Morning after the miracle smelled of bread - hot, heavy, as if the ovens had not slept through the night.
In the prince's kitchen, the hearths were stoked long before dawn. Women worked the dough with bare arms dusted to the elbows, steam rising into the rafters and settling there like winter mist. One of the younger girls hummed a psalm under her breath, but the words tangled themselves:
"Lord, have mercy" slipped into "our daily bread."
Old Larysa Kornylivna, the keeper of the prince's household - who had once served Princess Ingigerd as a childand held all of Yaroslav's sons in her arms - pulled the first loaves from the fire.
She stopped.
Crossed the bread. Turned toward the women, and their heads lifted at once.
"No fasting today, " she said. "The prince lives. Bake the white loaves. With honey."
The crack of burning wood grew sharper. A girl flew to the chest for the white flour;the elder baker crossed herself and took the honey with both hands, as if afraid to drop it. The others followed without waiting to be told.
Larysa slid the next loaf into the oven. Steam rose higher; the sweetness thickened in the air. If the oven worked, the house was alive.
At the stairs, the prince's guards no longer held their spearsbraced against the threshold as they had all week, but slightly aside. The danger was past. Today the task was not to bar the way - but to let people through.
They did.
The door to the inner hall closed tight behind the servant, yet the scent of warm bread still slipped inside with him. He carried the tray carefully, sideways, as men walk into places where they have no right to lift their eyes.
Knives, seals, and parchments already lay across the long table. Every seat was filled. The silence was so dense the tremor of the tray in his hands was audible.
He set the bread before the empty princely chair - precisely, by custom - and stepped back without turning.
Only after he left did the weight in the room shift.
This was not the hall where foreign envoys were welcomed. This was the inner gridnytsia, the chamber inside the prince's own keep. The ceiling pressed low, as if the men who gathered here required no air - only will.
Four oak pillars, blackened since the days of Yaroslav, carried the years on their backs. In their cracks lived the shadows of old arguments. Benches lined the walls, covered in bearskins worn smoothby winters and decisions.
In the center stood the long table, its legs driven into the floorso wood would not tremble when debate turned into command.
Beneath the icons stood the princely chair - heavy, carved with wolves on its arms. Empty. The cloak rested perfectly across it, and the emptiness felt deeper than the carving.
To the right lay the prince's sword - hilt turned toward the chair, blade toward the hall. To the left, the Cross. Even the servants knew what that meant:to the right were those summoned to war, to the left those who must confess.
Stanislav took the seat at the chair's right shoulder. He sat slightly forward - close enough that the swordcould have been placed on the table's edgewithout anyone needing to ask for whom it lay. His head was lowered, but it was clear:he saw everyone.
On his side, closest, sat Voivode Ignat of Pereiaslav - gray - haired, upright, hands resting on the table. He was silent in a way that left others no space to pretend ignorance. Further down sat Vasilii Sviatopolkovich, back straight, gaze half - lidded. One word from him could stop an argument.
On the left, beneath the Cross, sat Metropolitan Illarion. His cassock swallowed the light, and men spoke softer near him. Bishop Luka of Novgorod touched the rim of his cupas if testing its purity.
After the clergy came the land - the voices of roads, armies, and old bargains.
Oleg of Vyshhorod sat with elbows on the table, fingers interlaced, gazing not at the men but over them. Beside him, Rurik of Pechersk - still as stone. The servant carrying the bread nearly stumbledwhen he caught Rurik's eye.
Next sat Dobrynia, the master of the hearth. His fingers rested on the wood like on cold iron - calm, waiting for heat.
Across the table sat Vyshata, Kyiv's thousandman, sure of himself;the whole city lay in his mind like a map. Further down - Gold-Handed, Mikhail of Podol. He didn't speak; he merely lifted his cup, and two men behind him did the same, as if it had always been so.
Beyond them stretched rows of Kyiv's boyars;between them, several from Pereiaslav. Seats were not chosen - the oldest, the most powerful sat closest to strength. The rest were placed by distance.
In the farthest corner sat Ihor Rostyslavych, posadnik of Novgorod. In the pillar's shadow. Silent. Which only made it worse - because if he rose, the North would rise with him.
On the table lay the white bread. Warm. Full. No one reached for it.
All were seated. None had spoken.
Metropolitan Illarion did not rise. He merely moved his hand from his knee to the table - a small motion, yet the entire hall seemed to draw toward him. He looked not at the men, but at the empty chair beneath the icons.
"Give thanks to the Lord, " he said quietly. "A miracle was granted. The prince lives."
No one breathed. Even the lamps stilled their trembling.
"Power does not wait, " Illarion went on. "To hesitate after a miracle is to dispute not with us - but with Heaven."
He turned the parchment so the seal faced the hall.
"Where the prince lays his hand, there Rus will stand."
No threat. No plea. Merely truth laid on the table.
Oleg's fingers twitched;the clasped hands on the oak loosened, and the net of his thoughts slid away from them. Mikhail of Podol did not move. Only his hand above the cup froze - the price of bargaining for power suddenly felt like sin.
Around the table, no one exhaled. Cups lowered themselves without sound. Eyes lifted from men to the empty chair, to the place where the cloak touched the carved wolves. No one dared speak after Illarion.
To argue now would be to argue with God.
Oleg steadied his hands. Not sharply - deeply, as sailors tighten a knot when the river's pull grows fast. His fingers laced again. The tendons rose. His own breath reached his ears, bright as iron in winter air.
He looked at the breadas at work that must begin. Not tomorrow.
"A miracle is a miracle, " he said at last, calmly. "But Rus is not a prayer."
A faint ring of metal answered from across the table - someone's armor shifting. Vasilii only half - opened his eyes, weighing. Oleg did not look at him.
"If the throne sits empty, every principality turns to its own path."
He reached for the bread. He did not take a piece - he broke the loaf cleanly. Crumbs scattered over the wood. One half he set closer to the prince's place, as to one who was not yet seatedbut was already in the room.
The other half he left before himself. The crack of the crust ran down the table like a line drawn in earth.
"If we do not secure power, others will secure it for us."
Mikhail Podolsky lowered his gaze to the bread - as one looks at a purse of silversomeone else has opened without permission. Only the men of Pereiaslav hesitated, glancing to Voivode Ignat to see whether they should speakor hold their peace.
No one reached for their portion.
All knew:to touch the bread was to step before the prince - to take what was not yours.
Such a step is neither forgivennor forgotten.
Oleg waited, head turned slightly, like a wolf testing the breath of the circle around him. But the first voice rose not from where he expected.
Across the table a board creaked, softly. Vasilii Sviatopolkovich straightened - not sharply, but like a man bored with arguments made by hands. He looked at Oleg directly, calmly, as one lineage looks upon another it predates.
"Other principalities, " he said, quietly, "have neither the right - nor the blood."
The hall thickened. Stanislav lifted his gaze. Ignat angled his head a hair, noting the man who had spoken the wordshe himself might have said.
Vasyl's tone did not change.
"Rus is not divided by fear. Rus is divided by blood."
He held the pause just long enoughthat every man understood:this was not contradiction, but a boundary.
Only then, evenly - with the calm of a man who knows the weight of his name - he finished:
"Alexander is the son of Yaroslav the Great Prince."
He said nothing more. He did not need to.
Oleg did not move a muscle, but his silence showed what happened:the opening he carved with the breadwas closed by Vasilii with a single line.
The hall grew heavier.
Then the man who rarely spoke first - but whose words always fell with weight - let his voice enter the room.
Rurik of Pechersk.
He did not lift his head. His finger traced the table, short, precise - like striking a line through an old debt.
"You speak of blood, " he said quietly. "Good."
His finger moved again. His eyes followed its path across the hall - not counting men, but judging themas one judges those who arrive too late to matter.
"Blood demands one who can hold, " he said. "And if he cannot - then we all fall. Not only the prince."
Rurik looked to the empty seat beneath the icons - not as a chair, but as a missing support.
"Rus stands not by inheritance, " he said. "Rus stands by those who remain at the prince's sidewhen the ground breaks under him."
He turned his eyes back to Vasyl. Direct. Unsoftened.
"Will you stand there? Or will we gather the fleeing lands again?"
Vasilii did not shift, not in face nor in posture. Only the room felt the stone drop inside him. But he did not answer - because another voice cut first.
Stanislav.
His voice was low, clean as a branch cut with a single stroke.
"You argue land, not duty."
He swept the table with his gaze, not choosing targets - naming all of them at once.
"The enemy does not wait for your words, " he said. "Rus has stood without a great prince for eight days. For us, it is eight days. For those watching Rus - it is weakness."
He would have spoken more, but then came a sound like a dull strike:
Mikhail Podolsky set his cup down. Not loudly - but enough for the hall to turn toward him.
"No, Stanislav, " he said. "Leave the sword."
He leaned forward. Nothing in the motion was of a merchant. It was the motion of a man who prices war.
"One thing first. Can Prince Alexander sit that chair now?"
He let his gaze sweep the men, measuring them like weight on a scale.
"Or will we place on the throne a manwho will fall tomorrow?And falling men…" his hand shifted slightly, "…are held by neither friend nor foe."
A breath shuddered through the hall - not loud, but unmistakable.
The question hung above the tablelike steam over hot iron:
Can a man be crownedwhen he only yesterday rose from his bed?
Vyshata broke first. The thousandman slammed his fist onto the table - a blow that rang through the hall like steel on a shield.
"This is not about weakness, " he barked. "This is about Mikhail doubting already. And that makes us question his loyalty - his honor!"
He stared straight at Podolsky. The stare of a man who had spoken with iron all his life, not with words.
Mikhail lifted a brow - not in fear, but in disdain. Dobrynia, the master of the hearth, spoke next, quietly, but as if setting a stone at the base of a wall.
"The prince will sit the throne. That is not up for debate. If he does not - Rus will come apart."
Vasilii Sviatopolkovich gave the smallest nod. He had said it earlier. He never needed to repeat himself.
Mikhail frowned. He raised a hand - not to threaten, but like a man accustomed to putting warriors, merchants, and lesser boyars in their place. He drew breath to speak - but the strike came before him.
Not a fist. Not a shout. A word.
Voivode Ignat Pereiaslavsky stood.
Not abruptly. Not for show. He rose the way a man riseswhen he feels a crack running through the wall he is sworn to hold.
His gaze passed over each of them, one by one - not seeing people, but stress - lines in a defense.
His voice came low, steady, like wind before a storm:
"Enough."
Conversation collapsed instantly. Not because he raised his voice - he hadn't. His word simply weighed more than all theirs together.
Ignat stood lean, straight, with that tension in the shouldersfound only in men who expect the steppe behind every horizon.
"You're wasting time, " he said. "And time is life. And death."
He looked at the boyars - not choosing, but marking the whole line.
"Pereiaslavl will not wait for your quarrels. The prince lives, therefore the decision is needed now."
He gave a slight nod toward the clergy.
"The Metropolitan is silent. The Bishop is silent. When they keep silence - we must speak."
The table seemed to sink closer to the floor.
"And if you keep weighing words..."He paused - short, sharp, like a step on hard frost. "…I will not promise Pereiaslavl follows Kyiv."
It was not a threat.
It was the naming of consequencesby the man who understood war more closelythan anyone else in the hall.
Someone inhaled awkwardly. No one answered. Even Mikhail lowered his hand.
Ignat had spoken the fear they all carried. He was simply the first to name the cost.
He sat - slowly, without drama - like a man who had done what he came to do.
And only then did Metropolitan Illarion speak. His voice was quiet, and the hall seemed to shrink around him.
"Today is the eighteenth day of Berezozol, " he said. "In seven days - Annunciation. The day when a new fate was revealed to the world."
He looked toward the empty chair.
"Let it be the beginning for Rus as well."
Bishop Luka nodded once, sealing the thought. Several boyars lowered their heads - not in agreement, but in reckoning.
Rurik Pechersky broke the silence first.
"Too soon, " he said.
Dobrynia snapped his gaze up, a man tired of delay.
"Or too late. The people wait for a sign. Give it to them, and the fog will lift."
Luka added quietly, crossing himself:
"Annunciation is a blessed day. The people will accept it. They will say: Heaven has given its blessing."
Oleg Vyshhorodsky hesitated - a single heartbeat - then nodded once, decisively.
"Spring. Fields do not yet call. Roads are open. The people will come. "He exhaled slowly. "Let them come."
Rurik shot him a sharp, habitual glance. His lips moved - a word rose - but he held it back. He understood where the scene was turning. This move could no longer be stopped.
Silence settled, and the hall eased - like a breath finally released.
Then a voice broke from the shadows. Not loud. Not steady. A man startled by his own words:
"And what if… he cannot?"
Not silence - a drop into emptiness. The air thinned.
"We sit here deciding… but what of him? Has he woken? Does he stand? Does he speak?" The voice drifted from a bench near the wall.
Someone turned. The wooden plank creaked - too sharp a sound for wood. The boyar's gaze flicked around the halllike a man afraid of seeing nothing behind him.
"What if we crown not a prince… but a body?" came another voice, softer.
The words fell onto the table like stones.
They did not echo. They sank. The bone feels such wordsbefore the mind does.
"And if he rises?" a voice murmured from the far wall.
It was not a question. It was a thought escaped too soon.
No answer came. Because the answer did not belong to words. If the prince rises, then nothing they decide matters - they will obey.
And then Stanislav rose.
Not with sharpness, but with the heavy inevitabilityof a wall pushed up from within.
He looked at no one. He simply spoke - low, even - as if checking each word for truthbefore letting it leave him.
"Even if he cannot rise… then we rise in his place."
He stepped from the table. His cloak shifted - and the edge moved.
And they saw.
A stain.
Dark. Dried. Pressed so deep into the fabricit was no longer clear where the blood endedand the shadow began.
The prince's blood.
It had been on him since the night before, when he held the prince, lifted him, brought him back from the edge.
He had not washed it. Had not dared.
And when Stanislav rose to speak - it spoke with him.
Something shifted in the hall.
Not sound - weight.
Someone adjusted a belt. Another looked away - then back.
The air thickened, like the moment before a dry branch snaps.
Then a voice cracked through it:
"Who will stand?!"
Not a shout - a break in old timber.
Boyar Andrey Borichevsky.
His face grey, the look of a man who had not sleptnight after night. His lips trembling not with angerbut with exhaustion.
He was not shouting - but every word carried the senseof a rope frayed to its last thread.
"Who?! Us?!" He surged to his feet, forgetting where he stood. "We do not even know… if he will live!"
The boyars did not answer - but their eyes were sharp, quick - sliding over him like blades.
He had spoken what each feared, but none dared shape aloud.
"You say 'we will stand'" - his voice broke upward - "but what if there is no one left to stand?"
He looked not at the princely seatbut at the men around him, searching for even onewho would tell him his fear was false.
No one spoke.
Not because they could not, but because he had crossedinto a place where no one follows.
Stanislav did not move.
He only turned his head - slightly - as though listening to the crack inside the wall. And answered with the simplicityof a man used to cutting, not arguing:
"Then those who don't breakwill remain."