The second Ilias and I returned from our riding trip, Ilias rushed away from me. He'd hardly spoken after I rejected him, and to be honest, I was beginning to wonder if he'd ever speak to me again. He wasn't angry, I didn't think, but he was desperately upset. Maybe his wife could be some consolation to him, but from my experience, wives were only good at making things worse.

I stormed up to my room, ignoring the servants who scurried out of my way as I passed. Irina had prevented me from being able to go up to my room after breakfast, and look what had happened. I doubted she'd let me spend the rest of the day sequestered, but I could at least squeeze out a few hours.

There were new blankets on the end of the bed when I entered. The servants moved quickly, it seemed. It looked like someone had tried to scrub away the scorch mark on the floor, but evidence of it still remained. Erasing Chernobog's mark wouldn't be so easy.

I threw myself into a chair and grabbed my sketchbook. I flipped past all the pictures of Irina that I had drawn, moving so quickly I almost tore the pages out. When I reached a blank page, I grabbed a pencil and began to draw.

It didn't take long for Chernobog to take shape on my paper. I'd only drawn him once before, and I'd been viciously beaten for it. Chernobog had had no desire for me to leave records of his presence. I'd left the drawing in my sketchbook, in a small act of defiance, but I'd never drawn him again.

But Chernobog was gone, and so were his chains.

The picture was almost enough for me to feel a phantom heat in my gut. I'd always been a good artist, and Chernobog was easy to draw. It was almost like he wanted to come through on the page, even though he'd been so angry when I drew him before. It was almost like he was… like he was calling to me-

I slammed the sketchbook shut, leaving the drawing unfinished. It had been too real. I'd nearly felt Chernobog's presence through the paper. I didn't think I could summon him like that, but I wasn't foolish enough to think that he was dead. Gone, yes, but not dead. Irina had successfully argued that her wifely claim was stronger than my mother's, but if I summoned Chernobog, no wifely claims would protect me.

I nearly threw the sketchbook in the fire - it was only a few pages away from being full anyway - but a thought stilled me. Chernobog was a demon of flame. Burning his image sounded more likely to call him than banish him. Instead, I shoved the sketchbook in the bottom of my bag and resolved to get a new one as soon as possible. I wouldn't be opening this one again.

Now that my usual distraction was forbidden to me, at least until I could get my hands on more paper, I had to come up with something else to do. I doubted I would have long before Irina showed up to drag me off to lunch, but I itched to do something. My fingers longed for a pencil, and part of me still wanted to finish the portrait of Chernobog, but I wouldn't allow myself to do it.

There were a few sheets of paper in the desk, which I eagerly put pencil to. The quality of the paper was less than what I was used to, but it would do in a pinch. Pushing all thoughts of Chernobog out of my mind, I began to sketch designs for the new winter clothes I'd need to have made. I'd redraw them later on nicer paper, of course, but the early sketches could be on rough paper if I had nothing else.

I was filling up the last page when Irina came into the room. "I think my time with Vassilia went well," she declared. "How was your ride with Ilias?"

"Wonderful," I deadpanned. "He offered himself up to me, and I broke his heart."

Irina frowned. "Was he upset?"

"Of course he was upset," I snapped. "But he's been upset since you forced him to marry a woman he doesn't care for. No, he's been upset since Chernobog forced me to marry you. Either way, I think we can see the common thread."

Irina set her jaw. "I didn't ask to marry you."

"And I didn't want to marry you either, and yet here we are."

"Don't blame me for upsetting Ilias-"

"You were the one who arranged his marriage!" I spat. "You were the one who sent me out to ride with him this morning. What did you think would happen?"

Irina took a deep breath in through her nose, then let it out. "It was not my intention to upset your cousin," she said in a very careful voice. "And I apologize for doing so, especially since you clearly care about him."

"I-" I wondered if Irina had meant to blindside me with the comment. "I don't- What do you mean, I clearly care about him?"

"Well, you wouldn't be this angry with me for upsetting him if you didn't," Irina replied. "He's your cousin, so it's perfectly understandable, but considering how you treat everyone else, I admit I didn't expect it."

My first instinct was to tell Irina to shut up, because if I ever did find myself caring about someone, the safest thing to do was always to deny it and try to think about it as little as possible. Then I remembered that I'd always done that to protect people from Chernobog, and Chernobog was gone, so acknowledging the fact that I perhaps did care a bit about Ilias wouldn't be signing his death warrant.

"Don't make me do something like that again," I said instead.

"I didn't mean to make you do anything," Irina said. "I'm your wife, Mirnatius, not your owner."

A sudden rage burning in my stomach, feeling far too much like Chernobog for comfort, I thew up my hand, where Irina's silver ring still sat on my finger. It was eternally cool, never warming with the heat of my body, and I hated it.

"Is this not a sign of your ownership, my lady?" I spat. "A wife's right comes before a mother's, and my mother signed her rights to me away. You've driven away Chernobog, so now you can have me all to yourself."

Perhaps I was fooling myself - I most likely was - but Irina looked almost startled at the tirade. "I don't own you," she told me again, but I scoffed loudly enough to cover her next words, and I turned towards the door.

"I'm sure skipping lunch will be a deathly insult to the happy couple, won't it, wife?"

Irina didn't answer for a moment, but I refused to turn back and look at her. "You should come down for lunch," she finally said, "but if you don't want to, you can stay up here, and I'll have something sent up."

Of course now she would offer that, when I was fairly certain I would go mad if I spent one more second alone in this room. "You'll have to try harder than that to get rid of me," I said, and I marched out of the room.

A moment later, Irina followed.

Ilias hardly looked at me for the rest of the day, even though Irina made sure that we attended all of the wedding celebrations. He hardly looked at her either, and the one time she tried to talk to him, I thought he might burst into tears. It was no surprise, really. The poor fool thought I loved Irina in the way I would never love him, not knowing that actually loving Irina would make me the biggest fool of all. Allowing myself to care for her would only make the eventual knife to the back hurt all the more.

The day seemed to last forever, and even when everyone finally returned to their rooms, I knew it wasn't over for me yet. After all, Irina and I shared a room and - ostensibly - a bed, and while I doubted she'd actually want to sleep with me if she could help it, she'd need to come back to our room to avoid suspicion. She wouldn't stay there, of course. She never did, except for the one night we were surrounded by servants and had to keep up appearances. Even then, she'd done whatever she could to keep from touching me. Since there were no servants surrounding us tonight, however, she would probably stay in our room just long enough to allay suspicion, and then leave. Maybe she'd disappear off to the Staryk lands, or maybe she'd just go off with her obnoxious nurse, but she wasn't likely to stay in my presence for a second longer than she had to.

Except, of course, for the fact that my wife just loved to surprise me.

"There is something we need to discuss," Irina said the second the door to the bedroom closed and we were left alone.

"What?" I demanded. I was in no mood to play games, not tonight. There were only so many clashes with my darling tsarina I could withstand in one day, especially after what had happened the night before. My body felt cold and strange and fragile, and I had had no time to acclimate to the new sensations. I would readily agree that it was making me more irritable than usual, although it didn't take much to make me irritable towards my wife.

Irina pressed her lips together, looking uncomfortable. For a moment, I felt a vicious delight that something had unnerved her, then it occurred to me that anything we needed to discuss that unnerved her enough to show it would probably be discomforting to me as well. Ah, well. I would take my triumphs where I could.

"We will need," Irina said, her voice careful, "an heir."

"An heir."

"To stabilize our rule."

"Our rule?"

Irina blinked. "Yes, our rule. Who else's rule would our child stabilize?"

Her rule, that I had no part in, but of course she knew that as well as I did. "The child doesn't need to be ours," I said. "You have your handsome guard."

"He disappeared last night when the Staryk king did. I believe he was killed in the escape."

"I'm certain you could find someone else."

"I will not," Irina said firmly. "The child must be ours. There can be no question of their legitimacy."

I scowled at her. "And will you fulfill the usual quota of an heir and a spare before doing away with me, or will you just wait until the first quickens in your womb?"

"Excuse me?"

"I'd wait until the child is at least born," I added. "Your place as regent will be much more stable with an actual prince."

"I don't intend to 'do away' with you at all," Irina retorted.

I scoffed loudly. "And am I supposed to believe that? After you threw me at the Staryk king, hoping we'd rip each other to shreds and solve two of your problems at once? You've only rid yourself of one so far. Your second is still here."

"Chernobog was the problem, not you."

"And without him protecting me, it'll be all the easier to slip a blade between my ribs."

"I don't intend to put a blade between anyone's ribs," Irina snapped. "Is that why you think I got rid of Chernobog? To make it easier for me to kill you?"

"Oh, I'm sure you also did it to protect Lithvas or some other nonsense, but even you can't deny that weakening me plays into your ambitions quite well."

"My ambitions?" Irina repeated, sounding offended. "And what are my ambitions?"

"Don't pretend not to be ambitious. You have the best interests of the people at heart, I'm sure, but no woman without ambition would throw herself in the path of the tsar like you did, wearing jewelry you clearly intended to use to enchant me."

"I never wanted-"

"You never wanted to marry me, so you've said. But even if that is the case, you've certainly done quite a bit in your time as tsarina, more than an unambitious woman would manage."

"Even if I do have ambitions," Irina said, pronouncing the word like it disgusted her, "that doesn't mean they are against you."

"On the contrary, I'm the only person between you and total control over the throne. You'll need a child first, of course, but regency of a infant is practically being the ruler in your own right. Unfortunately, a regency won't be necessary unless the previous tsar is dead, so…" I spread my hands out, favoring Irina with a bitter smile. "You're not nearly as subtle as you think you are, my dear."

"And you're not nearly as clever as you think you are, husband," Irina retorted. "I have no desire to kill you. I never have. If I thought on your death before, it was because I thought it would be necessary to rid Lithvas of Chernobog. Seeing as it wasn't…"

And abruptly, I was furious. "Just admit it," I hissed, my voice low and angry. It sounded almost like Chernobog had sounded when he took over my voice to express his anger, and for half a heartbeat, I was almost frightened of myself. But that was foolish, so I shoved the feeling away. I couldn't be so pathetic as to be afraid of my own voice. "You wanted me dead," I accused Irina, "you still want me dead, you will want me dead until the moment I obligingly keel over-"

"I wanted you dead," Irina interrupted sharply. "I planned to call for the same chains that bound your mother and burn you just like she burned. But that was when you had a demon inside of you, a demon that wanted to devour the entire country. You didn't ask for any of this, Mirnatius. I am not in the habit of punishing people for things they had no control over."

Somehow, being cast as the powerless victim was almost as cutting as Irina thinking I'd bargained my own soul away. "And if I had asked for it?" I asked. "If I had bargained with Chernobog myself, and bought my throne with that promise?"

"You would never have done that," Irina said. "Anyone who looks at you can tell you have no desire to rule."

"But you do."

"I have been called upon to rule," Irina said simply. "And if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it well."

It occurred to me, not for the first time, that if circumstances were different, perhaps I would like Irina. She could be obnoxious, yes, but obnoxious in a way I could appreciate. Or, at least, obnoxious in a way I would have been able to appreciate if her obnoxiousness hadn't been directed mostly at me. I could have even withstood the obnoxiousness, if it weren't paired with her clear desire - no matter whether she admitted it or not - to have me killed. Irina was no Chernobog, but she was as ruthless as he was, and I was at her mercy. I'd lived my entire life with a demon in my gut. I knew what it meant to be at the mercy of someone like that.

Irina sighed. "Tonight clearly isn't the night for us to start trying for an heir," she said. "But we will need to do it eventually."

I considered refusing. After all, giving Irina the heir she wanted would only shorten my life, considering I doubted I would live long past the birth. But on the other hand, if I held out against her, her desire for a legitimate child might waver, and then I'd be stuck in the exact same position. And clearly an heir wasn't necessary for her plans, because she'd planned to kill me before without one. No, a refusal probably wouldn't change her plans very much.

But I refused anyway.

"Irina, Irina, Irina," I cooed, "how many times do I have to tell you? I am the tsar, and I take orders from no one."

There was a flash of fury on Irina's face, then it went hard. I had the feeling I'd goaded her past her normal limits, and I had to admit, I was a little curious to see what would happen.

"You took orders from a demon for the past twenty years," Irina said, and the curiosity was drowned out by a wave of fury. "I shouldn't think it would be so difficult to accept a suggestion from your wife."

And then, before I could say anything else, she strode out of the room, leaving me and my impotent fury alone to stew.