Chapter 8: A Month of Gentle Care
The month had been a gentle, sustained breath after years of suffocation.
The officer’s quarters at the battalion post were nothing like the grim concrete blocks Mila had imagined. They were old stone buildings, former manor houses, with thick walls that held the summer heat at bay and windows that looked out over overgrown gardens. Her room was under the eaves, with a bed wider than any she’d ever known, piled with blankets the soldiers had somehow produced—wool from the north, a silk coverlet traded for from the east. She had books from Alexsi’s library, a stack that changed weekly as he quietly noted her interests. She had a drawing pad and pencils. She had silence that belonged to her, and sounds that were becoming familiar: the distant rhythm of drills, Andrey’s low chuckle from the kitchen below, the scratch of Alexsi’s pen late into the night.
They took care of her without fuss. It was in the daily things. A fresh pot of tea always waiting when she came downstairs. Andrey teaching her to make syrniki, his massive hands impossibly delicate with the curd. Alexsi leaving a map on the table, his finger tracing a safe route to the river where the wild strawberries grew, a silent invitation. The soldiers, those hard, scarred men, treated her with a rough, reverent kindness. They brought her trinkets—a polished stone, a ribbon for her hair, a fledgling bird that had fallen from a nest, which she nursed with a dropper until it could fly. They called her malyshka, little one, and their protectiveness was a wall around her.
The bruises faded. The constant, metallic taste of fear in her mouth dulled, replaced by the simple flavors of bread and salt and honey. She slept through the nights, deeply, without dreams that made her wake up gasping. She was rested. She was in good shape.
And that, she realized, was why the letter felt like a physical blow.
It arrived in the bland, official post, her cousin Anya’s looping, frantic script hidden inside a mundane notice about grain quotas. Mila read it standing in the sunlit hallway, the paper trembling. The words were a cascade of fear. They’re deciding now. Uncle Fyodor from the northern branch. He has three sons already, they want more hands for the mill. They think I’m old enough. He’s… he’s coarse, Mila. He smells of vodka and pickles. Mama says it’s a good match, that I should be grateful. He expects a baby within the year. I don’t want to be a mother. I want to go to the technical school in Krasnograd. I want to learn about engines. They’re laughing at me.
Mila folded the letter, then folded it again, until it was a hard, sharp square in her palm. The sunlight felt suddenly hostile. She saw Anya, fifteen years old with skinned knees and a mind full of gears and equations, being smoothed into the shape of a wife for a man who saw her as a broodmare for labourers. It was her own story, reflected in a younger, more terrified mirror.
The thought crystallized over days, solidifying from a desperate wish into a terrifying plan. She watched Alexsi and Andrey. She saw the consistency, the goodness that wasn’t performative but baked into their bones, as fundamental as their stature. Alexsi’s honour was a quiet, unwavering force. Andrey’s gentleness was a conscious choice, a daily defiance of what his monstrous frame suggested.
She saw how they were with her. No demands. No implied debts. Just care.
The idea was audacious. It felt like grabbing a live wire. But the alternative was Anya’s choked sob on the page.
She found them in the common room after evening muster. The fire was low, painting everything in amber and deep shadow. Alexsi was at the large oak table, polishing the action of his service pistol with a methodical, peaceful rhythm. Andrey was in a vast armchair that still seemed too small for him, mending a strap on a rucksack, the needle looking like a splinter in his huge fingers.
She hovered in the doorway, the letter a brand in her pocket.
Alexsi glanced up, his hands stilling. He said nothing, just waited. Andrey set the mending aside.
“Can I… talk?” Her voice was smaller than she wanted.
“Always,” Alexsi said, nodding to the chair opposite him.
She sat, perching on the edge. She folded her hands on the table to stop their shaking. She didn’t know how to begin, so she just pulled out the crumpled letter and slid it across the wood. Alexsi picked it up, unfolded it, his eyes scanning the lines. His expression didn’t change, but a muscle tightened in his jaw. He finished, passed it silently to Andrey.
Andrey read it slowly, his lips moving slightly. When he looked up, his usually placid face was dark with a quiet, controlled anger. “Fifteen,” he said, the word like a stone dropped in the quiet room.
Mila nodded, swallowing. “Her name is Anya. She’s my cousin. My best friend.” She took a breath, the words tumbling out in a rushed, nervous stream. “She doesn’t want to be married. She wants to go to school. For engines. And this man they have for her… he’ll expect a baby right away. He’ll… he’ll keep her pregnant until he has the sons he wants. She’ll never get to school. She’ll never get to anything.”
The fire crackled. Alexsi watched her, his gaze intent, listening not just to her words but to the fear beneath them.
“I was thinking,” Mila whispered, her courage almost failing. She looked at Andrey, then at Alexsi, then down at her hands. “I see how you are. Both of you. You’re good. You’re… safe.” The word safe hung in the air, the highest praise she could give. “What happened to me… it was awful. But it brought me here. To safety.”
She forced herself to look at Andrey directly. “What if… what if for Anya, it was different? What if the arrangement was… was with someone who wasn’t awful?” Her voice grew firmer, driven by a vision of Anya studying engine schematics at this very table. “If she had to be married, like I was to Alexsi, for politics or… or whatever reason your father uses…” She glanced at Alexsi. “Could it be to someone like you? Could it be to Andrey?”
The silence was absolute. Andrey’s eyes widened, just a fraction. He looked from Mila’s pleading face to Alexsi’s impassive one.
Mila rushed on, the logic she’d built over sleepless nights pouring out. “He wouldn’t… he wouldn’t expect things from her. Not like that. He could be like a… a guardian. A big brother. She could have time. She could even go to school, maybe, someday. Here, with me.” Her voice broke slightly. “The soldiers, they’re good to me. One more girl wouldn’t hurt. It would be so much better than what’s waiting for her. It would be a rescue, not a sentence. That’s what I figured.”
She ran out of words, her bravery spent. She sat there, trembling, waiting for the laugh, the dismissal, the paternal pat on the head telling her not to worry her pretty little head about things she didn’t understand.
Andrey carefully set the letter down. He leaned forward, his immense frame making the wood creak. His voice was deeper than usual, softened with an emotion that made Mila’s eyes sting.
“Mila,” he said slowly, weighing each word. “I am thirty-eight years old. Anya is fifteen. That is not a husband. That is… a grandfather, almost.” He saw her face fall and quickly held up a hand. “I’m not saying no. I’m saying what it would be. If I did this… if we could do this… it wouldn’t be a marriage like in a storybook. It would be a shield. I would be her protector. Her… paternal big brother, like you said. I would marry her on paper to get her out of that house, to bring her here. But she would have her own room. Her own life. No one would touch her. Not me, not anyone.” His gaze was unwavering, earnest. “My body… the things they did to it in the labs… I wouldn’t… I couldn’t ever…” He trailed off, a rare vulnerability flickering in his eyes. “She would be safe. That’s what you’re asking for, yes? Safety?”
Tears overflowed Mila’s eyes, tracking silently down her cheeks. She nodded, unable to speak. He understood. He understood completely.
Alexsi finally spoke, his voice calm, analytical. “My father.” He leaned back, tapping a finger on the polished wood. “He would see it as consolidation. A second alliance from the same border tribe? Through the same connection? He’d see it as me embracing the political game, building a faction. He’d be thrilled. It would make the entire arrangement with Mila look like a masterstroke, not a lucky accident.” He looked at Andrey. “It’s possible. More than possible. It would be easy for him to facilitate. Another transfer of ‘property’ for ‘stability.’”
He turned his grey eyes to Mila, and for the first time since she’d entered, his stern expression softened into something approximating a smile. “Come here, kiddo.”
The unfamiliar, affectionate term broke the last of her composure. She stood, walked around the table. He didn’t get up, just opened an arm. She folded into his side, and he pulled her into a firm, one-armed hug. It was neither hesitant nor overwhelming. It was solid. Real. “You’re being brave,” he said into her hair, his voice a low rumble. “Braver than anyone had a right to ask of you. You’re not just thinking of your own safety anymore. You’re thinking of someone else’s. That’s… that’s everything.”
He held her for a moment longer, then let her go, his hands on her shoulders, looking her in the eye. “We can’t promise. There are things to move. Your family, his family, the paperwork. It’s a minefield. But we will do what we can. Starting now.”
Andrey stood, an event that seemed to change the air pressure in the room. “The first thing is to stop the other match,” he said, his voice now all business. “A well-timed, competing offer from a Senior Commander in the State Military Legion… it would freeze them. They’d be greedy. They’d wait to see which was more profitable.”
Alexsi was already nodding, pulling a clean sheet of paper toward him. “I’ll write to my father tonight. Not a request. A report. ‘Following the successful integration and calming effect of the Petrovna alliance, I have identified a further opportunity to secure the loyalty of the western family branch through a union with Commander Kozlov, a decorated war hero. This would effectively double our influence in the region. Request your authority to open negotiations.’ He’ll salivate.”
Mila watched them, the two massive men shifting instantly from caregivers to strategists, their minds clicking together with a seamless, practiced rhythm. They were taking her frantic, heart-born idea and treating it like a tactical operation. They were not humoring her. They were enacting her will.
Andrey walked over to the small sideboard and poured three small glasses of nalivka, the berry liquor one of the men made. He handed one to Alexsi, one to Mila, and took one himself. He raised his glass, his face solemn.
“To Anya,” he said. “And to engines.”
Mila clinked her glass against his, then against Alexsi’s. The liquor was sweet and warm and burned going down. It tasted like hope, sharp and potent.
“We’ll need to get a message to her,” Mila said, a new steadiness in her voice. “So she knows to hold on. So she knows someone is coming.”
Alexsi sipped his drink. “We have a supply run towards the western border in five days. One of my men, Piotr, his sister is a postal clerk in Krasnograd. It can be done. A letter from you, with no return address, but with a phrase… something only she would understand.”
“The strawberry girl remembers the river bend,” Mila said instantly. It was where they’d plotted their childhood escapes.
“Good,” Alexsi said. He finished his drink. “Now, you should sleep. We have work to do. And you,” he said, pointing a finger at her, though his eyes were kind, “have done enough for one night.”
Andrey placed his giant hand gently on top of her head. “Thank you,” he said, his voice thick. “For thinking I could be that for someone. A safe place.”
Mila just nodded, the full weight of what she’d set in motion finally settling on her. It was terrifying. It was huge. But as she left the common room, the firelight painting their two large shadows against the wall—one sharp and still, one broad and solid—she didn’t feel alone. She felt like she had just drafted an army.
In her lovely room under the eaves, she didn’t reach for a book. She sat at the small desk and took out a fresh sheet of paper. She began to write.
Dear Anya,
Don’t be afraid. Something is happening. Something good. When they talk to you about Uncle Fyodor’s son, you say nothing. You stall. You act shy, act stupid if you have to. Help is coming from an unexpected direction. Remember the strawberry girl at the river bend? She remembers you. She is sending a knight. Not a storybook knight. A real one. He is very large, and very kind, and he thinks you should learn about engines…