Marianne and the Crown of Fire
Guarding with her life the secret she carries to save Napoleon, Marianne braves the barren steppes and hostile natives of Russia to deliver her message to the Emperor, who was once her lover. She is accompanied by her lover from New Orleans, Jason Beaufort, who has abandoned the charred hulk of his ship in the harbor of Constantinople to travel with her. Just inside the Russian border, they save the life of a beautiful young gypsy named Shankhala and take her with them. Shankhala offers no gratitude but shows a burning desire for Jason. Failing to allure him, she turns her witchery against Marianne.
The Moscow they reach has already fallen under siege, and its citizens' fear has turned perversely into self-immolation. When Jason is thrown in prison after a duel with the Cossack who several years earlier had ravished and branded Marianne, she is left alone amid the swarming mass of panicked humanity—or, rather, almost alone, as the gypsy witch embraces Marianne, then stabs her...
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