or, not mine. Someone else's. Possibly not even Sofia. She'd lied about everything else, why not her name?

"Borislav doesn't kill innocents."

By the Blood, she sounded so sure of herself. I could picture Lady Yelena, though. The look of terror on her face as she'd fallen through the floor of the throne room. She'd been expecting her first child. Lord Kazimir, abusive bastard that he was, would have been a terrible father. But Lady Yelena was a sweet girl. An innocent. She hadn't deserved to die like that. She hadn't deserved to die at all. "Doesn't he?" I asked coldly. "I'm sure Lady Yelena would be happy to hear that. As would Count Andrej and the dowager tsarina." And all the other victims in the throne room.

I saw the blood drain from Sofia's face and instantly regretted my words. I hadn't meant to frighten her. "What do they have to do with this?" she asked.

Regretful or not, I couldn't stop the next hateful words from leaving my mouth. "Why don't you ask your husband? I'm sure he knows all about the carnage your tsar wreaked in the palace."

"Where is Lady Yelena?" Her usually husky voice bordered on shrill.

"She's dead. Along with her husband, Tsar Miroslav, and nearly a dozen other nobles killed at the hand of the man you call tsar. Tell me, Sofia, what crime did the grand duchesses commit to deserve death?"

"No."

I laughed humorlessly. "You don't believe me? No, of course you don't. I'm the villain here, just another mindless follower of Miroslav the monster."

"I never thought that!"

"No? You didn't use me? Didn't take advantage of my position in Lord Kazimir's household? Didn't pass on the information I shared with you to your husband and your tsar?" When she didn't respond, I scoffed. "That's what I thought."

She was silent for a moment. When she spoke, I had to strain to hear her. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't mean for any of this to happen."

What game was she playing? I couldn't look at her. "What did you think would happen?" She'd used me, broken my heart, and now that I was captured, imprisoned, she came to say she didn't mean it. "What did you want?"

"I wanted to go home!" Her outburst surprised me, and my gaze was pulled to her face like a magnet. "I wanted my husband not to be branded a traitor. I wanted to raise my son. I wanted to live somewhere I didn't have to fear for everyone I loved. I wanted to live a quiet life with my family. But Kazimir and Miroslav took that away from me. Miroslav crippled my husband. Kazimir killed my son. They turned my home into a battleground. So yes, Alexey, I went to court to spy on Miroslav. And yes, I passed on what you told me. But I didn't mean to hurt you, and I certainly didn't mean to fall in love with you." She gasped out the last words, clinging to the wood of my cell to keep her upright.

I stared at her, processing everything she'd said. Her husband, a crippled traitor. A commander in Borislav's army. Father's Blood, she was married to the Survivor of Barbezht. The man who'd negotiated the Drakra alliance. I'd seen him that afternoon, next to Borislav in the throne room. He'd looked appalled at what was happening, but he hadn't done anything to stop it, either. Of course, it wasn't like anyone unSanctioned could stand against the Sanctioned. Not if they wanted to live.

Lord Kazimir had killed her son. I hadn't known that she had a son. She wouldn't have told me, but I wished I'd known. I could have—I didn't know what I could have done. But I wished I'd known. It explained why she'd been trying to poison the baron. She'd wanted to protect Lady Yelena and her child from Kazimir. There had been times I'd wanted to kill the abusive bastard myself, but Sofia had actually tried. Not just to help her tsar win the war, but to avenge her loss and stop others from facing the same horrors.

And she'd fallen in love with me. I turned that thought over in my head, examining it. It could be another lie, I knew, but what would be the point? Why tell a prisoner, one likely to die soon, that she loved him?

I looked over at her. She leaned against the wall of the cell, tears streaming down her face. She was so fragile. She needed me. I would regret this, but I reached out and brushed a tear from her cheek.

"I did," I told her softly. She looked up at me, and I was surprised to feel my own eyes fill with tears. "I meant to fall in love with you."

She let out a sob that shattered whatever part of my heart wasn't already hers. "Alexey, I—"

I cut her off with a finger to her lips. "I told you I didn't care how long I had with you, that every moment was a blessing. I lied." I took a deep breath to steady myself. My hand moved to the scarf on her head, and I slipped a finger under the edge. "I want every moment of the rest of your life. I want to help you move on from whatever happened before me, and I want to protect you from whatever comes next." I pulled the scarf off, relishing the sight of her beautiful rows of braids. I hated myself for whatever part I'd played in causing her pain. But I hated the Survivor of Barbezht even more, for sending her to court to spy for Borislav. He'd sent his wife into danger. If she hadn't escaped, she could have been tortured, even executed. My next words were little more than a snarl. "And I don't want to send you back to the bastard of a husband who sent you to court to do his dirty work."

I couldn't restrain myself any longer. I kissed her, pouring every emotion I'd felt over the last week into that kiss. I unleashed all my fear, anger, betrayal, hurt, holding her in place with a hand on the back of her head. She didn't pull back, though, and she kissed me just as fiercely. I silently cursed the cell that held me, wishing I could run my hands over her body.

Too soon, always too soon, I pulled back. "Don't go, Sofia," I whispered against her lips. She was still crying. My face was wet with tears, and I didn't know if they were hers or mine.

"Mila," she said in a breathless voice. I searched her eyes, trying to parse out the meaning of the word. "My name is Mila Dmitrievna."

Fuck. She hadn't wanted me to kiss her. I dropped her and took a step back. She wanted me to remember who she was, really. Another man's wife. I schooled my features into a cool disinterest. "My apologies, Mila Dmitrievna."

"Alexey, no." She reached for my hand, and I let her take it, too confused to pull back. "I didn't mean to feel what I do for you. I'm married."

"Yes, you've said that." Was she deliberately trying to hurt me?

"I thought he was dead." She stopped, swallowed hard, and went on. "But he's not. And when I found out he was alive, I had already fallen in love with you." She shook her head. "I just wanted to know that you knew me, not Sofia."

"I do," I said, confused. Then I shrugged. "Or I thought I did."

She wiped at her tears. Fuck. Was that because of me? She still held my hand, and I looked down, watching my thumb brush against her skin. "But your name doesn't matter to me," I said, surprising myself. As soon as I said it, I realized it was true. "Who you are, that doesn't change. No matter what you did, what you felt like you had to do, that woman is still the same, whether you call her Sofia or Mila. I fell in love with you. I don't know what's going to happen to me now, but whatever happens next, knowing you loved me, however briefly…" Overcome with emotion, I couldn't continue. I turned her hand over and pressed a kiss into the palm. "You're my sun, and my life will be dark without you."

She smile she gave me was weak, tear-filled, and I couldn't bring myself to return it. She wasn't mine. She'd never be mine. "Go home, Mila," I said quietly. "Go be with your husband. Raise your children, serve your tsar. Be happy."

"And you?" Her voice was pained.

I shrugged. "Exile if I'm lucky. Execution if I'm not." On the whole, I thought I'd prefer execution. Hanging wasn't dignified, but it would mean an end to the whirling hole of despair that had opened inside my chest when I realized she'd been using me. A world without the sun wasn't worth living, and though I'd called her the sun first as a flirtatious joke, it had quickly become true. She was everything warm and light in my life.

She shuddered at my words, and I wished I hadn't mentioned execution. I should have comforted her somehow. "I want to help you. I can talk to my husband—"

"No," I said sharply. Father's Blood, I didn't want to owe the Survivor anything. I already had to give him the woman I loved. I couldn't stand giving him anything more. I didn't have anything more to give. "I don't want his charity."

"And mine?" She looked up at me, her brown eyes hopeful. "Can't I do something?"

If I kept looking into those eyes, I would get down on my knees and beg her not to leave me. "Go home," I repeated before I lost my nerve. "Go home and be happy." I trailed a finger down her cheek, and she closed her eyes.

I forced myself to drop my hand to my side and stepped back out of her reach. "Goodbye, my sun," I said.

She took a step back, her eyes still locked to mine. Then another. She stumbled, and I flinched, wishing I could catch her. Izolda was there, though, taking her arm to guide her. I felt a rush of gratitude toward Izolda for doing what I couldn't. She would see Sofia—Mila—safely back to her tent. And back to her husband, the bastard Survivor of Barbezht.

I watched as the two women walked back toward the camp, and I said a silent prayer that Borislav would execute me in the morning.

To Be Continued