TWENTY-ONE ❈ HUMAN
THE ROYAL COURT | DUCHESS
She was born with the world at her feet and the stars in her hair—a pretty, pampered girl given dominion over all beautiful things able to be owned, and the sin all children are unfailingly born with missed her so that another might prosper: the rare crime of having too much. She wanted for nothing—not for the finest food, for the most beautiful dresses, and certainly not for the outpouring of love and attention from her doting parents—yet she desired everything, hungry even as she ate her fill, greedy even as she had enough, and perhaps that was her downfall, her damnation. Where others chose to repent, to fall on bent knee and beg for mercy, she embraced the very thing that robbed her of grace and had the nerve to ask for more still—if there was something to be had, be it fun, sweets, or trouble, one could know with absolute certainty that the Vasnev girl would be elbow-deep in it. It was endearing, seeing a young girl so unapologetic in her desires, courageous enough to dare to take the world for all it had, but it was a trait better reserved for the young, for the children not quite old enough to know better. She was a doll in her satin dresses, with her pearls and her rubies and her pink rose petals scattered about her dressing table—the ideal little duchess if there ever was one, but the sun sets even on the wealthy, and though it was a spectacle, as all things concerning her were, it left in its wake a darkness many possessed and few were brave enough to acknowledge.
She grew into something equally beautiful and terrifying, graceful, delicate, and cold—a Ravkan rose blooming in the dead of winter, and her sins only seemed to suit her more as she aged, clinging to her ink-black heart like the sleek fabric of a ballgown to the curves of her waist. She was cruel in the way of a girl who had never learned how to be anything else, and just as they had when she was but a little thing, they indulged her every whim, fawned over her like she was the nobility’s very own sankta. To be aloof was to leave more to the imagination; to turn her nose up at those who hadn’t had the good sense to be born into wealth was to give her lessers a better look at her elegant profile. She was a monster, this girl of silk and lace, and deep down, perhaps her admirers knew it, but it’s in the nature of men to worship that which may kill them, and Valeriya, precious Valeriya, was deadly in ways as familiar as they were strange. She tempted fate with every giggle and sneer, all but begged it to make an example of her—or, at the very least, to try. Girls like her were invincible, untouchable, gold-filled and divinity-kissed; girls like her knew everything, for their books had taught them so, yet knew absolutely nothing just the same. Funny, how a girl so full of life and fine wine could be so hollow; tragic, how she pitied the very souls who might’ve pitied her, had they had the luxury. She looked in the mirror and saw staring back at her a girl worthy of the worship of the world, and the world seemed to spin on in agreement.
And spin it did; as she aged, it became as clear as the crystal glasses she sipped from that Valeriya Vasnev was not merely a fleeting darling, a woman to be loved for a season and forgotten the next, but something enduring, the sort of woman immortalized in sonnets and beautifully paved streets. She was as stunning as she was despicable, as rich in naivete as she was in conceit, and they loved her for it, as they loved all terrible things—in earnest, yet with a passion so dreadfully shallow. She was everything they aspired to be and everything they hoped to never become all at once—a martyr drowning in luxury and crushed beneath the burden of setting an example for the lower classes, the patron sankta of gentility and beauty, a spoiled rotten girl who knew not what it was to live a life not drenched in sweet perfume and draped in silk smooth enough to rival the sea. “Let them drink kvas,” she’d laughed once, watching from her pedestal as the commoners starved outside the city gates, aloof in the way only a woman who’s never known true hunger can be. She was a fearsome thing to behold—this pampered, purring duchess, this sharp, cruel beauty, and she belonged to each of them in some way, and them to her. Wickedness loves company, and opulence seeks to be adored; there could be nothing less than a beautiful, unending glory for the Vasnev woman, and in keeping with her indulgent upbringing, there never was.
And now, it seems, there never will be. Betrothed to a Lantsov prince and poised to become a princess, she stands to see her name written in the history books, scrawled alongside that of kings and queens, of conquerors and kingdom-makers; she stands to be remembered, to be revered even more than she already is, and it’s beautiful, even as her people starve, and it’s beautiful, even as they sacrifice their sons and daughters for wars that will certainly outlive them all. She dances as the world burns, a harrowing, haunting sort of tragic, and they worship her still, hollow disciples falling at the feet of a sankta who knew suffering as intimately as she knew the stars—not at all. The truth has never been pretty, and beauty, though hardly ever true, is hardly fleeting. Let her wear her foxfur hats and white leather gloves; let her ride in velvet lined carriages while Ravka is forced to its knees. She was raised to be perfect, not sincere.
VIKTOR LANTSOV: She’d like nothing more than to have him adore her half as much as the others at court do, and it’s a smite to her pride, no less, that her fiancé seems infinitely more interested in the art of war than courtship, more inclined to carry muskets than roses. She’s convinced herself that it’ll pass, that one day, when the war is won and he’s heralded as nothing short of a hero, he will love her more deeply than he’s ever loved his bloody, violent battles; she’ll make it so. Until that day comes, though, she’ll keep stealing glances across the room and touches when he’ll let her, writing his name behind hers in her prettiest calligraphy at dawn. He’s a challenge half-won; she has his hand, and one day, she’ll have his heart. She always gets what she wants; how could this time be any different?
ARISHA KOVROV: It could be said, with no small amount of reason, that she hasn’t a right to be angry, for the position and the responsibilities that inevitably accompany it wouldn’t suit her fickle fancies, and to say so would be correct, but the duchess has never been the sort to bear wrongs patiently, nor has she ever had the grace to share. She’d wanted the apprenticeship perhaps more than she’d wanted to breathe, an inclination owing to Lady Kovrov’s own desire of it, and being so cruelly robbed of it was a blow almost too harsh to bear. But Arisha isn’t the only pretty woman at court with intellect and ambition to rival the stars, and she’ll see to it that the score is not only evened, but tilted in her favor once more. A glance at the ring on her finger tells her that, perhaps, it already has.
VASILY BARANOV: She pities him, and it would be a sorry, condescending thing, had she not first seen him as something of an equal. He found himself at court as a victim of loss, an orphan, a man robbed of his father and a son forced to pick up the pieces, and her heart—her shallow, detached heart—bled for him a little, convinced, somehow, that his might bleed for her in return; it didn’t, nor did he worship her as she might’ve hoped, and she feels bad for him still, for his ghastly lack of poise and strikingly poor taste in companions. A man ought to learn how to conduct himself in a place like this, as wondrous as it is cruel—she would know.
VALERIYA IS PORTRAYED BY DANIELA BRAGA & IS TAKEN BY KATIE.
