When Night Falls

part iii| chapter xx

ANITCHKA IS UNSURPRISED WHEN she does not run into the Count for a while after the ball. He hadn't spoken to her in the car journey to the land of the dead, preferring a heavy silence. Dmitri had been unable to fly, having eaten too much, and his chatter with the goblin girls filled the space instead.

She finds herself thinking about him often.

It was as though that night had been a faraway dream and an impending nightmare all at once. She crosses his room presently, hoping he is there. Her fist rises to knock the door, before she scurries away, cheeks flushed. Because if she sees him, Anitchka will remember his fingers on her skin, and his lips stealing her breath.

"Are you running away from me, Anna?" She turns, gulping at the open doors, and the Count's frame leaning outside. His smile is weak, ears tinged like the blossoms in the forest. "You don't have to. Did you want to speak with me?"

"No!" Her tone is indignant, defensive.

The slope of his shoulders falls in dejection, and he clasps his hands behind his back. The same ones that had pulled her mask in the lull of the pearl dotted skies, and let her hair cascade. "Oh. I was waiting, and hoping you would. Do you mind talking to me? It's okay if you do, I understand. I was being delusional, thinking that you would turn up eventually. I'll see you some other time, unless you don't want to."

Anitchka stifles her chuckles as she heads towards him, slotting herself through the doors. "All you had to do was ask, Count."

She sits by the windowsill, as always, fingers drumming against the glass where the snow falls. Much as she wishes for winter to end, part of her has grown attached to the comfort it brings. Selfishly enough, Anitchka wants to spend her nights in this mansion beside the Count, and forget that he is a Collector. "The Tsar asked for your name." Her head slanted against the windowsill; she watches him still. "I am told that I can become a Tsarina if I trade your name and give him a room full of gold."

The slide of his throat tells her that he is caught off guard. "When I wanted you to meet me, I didn't assume this is how our talk would start."

"I agreed to the deal," she says, gauging his reaction.

"Then why are you telling me this." It isn't a question. The corners of his mouth curl, and she is reminded of that night when he'd pressed them on hers. Her eyes wander, and she wonders if he'd do it again. "Anna?" She hears him clear his throat.

Anitchka shakes her head. "I have my reasons."

"And I'd love to hear them." He leans against the bookshelves, beautiful and silent as the first winter she had lived. It is reminiscent of a boy she knew once, and the memory wails at her fickle mind. "You would miss me, would you not, dorogoya?"

She inches towards him, steps light, the tug in her ribs pulling her closer to the Count. "I think I was fourteen?"

"What?"

"You said you lost your hamlet, and I remember hearing the story of the village that ceased to be." She furrows her brows in recollection. "I met someone when I was fourteen. The old woman who had taken me in had just passed, and I was all alone. The villagers wouldn't venture to the edge, nor would they bury someone who lived with the cursed witch. I had to leave her at the mercy of the cold. There was someone else that night, at the line between the living and the dead. That was you, wasn't it?"

When he does not answer, she leans forward, finding the low flames of the fire caressing his features. "It's strange. I think I know who you were, but I can't remember your name or your face."

The Count tucks her hair away, the tips of his fingers skimming her neck. In the folds of an endless, death stained chill, her resolve flutters. "Sometimes, Anna," he mutters into her ear, "You terrify me."

"I've been meaning to ask," she begins, looking up at him, lashes slick, "Was I taken to become the next Collector? Why else would I be kept in this mansion, serve as an apprentice, and learn the ways of demons if I was promised as any other deal."

And from the stillness of his frame, Anitchka knows that she is right. She was supposed to replace the Collector before the Count stepped into the dark magic of it all instead. The twisted thought that she would have been groomed into one in the land of the dead cuts through her like ice. Perhaps, if the Tsar hadn't found out his name, and the Collector of that time hadn't passed his debt onto the Count, it would have been Anitchka in his place. "Are you carrying that debt, or have you changed your mind?"

"I wouldn't push this on you, Anna," he says, "I wouldn't drive you to the same emptiness I've been living. It's easier to be dead sometimes."

"Then help me," she asserts, stepping back, "Help me kill the Tsar."

His eyes widen, and he worries his brows. "But you've already made a deal with him, and we cannot change that."

"Someone told me once," she starts wickedly, shoulders proud, "that the ways of demons are strange. They don't dishonour deals, but the words matter, and there's trickery laced through them." Anitchka nears the fireplace, basking in its glow. "I believe deals die when the person does?"

The Count's breath hitches, and she hears him stress on each syllable. "You're going to kill him before you have to give him my name. And the gold."

"This isn't about the gold."

"I was right." He stands close, running his unwavering gaze over her, curious and awed. "You are terrifying."

Anitchka finds a smile touching her lips. She would make both a Collector and a Tsarina, but most of all, she would be all those things with him. For a while, she sighs that winter will be ending soon. Despite its cruel talons, it has whispered life into her, for this time she isn't a girl waiting for death to come.

She is a woman death, winter, and the Tsar will bow to.

a/n: but anna, uni will be the death of me. 
winter is nearing us, and the weather's cold, which is tbh my favourite kind. i just wish i had the time to get some coffee and watch holiday movies instead of depending on caffeine to stay up and work the whole night x