Chapter 4

It took me a while to find Andrei's room, after asking some errant maids I discovered it was in the tower exactly opposite to my own room. As I climbed up the stairs I wondered what he could possibly want from me. The words from the tsar were another mystery to me, that he was permitting whatever was going on between the two of us. Despite my confusion he failed to clarify what that thing was.

I was shaken out of my stupor by finally reaching the top of the stairs. The door to Andrei's room stood in front of me, slightly imposing. Steeling my nerves, I knocked on the door and said,"Andrei, it's me, Kitty."

All he offered was a brusque,"come on in."

Much like the door to my room, the door to his room was heavy. I cursed Kitty's own lack of strength as I needed to to leverage my whole body weight to open the door. Trying to seem like a task as simple as opening a door did not cause me great strife, I stood in front of the accursed door with my hands clasped in front of me while I looked around the room.

I was bemused to find that his room was the mirror image of my own, except everything in my room that sported a color other than black or white was in his room a rich green color. I found myself wondering if this was Andrei's own interior design choice or if the tsar just decided that giving the two of us identical rooms was what was fair.

When I came in, Andrei was sitting at his desk, back turned towards me. He seemed to be working on something by the candle light but it was too far away for the translator to catch what exactly it was he was writing. He finished up whatever it was he was doing in silence for a few moments before finally getting up and facing me.

Before I could figure out what was going on he had me pinned up against the door. His face was so close to mine that I felt myself inadvertently blush. He really was a good looking man, his short blonde hair perfectly framed his emerald green eyes. I was taken out of the moment by the strange incongruence caused by feeling the warmth of his breath coming from what my eyes told me to be a drawing. I was not allowed to stay in this moment though, frustrated by my own inaction, Andrei used his right hand to angle my chin up and then kiss me.

I felt my face turn a shade of red not found in nature, the thoughts in my mind were going a hundred miles a second. Overtaken by bewilderment and embarrassment, I thought I would pass out at any second. In fact I felt my knees go wobbly beneath me. 

Andrei pulled away from the kiss and for the first time I saw something in his eyes express an emotion that wasn't cold and unfeeling. Instead the look in his eyes was something akin to voracity. 

The primal part of my brain, the part that kept my ancestors from being eaten by bears, was screaming at me to run. That I was absolutely in danger of falling prey to something if I did not move my legs right this minute. Unfortunately both my higher level thinking capabilities and my body seemed frozen to the spot so no matter how much I wanted to run all I could do was stare at Andrei with an idiotic look on my face.

He laughed at my stupefaction before saying,"Father was right, you have changed. Of course this doesn't matter, no matter how many personality changes you go through or how many counts you are engaged to; your body will always belong to me and me alone dearest sister."

I struggled to say anything back, my throat felt like it was closing up. I could feel my heart beating wildly in my chest. I felt incredibly nauseous and I was breaking out into a cold sweat. 

Before I could choke something out Andrei stopped me by saying,"You're afraid of me? How very unlike you, Kitty. I can't say I dislike this look on you nor can I say I dislike this feeling of being a wolf waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting lamb. Ah, just when I had thought I was getting bored of your clingy antics, you show me something truly unexpected. What a terrible woman you are, just before you're to be shipped off to the north you make me desire you more than ever."

"I'm not afraid of you," I spat out the most unconvincing retort I could muster.

"A defiant lamb are we? Very well, as a reward for your bravery I will refrain from doing anything else to you tonight."

As Andrei said this he moved away from me and gestured for me to move away from the door. Once I did as instructed he held the door open for me and allowed me to bolt out the door.

"What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck, who the hell wrote this thing," I muttered beneath my breath as I walked as fast as I could around the castle, not caring where I ended up as long as it was away from him.

No wonder no one liked Andrei or Kitty. One was expressionless unless it came to his sister and the other was a bully with a brother complex. And the tsar was just allowing this? Now that the fear subsided I was left just feeling angry without knowing who to direct this anger at. My brother? My father? The writers of the game? God? I wasn't sure so I spent a good while pacing and cursing all of them.

Anger is not an easy feeling to sustain and quickly it burned itself out and became fatigue. I hauled myself up the stairs to my room and collapsed on the bed. Annoyed by the impracticality of my clothing, I briefly considered going to sleep in my dress so I didn't have to call someone up to disrobe me. As I was unable to find a comfortable way to sleep in a corset I relented and called a maid up to help me.

Instead of Katarina, who I had been expecting, Alisa answered my call. I must have looked especially out of it because the normally chatty maid didn't say much the entire time.

Finally comfortable, I pretty much immediately fell asleep as soon as my head hit my pillow. I had another strange dream. This time I was climbing the spiral staircase up to Andrei's room. That feeling of needing to go somewhere was once again growing. I looked behind me, hoping that I would not have to go to Andrei's room but found that there was a void behind me instead of stairs. Given that the only way to go was up, I started climbing the staircase. 

The stairs seemed to go on forever. The only way I could tell time was passing was the feeling of needing to be somewhere was growing more and more urgent. When my body couldn't run fast enough normally I found myself jumping three, four steps in order to ascend the staircase faster. Just like last time, the urgent feeling of needing to go somewhere was becoming unbearable when at last I finally reached the top of the stairs and burst into Andrei's room.

The room looked almost identical to what I had seen last night with the exception of the bed. The green comforter was marred by a large blood stain. Underneath the blanket I could see a human shaped lump. Whatever it was, it wasn't dead despite the large amount of blood it had lost. It was pathetically squirming underneath the sheets. Once again I lost control of my body and felt myself creep closer and closer to it. As I was forced closer to whatever was underneath the covers the fear of it grew more and more. Eventually I was close enough to finally grab the blanket and uncover what lay twitching beneath it.

I awoke yet again with a racing pulse and drenched in sweat. Much like last time the details of the dream dissipated and all I was left with was a lingering sense of dread. I shook it off, I had more important things to attend to.