The Crown's Game
Page 24

And then Vika saw the building across the street from her own. When she had gone to bed, that building had been a faded gray. Now it was a delicate powder blue, and its white trim, previously dull, had taken on a pearly tone.
If it had been only one home, she would have thought nothing of it. But she scanned the visible length of Nevsky Prospect, where the buildings, like many in the largest cities of Europe, were built right up against one another, and every single facade seemed a part of a candy wonderland. There were yellows soft as lemon cream, and greens like apples for pie. Purple like lavender marshmallow, and pink like rosewater taffy. Vika gasped. The buildings along the boulevard were the most breathtaking thing she had ever seen.
“This is his first move?” she said to herself. As if to confirm, the wands beneath her collarbone heated up, and she gasped again.
But the pain dissipated after a few seconds, and soon Vika’s shoulders relaxed. She let down the shield around herself as well. If it was her turn now, she needn’t worry about being attacked. And then it sank in that her opponent’s first move had been a peaceful one for the tsesarevich’s birthday. Vika’s heart beat out of rhythm at the hope that the other enchanter was less bloodthirsty than Sergei had assumed.
Then she noticed the tiny statues on the buildings, and she immediately cast the shield back around herself. The statues were stone birds, so small they could easily be mistaken for real sparrows hopping on the ledges and rooftops every ten feet or so. They hadn’t been there before, had they? Or was she just noticing them now because the entire boulevard had been brightened and was actually worth looking at?
She had to suspect the worst. As much as she’d wanted to believe that her opponent had laid down an amicable move, that someone as elegant as he wouldn’t resort to violence, the Game would in fact end upon one of their deaths. And there was something about the way he carried himself, she thought. Mesmerizing, but subtly perilous. Perhaps the stone birds were enchanted to attack as soon as Vika appeared on the street. But would they be able to do that if her opponent didn’t know who she was? She’d kept up her shroud diligently all the way home from Bolshebnoie Duplo. And Vika certainly wouldn’t be able to charm something into tracking an unknown person.
Then again, the other enchanter could be exponentially more skilled than she. It was an unnerving possibility.
However, she couldn’t remain in her apartment for the rest of the Game. She would have to go out and face the birds, whatever they were. Her father had prepared her well for this. He had taught her how to defend herself, from using the wind to blow dirt into a bear’s eyes to creating ice barricades for protection from flaming trees.
So Vika fortified the shield around herself and left the flat, taking the stairs one slow step at a time. When she reached the first floor, she opened the building’s door only a crack and poked her foot outside, like a tentative dancer testing the stage.
She waited. The stone birds did not fly off the ledges at her shoe. She slipped the rest of her body out the door, turning her head from left to right to take in all her potential avian assailants.
And then they attacked.
They dived from every direction—north, south, east, west—like shrapnel magnetized especially for her. The first ones slammed into Vika’s invisible shield, and she shrieked upon their violent impact. But she held her shield steady, and they ricocheted off, shattering on the ground and against the building walls.
Then hundreds—no, thousands—more stone birds circled overhead, calculating, and Vika knew she wouldn’t be able to hold the shield if they all came at her at once.
Heaven help me, I need my own birds.
She jammed her thumb and index finger in her mouth and whistled so shrilly, a dozen of the closest stone sparrows shattered. Their ranks, however, were quickly filled in by others.
Come on, come on, come on, Vika thought. Where are my birds? She fended off another wave of suicidal stone birds smashing into her shield. Each collision rattled through her magic and into her bones.
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.