"No," Anya replies, annoyed.
Honestly, do they think she was born yesterday? She's grateful for their help, but she's not going to go wandering off with strange men just because they said nice things to her.
She shrugs the older man's – Vladimir's – hand from her shoulder and stalks off. At least she starts to.
"Could you live with knowing you never even tried?" asks the other one – Dmitry. She stops short, despite herself.
"'Cause I'm pretty sure I couldn't. But that's me," he continues casually. "No pressure. You do you. We're going to the Palace anyway, with or without you. Who knows, we might find the real Anastasia along the way and we'll get to reunite her with her grandmother."
Anya tightens her grip on her broom.
Dmitry saunters past and claps Vladimir on the shoulder. "Come on, Vlad, let's go. She's not interested, and we've got a long day ahead." He nods to her. "Best of the luck on the streets, kid."
Vlad follows. He looks confused, but he seems to trust his friend. "Stay safe, comrade –?"
"Anya," she supplies hesitantly.
Vlad nods. "Stay safe, Anya."
As he hurries to catch up to Dmitry, Anya looks down at the broom in her hands.
She has worked everywhere she can possibly work to survive. She has walked halfway across the country to try to get to…somewhere she can find and be found. And she hasn't had anything to show for all those years. She's still hidden in the crush of people that make up Russia.
Will she end up dying like this, sweeping streets and washing dishes for the rest of her life?
The Palace is the most well-known arena in the country. Everyone knows it – royal or revolutionary, resident or visitor. It means something, even though she doesn't know what it is.
Does she really have anything left to lose?
"Wait!" she calls to the men's backs.
"Yeah?" Dmitry calls back without turning around. He continues whispering furiously to Vlad.
"Do you honestly think I could be Anastasia?" she asks. She bites her lip, trying not to sound too…hopeful.
Vlad turns and smiles kindly. "I train fighters, Anya. I lived and fought with the royalty – please don't repeat that part to anyone, by the way. When I was watching you earlier, I saw a native skill in you that I've seen only in them. With a little seasoning, I don't see why you couldn't be her."
"I suppose there's no reason why I couldn't, if I don't remember anything," Anya concedes. "I'm a girl who's missing a family, and out there, there's a grandmother missing a granddaughter. If I'm not her, she'll know right away, won't she?"
"And if we're right and you are Anastasia, then you'll have your identity and a family back!" Vlad finishes, beaming.
Anya takes a deep breath. "I'm in." She holds her hand out, and Vlad shakes it.
"Knew you'd see it my way," Dmitry drawls as he finally turns around.
Anya rolls her eyes as he shakes her hand next. "I didn't see it your way – I saw it mine."
"Whatever you say." He's practically preening.
The three of them fall into step. "This training," Anya ventures. "How much –"
Vlad waves her off. "Dmitry has never paid me a ruble so I don't see why you should."
"Hey!" Dmitry protests.
At least it's not a money scam. She doesn't have much to spare on a lie.
"We're heading to the old Yusupov estate," Vlad continues. "Yourself, Anya?"
She swallows and looks away. "The river."
"Oh, where do you stay?"
"Under the bridge." Her cheeks flush.
The smirk on Dmitry's face vanishes, and he and Vlad exchange concerned looks.
"In this weather?" Dmitry inquires quietly.
"We have room," Vlad offers. "And one more bag of lentils. You should stay with us."
"We're training there anyway," Dmitry adds. "Might as well make it easy on yourself."
Anya considers. A proper roof over her head is a rare thing to find in St Petersburg. And she's learned to sleep with one eye open, if they think of trying anything.
"Alright," she agrees. "Thank you."
When they enter the abandoned property, Anya looks around and exhales in relief. It's a little rundown, but is very clearly a training facility. There's an old, but reasonably clean ring dominating the center of the room, and workout equipment is scattered on the floor. Vlad orders Dmitry to put them away while he goes off to find a bag of lentils for her to sleep on for the night. Dmitry grumbles as he scurries around replacing the equipment properly.
"Here we go!" Vlad gasps out, huffing and puffing as he drags a heavy sack behind him. He drops it in front of Dmitry and doubles over, trying to steady his breathing.
"I'm fine," he wheezes when Anya makes a move to check on him, concerned.
"He's fine," Dmitry echoes as he moves the sack into place with little effort. "You're all set up, kid. Sleep tight."
He pulls Vlad to his feet. "We'll be in the next room if you need anything."
Anya nods and watches them go. Once she's alone, she walks over to the ring and runs a hand over the rough surface of the mat. Something nags at her, something she feels she should know, something she yearns to remember...
Glancing around to make sure Vlad and Dmitry aren't around, she steps in between the ropes and into the ring.
The air suddenly feels charged, and the hair on her arms stand on end. She looks up, and she can see silhouettes leaping from the top turnbuckles, hear the phantom sounds of bodies hitting the mat.
"Could it be?" she whispers to herself. Her question bounces off the walls.
She stands there for a few more seconds, then rolls back out onto the floor in a motion that feels absolutely natural. She lies down on the bag of lentils, marvelling at how things have suddenly changed all in one night.
Her makeshift bed is surprisingly comfortable – she supposes anything feels like heaven after months of sleeping on cold, hard ground. Despite her excitement, it's not long before her eyelids grow heavy and she fades into dreams of masks and fire.
The back of the Palace is dark and silent as a tomb. The audience is long gone, and the fighters have gone home.
Gleb has the prone body of that night's opponent over his shoulder. The thump of his boots on the floor is the only sound in the entire arena – not even the wind dares whistle where Death reigns.
He vaguely wonders what his opponent – his victim – looks like. Gleb hasn't seen his own face in ten years. A fighter's mask represents his identity - his very head. And Gleb's mistress never wants him to forget that he is the face of death, nothing more. So when his mask is off, mirrors are not his friend.
He stops outside his mistress's office door. The interior is dim, and he can hear nothing, which means she has not yet returned. Gleb shifts the weight on his shoulder, and continues on to his own quarters inside the Palace to wait until she calls for him.
Gleb dumps his opponent on the floor, checking to make sure he remains unconscious. Satisfied, he picks up a box of matches from the table nearby and strikes one to light a candle. He moves to shake the flame out as it spreads down the matchstick, but he finds himself mesmerized by the flickering fire.
It reminds him of the heat he felt today.
He watches as the flame turns the wood to black ash. But as soon as it touches his skin, it splutters and dies.
He didn't even feel a thing. He closes his eyes as the face of the woman he met on the street that afternoon swims to the forefront of his mind. He wonders how different their meeting might have gone if she could see his face. He remembers the feel of her hand in his - he can't recall the warmth anymore, but he does the gentleness. It's a new, but not unpleasant experience.
"Gleb," the deep voice of his mistress intones, tearing into Gleb's musings. Quickly, he blows the candle out and hoists his victim back onto his shoulder.
As he approaches the office, he can see the windows emitting a red glow. He knocks twice, then slowly pushes the old wooden door open.
Red candles line the walls of the room, washing it in flickering yellow light. They look like earthly ones do, but candles from the underworld are different. They give off no heat, and will never burn down, arrested in time like the one who lit them.
His mistress sits behind the desk, boots up on the surface. Her face is at first hidden in shadow, but when she looks up and trains her gaze on him, her eyes are almond-shaped discs of glittering pure black, deep and soulless.
"Where is he?" she demands.
Gleb drops the body onto the table and steps back. His opponent is only just beginning to stir, and when he looks up, Gleb's mistress reaches out and removes the man's mask to expose his true face. On instinct, he moves to cover it, but she catches his wrists, smiling.
The fighter never has a chance to fully recover. Death swoops down and clamps her mouth over his. He quivers as the life is sucked from him in pulses of electricity – first violently, and then feebly until he no longer moves. Until he's nothing but bones.
Gleb watches, impassive.
She withdraws, her eyes now glowing yellow, and tugs at the skull until it comes free from the spine. She kicks the rest of the skeleton aside, and returns to her chair.
"Throne" would probably be the more accurate term, however. The chair is massive – lined by the skulls of Gleb's many victims over the past ten years. She wedges the new skull into a gap along the sides of the chair, inspecting her handiwork to make sure the new piece of decoration has fitted perfectly.
She sits back down, as though nothing has happened. Her attention focuses completely on Gleb now, and he can feel her stare piercing him to the core. He fidgets a little, hoping she can't detect any hint of fire on him.
"Something is different," she pronounces.
He doesn't dare move. Does he smell of smoke? Does he burn, to her? He's never asked, but he doesn't find it likely that Death will approve of life.
"I heard whispers," she continues. "Beats. Pulses. They say life is returning to the Palace."
He stays quiet, trying to shove the memory of the street sweeper from his mind. He's not unconvinced that Death can't read his thoughts.
"Life." She bites out the word with loathing as she taps her fingers on the skulls decorating the arm of the chair. "Ridiculous. I stamped that out years ago." She glances at him. "Your father made sure of that."
Gleb fights to remain unmoved. He can still hear the breaking of bones in his ears…the screams that faded into silence.
That night, his father told him to stay home with his mother. But overly curious, Gleb snuck out.
His father had talked a long time of revolution, of returning to the common man control of the one fighting promotion in Russia. It was unfair, his father often said, that one family alone made the decisions on who was worthy to perform, on who was considered the best in the nation. He turned his nose up at the notion of lucha libre talent being in one's blood – anyone could learn to fight if the need called for it, and show a propensity for the sport. All were equal within that ring.
Gleb, his father proudly pronounced, was the living example of that. And Gleb was proud to be.
And so he watched as his father led the Romanovs into the rundown warehouse across the street that had been converted into a practice arena for the Romanovs' underlings. The last person to enter was a teenage girl with red-gold hair, her head held high.
He ran over, wondering why his father was bringing the Romanovs here. And how he had gotten them to leave their nice, shiny Palace.
Gleb knew the warehouse well, having often gone there from his childhood. At first, it had been his playground, and then it became his training ground. He found the spot in the wall where a hole had been carved out by him specifically for the purpose of eavesdropping, and he pressed his eye against it.
His father's friends were waiting inside, and Gleb's stomach twisted. He wasn't entirely certain what was about to take place, but based on what he had overheard his father say before about what the fate of the Romanovs would be should he find his opportunity, Gleb could only imagine that it would not be pleasant.
A female figure stood among them, all in black, her face concealed by a curtain of black hair.
Gleb heard his father's voice, mixed with that of the Romanov patriarch's. The murmurs of the women and the children buzzed in the background, incomprehensible but clearly frightened.
Gleb began to turn away, but the woman in black looked up and stared him full in the face. Gleb backed up quickly, barely able to stop himself from crying out at the sight of the pure black orbs she had for eyes.
She smiled.
Gleb wanted to escape, to go back home where he should be and pretend he had seen nothing. But it was as if he had been rooted where he stood, making him powerless to run when the beating began. He could only clamp his hands over his ears and shut his eyes.
He lost himself that night. When the sounds of death died down, Gleb Vaganov had become a very different boy.
He made it home just before his father arrived at the door. Hidden in his room, Gleb listened to his mother's horrified whispers to see her husband covered in blood, listened to the tired pronouncement of victory.
A few nights later, his father came home, face ashen, and asked Gleb what he would do for the sake of a new Russia. Trembling and still shaken by what he had seen, Gleb had asked what his father wanted of him. His father simply told Gleb to follow him, and he did.
All the way to a place beyond the grave.
Death watches him with cold eyes. "You are his son. Be proud of what he accomplished." She stands. "Maria Feodorovna thinks the Phoenix will rise again, does she? Then you will do what your father did and kill her hope. No Romanov will come within a yard of my Palace."
Gleb nods with conviction. He will do as she says, and protect the integrity of the Palace. In his father's name.
She inclines her head toward the door. "You're dismissed."
As Gleb walks out, the wheels in his head are starting to turn. He will listen to the fighters at the door now. He will trace the rumors. And he will stamp out any hint of a Romanov revival.
As the Man of a Thousand Deaths takes over, the memory of the fire fades from Gleb Vaganov's mind.