Allegories of the Tarot by Annetta Ribken, Eden Baylee Read Free Book Online

downstream.
    He’d commission artwork when this was done—a painting,
perhaps, depicting living snow singing bright and high and as strong as he’d
now made his home. Or maybe he’d compose something himself, a tune for the new,
stronger monarchy. One capturing this surreal moment.
    Down river, the sun pushed upward along the horizon. Red
seeped into the edge of the night, along the curve of the ice, and Dmitri
stood, breathing it in. This was his nation. This red—the
cold fire of the northern sun. The blood of the land flowing
under the ice and his boots. An Empire that had spread
wider than Rome herself.
    Threats to the stability of his home loomed—threats the
pathetic Tsar needed help to prevent. Threats that could no
longer be ignored. But with the—
    The carpet twitched. Dmitri stomped, his body responding
with long-practiced precision. His foot aimed for where the monk’s head should
be, but the bundle rolled and his boot caught only the carpet’s edge.
    Rasputin unfurled onto the ice, stink and the slapping
crackles of freezing blood following his body as it slid sideways off the rug. A
wicked gasp blew from between his blue lips. Dmitri lurched backward, but the
monk’s hand moved faster and latched onto his ankle.
    The world tilted—Dmitri’s sense of the horizon no longer
matched what he saw as the line of the river. He buckled onto his knees, the
leg held by the monk twisting away from his hip. Agony fired into his belly. He
kicked again, but the monk moved with him, sliding closer to Dmitri’s side
instead of away.
    The gun was in his pocket. He still had a bullet. Dmitri
reached but the monk’s rancid breath hit his nose. He’d used his momentum on
the ice and now he grinned like Death himself, inches from Dmitri’s face.
    A guttural, angry roar ripped from Dmitri’s throat. This
peasant did not understand his station. He’d destroyed the monarchy. He dare
touch another Romanov? Dmitri kicked but Rasputin’s calloused hand squeezed the
exposed skin between his hat and scarf.
    Disorientation slammed his balance hard. Dmitri dropped
onto his back, suddenly and completely unaware of what was up and what was
down.
    The touch of a healer could also harm, and Rasputin was
a better healer than him.
    Dmitri’s arms flailed, as disoriented as his vision. The
bridge should hold horizontal, its supports vertical, but his gut said the
opposite. He pitched to the side, staring across the river and praying for
straight lines.
    Dmitri tasted the upward draft of the cold—it moved
vertical, instead of across, as it should, and siphoned away his strength the
way a chimney siphoned smoke.
    Rasputin’s touch set fire to every nerve and muscle in
his head. A rancid fire, one as ugly as the man, oily and
slick and pawing. Dmitri opened his mouth to yell, to call to the
bridge’s sleeping sentry, but no sound escaped.
    No breath curled into the cold air kissing his lips.
    The monk stole his life.
    Rasputin withered away his body. The sky was under him,
the river above. The stars were nothing more than layer of frozen faerie dust,
twinkling like a harpsichord but as thick as the river’s ice. The red of the
sunrise bled onto both and crept over Dmitri’s skin.
    His healing ability fought—he wasn’t yet dead—but the
night wrapped around him like the carpet had wrapped around the monk.
    On the downbeat of his blink that should have been up,
Rasputin’s face came into focus. Flat, dead, gray still, the bullet hole in his
forehead open as it was the instant after Dmitri released the shot, he attacked
as a corpse. Yet Rasputin was stronger, more practiced, more in control of his
abilities. Strong enough to cheat death.
    But he did not carry the blood of a nation in his veins.
Rasputin, unlike Dmitri, did not work for the good of his land.
    Across the edge of the river, the sunrise red turned to
orange, which then turned to gold, and his country brightened, his home
gleamed. He pulled his fingers free of his