Page 10 of Last of Her Name
I wait for someone to laugh, to explain how ridiculous the direktor’s accusation is. But the room is utterly silent, the air stretched tight, as if there isn’t enough oxygen. We’re all slowly suffocating.
“Come now, Princess,” Volkov murmurs, eyes probing each of us, “don’t make your friends suffer pointlessly. You will not be harmed. This I swear.”
Anya Petrovna Leonova.
It’s a struggle to recall the day we discussed the fallen imperials in history class. Anya had been the youngest of the Leonovs, just an infant when this very man murdered her and her family. Didn’t he? I can’t remember if the baby was there in the execution video. I’d all but forgotten the little princess had ever existed.
What sort of terrible joke is this?
Anya, alive? InAfka?
It’s absurd.
But my stomach rises and twists, like I’m falling out of orbit, faster and faster, hurtling toward the ground. The direktor wouldn’t come here himself unless he believed this rumor to be true. He could have sent anyone—a general, a less important Committee member, anyone—but no, he had to comein person.
To finish what he started all those years ago. To murder a child.
I try to look around for my parents, to see what they must think, but when I start to turn, I get a rap on my head from the vityaze standing behind me. I stiffen, Clio’s arm curling around mine.
Volkov waits for half a minute, but no one raises her hand to say, “It’s me you’re looking for!” And why would she? What’s waiting for her but a hot white bolt of energy to the brain? I glance sidelong down the row of my classmates, friends, neighbors, wondering if one of them is more than she claims to be.
“Perhaps she doesn’t know who she is,” murmurs the direktor. “But someone here does. Someone here knows the truth, and until one of you speaks up, I’ll be forced to assume you areallcomplicit.” He turns to the vityazes. “Take the girls to the ship and we’ll run genetic tests on the way back to the capital. We can’t waste any more time here. When we’ve cleared the room, kill the rest.”
“What?” I whisper.
Shouts of protest break out. I’m still reeling, trying to make sense of what’s happening—when Ilya’s mother, Mrs. Kepht, bursts through the line of vityazes holding the parents back.
“Stop this!” she cries. “You can’t take my dau—”
Volkov fires so smoothly, so swiftly, that it’s over before I even have the chance to process what is happening. There’s a flash of hot white energy, momentarily blinding us all.
The hole that appears in Mrs. Kepht’s forehead is no bigger than a pinprick, but smoke curls from the wound and she slumps to the ground, landing at an awkward angle, one arm twisted beneath her. And I know that behind that tiny puncture mark, her brain has been reduced to liquid. My stomach heaves, and all around me, the other girls scream. Ilya’s wail of grief is the loudest of all. She drops to her knees, one hand outstretched toward her mother’s body, but a Red Knight holds her back. Mayor Kepht stares at his wife’s body, motionless and ashen.
The crowd of parents surges and ripples, but vityazes shock anyone who gets too close to us. Screams of protest turn to screams of pain, and a few more adults hit the floor, seizing from the electric currents. I glance at Mom and Dad, willing them to stay silent and still. But it’s as if they didn’t even notice Mrs. Kepht’s murder. Dad is whispering in Mom’s ear, and she’s nodding, her expression blank. The world seems to be shrinking around me; all I can hear is my own heartbeat. This can’t be happening. It’s all too fast. I want to pause the scene and catch my breath, make sense of the chaos.
Tears run down Clio’s cheeks. “Poor Ilya,” she whispers.
I wonder if she’s thinking of her own parents, killed in the war. Where had they died again? Alexandrine? Emerault? My mind struggles for the answer—I shouldknowthis—but my thoughts go fuzzy. There’s too much happening around me to focus on anything else. But for a fleeting moment, I look at my friend closer and feel a shiver of doubt. Could she be … ? No. No, that’s ridiculous. I know Clio better than I know myself. There’s no way she’s some sort of long-lost princess, even an unwitting one.
But why can’t I remember where her parents died?
“Someone here knows something,” Volkov says. “Youhave the power to end this.Youhave the power to save yourselves. But until you do, I regret that we must be firm. Your daughters will be safe, but we cannot allow any Loyalist sympathizers to escape. I must now assume that meansall of you.”
The reshuffling of the vityazes, the hum of their guns warming up as they turn them on the crowd of adults, underscores his meaning. None of our parents will leave this room alive.
“No!”cries a voice, and I whirl to see Mayor Kepht rising from beside his wife’s body. He looks as if the heart has been carved from his chest. But I feel a tinge of hopeful relief. He’s in charge of Afka. We voted for him to speak for us. And finally, he is taking a stand. He won’t let this happen. I try to ignore the sensible voice in my head that points out the mayor is as powerless as the rest of us; that’s his wife, after all, dead at his feet. I wait, weallwait, for him to reason with the direktor. Prove to him that the very idea of a Loyalist faction hiding in Afka is ridiculous.
Instead, what he says is: “I’ll tell you who you’re looking for. Is that enough? Will you give me back my daughter?”
I’ve never seen such agony in a person’s face. The mayor looks like a ghost, gaunt and racked with pain.
The direktor gives him a single nod.
Mayor Kepht turns and raises a finger. “It’s her. She’s the one you want. She is the last of the Leonovs.”
A murmur runs around the room. I hear a scream of rage, and someone shouts the word “Traitor!” before the hiss of a vityaze’s shock staff cuts them short.
But all this I take in in an instant.