The Crown's Game (The Crown's Game, #1)(10)
The tsar gripped the armrests of his chair. “But how do you know about enchanters, let alone that there are two now? That information was closely guarded and limited to myself and those who practice magic themselves. How could you know about the Game?”
Yuliana crossed the rug and set the chest on the tsar’s desk. Inside the chest, the ancient Russe Quill and Scroll lay dormant but ready to record the next Crown’s Game when the need arose. She glanced at her father’s throne-like chair.
“I know many things.” She didn’t tell him that when she was very little, she used to hide in the large cabinet behind his desk and eavesdrop on his conversations, including the ones he’d have with himself when he thought the rest of the palace was asleep, about subjects like enchanters and the Game and a mysterious “tsars’ collection” (which Yuliana had deduced to be a library of ancient texts on magic—and presumably where her father had learned about enchanters and the Crown’s Game in the first place—though she had never been able to locate this so-called “tsars’ collection”).
“Pasha may be heir,” she said to her father, “but when you’re gone—heaven forbid—he won’t be able to rule Russia with charm alone. He’ll need me. And he’ll need an Imperial Enchanter.”
“It’s been peaceful in Russia for years.”
“The peace we’ve known since Napoleon’s end will soon be no more. Pasha’s report is proof. And the Ottomans are rising again in the south. So will you do it? Will you declare the start of the Game?”
The tsar hesitated for a heavy minute.
“Do it for Pasha,” Yuliana said. And she meant it. She loved her brother ferociously, as much as the tsar did. They’d both lay down their lives for him.
“How old are you again, Yuliana?”
“Fifteen, Father.”
“But you act like you’re—”
“Fifty. I know.”
The tsar chuckled. “For Pasha, eh?” He touched his finger to the lid of the wooden chest. It was the one thing that Yuliana had never been able to pick open, and now she understood why: it was governed by magic that would unlock only at the tsar’s touch.
The lid eased itself open, as if lifted by an invisible hand. A long, majestic black feather—plucked from the wing of a sea eagle centuries ago—and a yellowed parchment scroll floated into the air.
Yuliana gasped, for even though she knew of magic, she’d never actually witnessed it. “So does this mean you’ll commence the Game?”
The tsar nodded.
She stared at the Russe Quill and Scroll. They spun lazily above the desk, the records of all past Games and so much of Russia’s history, just hovering. “But we probably shouldn’t tell Pasha,” she said.
The tsar nodded again. “It’s why I’ve never told you about the existence of enchanters and magic. I knew this generation would require a Game. And I didn’t know if the two of you—Pasha, really—would be able to stomach its viciousness.”
But Yuliana could. Her mouth curved up at the corners. Her smile was both a fierce and wistful thing.
CHAPTER SIX
Two days later, Nikolai sat on a palomino mare on Ovchinin Island. He had never been there before, even though it was only an hour’s ferry ride from Saint Petersburg, but when Pasha had asked where they ought to hunt, “Ovchinin Island” had sprung from Nikolai’s tongue before his mind could catch up with the idea. He had no inkling where it had come from.
But it turned out to be a grand decision. The sky was clear, the forest was dappled in red and gold, as it was wont to do in these early days of October, and the hounds were salivating for a chase. Nikolai watched as Pasha, smiling atop a white stallion, surveyed the land in front of him. The tsar had wanted Pasha to stay at the Winter Palace to listen to the mundane demands of farmers whose crops had been damaged by blight. But Pasha had escaped, and here, in the countryside, the tsesarevich rode wild and free from royal expectations.
“What are we hunting for today?” Pasha asked.
“I believe grouse, pheasants, and mink are all plentiful in this part of the country,” Nikolai said. “Whatever Your Imperial Highness desires.”
“‘Your Imperial Highness’? Why are you being so formal?” Pasha glanced over his shoulder at the rest of the hunting party, the sons of barons and counts and other lesser nobility, all social-climbing buffoons, in Nikolai’s opinion. “Don’t do it on their account,” Pasha said. “In fact, I rather wish you wouldn’t.”
Nikolai bowed his head. “As you wish, my heavenly sovereign, crown prince of all Russia.”
Pasha laughed.
Nikolai couldn’t maintain a straight face any longer, and he smiled. This was why they were friends, because Nikolai was the only one who didn’t kowtow at the tsesarevich’s feet.
They had met when Pasha was twelve and Nikolai thirteen. Nikolai had been crouched in the dirt in Sennaya Square, a sordid part of town, playing cards with a handful of other boys of questionable origin. He’d been betting money he didn’t have, but he hadn’t cared, for he’d long since mastered the ability to change the face of each card to whatever he wanted before the dealer flipped it from the deck. Nikolai lost often enough that the others didn’t know better. It was just that when Nikolai won, he always made sure to win more than he’d given up before.