Chapter 10: The Journey North
The world outside the thick glass was a blur of white and steel grey. Snowdrifts carved by the wind into sharp, alien shapes whipped past the window. Inside the armored carriage, the world was reduced to a bubble of yellow light, vibration, and the low, grinding song of the wheels on the tracks. It was warm, almost too warm, the heat from the coal-fired boiler seeping through the metal walls, mixing with the smell of damp wool from drying uniforms, gun oil, and the faint, ever-present scent of cheap black tea.
Mila sat on one of the padded benches bolted to the wall, her knees drawn up to her chest. She was watching the mountains. They weren’t pretty, picturesque peaks. They were brutal, broken things, like the backbone of some frozen beast pushing up through the earth’s skin. She tried to see them as Anya would. Anya, who loved things that worked, who would look at a mountain and see geology, pressure, time. Not an obstacle.
She’d been quiet since they boarded at dawn. The frantic energy of planning, of writing the secret letter, of watching Alexsi and Andrey move with silent purpose, had evaporated. Now, there was only the journey. And the destination. And what it meant.
She kept smoothing the fabric of her dress over her knees. It was a good dress, warm and practical, one of several Alexsi had procured for her. But it felt like a costume. She was playing a part again. The bride’s cousin. The catalyst. The reason a fifteen-year-old girl was being pulled from her home to marry a giant stranger.
What if Anya hated her for it? What if she was more afraid of Andrey’s immense, silent form than of her coarse cousin? The questions were a litany, keeping time with the clacking of the rails.
Alexsi was across from her, ostensibly reading a battered field manual. But she felt his eyes on her every few minutes, a calm, assessing pressure. Andrey was near the door at the end of the compartment, a motionless silhouette against the window, staring out as if he could see their destination already. He’d been like that for an hour. A statue of a man.
One of the soldiers, young Piotr whose sister was the postal clerk, moved through with a steaming samovar on a gimbal. “Chai, Commander? Mila?” His voice was gentle.
Alexsi nodded. “Da. Spasibo, Piotr.”
Piotr poured two mugs, handed them over. He glanced at Mila, gave her a quick, encouraging nod that didn’t reach his eyes. He was nervous too. This whole thing was a live operation for them, a mission with a singular, fragile objective: extract one girl.
The tea was scalding and bitter. Mila held the mug, letting the heat burn her palms. She found her eyes tracing the lines of Andrey’s shoulders, the sheer bulk of him blocking the light. Her mind, treacherous, supplied images. Not of violence, but of expectation. Of a wedding night. Of duties she understood only in vague, terrifying terms. She thought of her own wedding to Alexsi, the drug-heavy fear, the relief of being left alone. But that was different. Alexsi was… Alexsi.
Andrey was a mystery. A gentle mystery, but a mystery all the same. What did he expect? What would Anya have to do?
The thought coiled in her stomach, cold and sharp. She set the mug down with a clatter.
Alexsi closed his manual. “Piotr, check on the forward car. See if the stove is still drawing.”
“Yes, sir.” Piotr vanished, the heavy door clanging shut behind him.
The compartment felt suddenly smaller. The only sounds were the train and the wind.
“You’re thinking about it,” Alexsi said. His voice wasn’t an accusation. It was flat. A statement of fact.
Mila didn’t pretend not to understand. She nodded, her gaze fixed on her knees. “What… what will happen? After the… the ceremony?”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Andrey’s head turn slightly, just a fraction. He was listening.
Alexsi leaned forward, elbows on his knees. He linked his fingers together. He was choosing his words, carving them out of the thick air. “What happened on our wedding night, Mila?”
The question shocked her. She looked up, meeting his grey eyes. They were steady. “Nothing,” she whispered.
“Why?”
“Because… you were kind.”
“No.” He shook his head once. “Not just kind. It was impossible.” He took a breath, his gaze holding hers, pinning her to the moment. “You were drugged. You were beaten. You were terrified of me. Of every man in that room. There was no version of that where anything between us could have been consensual. It would not have been sex. It would have been something else. Something I do not do.”
The bluntness of the words, the cold, clinical truth of them, stripped the fear bare. She just stared.
“Andrey and Anya,” he continued, his voice dropping, but every word clear over the train’s groan. “Look at the math, Mila. He is thirty-eight. She is fifteen. He is a senior commander, a war hero, a man who breaks doors with his shoulder. She is a girl who dreams of engines, who is being sold by her family. Where is the equal footing? Where is the ‘yes’ that means anything?” He shook his head again, a final, decisive motion. “There is none. So nothing will happen. Ever.”
He unlinked his hands and gestured toward Andrey, who had now turned fully from the window, his expression unreadable in the dim light. “He knows this. We have talked about it. This marriage is a document. A key to unlock a door. When she walks through that door, she will be safe. She will have a room of her own. She will have time. She will have you. She will have us, as protectors. As… friends. That is all. That is the entire contract.”
A shudder ran through Mila, a violent release of a tension she hadn’t fully acknowledged. It started in her shoulders and rolled down her spine. Her vision blurred. “But… people will talk. They’ll expect…”
“Let them talk,” Alexsi said, a flicker of icy disdain in his voice. “They are not in this compartment. They are not in our home. Their expectations are not my concern. My concern is the psychological and physical well-being of two people under my protection. Full stop.”
A sob broke from her then, harsh and unexpected. It was relief, so profound it was indistinguishable from grief. It was the sound of a weight she’d carried since her own battered arrival finally cracking and falling away. She covered her face with her hands, her shoulders shaking.
She heard the rustle of Alexsi’s uniform, felt the bench dip as he sat beside her. He didn’t try to pull her hands away. He simply put an arm around her shoulders, solid and warm. He let her cry into her palms, the sounds swallowed by the rumble of the train. His other hand came up and began to stroke her hair, slowly, methodically, like he was smoothing the feathers of a frightened bird.
“You are safe, Mila,” he murmured, his voice closer to her ear now, barely audible. “You will always be safe with me. And Anya will be safe with Andrey. That is the promise. That is the only promise that matters.”
She leaned into him, the tears coming faster, wetting her hands and the sleeves of his tunic. He held her. He just held her. For the first time, the contact didn’t feel like a prelude to anything. It felt like an anchor. It felt like home.
Across the compartment, Andrey watched. He saw the way Alexsi’s large hand, capable of disassembling a machine pistol in twenty seconds, moved with infinite care through Mila’s dark hair. He saw the way Mila’s rigid form slowly collapsed into the trust of the embrace.
He saw the way Mila’s rigid form slowly collapsed into the trust of the embrace. Andrey looked away, back to the bruised sky swallowing the mountains.