Chapter Text
The snow would reach to her knees if the servants didn’t toil around the Winter Palace, keeping the square as clear as the inner courtyard. All birds had quieted, the skies were clad in the ever-same white, and the nights came early.
And yet, this winter was different. It was the first winter in which the country wasn’t under the rule of Tsar Alexander. It was the first winter of her life without her father.
She sat on a chaise longue in one of the palace’s many private audience chambers, looking out the window to see how the courtyard was being tended to. Personnel was rushing about, a few noblemen that had arrived for the ball went from one part of the structure to the other, while military of low rank patrolled the premises to keep busy.
This winter without her father would be the first of many, it crossed her mind while she tried to drown out the bickering of her two uncles, Konstantin and Nikolai.
Konstantin, younger brother to her father and older brother to Nikolai, was currently devastated, but as that was a rather regular occurrence, neither Nikolai nor [F/n] were affected by it. She looked at him, saw how his pale face had turned red as he spoke with quivering, wet lips, before she faced down, let her hand run over the emerald fabric of her dress, and directed her attention back to the window.
“It will be a problem,” Konstantin said, his voice trembling. “There will be discontent.”
“Oh no, discontent, ” Nikolai repeated mockingly, then laughed, looked to [F/n] for support, but turned back to his brother when he received none.
“He’s not wrong,” [F/n] told them. Her eyes stayed fixated on a lady hurrying across the snowy pathways, an officer running behind her with an umbrella in hand, before she faced the room. “You are throwing us into crisis,” she stated calmly.
“Crisis!” Nikolai scoffed. “What crisis!”
“By not disclosing that the heir my father has named,” she explained and gestured at her uncle Konstantin, “has rejected his right to the throne, the public is wholly unprepared for Tsar Nikolai Pavlovich.”
“It was a decision your father made when he was still alive,” argued Konstantin, short-tempered and ever-insecure. “I told him I would not rule, but he said if we revealed that there were questions of succession, we would give an opening to radicals and enemies of the tsardom.”
“It seems he successfully delayed this opening to a time when it no longer concerns him,” came her dry reply.
“All I want is to live in peace, I said it then as I say it now. I don’t want the throne, I don’t want to be burdened with the realm’s problems, I know who I am and I make no secret of it,” Konstantin defended himself. “Nikolai ought to face these problems, he will be Tsar, we decided so long ago, us three brothers.”
“Only that no one else knows,” [F/n] said. “Have you heard?” she posed while turning her head to her younger uncle, Nikolai, who was scheduled to be sworn in as the realm’s leader later in December. “Some of the troops have already pledged loyalty to Uncle Konstantin. By mistake, you could say, though not their own. If we tell them he will not be their Tsar, but his younger brother, what will they say?”
“They will accept it because they have to,” Nikolai answered. His eyes were much more focused than those of his anxious brother. “The troops will be loyal to me, because their fealty belongs to the Romanov bloodline, not to us as individuals.”
Konstantin made the correct call when he waived his right to the throne, for his timid character made him unfit to be Tsar. In that regard, he had acted more sensibly than his older, cunning brother ever would. Nikolai’s great fault was not a lack of intelligence and not a proneness to paralyzing indecision like his brother often suffered, but a harsh nature that made him too decisive, too sure of himself, conceitedness laced with a tendency for tyranny.
[F/n] stayed quiet and turned to look out the window once more. There was little sense in arguing with Nikolai, as he struggled to draw any distinction between his preconceived notions and the reality they faced.
“We wouldn’t have this problem if she had been born a boy,” Konstantin said, not with ill intention, but poorly timed.
Nikolai scoffed. “Wouldn’t you like that, Princess?” he hissed and drew her eyes back to him. “Had our Tsar Alexander, may he rest in peace, had a son, Konstantin wouldn’t have had the headache of rejecting the throne, and no one would’ve even thought to ask me. ”
She remembered his eyes to have been blue in her childhood, but now, in the audience chamber dimly lit by the sky’s pale, white color, they only looked gray. They drooped a little at the corners, sunken and hostile. Out of the two brothers, Nikolai had always reminded her of her father much more than Konstantin, so it was a pity that he became such a spiteful individual.
They played with her when she was small, both of them, though Nikolai abruptly stopped when she began showing the slightest signs of turning into a woman. While Konstantin continued to be friendly, she quickly found him dull once she realized she was sharper and better read than her uncle.
Now her father was dead, and she was left alone with them and with a country that would have to be told the heir apparent was never going to rule.
“You know, Konstantin,” Nikolai said to him. “You ought to ease up a little.”
“Please, stop…”
“There is no way word hasn’t yet reached some of our troops, at least the leadership. It is what it is.”
“I haven’t said anything,” Konstantin claimed, suddenly breathless. “Have… Have you?!”
“That would be bad, ” [F/n] chimed in and focused on Nikolai.
“Why would it be bad?!” he shouted. “We have to tell them! My coronation will be in mere weeks!”
“Yes, we have to tell them, but the official way,” she emphasized, before breathing out and shaking her head. “To spread rumors about a succession crisis… Rumors make us seem weak and disorganized.”
“There is no succession crisis! We know who will ascend, and it is me!”
“That is not how it will look,” she said to Nikolai. “My father named Uncle Konstantin. That is what the people know, that is what our troops know. To take things back that were once declared, right after the Tsar’s death, to instead have the youngest brother take the throne while claiming the Tsar agreed to it…”
“He did, ” Konstantin said.
“I know, Uncle, I was there. But the millions under our rule weren’t.”
“ Our rule!” Nikolai sneered.
“Well, your —” But she stopped herself. “No, right now, no one is ruling.”
“That is normal,” Nikolai argued. “Tsar Alexander just died, the heir has not yet ascended to the throne. There is always an interim period.”
“But what if the troops won’t follow you?” Konstantin asked, finally sitting down and fanning himself some air. “They will think it’s rather convenient that I hand it to you after Alexander’s death, they will think it’s strange, they will think we’re going against his wishes, some already swore loyalty to me, oh Heaven…” He looked at his niece. “[F/n], what are we to do?”
“Don’t ask her what to do!” Nikolai barked.
“You have to make an official statement, and soon, ” [F/n] urged Nikolai. “No rumors.”
“Well, I will!”
“And then pray they won’t call you usurper.”
***
A loud Viennese waltz was playing in the hall, brightly lit by a multitude of crystal-lined chandeliers. The tall windows were dark as night had fallen, while ladies in opulent dresses were dancing with noblemen as if to spite the late hour.
The ball had got lively as the space brimmed with guests who had come from near and far, for once invited to an event by the royal family to honor the late Tsar Alexander — so they were told, but the intention was to have them stay in the city long enough to witness Nikolai’s ascension.
Even the gallery was filled, [F/n] noticed when she looked up to see gloved hands on the golden railing and hear the chatter flow down to the main hall. She stood on the sidelines, her small glass of champagne in hand.
Dresses of all colors were sweeping over the floor like a hoard of butterflies when the playful waltz took up in pace. While [F/n] watched them, the fingers of her free hand rested on the chiffon of her own dress; a creamy ivory fabric, adorned with small, embroidered flowers of the same soft white.
She was not the only one who didn’t participate in the dance. On all sides, fabled faces were deep in conversation, and though [F/n] tried to drown out the noise with the help of the bubbly drink in her hand, there was one word that reached her ears again and again: the Tsar, the Tsar, the Tsar.
While it was possible a few officers were discussing the succession in hushed tones, [F/n] was certain that most of them were speaking of her father’s demise. Typhus, she heard, along with the words sudden and unexpected, by the Sea of Azov, where her father had traveled, caught the illness and died, without her having seen him again.
Her eyes moved across the crowd, finding lace and satin and jewels, elaborate hairstyles and tall hats, but only one pair of eyes looking back at her.
He was always in sight, somehow. At any social event, he was never far, and [F/n] usually ended up noticing him by the ginger head of hair that made him hard to miss, whether he wanted to draw her attention or not.
Though it seemed, he wanted to. Blue orbs staring at her from across the room, he set himself in motion as if the sudden eye-contact was his cue.
Along with his orange curls, his dark blue uniform came into view, golden epaulettes on his shoulders, a black leather belt around his waist, and a dress saber with an engraved hilt by his hip. The golden embroidery on his cuffs and his collar marked him not just as a member of the imperial military, but communicated his nobility.
“Good evening, Princess,” he said after he halted by her side and bowed. While it wasn’t very deep, he looked down while bowing to her, raising his gaze only once he straightened back up.
“Sir,” she replied, gave him a quick nod without smiling, then looked elsewhere. She was not in the mood for conversation, and definitely not with him, who could talk at length if allowed, but once she glanced back, she felt bad to address him so coldly. “Ajax,” she added.
“This will be the third time I ask you to call me Childe, Princess,” he told her with a warm smile. “All my friends call me Childe.”
“Which is precisely why I have no business calling you that.” When he laughed at her remark, she scrutinized his expression, then let her eyes wander to his shoulders. The epaulettes… Their structure was more elaborate than she had assumed from a distance, and they were rather large, too. “Did you… make captain?”
“I did, Princess. Sharp as ever.”
“Congratulations,” she said without emotion, but felt a little surprised. While he was still only mid-ranking, she had thought him unambitious in the past; a noble by birth, using military service as a career like so many others who were in it for the prestige that was immediately afforded to those who came from a good family.
“Thank you.” He bowed again, but this time it was only a deep nod, his movement looser as he had not planned it. “A recent development. I now command a small troop.”
“I see.”
His eyes stayed on her, but when she sipped from her champagne instead of saying another word, he took a deep breath. “Princess, I wanted to come over before the waltz ends. This composition is lively, your dress would look beautiful if you danced, it’s a waste to have it static by the side.”
“I find myself otherwise occupied.”
“One dance, please?” he asked and went so far as to offer her his gloved hand. She looked at the white fabric, then up to meet his eyes. While mustering a small smile, she shook her head, and his hand sank. “You don’t enjoy it?”
“I enjoy it as much as the next person,” she sighed, a little annoyed that he would make her explain herself. “But not tonight, and this… this European waltz, the dance is much too close, too intimate.”
“Ever modest,” he said.
In truth, she had given him an excuse. It was a little close for comfort, at least for her, and at least in public, but the real reason why she couldn’t stand the thought of moving to the music was that she was filled with sadness.
It was her father’s ridiculous idea: if I die, have a ball, he had said, and though he laughed, it ended up finding its way into his last will. Celebrate life once mine comes to a close, don’t mope and dwell, he had told her, but [F/n] struggled to imagine he felt that way when he suddenly fell ill and found his life prematurely waning away from home.
Even if he descended from Heaven, grabbed her shoulders with ghostly hands and shook her, [F/n] could not celebrate anything. To twirl in some officer’s arms was out of the question.
“Your father, may he rest in peace, would have loved this event,” the new captain said as if he could read her mind.
“Yes,” she replied, letting out another deep breath. “That is why we hold it, despite the gloomy occasion.”
“I am deeply sorry for your loss. I truly am.”
“Thank you.”
“At the risk of overstepping… I was surprised he did not name you his successor.”
She glared at him, though her look softened once she couldn’t detect any malicious glee in his eyes. He was sincere. “A male ruler is a safer choice. My father put the realm first when he made his decision.”
“We’ve had female rulers before.”
“Either by extraordinary circumstance or when there was absolutely no one else to rule. In this case, we are fortunate to have a male heir.”
“Well,” he said and gave a slight shrug, “I still thought he’d name you. He was a progressive man, after all, the Tsar of reforms and tolerance.”
“Yes, he was.”
But naming his daughter Tsaritsa while there were men in the family was too much to ask, even of him. Though [F/n] had known for a long time, it still came as a somber realization when his will was opened: there was no surprise paragraph, he didn’t decide to revolt against established norms, he had no change of heart. In his death it was as it had been in life. He chose his brother, not his daughter.
“Please excuse me,” Ajax said when his attention was caught by something. He stared at a point somewhere in the crowd, his brows furrowed, yet when [F/n] attempted to follow his gaze, he pulled her eyes back to him. “Another time, another dance? One that is more appropriate,” he proposed with a smile.
She watched him closely. His smile was well-practiced, warm and charming, but there was urgency in his eyes, making his body tense. [F/n] gave him a short nod, he muttered another apology, then made his way through the crowd to where he had been drawn a moment ago.
Maybe he spotted a woman he knew would not deny his request for a dance. [F/n] sipped from her champagne, followed him with her eyes until he vanished into the crowd, then looked elsewhere.
The chandelier’s lights felt glaring by now. [F/n] had grown tired by merely having to be present, she realized, emptied her drink and let out a quiet sigh. While not particularly vigorous, she had never been prone to exhaustion or weakness, but everything felt draining since her father died. It would pass, she hoped. It was grief, she told herself, unavoidable grief, and yet neither of her two uncles seemed particularly distraught. Konstantin was only worried about himself, and Nikolai… How blissful it must be to have such unfounded confidence in oneself.
[F/n] was ripped out of her thoughts when the sea of attendants parted momentarily and ginger hair in blue attire came into view once more. He was not with a woman, but with another officer. [F/n] kept them in focus, stepped aside when someone threatened to obstruct her line of sight, and tried to see who it was he spoke to.
Usually, she would not have cared who he was conversing with. What piqued her interest was that he seemed worked up, irritated as he hissed and argued, visibly trying not to draw attention while in animated discussion. He was stressed about something.
A couple decided to make their way off the floor and up to the gallery, allowing her to get a better look at the other man. She knew this one. He was hard to forget once introduced, for his long hair, the eyepatch, and his sky-blue topaz earring stayed in memory. Though they wore the same dark uniform, where the captain’s had golden accents, his were silver, and the epaulettes on his shoulders were less elaborate.
[F/n] had spoken to him just once or twice in group conversations. What was his name… Kaeya?
She remembered him to wear a ponytail then, but tonight he put his hair into a loose bun, long strands still framing his face. His elegant features tensed into a frown, he hissed something back, then made a dismissive gesture and pulled his comrade by his arm.
[F/n] felt alarmed to see them make their way to the hall’s exit with fast steps. The first thing that came to mind was an emergency, a military matter that required their attention. But maybe it was personal, and maybe… it was political.
Before she knew it, she walked across the hall, gave apologetic smiles to the few people who attempted to strike a conversation as soon as they saw her, then exited through the same doors the two officers had used. She watched them vanish around the corner, counted five seconds, then followed them.
The corridors provided a pleasant silence after having been exposed to the loud music at the ball. The ensemble was still audible, but the instruments sounded distant as [F/n] walked down the hallways, regularly halting to make sure the two men were out of sight before she continued to tread their path.
“…make himself our enemy,” she heard Ajax say to Kaeya, but the rest of his sentence was lost, drowned out by their loud steps and the distance [F/n] maintained.
Kaeya scoffed, and [F/n] could not hear his response.
They walked far, navigating the Winter Palace as if they had a mental map of the entire structure. Though the palace was her home, [F/n] never visited the parts beneath the splendor, the floors that served the purpose of keeping the building functional, forgotten by the nobility it housed.
Her heart began to hammer in her chest when she reached the servants’ corridors. Compared to the upper floors, the walls were narrow, the gilded moldings and tapestries she knew were nowhere to be found, her path only dimly lit as the smell of old wood and candle wax reached her nose.
She held her breath when the faint talking of the officers she followed was underscored by an attendant’s occasional murmurs from one of the adjacent rooms. She was not supposed to be here, it hit her with stark clarity, and she covered her mouth, crouched down, and took off her shoes to not tempt the worn floor to creak.
The two men descended further. They passed through storage chambers, filled with dust and forgotten relics, furniture covered in sheets, crates marked with the imperial seal, and a multitude of candelabras leaned against the walls. Here, the air grew cooler.
[F/n] stopped in her tracks when the officers entered a space she had only heard stories of. They opened a thick, iron-reinforced door, and descended down a long flight of stone stairs. They entered the Winter Palace’s subterranean level — the catacombs.
Now she hesitated. Her shoes in hand and her feet quiet but dirty, she had made it this far, single-mindedly following the two suspicious men despite her beating heart, and she had stayed undetected. Standing still in the short path from the storage chambers to the heavy door that led into the depths, she looked over her shoulder and contemplated turning back.
The smell of damp stone, the layers of cobwebs that looked like tulle, the ghosts of a thousand men and women who had walked these levels in service of her ancestors… It seeped into her bones as her hands began to feel cold and clammy, and she knew she had to make a decision: turn back or advance.
[F/n] had to press her body against the heavy door to open it, dirtying the sleeves of her dress. The steep stairs her naked feet stepped on were frigid and poorly lit, forcing her to use her hands for support. She was slow, but she could still hear their steps, spurring her on.
The catacombs had rough, uneven walls. She thought she was in a cave, having traveled back to a point in time when the Winter Palace was not yet erected above these ancient tunnels. The flickering torchlight on the walls cast strange shadows on the brittle bricks, and the more [F/n] pressed on, the more the regal world above seemed like a distant dream.
A door fell shut, then voices grew louder. [F/n] stopped to listen, closed her eyes to locate the noise, and finally rushed towards the source with quick, silent steps on dirty stone.
There was light beneath a wooden door. Only three small stairs led from the tunnel to the room, so [F/n] crouched down at the top to listen to the words spoken inside.
“What do you think you’re doing?” It was Kaeya’s voice.
“Gathering our men without—” Ajax was cut off.
“They are not your men, Childe,” came the reply. [F/n] knew this voice. She knew it, she was sure, but who… “In fact, I did not call this meeting of my own volition. A few came to me to express doubt about your leadership, asking for guidance.”
“Who here feels anything is unclear?” he posed in return, but the room stayed quiet. [F/n] furrowed her brows. How many people were there?
“It is not so much about clarity, Childe. You know how to be clear, there is no question about that,” the man chuckled with exasperation. “No, what you lack is the ability to reason. You shut down any argument by reiterating the same fantastical dreams that hold Kaeya hostage.”
“I am not held hostage. Our vision is one of freedom, Diluc,” Kaeya retorted.
Of course — General Diluc! He was always there, during the planning of events, at the front of parades, by her father’s side for protection, as a consultant for strategy, a trusted military leader, his name and chest adorned with decorum. As it sank in, [F/n] looked at the door. Why was he here?
Now she heard murmured agreement as well as soft protests, and at once her mental image of the room went from a handful of people to dozens.
“We have many differences, gentlemen,” Diluc said. “But one thing is clear: there is a succession crisis.”
“Which is why it’s now or never,” Ajax declared, his voice loud as he addressed the crowd.
“The ascension of Nikolai Pavlovich is not rightful,” Diluc continued in equal volume, and [F/n] froze. “The one Tsar Alexander has named is his brother, Konstantin Pavlovich, a man of more reasonable character.”
Hear, hear, many men called out, speaking over one another. [F/n] had heard enough. She had to get away from here, had to get to safety as the officers she followed turned out to be dangerous, they turned out to be radicals that challenged the order maintained by the Romanov family.
When she stood up and reached to pick up her shoes, her shaking hands grabbed one but pushed over the other.
Clack, clack, clack.
It fell down the three stairs to the door, hitting each stone surface once. Her heart stood still as the room turned quiet from one moment to the next. One second passed, then two, then three, and when the door opened, [F/n] turned to run.
She took no more than three steps before she shrieked, caught by whoever had hastened after her, one strong arm around her waist, the other across her chest, dragging her back to where she was and then down the stairs. [F/n] fought and protested, cried out when her ankle got scraped on the edge of the final step, dug her nails into the arms around her body, before she was finally thrown onto a wooden chair.
She caught her breath while her eyes took in the faces of the men that stood in a circle around her, her heart pounding while her senses were keened by the adrenaline. Ten, twenty… Around twenty men were staring at her, Diluc and Ajax and Kaeya in the front, the latter apparently being the one who hunted her and dragged her here. His hair was as disheveled as her own, and he rubbed his lower arm while glaring at her in angry disbelief.
“Little beast,” he hissed, though he seemed more and more shaken the longer he looked at her.
It was the same for all of the men. While [F/n] watched them through vigilant eyes, sitting on her chair like cornered prey that knew all it had left was to lash out, the officers and soldiers observed her dirty dress, her naked feet, her messy hair, and then her face.
One by one, they realized that they knew her. One by one, their faces dropped.
Ajax looked the most devastated. His face grew pale, almost sickly as he stared at her with wide eyes, struggling to connect her presence to the place around them.
Diluc’s expression was pained, as if he perfectly understood the situation and found it to be the worst case scenario.
Kaeya’s visible eye only narrowed, wary and distrusting, though she could tell by how his features tensed: he too understood the severity.
After the entire room was caught in a quiet standoff with her, it was Kaeya who breathed in and looked to Ajax. “We can’t let her walk out of here,” he said.