Wrath and Ruin Read online

  His daughter was part tiger, because he was part tiger. He had passed this ferocity onto her. Until he’d met Lara, his soul had been ignored and trampled. But Lara had finally given it a breath of life.

  Pytor had been a wild and frenzied thing. He’d had to claw and scratch for attention, and somehow, in some miraculous way, he’d passed that wildness to his daughter.

  If he had ever before doubted that he was meant for more, that he was more than just a titled and spoiled fifth son of a king, here was his proof. Did his brother, the king, have a child who was a tiger?

  No, of course not. He had pampered, soft daughters and an anemic and faded son, who would die before his tenth birthday.

  A man who made tigers was a man who was made to be king. Pytor was born to be king.

  Gently, he laid the baby in her blankets, watching as the tail wound around his wrists, as if holding onto him. His baby tiger recognized the kindred spirit dwelling inside him. Pytor placed his face next to hers, his nose sliding along her feather soft cheek. Her head turned, and her mouth attempted to fasten onto his face. He chuckled, lifting a hand to cup her delicate head. Her eyes watched his, focusing and unfocusing. He saw the black tip of the tail clasped in her fist again, and he danced his fingers along her cheek.

  His soul left his body, scooped up his daughter, and reabsorbed. Never, not even for Lara, had he felt the depth of emotion he felt for his daughter.

  His daughter.

  The baby’s eyes closed, and Pytor moved his hand to her small body, resting lightly on her chest so he could feel the expansion of her ribs with each breath.

  Then, amazingly, but not unexpectedly, she began to purr. Her purr was proportionate to her size: light, airy, a vibrato that danced across the air and into his ears. He moved his face closer until his lips pressed against her cheek. He kissed her, inhaling her scent, drawing it inside him as if he could keep it there, a memory that would lead him to his daughter no matter where she was in time and space.

  “Pytor,” Lara said, whispering.

  He lifted his head, meeting his wife’s worried gaze, and he stretched out a hand.

  “She’s perfect.” The baby’s purr hitched, and she started when he spoke.

  Lara shifted her weight, sitting up against the headboards, her eyes widening and holding out her arms.

  Pytor lifted the bundle, passing the baby to Lara. She looked down at the baby hopefully, then pinned Pytor with a sad look.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, letting the baby rest in her lap and regarding Pytor with a tear-filled gaze. “I had hoped it was a nightmare.”

  Pytor narrowed his gaze, her words slowly penetrating his haze of happiness.

  He reached for the baby and pulled her tightly into his chest so she gave a tiny squeak before beginning to purr again.

  “She is, Lara,” he said. How could Lara not see it? “She is perfect.”

  Lara covered her face with her hands. “Don’t you see it, Pytor? Do you see her tail?”

  “Of course I see it, Lara,” he answered, patience short. “She holds it in her hands.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said, her hands falling away. “The being in your arms was born with a tail. And it purrs. Do you hear it?”

  All Pytor heard was being and it.

  “She is the daughter of a prince,” Pytor said, staring at the baby while he spoke, and she opened her mouth and yawned, this time with a tiny squeak. Pytor chuckled and nuzzled the baby’s face, rewarded again with a resumption of a purr.

  “What shall we call her, ljubav?”

  He heard Lara squeak, and he smiled, wondering if his daughter’s voice would be as melodious as his wife’s. “I hadn’t thought.”

  “Something brave and ferocious, something worthy of a king.”

  “After your mother, perhaps?”

  Pytor shuddered, thinking of his ghostly hypochondriac of a mother. “No.”

  “Aleksandra, after your brother?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Pytor’s daughter opened her eyes again, as if she wanted to be a participant in their decision. Her purring ceased as she waited. Pytor spoke to her, instead.

  “Tatiana?”

  The baby yawned.

  “Natalya?”

  The tip of her tail curled, and she released it so it could snap left to right.

  “Polina?”

  The baby blinked, a tentative purr rumbling in her chest.

  “Polya?” Pytor asked, and the baby’s eyes closed, the purring beginning in earnest.

  “Polya?”

  “Yes,” Pytor answered, “we’ve decided. My tiger baby will be called Polya.”

  Pytor’s Poor Tiger Girl

  St. Svetleva, 1884

  Pytor scanned the newspaper while he waited for Lara and Polya to join him for breakfast. The servants had looked at him in confusion when he’d begun the tradition of having the baby dine with them. The governess, he couldn’t remember which one—maybe it had been the one previous, or no, the one before that. The one with the mole—had told him it wasn’t appropriate for a child to eat with her parents. She told Pytor she would bring the child down in the afternoon to greet her parents before bringing her back to the nursery.

  She was the first governess that Pytor had dismissed, the others had left of their own accord, but something about the way the woman had called Polya “the child,” and sneered, as if she was making a concession by calling his daughter a child, made Pytor’s skin crawl. He’d barely given the woman time to gather her personal belongings. His wife’s light footfalls signaled her approach. In anticipation, he folded the paper, stood, and waited for the door to open.

  Polya entered before Lara. She danced, light on her toes, moving much more gracefully than any other child her age, and leapt at Pytor. Her tail twitched and wrapped around Pytor’s wrist, like it had done when she was brand new. He caught her up and spun as she laid her silken head on his shoulder.

  “Did you have good dreams, mače?” he whispered, kissing her cheek and breathing in her sweet baby scent.

  She nodded against his shoulder.

  Lara approached him, and he dropped a kiss on her temple. “Good morning, ljubav.”

  Lara gave him a smile as the footman pulled out her chair, and she seated herself.

  “Polya,” Lara directed as Pytor seated his daughter at the table then sat at the head. “Tell Papa what you did.”

  His daughter glowered, and her tail lashed from the base to the tip, a sign of her growing irritation.

  Most of his mornings began like this, and Pytor sighed inwardly. He wished that Lara took to heart his request to be more understanding of Polya. She was smarter than other children her age, but she could be disciplined. She did not, however, tolerate or understand shame. And shame and guilt were Lara’s two means of correction.

  Pytor waited.

  “I broke an egg,” his daughter whispered, meeting his eyes before looking down. Pytor’s censure was the only thing that could bring about such a look.

  “Mače,” he said quietly. “We’ve talked about the eggs.”

  “I know, Papa,” she whispered, her tail tip fluttered to her lap and her tiny, dimpled baby hands clutched it.

  “No balancing,” he said. His heart hurt to discipline her. “For the rest of the day.”

  One lone tear slid down Polya’s face, and she took a brave breath. “I know, Papa.”

  Pytor stifled his irritation at Lara placing more importance on stupid bejeweled eggs than their daughter’s curiosity.

  He resented taking Lara’s side, standing together as a united front. If it were up to only him, he would have given his daughter a thousand bejeweled eggs to explore.

  Lara sighed audibly, and Pytor met her gaze. She raised one eyebrow, daring him to contradict her before saying, “You’ve made Mama very, very sad, Polya. It was a naughty thing to do.”

  Polya’s countenance changed, a low rumble began in her chest that made her mother’s por
celain skin sallow.

  “Polya,” Pytor commanded, his voice firm.

  The rumble stopped immediately, and the interaction was interrupted by the arrival of the food. Pytor stood and went to the sideboard, making a plate for Lara, before returning and making a plate for himself and Polya.

  He had given her smoked salmon and toast. She ignored the toast, as he knew she would, and moved to pick up the salmon between her fingers. He knew she wanted to use her sharp canines to tear into the fish. If it had been just him and Polya, he would have let her.

  When Lara cleared her throat, Polya put the fish back on the plate and picked up her fork, cutting it and eating neatly.

  His poor tiger girl.

  He understood Lara’s point of view. Polya needed to have manners, to be a well-behaved young lady, but his daughter was meant for more than that. She was a tiger for God’s sake. It didn’t matter how she ate her breakfast. She had canines that could rend and tear. His heart ached for his daughter. No one understood her like he did. Not even her mother.

  Demon or Girl

  Polya’s teeth ached. Her mother didn’t understand. If she didn’t bite or chew, her mouth hurt. It was what made her nip the servants when she was little. She hadn’t meant to hurt anyone. There was something about the way it felt, for her teeth to pierce and dig, that eased the soreness away.

  Her Papa always gave her fish in the morning. Polya could smell it as soon as she entered the breakfast room. It was smoky meat and made her mouth water. It had taken everything inside her to sit nicely at the table and wait for the food to be brought out.

  Her belly grumbled, and she’d wrapped her tail around her hands, pulling it into her lap. She didn’t want her mother to hear her stomach and scold her.

  But of course, Mama already had something to scold her with.

  Polya tried. She tried so, so hard not to do the things that would make her mother angry. She had slept a long time, napping in the afternoon sun, rising for a quick meal with her parents and falling back to sleep quickly. She’d woken when the sun had peeked through the shutters this morning then gotten herself dressed and out of her room. She walked on tiptoes along the bannister. The only ones who noticed her were the scullery maids, and they ran away when they met her eyes. They wouldn’t tell anyone what she was doing. They were afraid of her.

  Even though she hadn’t bitten one of them in years.

  Months.

  In months.

  She hadn’t bitten one of them in months.

  But they startled her when they set the fires on the colder mornings. She would be warm and sleepy, curled tightly in blankets. She would smell them before she heard them, ash and something sharp, something that came from lighting the match.

  If she was sleeping so deeply, the sound of the scraping would scare her, and she might lunge before she was fully awake. She always apologized, but she could see it didn’t matter. They made strange signs, crossed fingers over their heart, to ward her away.

  Now she started her own fires in the morning. The maids didn’t even attempt to come into her room anymore. She didn’t tell Papa. He would be angry, and she didn’t want her Papa to be angry. He had enough to worry about because his brother was the king, and he was bringing their country to ruin.

  Polya wasn’t sure what ruin was, but she didn’t want to go there. It sounded awful.

  The servants ignored her, and she pretended they didn’t cross themselves. She pretended they lit her fires and remembered to bring her warm milk at night like they were supposed to. She felt like a ghost, watching the people in the house work, talk, and play, but unable (and unwelcome) to participate.

  That morning she’d embraced her shade status and pretended to be a spirit, haunting the second floor of the house. She loved dancing across the beams of the ceiling and along the bannister of the stairway, especially in the morning. She was higher than everyone except the sun.

  The sun was especially bright. It was very cold, and the grass outside the window looked like icy knife blades. The sun always seemed brighter and whiter when it was colder. In the summer, when her family went to their house by the lake, the sun would be orange and yellow, warm and dusky. But now, it was distant, and it felt far away even though it shone blindingly.

  Papa didn’t mind if she balanced up high, but she wasn’t supposed to let her Mama know. When Mama saw her, she said she was being wicked, or naughty. She was wicked, but she didn’t mean to be. Cook said she was wicked, too, not meaning for Polya to hear her, but Polya was very quiet. She had hidden on the highest cupboard in the kitchen. There was a lovely beam of sunlight that struck there, and because of the way three of the walls were made of windows, Polya could recline in the sun for hours as it moved across the sky.

  “The child is wicked,” Cook had said. “If you can call it a child.”

  “Have you spoken to the priest?” one of the other cooks had asked.

  Cook shook her head. “I am paid too well to speak to others. As long as the prince continues to buy my silence, I will keep my mouth shut.”

  “I think it’s a demon,” one of the maids said, sipping her tea. “Have you seen its fangs?”

  Polya had realized then that they were speaking of her. She lifted her hand to her mouth, poking a tooth with her fingertip. It wasn’t as sharp as it had been, so Polya prodded harder until the skin split and a drop of blood beaded down her finger. She licked it quickly and shuddered, the taste of blood metallic and bitter.

  Was she a demon?

  She decided to ask Papa. She’d crawled unseen from the cabinet and snuck back to the nursery. She crept past the snoring governess and picked up her dolls, occupying herself at the gigantic dollhouse until her mother collected her.

  “Mama?” she asked, not able to wait. “Am I a demon?”

  Her mother had tripped, gripping the banister so tightly in her hand that Polya was afraid her knuckles would emerge like plant buds from her skin.

  “Where did you hear that?” her mother asked, glaring down at her.

  For a second, her mother wasn’t human. Her eyes were wide and nearly black. Her lips were drawn back from her teeth the way Polya’s were when she growled at herself in the mirror.

  It terrified her.

  “Nowhere,” Polya backtracked, stepping away from her mother.

  Her mother squeezed her eyes tightly. “Child or demon, it doesn’t matter.”

  It was a distinctly unsatisfying answer, and one that left Polya with the impression that whatever a demon was, there was the possibility she was it, and it was bad.

  Maybe she was a demon, and maybe that was why she kept smashing Mama’s eggs, even though each time she did she promised herself she would never do it again. She didn’t mean to be wicked and naughty, but there were so many temptations in a house like hers. So many glass knickknacks. Fancy, painted and bejeweled eggs, perched precariously on marble tables, just asking to be knocked over.

  She would walk by them, and they would wink at her in the sunlight, and without even thinking, her tail would curl and slice through the air, knocking it off the table onto the floor where it made a very satisfying crash. Then Polya could crouch on the floor, and tilt her head and watch the light reflect and refract through the tiny broken crystals.

  Polya began to worry, listening to her mother enumerate her sins to her father that morning. Perhaps things meant more to her mother than she did. Maybe with each lovely satiating bit of destruction, her mother hated her a little bit more.

  Maybe it was because she was a demon.

  She opened her mouth. “What’s a demon?”

  Her father picked his paper up. “It is something bad, and does bad things. Why?”

  Polya’s heart sank. She did bad things.

  She met her mother’s gaze and saw her shake her head. Just a small movement, so minuscule her father would never have seen it.

  Her mouth was open to reply, but with her mother’s look she snapped it shut again and stared at her pla
te.

  The fish which had been so delicious a moment before soured in her belly as it churned nervously. She heard the rustle of her father’s paper as he lowered it.

  “Polya,” he said, his voice serious. “Why did you ask?”

  Throat tight, she couldn’t answer. The words echoed in her head, over and over, though she knew she couldn’t ask them. Am I bad am I bad am I bad?

  “Probably from the priest,” her mother interjected. “The one who came to the family chapel on Sunday. He droned so long I stopped listening. Was that it, Polya?”

  Polya was made to sit in the balcony of the chapel with the governess, and she usually spent her time staring at the icons and making up stories about how they died. Rarely did she listen to what the priest actually said.

  She lifted her eyes to her father’s, who waited, eyebrows drawn together, concern emanating from him.

  “Yes, Papa,” she said. “In chapel.”

  “Don’t worry, mače,” he soothed. “They are just stories.”

  “All right, Papa,” she agreed, knowing in her heart, however, fantastical things could happen. If she was real, then demons might be, too.

  And it was very likely, she realized, that she was one.

  The King’s Coronation Celebration

  Pytor kissed Polya’s head. She was sleeping. His tiny girl exhausted from her day of being wild and wicked. They had swum in the lake earlier. Polya running at the water like a fiend and then jumping and diving shallowly. He’d seen her streak under the water like a golden beam of sunlight before she emerged, soaked and laughing.

  It had been a good day.

  Pytor enjoyed this time with Polya when she was still and calm. The only time she was these things was when she slept. Though she slept a lot, more than other children her age, her awake times were packed full of action.

  She never stopped moving: running, leaping, jumping, crashing, breaking.

  Poor Lara.