Citadels of Fire

  ***

  Two days later, Taras stood beside his father at the cemetery. No one came to the funeral, which puzzled him. Mother had been well liked here. Taras had no answers and endless questions. Why did God take his mother from him?

  A tear escaped down his cheek, freezing midway in the frigid air. He sniffed. Father stood solemnly next to him. He did not know if Father pretended to be strong or if he truly had no tears. He wished Father would cry. Taras would find comfort in his father’s sadness.

  A sledge accident. No one knew where she’d gone that day. Even Father hadn't known she'd planned to go out. At the accident site, the falling snow covered the tracks the sledge made that morning, obscuring which direction she'd come from.

  It must have hit some invisible obstacle—an unseen rock, or perhaps a dead animal. The sledge flipped over. One of the horses broke a leg and had to be killed. Mother was thrown out and the sledge rolled. One of the metal runners went right over her. When Taras went to see her, thick cloths covered her torso. Blood oozed through them from her chest and belly below.

  She never regained consciousness. Taras and his father could not say goodbye. She died alone in the snow.

  Taras drew in a shuddering, ragged breath. “What will we do now, Father?”

  Nicholas turned dull, lifeless blue eyes on his son. “We will go with the expedition when it leaves tomorrow.”

  Taras did not know what reply he’d expected, but that was not it. “You still want to go with the expedition? To see the North country? Why?”

  Nicholas turned to stare at the headstone. Mary Demidovna. Beloved of father and son, followed by her birth and death dates. She'd married father at seventeen, and Taras was born to her at eighteen. She'd only claimed thirty-two winters.

  “I think, Taras,” his father said at last, “it is more important than ever for us to leave Moscow. We need to get away, clear our minds, try to heal.”

  The pain in Taras’s chest came so violently, he found it difficult to breathe. Mother was not two hours in the ground, and Father talked about healing and moving on. How could he even suggest it? For the first time in his life, Taras resented his father.

  “Mother is . . . dead. How . . . how can you. . . abandon—?”

  “Taras!” Nicholas turned toward his son so abruptly, Taras thought his father would strike him. He did not. Instead, he stood there, fists clenched at his sides. Taras kept his eyes on his father’s knees. He knew his father must be grieving too, but Taras’s anger eclipsed reason.

  After a few moments, a stifled sob came from his father and Taras looked up. There were still no tears, but his father’s face crumpled, and guilt flooded in. So, Father was simply being strong for him. Taras began to cry in earnest, and with the sobs came shivering he couldn’t control. When Nicholas regained his composure, he put his hand on Taras’s shoulder.

  “You must trust me, Son. We must go. Make sure you are packed. The expedition leaves tomorrow.” Nicholas turned to his wife’s grave and touched the headstone softly. “You are right,” he spoke so softly, Taras didn't know whether his father spoke to him or the gravestone. “I never thought I would leave the woman I loved behind.”

  “Then why are you,” Taras spat. He was being unfair to his father, but didn’t care. His father turned to look at him, his hand still on his wife’s headstone.

  “I have no other choices, Taras,” he said. “But I’ve no doubt that, when the time is right, she will come and find me. And we will be together again.” Nicholas bent and kissed the top of the headstone. Taras thought a tear ran down his father’s cheek, but when Nicholas turned to his son, his face was dry once more. “Say goodbye to your mother, Taras, and then go pack.”

  Long after the sound of his father’s boots crunching in the snow faded, Taras stood staring at his mother’s grave. Something happened here. Something went terribly wrong—something he was not being told about. He fell to his knees in the snow. This must be the result of something much more sinister than a sledge accident. Taras didn’t think he could count on his father to explain things, and he didn’t know who else could. The adults at court did not think he could understand their world. Perhaps he couldn’t. But some day he would.

  He was already packed, so he knelt in the snow for hours, crying for his mother. Twilight fell and darkness closed in around him. He needed to get back or Father would be angry. Following his father’s example, he kissed his mother’s gravestone. Another thing he knew with certainty: he would not return. The expedition would return to Moscow in a few weeks, but Taras somehow knew he would not be coming back to his mother’s grave.

  “Dosvidaniya, Mother. I’ll find out what happened to you. I promise.”

  Pulling himself away from the grave felt like pulling a chunk of flesh from his chest. He wondered if his father felt the same thing. Father had loved mother, so the answer was yes.

  Some part of him died in the snow with his mother that day, but he still did as father had done hours before—despite the pain, he walked toward his rooms with his chest out, his shoulders back, and his head high, trying not to shiver.