There was no denying it. The girl had shaken her. Vasilisa the Luminous, the Light Volkhvy queen, wasn’t used to surprises. The few she’d experienced in her extraordinarily long life had not been well-received. One of those, the betrayal of her champion and lover, Vladimir Romanov, had resulted in the longest and most enduring rage she’d ever experienced.
Her home was the royal seat of the Light Volkhvy. It was one of hundreds of islands that formed an archipelago that surrounded Scotland. To the outside world, it was stark and barren. Even the birds that made their home on most of the other islands shied away, repelled by a force they could neither see nor touch. Vasilisa’s ability to manipulate the Ether kept the true enchanted nature of the island hidden from man and beast, as well as provided an artificial atmosphere protected from the extremes of climate that the other islands in the Outer Hebrides experienced. As she walked through the rose garden that formed the innermost sanctum of her private retreat, she tried to slow her heartbeat and ease her jangled nerves.
She’d been so angry she hadn’t felt Elena Pavlova respond to the sword’s call.
The petite dancer claimed to have been called from a young age. If that was so, Vasilisa had been blind for two decades while her enchantments ran on without oversight or tending. That wasn’t the behavior of a queen. The wild tangle of her rose garden only served to illustrate the same irresponsibility. She’d been furious. And not only because she’d experienced real pain when Vladimir betrayed her.
She’d loved him.
He’d been her gray wolf for years, loyal and true. Or so she’d thought. She’d plucked him from the royal Romanov family. He’d been an obscure cousin who was eager to prove himself once he was given the chance. At first, he’d seemed the perfect choice. He’d taken to the shift amazingly well. He’d recruited and developed an army of followers to fight by his side. Then he’d sired three strong sons and pledged them to her service, as well.
She’d given him Bronwal as a reward. She’d given him the sapphire sword for his wife and then later the ruby sword for the wife chosen by one of his sons.
Madeline.
Poor Madeline and her tiny babe.
The women had been even more precious to her than the wolves because they had chosen to serve her and the Light Volkhvy. She honored their service. Which was why she’d never approached Vladimir until his wife and her prince consort had died. She hadn’t loved her prince. Their marriage had been one required by her followers to cement her rule. But she had been faithful to him until he was gone.
She should have stayed away. It was wrong even then to go to Vladimir. She’d dishonored the memory of her sapphire warrior and her prince consort with her lust, and she deserved the horrible price the universe had exacted from her.
She had only worn purple for centuries. No one had ever wondered why. Her grief was her own, abiding and deep.
In the center of the rose garden, on a rough marble dais, a glass enclosure seemed to rise up out of the stone itself. Its edges were obscured and crystallized where rock met glass, but in the center of the oblong container, the glass was clear enough to see the two sleeping forms held and protected inside.
Even in her rage, her love of the women who wielded her swords had won out. She couldn’t abandon Madeline and her newborn son to the Ether. Instead, she’d allowed the Ether to put them into a deep sleep, nearly as deep as death, and she’d brought them here. She didn’t visit the center of her garden often. She couldn’t bear to see the peacefully sleeping baby. Not when her own baby had been murdered by Vladimir Romanov. Today, as she looked down on the innocent faces so soft in repose, she knew her pain didn’t excuse what she’d done. Vladimir had been the one who killed her daughter, Anna.
Her revenge against the other Romanovs was wrong.
It had taken the ferocity of Ivan’s swan to ease her rage and open her eyes.
Elena had claimed the sapphire sword. And she’d done it even knowing that Vasilisa was a flawed leader.
Her warrior women were more honorable than their queen.
The Gathering approached on swift, ruthless wings. She’d turned a rage-blinded eye toward the Volkhvy who attended every year to torment her wolves. She’d even participated, encouraging the decadent ball in order to hurt the last Romanov when she’d known the Romanov who’d actually hurt her had been taken by the Ether almost from the start.
Vladimir hadn’t been strong. He’d been weak. If his betrayal hadn’t proven that to her, his disappearance had. But the curse had also been the making of the new alpha. Ivan Romanov had become everything she’d hoped her champion would be. Her rage and grief over her daughter’s death had blinded her to that.
It had taken Elena Pavlova to open her eyes.
The girl and her connection to the sapphire sword had been entirely unexpected. Vasilisa’s wolves inherited their abilities. Her magic had manipulated their father’s genes to create the powerfully enhanced champions she needed against the Dark. She had ordered the swords to be made so that the wolves would have companions in battle. Her magic had infused each gem with Light.
But the women who were called to the swords picked them up of their own accord. They, of all her followers, chose to fight for the Light. They hadn’t been born to it. They hadn’t been made. And yet they were the strongest of all. Mortal women who chose to take up the fight.
Vasilisa pressed a kiss against the glass and backed away. Neither of the container’s occupants stirred. Madeline cradled the baby in her arms, but neither of them seemed to breathe and neither had aged or changed. Beside their bodies, the ruby sword lay, dark and dull.
Could she abandon her newest warrior to the Dark or to the Ether?
As always, the sleeping baby reminded her of her own lost child. Her rage hadn’t faded. She hadn’t loved her prince, but she had loved. As only a mother can love. It shook her now and caused her hand to close too tightly around a rose. Its ruthless barb pricked her finger. The blood welled blackish scarlet against her pale skin, but she didn’t lift it to her lips. She stared, transfixed, as it swelled. The blood ran down her finger and fell to the ground, unstopped, where it disappeared into the soil.
Vladimir had betrayed her in a more horrific way than most people knew.
Her deepest pain had been a secret expressed only by the ruthlessness of the curse and her mourning garb. Anna was gone. She’d been dead for centuries. Vasilisa had hidden her child from Vladimir with innocent villagers. In his gray wolf form, Vladimir had attacked the village of Sovkra. And from the first she’d heard of Anna’s murder Vasilisa held her name close to her heart unable to bear the sound of it on anyone else’s lips.
But Vladimir was also gone. He’d been gone a long time and perhaps it was time to forgive his sons.
She was the Light Volkhvy queen and it might not be possible to stop what she’d set into motion. The witchblood prince had laid a powerful mark on Elena. If the black wolf didn’t accept her as his mate, the sapphire sword’s power was nullified. She could try to stand in Grigori’s way. She could buy Ivan Romanov time to claim the warrior’s heart that Elena had offered him.
But her pain stood in her way. She couldn’t forgive. She would never forget. The Romanovs suffered for what their father had done because she suffered. Her grief was as fresh today as it had been centuries ago.
Even if Romanov claimed Elena, Vasilisa could only lift the curse if she wholeheartedly blessed her wolves and their warriors once more.
Her blessing would have to be given freely and fully at the exact time when it was needed, but could she cleanse the taint in her heart left by Vladimir Romanov?
The prick on her finger tingled. She was the queen, but she was vulnerable. It had always been so. Power attracted those hungry to claim it and never more so than in the Volkhvy culture where power mattered most.
She closed her eyes against the sight of her blood seeping into the ground. Had Vladimir torn tiny innocent flesh with the vicious teeth she had given him? Tears flowed freely to join with her blood in the shadow of her roses.