Chapter Text
St. Petersburg, Russia | 1907
“Mama, why can I not come with you?” the young Duchess pleaded, bouncing up and down on her bed in contempt. The elegant music lilting into her bedroom from the ongoing ball did nothing to calm her nerves. How could her mother be leaving her?
“Be still, my love,” her mother whispered soothingly. “Everything is going to be alright.”
“But Mama-”
“Hush now, Alexandreya,” the Tsarina interrupted, her tone a stern but gentle one. “I am simply leaving on a diplomatic mission. This is not the first, and will certainly not be the last. Someone has to go maintain peace with the French, now don’t they?”
“I suppose so,” the seven year-old girl resigned, her chin tilting further towards the floor.
“I do have one last thing for you before I leave,” Leia said with a sly smile.
“Really?” Alexandreya piped up.
“I was going to wait until Christmas to give it to you,” she said, pulling a square, pink box topped with a white satin ribbon from beneath her winter cloak. “But I thought you might like it more now.”
The young girl took the somewhat heavy box with two hands, carefully placing it on her lap. She couldn’t resist tearing off the bow, excitement at her gift coursing through her veins.
“Alexandreya,” her mother chided lightly. “That wasn’t very lady-like.”
“Sorry, Mama,” she replied, lifting off the lid. Her small hands reached inside the box and felt something hard and cold. The sides were slightly rounded with intricate details, making it difficult for her tiny fingers to grasp. After a brief moment of struggle, she got a hold of the object, lifting it from the box.
It was another box, but this one was different. It was shaped like an onion dome that had had its top flattened, but it was made of gold with blue enamel and pearls decorating it. It was the most beautiful box she’d ever seen, and the top of it had been initaled with an “R”, for her name, Alexandreya presumed. Not her full one, her nickname. Even more special.
“Do you know what that is?” her mother asked, smiling at the glee on her daughter’s face.
“A pretty box?”
“Not just any pretty box. May I?” Alexandreya delicately placed the box in Leia’s open palms. “It’s actually… a music box.”
The Tsarina twisted the dainty handle on the box’s underside before lifting the lid. Inside were a prince and a princess, standing on the bridge that had been built for her grandfather in Paris. What came out next was the most wonderful sound either of them had ever heard, the melody of their favorite song. Their song.
“Dancing bears,” Leia began.
“Painted wings,” her beaming daughter continued.
“Things I almost remember,” they joined together. “And a song someone sings, once upon a December.”
Leia closed the box and placed it on the bed just in time for the little girl to bear hug her, slamming into her chest with a soft “umph”.
“I love it, Mama!”
“And I love you, my Reya,” she replied, stroking her silky brown hair. "One day, we'll be in Paris together."
After a few moments, she suddenly jolted up. “Papa!” she exclaimed, noticing Han’s entrance before Leia had.
Alexandreya clamored out of the bed to run over to her father, who swooped down and picked her up with a playful growl in one move.
“Han,” Leia lightly admonished him, shaking her head as she stood. “I was just about to put her to bed.”
“Bedtime already?” her father asked incredulously.
“No, I was just about to go to the ball!” she claimed, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“Well of course,” he responded, nodding his head towards the door at Leia, so she could exit without causing too much of a fuss. The Tsarina pressed a quick peck to the Princess’ head and the Tsar’s lips before leaving the room without another word. Han placed his daughter back on her feet before bowing and extending her a hand. “Grand Duchess Alexandreya Solonov, may I have this dance?”
“Yes, you may.”
The Winter Ball | November, 1917
Alexandreya curtsied to her father and accepted his outstretched hand. He pulled her in to dance as she and her mother’s special song sounded through the grand ballroom. It had become tradition for the orchestra to play the youngest Princess’ special song when the Tsarina was absent. This time was even more special. When their mother was away, the four princesses each got a turn to assume her role at a ball. It went in order by age, beginning with Olga, next was Tatiana, then Maria, and finally Alexandreya. Tonight was her turn. She got to do the “Tsar’s Dance” with her father, where they were the only ones on the floor.
As her father spun her round and round to the song, she spotted the rest of her family standing off to the side. Her sisters, her younger brother, Alexei, and her uncle, Prince Luke, who had returned to St. Petersburg after the school where he taught philosophy was attacked. She wished her mother were there with them, watching her dance. But with their song filling her ears and the eyes of the Court upon her, Alexandreya felt as if she were honoring her.
“Have I told you how proud I am of you?” Han asked his daughter, lifting her up into the air for a spin.
“Only twice a day since I was born, Papa,” she responded, smiling. Every girl her age yearned for the approval of their fathers, and she’d never been let down by her own. At the prime age of 17, every other girl of her status was being pressured into marriage, but not she and her sisters. Their father only wanted them to be happy, nothing else.
“And your mother certainly feels the same,” he told her. The flush of warmth the compliment sent to her cheeks seem to make its way down to a spot just below her collarbone. There sat a necklace engraved with the letter “R” on the back, and the words, “Together in Paris” on the front. She hadn’t taken it off since her mother had gifted it to her. “But she’s our best diplomat, and she knows how to get whatever she wants from people. Just like someone else I know.”
Alexandreya giggled, she’d always been the type to charm her way into anything, which had admittedly been a more of an inherited behavior of her father’s, as his looks in his even younger days had often led him to the reputation of a scoundrel. With the stress of Alexei’s hemophilia and the Great War, he had become more mellow, but beneath the surface, he was still the same man.
The song ended, and they each bowed to one another. The ballroom erupted into applause for the orchestra, and the Tsar with his lovely daughter. They were then joined by the rest of the family, who held champagne glasses just like everyone else in the room. Alexei handed the youngest sister and their father the two glasses he’d been carrying, before clinging to Alexandreya, barely able to wrap his arms around her waist due to the barrier that the hoop skirt of her dress formed.
“You looked so pretty, Reya,” he told her. They'd all had nicknames as children, and while her other sisters had insisted on being called their full names as they'd grown older, she'd always loved her nickname too much to get rid of it. Even if her parents and brother were the only people to still use it.
“Thank you, Your Young Majesty,” she joked, wrapping her free arm around him and kissing the top of his head.
The Tsar loudly cleared his voice, and a sudden silence fell over the room. “Ladies and gentlemen of the Court, friends, family, as you all know, I’m not one for personal speeches, that is much more my beloved wife,” he teased, eliciting laughter from their royal audience. “However, the Tsarina could not be in attendance for tonight’s Winter Ball, so I felt as if it were only proper to give tonight’s toast in her honor. So, let us raise a glass,” he continued. “To my wife, working tirelessly as a diplomat to our allies in this tumultuous time. To my three oldest daughters, helping everything run smoothly behind the scenes. To my youngest, Alexandreya, who has turned into the beautiful, strong, caring young woman we always knew she would be. To Alexei, may he be the strongest Tsar this empire has ever known. To our soldiers, fighting on the front lines. To the end of this Great War. And to the Russian Empire, may God maintain it for centuries to come.”
The rest of the crowd echoed back a salute, before raising their glasses to their mouths.
The first drop of bubbly liquid had barely hit Alexandreya’s tongue before the grand door to the ballroom burst open. Within seconds, someone screamed, “Bolsheviks!”.
Olga gasped, dropping her glass. The shattering of the glass seemed to break the Tsar out of his state of shock. He turned to his family and immediately began herding them away. Alexandreya picked up her younger brother, who at 14 was probably too old to be carrying, but his smaller size made it easier, and with his disease, she couldn’t risk him getting hurt. Her father tried to usher them away as quickly as possible, but it was too late. Men in plain clothes with rifles, Bolshevik soldiers, rushed to their sides and began pulling them towards an exit as the ballroom filled with chaos.
“This way!” one of the guards barked, leading them through the palace corridors.
“Where are you taking us?” her father demanded, still holding tight to his two oldest daughters.
“Silence!” another barked.
Alexandreya panicked, they couldn’t take them away, they hadn’t even packed their things yet. She couldn’t leave. Not without her mother’s music box. She kissed Alexei on the head and handed him off to her Uncle Luke without a word. She ran, splitting off from the group as she darted in the direction of her bedroom.
The guards began yelling, her sisters screamed, and then they fired.
Paris, France | November, 1917
Leia paced the study of her Parisian flat. Two weeks ago she’d been notified that Bolshevik soldiers had invaded the Royal Palace during the Winter Ball and it was too dangerous for her to return to Russia. Ever since it had been silent. Not a word about her husband, her brother, or her children.
They were all she’d thought about in the meantime. It no longer mattered that she was the Tsarina, Empress of All Russias. The Bolsheviks could keep Russia for all she cared. Her family was all that mattered.
The door to the study suddenly flew open in unusual fashion. Typically, her diplomatic aide, Countess Rose Tikonova, was far more polite when entering a room. In her hand, she held a white envelope with a bright red wax seal.
“Your Majesty,” she said, slightly out of breath from the running Leia assumed she had been doing. “A letter… from home”.
The Tsarina had to restrain herself from snatching it away. All she wanted to know was that her family was safe. Rose handed her the letter and she immediately went to the desk to cut it open.
“Would you like me to leave, Your…” the Countess trailed off, as Leia unfolded the paper.
It wasn’t in Han’s handwriting, or Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Alexandreya, Alexei, Luke. It wasn’t even handwritten. She scanned the page until she saw the only words that mattered. Solonov family… dead… execution… shot… Bolsheviks.
She dropped the reading glass she’d been using. It shattered the moment the glass hit the floor, and her heart with it.
“All of them?” she choked out, moving the paper away from her face as her hands shook violently. Rose rushed to her side, catching her just in time as her knees gave out. “All of them?”