Weakly, I turned my head.

Mikhail stood no more than fifteen paces away, smoke trailing from the revolver he held in both hands. He slowly lowered the weapon, his features ashen. Vanya raced after him and came to my side.

“You two came,” I croaked.

“Of course, we came,” Vanya said, resting his hand on my back as I struggled to sit up. “Easy. Don’t get up just yet.”

“We need to get Galina.” Blood poured down the side of my face, leaking onto my lips. Wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, I waited for my blurred vision to clear. I tried to stand, but Vanya kept a steady grip on my shoulder, his gaze straying to the front of the train.

“Tsar, get down,” he said quietly.

Other Otzvuk soldiers emerged from the trees forty or fifty paces to our right, a good two dozen of them decked in full regalia. Yet more stood at the front of the train.

“What’s going on?” Vanya asked Mikhail, who sank to a crouch beside us. “This is a hospital train.”

“Even a wounded soldier is a soldier,” Mikhail said gravely, resting a palm on a tree trunk. “Most of these men have been trained with that in mind. It’s imperial protocol—when you’re in enemy territory, you take no prisoners. Toma, don’t move just yet.”

“My sister—”

“You won’t be able to help your sister if you’re set on fire,” he said as a train door opened near the front of the line.

“Can’t you do something?”

“Not dressed like the Fraktsiya.”

A lone man stepped out, his hands raised above his head. It was the blond soldier who had been tending to the wounded.

An Otzvuk soldier emerged from the ranks to greet him. Gold epaulets and medals adorned his white greatcoat. The gilt elements glistened in the glow of the flames roosted at his fingertips.

My stomach twisted, and the pulsing gray fog edging around the corners of my vision threatened to overtake me. It wasn’t the same man from my memory, but just like that time, I felt frozen. Helpless. My legs trembled beneath me, and I pressed my palms over my mouth to stifle my breathing.

“Are you the captain of this train?” the bogatyr shouted, his voice filtering through the fog. As he stepped forward, he left a trail of scorched earth in his wake. “Tell your men that if they surrender the train now, no innocent lives will be lost.”

“I too believe in sparing the innocent,” the blond soldier called back, his voice reverberating through the clearing with all the presence of an earthquake. From where I knelt, I only caught a glimpse of his smile. “Unfortunately for you bogatyri, you’ve spent centuries bathing your hands in blood.”

29

“That poor fool is going to get himself killed,” Vanya muttered, shaking his head in dismay.

Beside me, Mikhail’s hand trembled upon my shoulder. The blood drained from his face as he stared at the blond soldier.