For less than a second I thought about crying out for help; Danilo had already heard my thoughts. “If you want your family to remain safe, you will stay quiet and do exactly as you’re told,” he warned. “These men have comrades stationed in St. Petersburg awaiting my orders. I’d hate for some sort of accident to befall the Duchess of Oldenburg. Or your proud papa.”

I felt sick but remained silent. Who were these men who would follow such madness? They looked odd, not quite right. Not undead, as I had first thought, but not human either. They had no cold lights at all. What could it mean? I tried not to stumble as he pushed me up the gangplank. Danilo showed our boarding passes to the ship’s purser, who welcomed us aboard.

“Allow me to show you to your cabin,” a young man in a smart sailor’s uniform said. He led us to a suite on one of the upper levels. It appeared we would be sailing in comfort, and perhaps for a long time.

“Why must we go to Egypt?” I demanded as Danilo pushed me into my room. “That girl is not an appropriate chaperone. I don’t even know her name.”

He ignored me. “You’ll find your new trousseau has already been taken care of.”

I noticed a trunk in the corner of the cabin. “I will not marry you, Danilo.”

He smiled, and once again the crown prince’s sad eyes stared back at me. “It would make your life so much easier if you stopped fighting me, my love. I will untie you as soon as the steamer puts off.” He turned to go but stopped to look back at me with another grim smile. “It would not be wise of you to try and swim back to Europe.”

I sank down onto my bed, my wrists raw from the tight ropes, and stared in horror at the trunk on the floor. This had to be a nightmare. I prayed to wake up, safe in St. Petersburg. George, I thought miserably, please find me. Hurry.

My cabin was cramped but elegant, and must have cost Danilo a small fortune. The bed was made with soft French linens, and there was wooden paneling on the walls. I looked out the tiny window to see the brilliant blue waters of the Mediterranean. I refused to think about what awaited me at the end of this journey.

I fell asleep on the bed waiting for Danilo to come and untie my hands. It was dark by the time he returned. The strange men were with him. “Who are you?” I asked, looking at one directly as I rubbed my newly freed wrists. He remained silent.

“They are servants of the sword, Duchess,” Danilo said. “They are loyal to me, and when I possess the sword known as the Morning Star, their brothers will all be compelled to follow me. We will return to St. Petersburg in triumph and defeat Alexander Alexandrovich once and for all.”

The crown prince was losing control over his body. I worried that his personality was starting to melt with the lich tsar’s. Would Danilo be lost forever? There had to be a way to defeat Konstantin Pavlovich without destroying Danilo.

The Morning Star must have been the weapon of which George had spoken. A weapon to be wielded only by a necromancer. “What sort of creatures are these men?” I asked the crown prince.

“They are the Grigori. Their kind has been in hiding for thousands of years.”

I’d heard of them before. George and the French wizard Papus had mentioned the Grigori when we’d been in the Crimea last year. But they had not told me who the Grigori were. “Are they blood drinkers?” I asked.

“Of course not!” Danilo said.

“But they are not alive.”

“They do not die. But it is not the same as being undead.” Danilo was in that strange limbo, where he was not quite himself but not quite Konstantin.

“Why must a necromancer carry their sword, then?” I asked.

“Why must a necromancer perform the ritual to summon the bogatyr?” he countered. “Both require your ability to manipulate cold light.”

“But the Grigori do not have a cold light.” None that I had seen, anyway.

The lich tsar’s eyes gleamed in Danilo’s face. “The Morning Star provides them with cold light.” He stood up and looked out the tiny window at the setting sun. “You should dress for dinner. I will return to take you to the ship’s dining room at eight o’clock.”

When I was left alone, I sighed and opened the trunk to examine the dresses Danilo had provided. There were expensive gowns from Paris, smart English riding suits, and flimsy nightgowns that made me blush. I decided I would sleep in my own clothes, in the gray-blue gown I had intended to wear at my wedding. My heart twisted as I slipped out of the dress and laid it on the bed. I had to believe that George Alexandrovich was searching for me. That I would be rescued soon.

I selected a pale rose gown for dinner. Its neckline was the highest of all the gowns in the wardrobe, even though it was much lower than any of my gowns at home. I carefully put away the others, praying this trip would be over soon and I would not have to wear anything else that Danilo had bought me.

16

Danilo escorted me on his arm up to the first-class deck, which held the dining room, the smoking room, and the billiards room. I heard one of the passengers in the hallway mentioning a library as well. I hoped I’d be allowed some freedom while we were on board. It was obvious I could not escape back to Russia from here.

The dining saloon for the first-class passengers on the steamer was a beautiful mahogany-paneled room with heavy velvet drapes blocking out the blazing setting sun. The plush red carpet was decorated with golden medallions. An enormous chandelier swayed gently as we passed beneath it. We had been lucky to have calm seas on the Mediterranean so far.

The oyster pie and beef Wellington were both excellent, and I enjoyed dinner despite myself. Of course, it had been days since I’d had a proper meal, and the chloroform was now completely out of my body.

Danilo signaled to the waiter to refill my glass of wine. “You look beautiful tonight, Katerina.”

I was suddenly suspicious of the wine. I decided not to drink any more and sipped from my water goblet instead. Ignoring his compliment, I asked, “How long have you been planning this journey?”

“Ever since I discovered the existence of the sword.”

“How did you learn of it?”

“An ancient book of Johanna’s. And something Militza discovered during her honeymoon in Egypt.” His voice was strange again. Not quite Danilo’s, not quite Konstantin’s. He was turning into a completely new personality altogether. The thought frightened me. I would have never believed such a thing possible. “Johanna had a book about the Grigori and their years of service to Vlad Dracul. The Impaler at one time wielded the Morning Star himself.”

“How did he acquire it?” I asked as the waiter whisked our plates away and replaced them with berry compotes and a plate of cheeses and fruits.

“He stole it from the Ottoman pasha. Unfortunately, the Ottomans stole it back at Vlad’s deathbed.”

“How did the sword end up in Egypt?” I asked. The compote was heavily spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg and something else I could not place.

“It’s believed to be hidden in the ruins of an ancient Coptic chapel. Or it could be hidden within the Graylands.”

Coptic? I’d never been anywhere near this far from home before. The thought filled me with despair. George would never be able to find me once we reached Egypt.

Danilo drank the last of his wine and watched me. His eyes had changed again, and now they were no longer his piercing black, nor were they the emerald green of the lich tsar’s. Instead, they’d blended to a grayish hazel. The color was startling against Danilo’s olive skin, and not unattractive. That was a disturbing thought that I pushed out of my mind as swiftly as I could.

“Come, I have a gift for you.” He reached into his coat pocket and drew out a piece of jewelry.

“That’s not necess—” I started, but then I saw what he held in his hand. “How did you get that?”

It was the Talisman of Isis. It belonged in the Vorontsov Palace with the Order of St. Lazarus. Miles away from where we were.

He smiled. “Do not concern yourself with how I obtained it. I believe it will prove extremely useful, Duchess.” He stood up behind me and placed the talisman around my neck. I shivered as his cold fingers brushed against my bare skin. As a necromancer, I was the only one who could use the talisman. It allowed me to summon undead beings to my aid. But I was loathe to do so, and I prayed that it would not be necessary.

“Why do you even need me?” I asked, thankful when he began to pace the room. It made me nervous when he stood so close to me. Konstantin had once been a sorcerer, and if he was using Danilo’s body, he would have no problem drawing upon all of his powers and using the Morning Star to fight the bogatyr.

“Why?” He stared at me with his strange hazel eyes. “Because I must have a necromancer for a bride, Katerina. You shall be the next empress of all the Russias. And the mother of the next heir to the throne.”

A wave of nausea rolled in my stomach. “I will never marry you,” I said. But I was scared and uncertain. I had no way of defending myself against him. What if he took me by force?

Danilo laughed, my thoughts crystal clear to him. “Your precious virtue is safe, Katerina. For the moment. We shall marry in St. Petersburg in front of the church patriarch and all of the Romanovs.” He stopped his pacing and walked around behind me, lifting a loose curl from my shoulder. “And then, dear Katerina,” he whispered in my ear, “then you will be mine.”

17