Mikhail Volkov is cursed.

Not by the sickness that ails him, nor by the icy winds that blow on deck from the East Siberian Sea, bone numbing and blood chilling in the early onset of winter. But by her.

At night, when the other sailors have slipped away to the abyss of darkened dreams, she is there. Waiting. With her hair done up in a shimmering mass of golden curls and wearing a dress of pearl encrusted white gossamer.The same dress she wore the night Mikhail killed her.

He'd been a good sailor once, when he was first recruited for the voyage to Alaska. Though it was a mere six months ago, Mikhail has since changed into an entirely different person. After all, six months ago was before he met her.

Yekaterina Protasova was a woman of electric beauty and sugar sweet whispers, who made men fall to their knees with a simple flutter of her ink stained lashes.Though she was a darling of Russian society, and Mikhail an untitled sailor aged a tender nineteen years, at the time, their passion overshadowed any differences they may have had. And for a few short months, it was heaven.

Yekaterina had been enchanted by Mikhail's raven locks, sapphire gaze, and unruly disposition. She said he was wild and murmured confessions of love against his neck as the two shared kisses underneath the sinking summer sun.

"Will you give me your heart?" she would ask.

He always said he would. Anytime. Anywhere. All she had to do was request it.

But then summer ended, Yekaterina was forced into an engagement with another, and Mikhail knew she would never want his broken heart.

Now, he lies in bed as the ship rocks back and forth, back and forth, his skin burning with fever and his head filled with dreams. Dreams of her. Of her melodic laugh. Of her dark, piercing gaze. Of her feather soft touch.

Of her, her, her.

He closes his eyes, but sleep doesn't come. Instead, Yekaterina is there, behind his eyelids, twirling arm in arm with her betrothed beneath the glittering chandeliers of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. He grips his cot's rough covers, willing the visions to stop. However, the fever holds him prisoner in a land between wakefulness and dreams, and the images won't disappear. On the contrary, they grow more vivid, until the lilt of haunting music fills his ears, until the scent of her lavender perfume permeates the space around him, and until his hands grow warm with the sticky blood that coats his skin.

Even then, as she was dying by his hand, she'd said it.

"Will you give me your heart?"

"Yekaterina!" Mikhail calls out, leaping up in his cot.

Next to him, the others grumble and stir, but they are no stranger to Mikhail's fitful dreams, so they pay him no mind. Likewise, he barely registers their presence. For his gaze is focused straight ahead, to where Yekaterina stands in the doorway, her dark eyes appearing almost black against the faded candlelight.

"My darling," she whispers, "you look unwell."

With a trembling hand, he reaches out to her, but she is beyond his grasp, her figure meters from the tips of his fingers. The other sailors claim Mikhail has been driven mad by his sickness, that Yekaterina is nothing more than a mirage conjured from his mind. But it isn't true. How can it be, when he can feel her flushed skin against his own? How can it be, when he can can taste her honey kisses upon his tongue?

No, Yekaterina is as real as the stars, and she will stay with him just as she'd promised. Forever.

"I am only sick with my longing for you," Mikhail responds.

"They say you are dying."

"Dying only of my love for you."

Yekaterina moves then, weaving between the other cots to get closer to him. Though her dress makes no sound as she walks, nor do the jeweled slippers on her feet. When she reaches him, she sticks out her hand, an impish smile playing on the corners of her ruby lips.

"Dance with me, Mikhail."

He is powerless to do anything but comply. Slipping his hand in hers, he gets to his feet and allows her to lead him away from the slumbering bodies of his fellow sailors and onto the ship's deck. Outside the air is cold, frightfully so, but the chill doesn't reach Mikhail's skin. He's too enchanted by the night to pay heed to the freezing December winds. The sky is clear tonight, and he's encompassed by pinpricks of stars, both suspended in the heavens and reflected in the sea, stretching endlessly into the horizon. However, even the stars in all their beauty can never compare to Yekaterina.

She stands before him, golden curls and dark eyes bathed in the glow of the overhanging halfmoon, wearing the smile of sinners.

"Shall we?"

And so they dance. Slowly at first, hand in hand, cheek to cheek, the crash of distant waves breaking through the silence around them. As they dance, Mikhail's bare feet patter across the ship's floor, landing in piles of fallen snow and slipping on patches of ice. Then the sound of the waves disappears, as does the ship, and the scene before his eyes transforms to St. Petersburg in late spring, while the two danced together on the warm, tender grass.

"I missed you," Mikhal says, twirling her underneath his arm.

Yekaterina gives a demure smile, a single gloved hand coming up to rest against his cheek. "I'm always with you."

"Yes, but..." Mikhail is silenced by her kiss, her mouth tasting of strawberries and wine. Her lips are cold, and he shivers against them, though whether it's because of their temperature or because of his desire, he isn't sure.

"This is what we wanted, isn't it?" Yekaterina bends her back over the crook of his arm, lifting herself to the tips of her toes. She stays that way for a moment, gaze trained on starlight, before she lowers herself and pirouettes to face him once more. "This is why I asked you to kill me."

All at once, the streets of St. Petersburg are no more, and Mikhail is yet again returned to the ship as it drifts along the Arctic Sea. Yekaterina is still in his arms, but the look of desire in her eyes has been replaced with resentment. She detaches herself from him and dances away, creating a palpable chill on Mikhail's skin in the space she left behind.

The sea air whips around the pair, displacing Yekaterina's curls and sending them down her back. "Do you regret it?" she asks, her back turned towards the churning waves.

"Never." Mikhail runs to meet her. Yet, when he reaches out to brush his hand against her wrist, his fingers go straight through her skin.

"Don't go," he whispers, grasping at her wrist for a second time. But just as before, his hands catch onto nothing but distant memories. "Please, don't go."

She turns to him, her pale cheeks coated with tears. "You said you would follow me. Be with me forever. But you're still here. You're still alive."

His hand falls to his side. "I'm dying without you."

"Mikhail," she says, leaving the ghost of a caress along his jaw. "Will you give me your heart?"

"You know I will."

"Then give it to me, and let us finally be together. Or I'll leave this instant and never return."

"No, please." Mikhail is gasping for breath now, choking on fear and longing. "I'll give you my heart."

Yekaterina's gaze follows Mikhail as his eyes frantically flit about the ship. He looks this way and that, panicked sobs wracking his body until he spots a group of icicles that hang from the side of the ship. He bounds to them, nearly falling to his knees in his haste. The fever is beginning to take hold of him, making his lids heavy and filling his head with silken fog. But he has to keep going. He can't lose Yekaterina. Not again.

Once he reaches the icicles, he uses the last of his strength to break one off and whirls back to face his love. She returns his desperate madness with a faint smile and floats to where he stands, a mere shadow in the moonlight.

"Together," she says.

Mikhail nods, tears springing to his eyes when at last the heat of her body lands on his skin, warming the chill in his bones. He hasn't lost her yet.

Her hand covers his, and she helps guide the icicle to his chest. Though once the sharp tip pricks his skin, he stops. "I can't," he says. "I'm scared."

The only response Yekaterina gives is a kiss. She pulls him close to her, and he clings to her desperately, digging his fingers into the bare skin of her arms while her hand intertwines in the waves of his hair. In seconds, he's drowning in her touch, his mind flashing back to the many kisses they shared just like this one, underneath the blooming cherry trees. He holds on to those first memories of them together, when their fire and passion outshone duty and decorum. When it didn't matter that she was the daughter of nobility and he, a sailor. When all that mattered was their love.

As the icicle dives deeper into his skin, Mikhail thinks about those first few months together. And then there is no pain. There is no fear. There is just the wetness of his blood as it spills down his chest. He lets out a weak, strangled cough and glances up, only vaguely aware that he has let go of the icicle, and now only Yekaterina plunges it into his chest.

"W-wait," he calls out, his voice naught but a whisper.

Yekaterina doesn't hear him. She continues sawing at his chest, ignoring the splashes of crimson that land on her face as she works.

"Wait!" he says again, louder this time.

Yet still, Yekaterina gives no reaction. Instead, her pretty face is twisted up into a smile, an untamed, frantic storm raging behind her eyes. At last the pain takes hold, and Mikhail screams out, again and again, begging his love to stop, but she never does. Even when the light fades from his eyes. Even when his screams turn to empty gasps of air. Even when his body goes limp, and he no longer has the strength to breathe.

The last image he sees before all goes dark isn't the moments they spent together on the riverbank, nor is it the mischievous twinkle that always shown in her gaze.

But her hand, reaching into the hole she sawed in his chest, as she yanks out his still beating heart.

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