Wintermourne (3/6)
Bond
In the third year of her slumber, late 1913, Mikhail Andreyevich Volkov arrived in St. Petersburg during a time of unrest. Tensions simmered across Europe, with war looming on the horizon, and the court was hollowed by anxiety, its once-glittering salons now dim with whispers and the clatter of boots.
Mikhail came not as a soldier but as an emissary—his family’s ancient name summoned in a gesture of imperial unity. He wore his rank lightly. There was little room for nobility in the trenches, and even less in the shadowed corridors of the palace. He spent most of his days in the archives, reading.
A maid brought him a glass of wine in the evening, along with a plate of biscuits.
“Thank you,” he said.
She glanced up, surprised to be addressed.
“You’re most welcome, Knyaz,” she replied.
“Don’t call me prince here,” he said, smiling gently.
“My apologies—sir,” she corrected, lowering her eyes. “I thought it was the proper honorific.”
“In my house, perhaps,” he said, taking the glass. “But here? My hosts might not like the reminder.”
“I understand and apologize if I have offended.”
“Do not fret,” he said. “I took no offense. Care for a biscuit?” He offered the plate—a small peace.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she said, glancing toward the door. “I must tend the sleeping girl.”
He paused, mid-sip. “Sleeping girl?”
“The girl who spins no more, yet lies in sunlight still,” she said, as if reciting a line from a storybook.
Mikhail’s brow furrowed, a memory stirring from years ago, a merchant’s boast at the Tsar’s table, a girl who could spin flax into celestial thread. “Is she… the one whose father claimed she could weave miracles?” he asked, his voice soft, as if testing the thought.
The maid hesitated, then nodded. “So they say, sir.”
His curiosity sparked. “Show me.”
She hesitated.
“Please,” he added, voice soft but firm.
She nodded once and set off down the hall.
He followed her to a west-facing chamber, expecting nothing more than a myth, or perhaps a wall mural.
But then he saw her.
She did not look dead. Nor truly alive. Her chest rose and fell with steady breath, her hair neatly braided, her fingers folded across her lap like a sleeping empress. The broken mirror above the hearth cast no reflection. A skein of thread still curled near her feet.
He stood there for some time, not speaking.
"I must bathe her," the maid said.
He raised his eyebrow at her.
"I must disrobe her," the maid said.
"Oh, I see," Mikhail said.
He turned and left the room.
But he crept back in hours later and sat in a chair watching her.
The same made found him there about ten in the evening.
"Sir?" she asked. "Can I get you anything?"
"Just water," he said. "I'm going to read to her."
When the maid left, he spoke, he awkwardly cleared his throat.
"Shall I read to you? I’ve brought Pushkin.”
And so, he began.
At midnight, the door to the room opened and Rasputin stepped in, shocked momentarily to see a man seated by Nadya's bed.
"Who are you?" Rasputin demanded.
"I am of the house Volkov," Mikhail said. "Who are you?"
"I am the queen's advisor. I'm here to pray over her."
"What's her name?"
"Nadya."
Mikhail nodded, but did not move. Rasputin seemed perturbed by this but went about his business and began his ritual. When he had finished, he turned to look at the young man.
"How long will you be at the castle?" Rasputin asked.
"I do not know yet. Several months, I suppose."
Rasputin harrumphed and then walked to the door.
"Were you praying in the forest tongue?" Mikhail asked.
Rasputin, startled, looked back at the prince. "You know the forest tongue?"
"I do not," Mikhail said, "But I recognize its sounds and patterns."
"Fascinating," Rasputin said.
"Will she wake?"
“Unlikely,” Rasputin said, almost smiling.
Undeterred, Mikhail read to her every day. He began with the safe and foundational works of Pushkin, then moved on to Turgenev and Chekhov, hoping to stir her gently awake. On darker days, he read Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, reaching for words heavy enough to break her silence. And finally, when all else failed, he turned to Blok’s lyrical poetry.
It was then—reading Blok in the half-light of winter—that he fell truly, madly, deeply in love with the thought of her, though he knew her not as a person.
In time, he began speaking to her of his own life—of his boyhood in Novgorod, of his elder brothers lost to the war, of the lonely honor of bearing a name no longer needed in a broken world. He would hold her hand as he spoke, cradling her fingers between his own, before gently laying it back across her waist each night before leaving.
As winter deepened and the world outside grew harder, he took to staying in the room with her. He kept the fire burning through the long nights, fed her warm broth and honey water, and, when he dared, small spoonsful of porridge, which she dutifully swallowed.
The palace forgot him.
But he remembered her, and she was cared for by the staff, despite sleeping an endless night.
By spring 1914, he had fallen into a ritual. Each evening, he would kiss her hand upon arriving, a gesture both tender and desperate, before settling beside her with a book. He would read for three or four hours, his voice growing hoarse even with the help of honeyed lemon tea.
Sometimes he read aloud to fill the silence. Sometimes he read simply to hear his own hope refusing to die.
Through poetry and prose, he poured his life into the quiet chamber, weaving a tapestry of words around her sleeping form, as if the sound of his love might one day call her back to him.
But she never woke.
Even a year later, she did not stir.
On Valentine’s Day 1915, Mikhail arrived early, a sprig of snowdrop tucked into his coat, hoping its fragile bloom might stir her. He kissed her hand, as always, and sat beside her, but his eyes drifted to a corner of the room.
There, half-hidden by a chair, sat a small linen bag, its fabric worn and patched. He’d noticed it before but never touched it, assuming it held linens or tools. Tonight, restless with longing, he wanted to know her—not just the sleeping girl, but the Nadya who’d lived before the palace claimed her.
He knelt by the bag, his fingers hesitant. “Forgive me,” he murmured, glancing at her still form. The bag was heavier than it looked, filled by the staff with her belongings—perhaps sent from her family, or gathered by Rasputin’s orders.
Inside, he found a chipped clay cup, a faded ribbon, a small prayer book with dog-eared pages, and her wooden spindle, its surface smoothed by years of use. His heart ached at the simplicity of it, a life so unlike the palace’s gold and marble.
Then, at the bottom, his fingers brushed something crisp and gilded. He pulled out a folded scroll, its edges dusted with golden flecks that shimmered in the firelight. Unrolling it, he saw blotches and a streak of blood, the Cyrillic script curling like smoke. He read the words within:
In thread and blood, the bargain spun,
A debt begun, a life undone.By spindle’s prick and sleeping breath,
You trade your child to forest death.Sleep, maiden, sleep — through frost and flame,
Until true love shall speak your name.A kiss of heart, a kiss of grace,
Shall rouse the light within your face.Yet mark it well: to win your son,
You must this riddle be undone—Speak loud the name that none confess,
The twisted tongue of ancientness.Call me true and break the chain,
Else lose your child, and life remain.
He stared at it in wonder.
Below the riddle, were two names:
Nadya Petrovich and Grigory Rasputin, but names stained with drops of blood.
There was something ancient and troubling about it. Something from his memory that he couldn't quite grasp. He rolled up the scroll, tucked it into his waistband, and strode from the room, calling for the housekeeper.
She arrived promptly, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Where is Mister Rasputin’s room?” he asked.
“In the north wing, sir,” she said. “But he hasn’t been here for over a month. He traveled to Tsarskoye Selo with the family.”
Mikhail was not surprised. He’d been so absorbed in Nadya’s silent world that he’d barely noticed the thinning of the court.
“Show me to his room here,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” she murmured, bowing her head.
She led him down a cold corridor lined with dead lamps and cracked tiles. At the end of it, a heavy oak door loomed.
The room beyond smelled of rotting leaves and smoke.
The hearth was cold. A half-burned bundle of herbs sagged into the ashes. The mirror above the desk—unlike Nadya’s shattered one—was intact, but its surface rippled faintly, as if disturbed by an unseen breath.
Mikhail stepped inside, the scroll hidden under his coat, and began to search.
Mikhail moved cautiously, careful not to disturb the strange quiet that seemed to cling to the room. Dust hung heavy in the air, catching the thin shafts of gray light slanting through the window.
He began with the desk—rifling through scattered papers, broken quills, and a cracked inkwell—but found nothing. A drawer stuck halfway open revealed only a tangle of herbs, their scent long since soured.
His gaze drifted to the mirror above the desk.
It was large, oval, framed in heavy dark wood, unlike any other he had seen in the palace. The glass shimmered slightly, though no breeze stirred the room. As he stepped closer, the surface seemed almost to ripple away from his reflection.
He reached out and touched the glass.
It was warm beneath his fingertips, almost pulsing like living skin.
The surface rippled.
His reflection vanished.
In its place, he saw Nadya, lying motionless in her bed, bathed in the pale light of the cracked mirror above her hearth. The angle was wrong—impossible—like the view of some invisible eye watching from the rafters.
The image wavered slightly, but did not break.
He yanked his hand back, heart pounding.
The mirror stilled, returning to the horrified look of his reflection, but the memory of what he had seen remained, cold and sharp.
A chill ran down his spine. His breath fogged the glass, and for an instant, he thought he saw a flicker of movement behind it—something hunched and grinning, vanishing before he could blink.
The scroll’s riddle made sudden, terrible sense.
Rage burned in him—white and clean—against the creature who had spied on and taken advantage of the girl he loved.
He spoke an oath aloud, steady and clear:
By the blood in my veins and the breath in my body, I will free her. I swear it for my true love.
The mirror trembled at his words, a hairline crack blooming across its surface.
Mikhail returned to Nadya’s chamber, kissed her hand as he entered, and spoke softly, though his voice was shaking:
“Good evening, Lady Nadya.”
He paused, taking her in—the stillness of her breath, the faint warmth of her skin, the pale gold of her hair in the firelight.
“I am about to kiss you,” he said. “I wish you were awake, so that I could first beg your permission. But that isn’t possible.”
He knelt beside her, his voice breaking with the weight of it.
“So instead… if I am wrong, I beg your forgiveness. But if I am right, please love me back.”
He leaned down and brushed his lips against hers—a kiss as soft as snowfall, as desperate as prayer.
Her eyes fluttered open instantly.
She blinked once, slowly, as if clearing away years of dreams.
She gazed at him leaning over her and reached to touch her lips, but her arm stiff and she groaned.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
The voice brought a wave of memories over here. The words he had spoken echoed through her dreams. His touch lingered as a memory, his voice a comfort in the dark of her long slumber.
She smiled—small and sure, as if she had always known he would come.
“Mikhail,” Nadya said, her voice like the first thaw of spring. “Took you long enough.”
He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, half a laugh and half a sob. Then he gathered her into his arms and kissed her again, this time certain of the invitation—and certain of her.
It was no surprise to anyone in the castle when Nadya married Mikhail in January 1916, in a private ceremony overseen by a priest in St. Petersburg.
Stephen B. Anthony is the author of Transmigrant, an epic science fiction thriller, available on both Amazon and Audible. The first seven chapters are available on this website for free.