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AUTHOR'S NOTE: The Shadow And Bone/Grishaverse fic was begging to be written. But no, Anastasia will not be the Sun Summoner. For clarity's sake in the fic, the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna will be called Mariya. And then the grandmother Maria Feodorovna will be referred to just as the Dowager.
Order of Grisha magic terms - Etherealki (Order of Grisha who control natural elements); Inferni (fire magic); Sun Summoner (light); Shadow Summoner (darkness); Nichevo'ya (shadow monsters); Durast (metal bending); Heartrender (manipulate hearts, all organs, and emotions); Tailor (shapeshifter of themselves and others); Squaller (air and wind); Tidemaker (water); Otkazat'sya (muggle with no magic).
This is based primarily on the Anastasia musical's original cast with Christy Altomare, Derek Klena, Ramin Karimloo, and so on. There will be influences of the 1997 film. And Rasputin is included, but based on the real historical person, not the animated version.
I do not consent for my writing to be used to train AI. Do not feed this into AI to summarize a review. I acknowledge I don't own the copyright to Anastasia or Shadow And Bone. But except the line "Princesses don't marry kitchen boys" from the 1997 film, every word in this fanwork was written by myself, without AI.
When the Grand Duchess of Ravka is ten, Anastasia discovers she is Grisha.
She is in the nursery of the Little Palace with Mariya. Their older sisters Olga and Tatiana have moved into their own rooms. But their younger brother's bed is empty.
"Where is Alexei? He should be here," Mariya wonders, adjusting her hair at her vanity mirror. She is a Tailor, a Grisha who can manipulate the human body. The third youngest Ravkan Grand Duchess uses her magic to improve her looks. Though Mariya doesn't need it, already the most beautiful of the OTMA sisters.
Anastasia lifts her silk pillow, to sneak a hidden sweet from her chocolate box. But the box is gone. "Did you steal my chocolate? I was hiding it from Mama."
Mariya quickly thumbs something from the corner of her mouth. "What chocolate?"
The nursery suddenly darkens. Grigori Rasputin strides in without bowing to the Grand Duchesses. Only the Shadow Summoner gets away with giving no reverence; anyone else would be exiled from the Little Palace. A black cloud follows the faith healer as if it is part of him. The children insist he has his own Nichevo'ya made of night itself. But their mother doesn't believe a holy priest would have accursed shadow monsters.
"There you are, girlies." The very sight of Rasputin makes Anastasia shiver. He is supposed to address them as Your Imperial Highness. "Let us say your nightly prayers to the saints."
"Shouldn't we wait for Mama and Alexei?" Mariya says, nervous.
Anastasia watches him like a hawk. "She is right."
The old man's piercing eyes are obsessive. "No need. It is a private prayer between us three and God. Mariya, come and kneel with me."
Rasputin's dirty fingers reach for Mariya's long hair, and she Tailors her hair to shorten in fear. Even her tresses recoil from the grime under his clawed nails.
"No, thank you." The older Grand Duchess' voice is faint.
"What is the harm?"
"She said no, Father Grigori," Anastasia says boldly, going to her sister's side.
"Do not deny your Friend, Mariya!" Rasputin's fists clench, and a dark, snarling figure made of smoke rises behind him. It is Nichevo'ya, the creature of nightmare.
Suddenly flames form in Anastasia's hands. Even the imposing Mad Monk backs away, releasing Mariya.
"Grigori!"
The fire in Anastasia's palms disappears, and the Nichevo'ya vanishes. With a gust of wind, Alexandra rushes in. Their mother, Tsarina of Ravka, is a Squaller commanding air and wind. "The Tsarevich, the Sun Summoner fell down the stairs!" Alexandra shrieks. "Come quickly!"
The Shadow Summoner and Tsarina hurry. As light returns to the nursery, Anastasia and Mariya are left alone.
"Well, Anastasia, it appears you are Grisha after all," Mariya says in the silence that follows. "I wondered when your power would show. An Inferni with fire magic, Etherealki like Father and Mother." She squeezes her sister's hand. "Thank you."
"I think I shall singe the hem of Olga's dress." Anastasia smirks. "Just a bit. Seeing her face would make dull banquets entertaining."
At the Ipatiev House, the Romanov family shivers.
Anastasia tries to keep her family warm with her flames. Alexei sleeps in the only bedroom with a fireplace, which she always keeps lit. Her brother is the Sun Summoner, but his golden light dims with each passing day. She boils water that their Tidemaker father Nicholas conjures for tea. Meanwhile, Mariya and Olga try to calm their mother's nerves frayed to tatters. Tatiana attempts to Heal and mend Alexei. But the pain never ceases even with Tatiana's magic. The days drag on. No one knows what will happen next.
Sometimes from the windows, she notices another boy in the cottage across the street. He is the son of Stepan Vaganov, one of the Bolshevik guards. The boy has dark hair and patched clothes, and their shack is old, cheap, run down. But the peasant boy holds his head high.
Once Anastasia sees Stepan go to the cottage, and the raven-haired youth greets him. She dimly hears Stepan say, "Gleb, my boy! Honor work!"
The lad salutes. "Honor work, Papulya!" The boy's name is Gleb, then.
One night, the royal family is forced into a basement by Stepan and the other guards. Nicholas carries the weak Alexei. Just when Anastasia is about to follow down the stairs, the kitchen boy opens the wall. She realizes she doesn't know his name. He had joined them from the Palace, and now he holds open a hidden door in the Ipatiev House.
"Follow me!"
When the girl comes to, she finds herself in the cold. She is so tired that she doesn't open her eyes. A sharp pain in her head stabs her like knives, and hot blood runs down her face. The ground is freezing, and she might be lying in snow. Someone picks her up, and a soothing voice says something. She falls asleep again.
The Keramzin hospital can't keep her forever. The girl is terrified as the nurse takes her to the door. There is a fresh bandage on the teenager's head, to stop her jagged wound from bleeding. "I don't know where to go, what to do! I don't even know my name!"
The nurse embraces her like a mother. "Then I will call you Anya."
Baptized, the girl leaves the hospital as snow falls. The only things she owns are a new name, diamonds in her pocket, and the borrowed clothes on her back. There's nothing else to do but walk across the frozen tundra.
The only thing that keeps her alive is her fire. She doesn't know how or why she can call flames in her hands. But she can. She steals food on the road, and slogs on through snowdrifts until she reaches a metropolis. The sign reads Os Alta. The city looks distantly familiar.
She calls fire from her numb fingers, into the shape of a double-headed eagle. The odd sight comforts her.
One day, the Premier President himself arrives at the Little Palace's abandoned ruins.
After so many years, Anya knows she is Inferni. A horrified fellow street sweeper once explained how dangerous it was to be Grisha. And then he made her swear never to reveal her Small Science. The word magic is forbidden under the new regime in Ravka. Broom in her grip, Anya joins the throng in the square to hear the speech. Lenin had looked small and short in newspaper clippings she'd seen; but the new president is imposing and powerful, built like a bear. Stalin's cruel dark eyes look down on the crowd below.
"There is no place for Grisha in the new Ravka!" Stalin thunders. "There is no First Army and Second Army, there is only Revolution! Grisha and the Imperialists no longer have power over us! Witches and warlocks with the Small Sciences are to be forced out! Or sent to the salt mines! And Ravka will be free!"
The crowd applauds. Anya closes her hands into a ball, willing her palms to stay cold and not reveal she is Etherealki. As his voice booms, Anya's heart pounds, and then it aches just when Stalin raises a fist. Around her, other peasants look faint, and some clutch their chests in pain. An old man collapses on the paving stones as the president rages against magic.
"Saints above," Anya breathes as she realizes the truth. Stalin is secretly a Heartrender, the girl thinks.
Stalin leaves in his private train to the crowd's cheers. Trying to slow her heart, Anya weaves through the mass of people into a quiet alley as Soviet officers patrol by. But then she hears what sounds like a gunshot.
"Are you alright, Comrade?"
Only then does Anya realize she's huddled on the cobblestones, holding the crown of her head. Whirling, she raises her hands and conjures flame in a knee-jerk reaction. "No, please!"
A man, standing over her, wears a uniform. But he looks shocked, not cruel. "Are you… Are you Grisha?"
She tries to force her shaking hands to withdraw the fire. But orange still licks at the air. "No, I… It is not what you think…"
"I'm not going to hurt you," he says instead of arresting her. He is clearly Otkazat'sya, without magic. The man is as Communist as they come, with a strong worker's build and sloping shoulders. But his rough, scarred hands don't harm her.
Then he actually helps her to her feet as she trembles. "Don't tell anyone you have the Small Science," Gleb warns, hand going to her elbow.
"Magic."
"Not so loud!" he whispers. "You never know who is listening! The Small Sciences are dangerous in the New Order! It could get you sent to the Hellgate Gulag!"
Anya pulls her arm away. "I know the risks!"
"You need to lay low. Stay out of sight," he says. She didn't know soldiers were capable of being worried for other people.
Her blue eyes meet his gray gaze. "What does my life matter to an officer?"
Gleb doesn't answer for a moment. "If they killed the Tsarevich, the Sun Summoner. Then the Ravkan State can kill anyone."
Anya thinks again of a boy with light beaming from his face. She runs from the KGB officer. "Comrade Anya, wait!"
She asks everyone she knows about exit papers.
The deputy commissioner could've been feigning kindness. He very well might have an arrest warrant, to burn her at the stake for being a witch. And so she goes to the ruins of the Little Palace, to the one man who might be able to free her.
"Are you Dmitry Sudayev?"
The young man gives her a guarded look, flat cap pulled low. He is barely more than a street urchin, youthful under the dirt on his face. The same age as her. His brown eyes are wary, but not threatening. "Who wants to know?"
"I need a travel visa to Ketterdam. They call you the Conductor, that you take G– Refugees across the Ravkan border."
"Follow me," Dmitry says. "I'll be back soon, Vlad."
"Come again, my dear," Vlad says, kinder than his friend.
Dmitry and Anya head out into the snow. The wind bites at their skin, and she forces herself not to call up fire. She doesn't know if she can trust the young man beside her.
"Here," Dmitry says, taking off his brown coat and putting it on her shoulders.
"Thanks. I didn't take you for the chivalrous type."
"Not usually, no." They arrive at what looks like an abandoned factory. "I know a Fabrikator. He's an artist who forges papers."
"Why do you talk so openly about Grisha?" Anya tries the door, but the heavy chain across it holds firm. "How do we get in?"
"Allow me." With a smug look, Dmitry takes the padlock in both hands. Then the tumblers open, and the rusty metal creaks. "I'm a Durast, and proud of it. I smuggle out Grisha, because I know how hard it is to live in the Ravkan State with magic."
Once they have false papers created by the Fabrikator, Dmitry and Anya go back to the theatre at the Little Palace. Vlad is smoking a cheap cigarette outside.
"If Dima can manipulate metal, what order of Grisha are you?" she asks Vlad.
Vlad smiles and turns his hair blond. "Your Highness, I am a Tailor. Useful when impersonating aristocrats in your father's court."
Dmitry follows her when she starts to leave. "Wait, before you go. Have you ever considered that you might be royalty?"
She divides her time between learning a new life at the Little Palace, and strolling with Gleb. The street sweeper and the officer go to tea, ballet, motion pictures. She wants to believe she is Anastasia, that she has a grandmother waiting for her with open arms. And then one day, Gleb kneels in the tea shop and holds out a ring.
"I'm sorry, Glebsha. But my answer is no." Anya kisses his cheek, and leaves the café.
As she walks alone, Anastasia thinks of the soldier who loves her. She would have to hide she is royal and Grisha for the rest of her days. And she always has a fear in the back of her mind, that one day Gleb will turn her in to the KGB. How can she wed a man who might kill her? Defiantly, she makes a ball of fire in her hands.
And so Anya strides into the theatre and marches to Dmitry. "How soon can we escape Ravka?"
Vlad leaves to find visas, while Anya and Dmitry go ahead to the train station. And then they hear a wolf whistle.
Waiting for them are a gang of four drunks. The men are rough and coarse, even by peasant standards, and they reek of vodka. The ringleader openly leers at her. "What a comely, tight ass, sweetheart!"
"Leave her alone!" Dmitry warns, taking her arm protectively. Anya moves closer to him, her hand going to his back. Dima might set her teeth on edge, but at least she knows he won't hurt her.
One thug forces Anya and Dmitry apart. And then the gang leader towers over her, hunger in his beady eyes, but it is not for bread. "If you don't want her, then I'll take her!"
"Stop!" Dmitry shouts, but he's restrained by the other three.
"Don't touch me!" Anya attempts to flee, but the leader stops her harshly. He grabs her jaw, dirty fingernails digging into her skin, and tries to kiss her.
In a basement, she screams as soldiers search her for jewels. Their cruel hands run over her body, tearing pearls and sapphires and rubies from her corset.
Anya throws flames into the man's face.
"She's a witch!" one thug yells as the leader screams in agony. The rest of the gang scatters, and Anya knees her assailant in the groin. Burning alive, the man dives into the river as Dmitry, wheezing, gets up.
"Are you alright, Anya?"
They see the man, disfigured by burns, climbing out the river. "Mostly," she says as the groaning thug limps away.
"From one secret Grisha to another, I won't tell anyone you are Inferni," Dmitry says.
Only then does she trust Dima enough to hold out the diamond to him. "Will this be enough for our fare?"
Vlad arrives in the nick of time with documents. As they hurtle across the train tracks, Dmitry proves his annoying self. She rolls her eyes when he comments on every single passenger. "Look, that man wears real fur. Wonder if it is from Morozova's White Stag. Who do you think he had to bribe to get it?"
A gunshot rings out.
She throws her arms around Dmitry. "I'll investigate," Vlad says, and heads down the train car.
Dmitry's arms are strong and secure around her. "I will get us across the border, I promise. I'm the Conductor, aren't I?"
They ride buses and horse-drawn coaches, sail on passenger ships. Yet most of the time, the trio walks. When they arrive in the land of Kerch, Anya hasn't been this tired since she left the hospital. They sleep in the forest, and she easily makes roaring campfires.
Anya stops in the middle of the bridge when they see the canal port, Ketterdam. "What if the Dowager Empress doesn't recognize me? What if I don't have a family after all?"
"She will recognize you," Dmitry promises.
Vlad takes her hand. "If not, we will be a family of misfits. If you will have us."
With a watery laugh, she presses Vlad's hand. "Of course."
Dmitry nudges her with his shoulder. "We're almost to Ketterdam."
They use one more precious jewel to pay for a new wardrobe and a hotel. She thinks she nearly remembers girls in white, and a boy in a sailor suit. Brushing back his graying hair, Vlad straightens the lapels of his new green jacket. "Should my hair be brown or blond for Lily?"
Anya fixes his bowtie. "You don't need to Tailor yourself. Lily should love you just as you are."
Hours later at the hotel, Dmitry wakes the screaming Anya from a nightmare.
"I do not pray to Saints," he says. "But I pray you are the princess I saw, when I worked at the Winter Palace. On my first day in the kitchens, the Imperial Family returned from a parade."
"I… I remember a boy who bowed," she replies. "And in the Ipatiev House, that boy opened a door in the wall. It was you," she breathes. And then she impulsively kisses him. She is tired of being isolated and alone.
They fall together, and he supports his weight with his elbows so he doesn't crush her. Her legs wrap around his hips. As his mouth meets her skin, she nearly sets the ceiling on fire with the blaze that she conjures. And when he grips the iron headboard over her head, the Durast bends the metal without thinking.
She is used to be lonely. But tonight her world is only Dmitry.
Lily believes her when Anya summons fire. But even with magic, convincing the Dowager Empress will not be easy.
Anya walks into the private opera box. The white-haired woman is seated in the velvet chair, spine ramrod straight. The Dowager doesn't turn. She is just as regal as if she was still Tsarina of Ravka. Anya's hands shake, palms sweating under the opera gloves. She prays that this is her grandmother. She wants to run into the Dowager's arms, home and safe after all she has endured. It will be worth it when her grandmother accepts her. It has to be.
"Your Imperial Majesty," Lily begins, "this is Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova–"
"Enough!" The Dowager Empress holds up a firm hand. "I will not let an actress take advantage of my grief!"
"I would never! Please!" Anya begs. "I am no actress! I've waited so long to find you–"
The aging woman never turns. "You're just like all the others! A con artist hussy swindling an old woman for profit! Now leave my presence!"
Weeping, Anya runs out the door.
The Dowager Empress coming to the hotel is the last thing Anya expects.
She is packing with a fury, throwing clothes into her suitcase. And then she turns and curtsies. "Your Imperial Majesty." She wishes she could say Nana, but the Dowager Empress doesn't want to hear it.
The elder sends a fountain of water from her hand, filling a nearby vase of roses. "All of the Romanovs had magic. It cannot be faked."
"I remember you are a Tidemaker," Anya says. "Like Papulya."
The Dowager Empress gives her a steely look. "My Anastasia was an Inferni. Are you? So many imposters used tricks to try to be Grisha. That Otkazat'sya girl from Cleveland set her dress ablaze with a hidden lighter, and–"
Anya holds a ball of flames in her palm. It turns into the shape of a firebird with two heads. The eagle soars, burning wings beating the air.
The old woman's eyes widen. "The Mad Monk said Anastasia was the firebird, destined to rise from the ashes," she breathes. "I didn't believe Rasputin then, but now…"
Anya waves her hand, and the blaze disappears. Playing her last card, she takes the music box from the table. "Here."
"Where did you get this?" the Dowager Empress demands, cold mask returning.
"You commissioned Fabergé, the Court Durast, to make it for me. Only he could create such a piece. No other Fabrikator could." Anya opens the lid, and she sings as the melody plays. "Far away, long ago, glowing dim as an ember…"
"Things my heart used to know," the Empress sings softly.
"Things it yearns to remember," Anya answers. "And a song someone sings…"
"Once upon a December," they finish together.
"I have no desire to be a Grand Duchess. I didn't come here for a fortune, castles, or diamonds." Tears well in the young woman's blue eyes. "I just want to be with my Nana, who smelled of orange blossoms."
A sob is torn from the Empress' throat. "You came back to me! Oh, my Anastasia!"
Tears spill down the girl's cheeks as her grandmother embraces her. And at last Anastasia is home.
A few days later, Anya – no, she is Anastasia now – adjusts her crown.
It feels odd to wear a tiara after so many years in rags. Anastasia studies her appearance in a mirror. The diamonds are brilliant, but the coronet gives her a headache, and the gold digs painfully into her scalp. The gown is quite grand, but she misses the warmth of her old wool coat.
Nana had found a discreet doctor to treat her amnesia. Anastasia has a few more memories coming back, but not even a Healer or the best physicians in Ketterdam can fix her. The Bolshevik soldiers' blow to her head can't be undone. She adjusts her coiffure updo, swept an hour before into an elaborate bun by Lily. Anastasia parts her ginger hair to look at the long scar on her head.
And then, in the mirror, she sees Gleb.
She whirls. "Glebsha, what are you doing here?" She thinks of the ring he tried to give her.
She's rarely seen him out of uniform. There's no denying he looks good in a steel-grey civilian suit that brings out his eyes. But he is disapproving. "I'm taking you home to Ravka."
"My home is in Ketterdam."
"I know what's best for you, Anya." His tone is firm, as if she's an infant needing to be scolded by a parent.
"Don't treat me like a child, Gleb. And my name is Anastasia."
"No, you are Anya, the good Communist girl used by con artists. Those street rats confused you with fairytales."
"I have a mind of my own!" she declares. "I came of my own free will! Do you ever stop to think I can make decisions?"
"Enough of this! Come, Anya!" he orders.
She stands her ground. "No!"
He stares, anger and pain in his intense grey gaze. Then he aims a pistol at her.
Her heart leaps to her throat, but she doesn't move away. "The State sent me to execute Anastasia," he declares. Tears form in his eyes. "If you are the Grand Duchess, I have orders to shoot you. Finish what my father began."
Then his hand trembles as he grips the gun. "Tell me you are not Anastasia." His voice breaks. "Anyone but Anastasia. Please."
She lifts her chin. "I am Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova! Grand Duchess of Ravka, daughter of Nicholas The Second! I know who I am!"
He steps forward, and puts the cold muzzle of the gun over her heart. The metal digs into her skin. "And when you murder me, I will see my family again!" she says, throat closing up.
The tension is so thick that it could be cut with a knife. For the first time, she sees one tear slide down his face. She's never seen him cry before, not really. Soldiers aren't allowed to have emotions.
And then he lowers the gun, and falls to his knees. When he clicks the safety, she knows he is disobeying everything he believes in. And it's for her. She strokes his raven hair. She won't kiss him again, not after everything, but Anastasia doesn't want him to suffer.
"I will tell them I found an actress." His voice is hoarse. "Do what I can to protect you. Keep the Kremlin from sending someone else to…"
They both know what he doesn't say aloud. Another soldier would poison her with novichok, dump her in a river, or simply shoot her. "Thank you," she says softly.
He catches her hand and presses it to his cheek. He still kneels on the floor, like the day he proposed. It feels like centuries ago. "If things were different, could we have-?"
"Goodbye, Glebsha." This time, she doesn't kiss his cheek. She pulls her hand away, and he tries to hold onto her fingers for a moment. But he lets her go, and she walks away for the last time.
Anastasia goes to the Alexander Bridge and summons an inferno in the air.
It is the most intense blaze she has ever called forth, even more than the day her sister broke the music box. Anastasia creates a pillar of flames that is metamorphosed into a firebird. The eagle's two heads reach to the sky, great wings spanning her grandfather's bridge. Ketterdam has no laws against Grisha. But even if they did, she no longer cares. She is tired of hiding and scraping and fighting. She isn't a Grand Duchess, not any longer, but she is Anastasia at last.
"I thought those flames looked familiar."
She cools her hands, and sees Dmitry. He is in his old brown coat again, and a suitcase is at his side.
"Are you leaving?"
"I'm going back to Ravka," he explains. "Princesses don't marry kitchen boys."
"Princesses choose who they love. I choose you, Dmitry." She takes his suitcase, and she stands on it so he can't leave. Anastasia removes her crown, and then she kisses him.
No one decides the trajectory of her life. Not the royal court, Bolsheviks, Gleb, or anyone else. Now it only Anastasia.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I couldn't help but include "Princesses don't marry kitchen boys." I was honestly disappointed that the kitchen boy storyline wasn't in the musical.