The Crown's Game (The Crown's Game, #1)(91)

“What?” Vika whipped around to face Galina.

“You didn’t think you had suddenly gotten more powerful, did you? All that extra energy you must have felt came from my brother. You took and took from him until there was nothing left.”

“No . . .”

“Oh, yes. He didn’t simply die.” Spit flew from Galina’s mouth onto Vika’s gown. “You killed him.”

Vika looked as if all the blood in her veins had drained out, just like the life had drained out of Sergei. Perfect, Galina thought. Let her despair do her in. Perhaps she’ll simply lie down and lose the Game. She deserves it.

Frigid air began to stir inside the room, and it merged into the tornado Galina had been expecting. She yelled over the churning of the wind, “You have all the training you need, Nikolai. Try not to make a mess of things. You ought to win.”

Then the whirlwind enveloped Galina completely, blew open one of the windows, and rushed out into the winter cold. She hoped it was not carrying her back to Siberia.





CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR


Vika fled as soon as the whirlwind had taken Galina away. She climbed out the open window onto the banks of the frozen river.

“Wait,” Nikolai said, clambering out the window as well.

“Leave me be.” Vika turned her back to him. She swirled her arm over her head, and a small blizzard appeared. It spat snow into Nikolai’s eyes and pushed him back against the wall of the palace. Vika levitated, and a sleigh of ice formed beneath her.

“Vika, please. Wait.”

But she either didn’t hear him through the storm or she chose not to listen. She tapped on the sleigh, and it glided away on the surface of the river.

The blizzard pummeled Nikolai until she was gone from sight. As soon as the snowstorm vanished, Pasha’s Guard appeared on the other side of the window.

“Hey, you! What are you doing there?” Two rough pairs of hands seized Nikolai by his collar and dragged him back inside. A thick layer of snow tumbled off his hair and coat onto the wooden floor below. The guards righted him and gave him a shove toward the door. “Make haste before we arrest you. The exit is that way.”

Nikolai picked up his top hat, which had fallen off as he chased after Vika. He glanced back over his shoulder at the window, but the guards moved their hands to their swords in warning. He nodded and placed his hat back on his head, cold and wet from the now-melting snow, and trudged out of the room, down the hallway, and out into the square.

He bit his lip as he left. It might be the last time he walked through that door.

Nikolai stopped every so often on his walk home to steady himself on a streetlamp. The scar had been burning him, hotter and hotter, nearly unbearably, for the last two weeks as he contemplated his final turn in the Game. Vika had attacked him aggressively by ransacking the Zakrevsky house. Nikolai had needed time to calm down—to let it sink in that it was Vika’s grief that had driven her to it, not hatred or real viciousness, he hoped—and to consider how he would respond.

Now, however, it was all moot. Pasha had changed the Game, and each scorching throb of Nikolai’s scar served as a reminder that Renata’s life was at risk. How could Pasha do this? It was bad enough that Nikolai and Vika might die, but to add Renata and Ludmila? It was as if Pasha’s goodness had died when the tsar and tsarina did. Or maybe Nikolai had killed it by betraying him. Nikolai clutched the streetlamp tighter, although this time, it was as much from shame as from the pain of his scar.

Finally, the searing at his collarbone eased a bit, and although he was still sick with guilt, Nikolai released his grip on the streetlamp. But there was no relief, for at that moment, the stench of decay washed over him. He reached for his handkerchief and covered his nose.

“My apologies,” a cloaked woman said as she crossed a small bridge over the nearby canal and approached him. “I need to speak with you, enchanter. Would you be able to cast a shield around yourself—or around me—to block the unpleasant smell, so that we may have a conversation?”

Nikolai started to respond but instead gagged into his handkerchief. It was as if the rot were crawling into his mouth. He waved his hand in front of the woman and formed an invisible bubble around her to contain the odor, not so much because of her request, but out of self-preservation. Only when he could breathe again did he register that this stranger had known he was an enchanter, and that, damn it, he had just performed magic in front of her without question. She had not even flinched.

“Thank you, Nikolai.”

He took several steps away. “How do you know my name?”

“I know many things about you, perhaps even some you do not know yourself. Will you walk with me? I promise, you are safe.”

“Tell me who you are.”

“I will. That I also promise. But first, would you like to know who your father was?”

“My father?” Nikolai took a tentative step toward the woman.

She began to hobble down the street. “You inherited from your father not only his broad shoulders and confidence, but also his adaptability. Despite his many flaws, he was quite skilled at adjusting himself to thrive through change. He would not have survived the war with Napoleon and all the other upheavals without it.”

“I knew he was a soldier. But that is all that I knew.”

The woman laughed, although it was more a shrill screech than a joyous chuckle. Nikolai cringed. “Your father was no mere soldier. He was a leader of men. Your father was the tsar.”