Alexander’s hands shook. The huge golden statues within the sacred chamber towered over him, casting down stoic, stony gazes. He sat cross-legged before the host, and breathed heavily. He could’ve sworn he heard Mikhail open the door ten, twenty, thirty times, but each time, he craned his neck over his shoulder and saw nothing. After a while he couldn’t shake the feeling that an ugly insect of ghost was hovering just behind his back, and he began to look behind himself compulsively.

“I’m sorry it has been so long since your last practice, Sasha,” Mikhail said, appearing in front of him after he glanced over his shoulder for the last time. “I’ve been . . . preoccupied.”

“It’s okay master,” he said. Alexander wished he could say more, for now was one of the times where he felt deep respect for Mikhail instead of frustration, but he didn’t know how to articulate anything else that he wished to say.

“This time, I will begin the chant, but you will end it without me.”

“Yes Master.”

Alexander got on his knees and kissed the floor. He could smell the odor of bare feet ingrained on the carpet. Mikhail did the same, kneeling down beside him and kissing the floor. A deep, throbbing note filled the air. Alexander thought of it in his mind’s eye as a deep swampy green. Then, another layered over it, this one a light and misty blue, and then a third note, just a dash darker, and fourth, darker still, until the notes were pure and flat black, and they climbed again. He caught the melody, and repeated it.

The deep chants echoed in the chamber, clashing in mid air. Some wrestled as they met, and others passed by like ghosts in the woods, drifting silently on their own. The polyphony built and built, and Alexander chanted deeper, and higher, and lower, and fuller, and the world shrunk to the size of the palace, then to the size of his body, and his eyes burst open and he shook his head violently and shut his mouth. The echo of the tones slowly faded away, and by the time they did, Mikhail had clothed Alexander in a blanket.

“I was not able to do it,” Alexander said.

“It’s okay Sasha.” Mikhail helped him to his feet, and as Alexander had done many times before for him, Mikhail supported him. “I’ve been having trouble, too.”

Alexander looked into his Master’s eyes. Mikhail had always been old – he was an old soul – but never before did his eyes look so profoundly ancient to Alexander. His thin eyebrows, his drooping eyelids, the sleepless red-blue bags beneath his irises.

“Nine days,” Alexander said. “They are nine days from here, the invading forces.”

Mikhail sighed. “I know.”

“. . . Master?”

“Yes Sasha?”

“Why did you choose the priesthood?”

“Sasha, that is not a question you should be asking.”

“Do you believe their junk? Will this do anything?”

Mikhail could taste the sour wine on his lips, visualize the Czarina-to-be sitting in a chair chatting with the Czar, pulling strings.

“Sasha . . .” his voice betrayed him. He wanted to show his heart to his pupil, to let him know that with each passing day he saw less and less in his incantations, that soon he would be seeing nothing, that he was worried, that the church weighed heavy on his heart, that he sincerely questioned if his life in service was worth anything at all. But he said none of this to Alexander. Instead, he took a deep breath, and said “Sasha, you must believe. That is our one job.”

They plopped down in the reading room. There were no pastries for Alexander, but there was a fire. Poorly made – no teepee – but a fire, nonetheless.

“Master,” Alexander said, gazing deep into the heart of the fire, “I think I should join the army. I’d be of more use there.”

Mikhail bowed, and shuffled his way out of the room. “That is your choice to decide, my Sasha.”