The Crown's Game (The Crown's Game, #1)(98)

He shook his head. He didn’t know.

He crumpled in a heap.

At least I die with her in my arms.





CHAPTER SEVENTY


The Russe Quill began to scratch on the Scroll. Pasha’s stomach turned. He grabbed the vase again.

The Quill had written something else earlier in the morning, not long after dawn. But Pasha had not been able to muster the courage to look at it, to see what Nikolai’s first play had been. He had lain on the floor instead, waiting for Vika to make a move.

The ensuing silence of the Quill had been too loud.

Now there was something new, and Pasha clenched his fists and forced himself to rise. Were they fighting, as Yuliana had told Pasha needed to be done? Or had Vika and Nikolai found a way around the rules of the Game? Please let it be the latter. . . .

But deep inside, Pasha knew there was no way out other than victory for one and death for the other.

He wrung his hands as he walked to his desk, dragging his feet to make the distance across the room longer. But he was there before he knew it. He hesitated before he picked up the parchment, looking around his bedroom for another excuse. Perhaps he ought to wait for Yuliana? But she was occupied with entertaining the English ambassador’s wife, and if Pasha waited, she would only yell at him that if he was going to be tsar, he had better find the backbone soon to act like it.

So he reached for the Scroll, hands shaking. The parchment crinkled in his grasp. He didn’t want to look, but there was nothing else to do.

1 December 1825: Winner—Vika Andreyeva

Pasha dropped his head to his hands and sobbed.





CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE


One week after the end of the Game, Vika sat on the steppe bench and immersed herself in the dream. Soon, she would have to return to Saint Petersburg to take her post as Imperial Enchanter, but for now, she watched Nikolai’s golden eagle fly over the barren plains. It was so unfair that his benches were still here when he wasn’t. And yet, it was something. So she listened to the rustle of the dry grasses and felt the cool breeze on her face and remembered him.

Pasha had ordered an elaborate memorial service for Nikolai, but Vika hadn’t attended. Despite Pasha’s grief and his attempts to apologize for demanding the duel, Vika didn’t want anything to do with him. At least not for now. Until he was officially installed as tsar and she had no choice but to serve him, Vika needed space. The wounds Pasha had inflicted were too deep and too raw.

There was another reason, however, that Vika hadn’t wanted to attend Nikolai’s memorial. It horrified her, but she was unable to cry for him. Perhaps she had used up all her tears before the duel. Perhaps the grief was so vast, mere tears could never be adequate. Or perhaps it was that something nagged at her, and she felt he wasn’t entirely gone.

Nikolai had crumpled in her lap at the end of the Game. But instead of the wands bursting into flame and consuming him, as she’d expected, he’d disintegrated into nothing. As if, with all his energy drained, he’d simply ceased to exist. And because he did not exist, there was no scar to alight and burn. Then Vika’s own scar had vanished from her skin. The Game had officially been won.

But even with Nikolai gone, there had remained a heaviness in the air, a lack of finality, as if his magic still lingered. It had been impossible to attend his memorial when it felt as if something of Nikolai was still there. Here.

The wind on the steppe whipped up, and the eagle soared on its gust. Behind Vika, someone pushed through the long grass. The footsteps on the hard-packed dirt were neither quiet nor particularly loud, as if the person could tread lighter but wanted to be sure Vika was not startled. She turned.

It was Pasha.

“I thought you might be here,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind me joining your dream.”

Vika bit her lip, but she tilted her chin in greeting. “It isn’t mine to keep.”

He lifted his gaze up to the sky. For a second, it seemed as if the eagle turned its head at Pasha and glared. But then it was back to focusing on the ground. Vika probably imagined it.

“I miss him, too, you know,” Pasha said.

The emptiness in Vika’s chest echoed with Nikolai’s absence. “It’s no fault but your own,” she said.

Pasha sighed heavily. “I know. Trust me, I know.”

Vika looked at him then, really looked at him. His face was gaunt, his blue eyes almost gray and ringed with dark circles. His hair was irretrievable chaos. He was Pasha, if Pasha were a ghost.

“If I could take it back, I would,” he said. “I was . . . angry that Nikolai hadn’t told me he was an enchanter. And I was irrational with grief over my parents. Then Yuliana said I had to declare the duel, and she’s so sure of everything while I am sure of nothing, so I listened. It’s no excuse. I still made the decision. But I am acutely sorry for it. I didn’t think it through.”

“You didn’t realize that if you demanded a duel to the death, one of us would die?”

Pasha shook his head. “I did, but I didn’t. I was all emotion and reaction. I wasn’t thinking.”

Vika frowned. “I hope you clear your head before you become tsar.”

“That’s why I need you, Vika. I can’t do this alone, or with only Yuliana by my side.”

The look Vika cast him was so stony, it was worthy of the grand princess. “I’ll be your Imperial Enchanter. I committed to it in my oath to your father.”