The Crown's Game (The Crown's Game, #1)(29)

But a minute later, a dark cloud appeared in the sky, high above the misleadingly cheerful pastels of Nevsky Prospect. And then another minute later, the cloud revealed itself to be thousands of real birds—hooded crows with their gray-and-black feathers and wicked caw-caw-caws, chaffinches with brave, ruddy cheeks, and jackdaws, purplish-black and crying their hoarse battle cries as they careened down past rooftops and into the fray against the other enchanter’s army.

“Yes!” Vika yelled. “Go get them!”

Her birds charged straight into the enemy. Just as fearless, the stone sparrows did not alter their flight. Real beaks gouged out jeweled eyes. Rock talons tore at soft feathers. And the waves of birds kept coming.

Vika clenched her fists as the blue sky exploded in red and black and purple feathers and shards of dark-gray stone. For every gargoyle sparrow dispatched, a real bird died. “Their lives are on his soul,” she muttered through her teeth as the carnage grew around her. And yet, she knew that was only partially true. She could have come up with a different defense. Vika was the one who’d chosen live birds as her soldiers.

There’s no way my birds can win a physical fight against rock, she thought as her shield trembled under the nonstop attacks. But we could win a psychological one.

She whistled again and commanded her birds to form a barrier above her. They flew into defensive position, ten birds thick.

The stone sparrows regrouped even higher, near the clouds.

There was a moment of eerie peace.

“Come now,” Vika said to the other enchanter’s birds. “Isn’t it tempting, seeing my flock lined up neatly, like targets waiting for you to knock them down?”

The stone sparrows seemed to come to the same conclusion as Vika taunted them. With shrieks as bloodcurdling as a thousand fingernails raking against blackboards, the gargoyle warriors plummeted as one, like a battering ram careening toward Vika’s real birds.

Her army squawked as the monolith of stone came at them. But they held their positions. Then, at the last second, they darted aside. Vika also rolled out of the way.

The rock sparrows smashed into the ground and shattered into gravel and sand.

And then it was over, almost as quickly as the assault had begun. Death littered Nevsky Prospect, stone and feathered bodies, demolished. Vika’s eyes watered.

But she didn’t cry. She wouldn’t. She summoned the wind instead and whisked away all the evidence of life—or lack thereof—so quickly that the early morning street sweeper who’d been gawking along the road suddenly questioned his own memory—or sanity, at having imagined such an improbably gruesome scene at all.

Only Vika knew for certain that it had been true. And she would get her revenge.





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN


The stone sparrow glided onto Nikolai’s arm as he sat on the steps in front of the Zakrevsky house. He’d been watching the barges chug by on Ekaterinsky Canal and eavesdropping on passersby as they chattered about their morning errands on Nevsky Prospect. Most had been pleased that the once renowned boulevard had been restored to its former grandeur. And everyone assumed it was the doing of an overnight crew of painters hired by the tsar, despite the fact that no one knew a single painter in the city who’d worked on the street. Nikolai was unsurprised. For a people who were so religious, Russians had an awfully difficult time seeing the otherworldly even when it was laid out before their eyes.

“What do you have for me?” Nikolai asked the sparrow. He rested his hand on the tiny thing’s head. Its feathers were rough from being cast of rock, but they were impressively realistic in appearance. At least, Nikolai thought, from a distance.

The bird cooed and nuzzled against his fingers. Nikolai closed his eyes, and a stream of images rushed to him from the statue, as if Nikolai had been on Nevsky Prospect to see the series of bird’s-eye views himself. It was a quiet picture, the undisturbed moments just after dawn. No shoppers carrying brown paper bundles out of the butcher shop or gentlemen emerging from Bissette & Sons, the tailors for whom Nikolai delivered packages. No one strolling out of the clockmaker’s with a shiny new pocket watch dangling out of his waistcoat, or servant girls leaving the bakery with stacks of boxes full of cakes. Just a lone street sweeper and his thin, worn broom.

And then . . . there was the girl, leaving an apartment building.

His stone birds paused, high above her, all of them turning to her in sync. A moment later, they attacked.

Merde! Nikolai winced at the bloody, rocky battle that ensued.

“I’m sorry,” he said to the sparrow, as if a statue could feel grief for his shattered friends. Or perhaps Nikolai was saying it for the actual birds who’d died. Or the girl herself. Regardless, he stroked the sparrow’s stone wings.

It cooed, then flapped away, as light as if it were made of the breeze. Nikolai returned his gaze to the canals and barges floating by, although he might as well have been seeing the stone bird’s images replaying again and again.

Nikolai sagged against the steps and exhaled.

The girl still lived. The Game continued.

But at least he wasn’t a murderer today.





CHAPTER NINETEEN


The tsar sat on one side of the open-air carriage with the tsarina, while Pasha and Yuliana sat facing them on the opposite velvet bench. It was a fine autumn day, crisp and cool without a cloud in sight, and since it was mere days before Pasha’s birthday, the tsarina had decided the city ought to have the benefit of admiring her son.