Rasputina and the Witch's Tsar

Chapter Twenty

"Mama! Mama!"

The door swings open and I'm bombarded by three little minions with sandy blonde, brown, and jet-black hair. Pareskevas ambles in behind them, covering the majority of the doorframe with his farm-boy stature. He turns his eyes to me, soft and slow, like a bull beneath the knife. "Hello, дорогая, dorogaya. Hello, dear. It's been so long."

He moves in to press his thin lips against my cheek. Stunned, I take him in. My arms instinctively go to clasp around my children's shoulders. Dmitri hugs my thigh, Varvara snuggles her head beneath my hand, and dark-haired Matryona stares up at me. Her eyes are wet with tears, almost in defiant adoration.

"It's been so long since we've seen you." Pareskevas repeats, placing a large hand on Matryona's head, holding her to him. The little one has eyes only for me.

"I wonder what they think of me." I reply, moving to kiss each one of their foreheads.

"Ask them yourself." My husband's voice isn't accusatory. Only tired. Drawn thin, as thin as his lips. The weathering at the edges.

"We missed you, mama." Matryona struggles out of Pareskevas's grip to take my hand and kiss it. Dmitri and Varvara mew their assent. Pareskevas just watches the scene, his lips getting thinner and thinner.

I hold for their affection a moment longer, before gently nudging them away. "It's like I haven't been gone at all." I tease. Pareskevas nods for the children to go back to the assigned joint-nursery. The apartments are nice. Spacious with good stonework, a nice place for a family. Pareskevas has populated it with a strange mix of old-world furniture and little trinkets from the St. Petersburg markets. Old and new. The familiar and strange.

Alone in the bedroom, our new apartment bedroom, Pareskevas stares at me. "Say something." I plead. "Anything."

He refuses, drawing away and sitting at the window. I move to sit at his knee, drawing his chapped hands into my lap. I kiss his cheek. His chin. His nose.

He holds a hand against my lips, pushing me softly back. "Kiss me like you kiss the tsar."

I laugh, halfway incredulous and half out of spite. "How can you say such things?" I get back to my feet, pacing the length of the bedroom. I crumple up the gilt invitation, tossing it at his feet. "It's hearsay. Slander. I have many political enemies in St. Petersburg. Too much power too quick. Of course, they claim I share the pretty foreign tsar's bed." I sit on the bed, taking pins from my hair and letting my raven locks tumble free. "Incredible. My own husband turned against me."

Pareskevas stands and walks closer. I tug him down to sit beside me. He complies, numb. "It's not me that's turned against this family."

"Forgive me." I plead, pulling him into a kiss.

He does not say whether he's accepted me apology, but nor does he turn away.