The Crown's Game
Page 26

So now Vika stood at the granite embankments of the Neva, beside the enormous bronze statue of Peter the Great—the tsar who founded Saint Petersburg—atop his horse. It was a monument commissioned by Catherine the Great to pay tribute to Peter, and legend had it that as long as the statue stood guard, Saint Petersburg would never fall into enemy hands. It was only a legend, and most Russians dismissed it as such, or believed it out of superstition. But as she stood in such close proximity to the statue, Vika knew it was real. There was old magic—hefty, powerful magic—within the bronze.
As soon as the enchanter appeared for his afternoon stroll, Vika would make her own move in the Game. Of course, she wouldn’t kill him straightaway. He’d labored over the charming of Nevsky Prospect, and she wanted to outdo him first.
She planned to enchant the city’s waterways.
This was a grandiose task, however. In addition to the Neva River, there were over a hundred other rivers, tributaries, and canals that ran through Saint Petersburg, totaling nearly two hundred miles in distance. There were more bridges in Petersburg than in Venice; water was the very essence, the life force, of the city. Even though Vika was skilled at manipulating natural elements—they were, after all, what was most abundant on Ovchinin Island and therefore what she had practiced most with—this move would require more energy and concentration than anything she had ever attempted.
After Vika had waited an hour, the other enchanter appeared. And despite wanting to hate him, she tingled at his presence. He was still some distance off, but it was unmistakably him. It was in the way his top hat was cocked on his head, jaunty and taunting at the same time, impossibly balanced by magic. The elegant yet razor-edged manner with which he slid through the crowd, cutting through but never jostling, and always, always smooth. And it was also the memory of his hand on her arm at Bolshebnoie Duplo and the flash of his angular face. . . .
No. Stop. Focus. He tried to kill me. I have to get my turn underway before he draws too near.
Vika planted both feet firmly into the ground. She closed her eyes. A strong breeze rippled through her hair, carrying with it the autumn cold from the Gulf of Finland from whence it came. She inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of the Neva River. It smelled . . . green. Fresh water tinged with algae. A hint of aspen, and what was that? Ah yes, alder wood, too.
Vika also listened to the sounds of the river. Ducks paddling on the surface. Sturgeon swimming, and eels slithering beneath. She had to, in a way, become the river, or at least understand it, before she could expect it to do her bidding. People walked by, but nobody paid her any notice, for, other than the steady rise and fall of her chest, she was as still as the statue beside her.
Finally, when she could almost feel the Neva’s chilly waters coursing through her own veins, Vika opened her eyes and stretched her arms out in front of her. “This is my move,” she whispered, so that the Russe Quill would know that this magic—and not other charms that she cast—was the one to be recorded on the Scroll. Then she focused on the center of the river and tapped her right hand upward, a slight movement, as if she were tossing a small ball. A stream of water leaped ten yards into the air and fell in an elegant arc back to the river’s surface.
“Prekrasno,” she said to herself in satisfaction.
She tapped her left hand upward, and another stream of water mirrored the movement of the first. She followed with her right again, then left, alternating the height of the arcs as well as the speed, sometimes firing the streams in rapid succession, and other times slowing them languorously.
A crowd began to gather along the embankment, murmuring to one another and leaning out over the granite railings to get a better look. Still, no one noticed Vika. They don’t believe in magic, she thought. That’s why they don’t see that I’m the one controlling the river. One or two men did notice her, but they just laughed dismissively at the girl playing at copying the water’s movements. Vika rolled her eyes.
She could also feel the other enchanter, near now. Watching. She didn’t look for him, but his presence was there. He didn’t try to hide it.
Vika continued on. She drew corkscrews in the air, and the river water twirled high into the sky like jeweled helixes, the droplets glinting in the morning sun like so many diamonds. The people on shore released a collective gasp. She clenched her fists, then slowly unfurled her fingers, and the Neva responded in kind, creating tight buds of water that then blossomed in waves of petals, like chrysanthemums blooming in fall. The onlookers oohed and aahed. What a rush to finally have her magic out in the open, seen and appreciated by so many, even if they couldn’t possibly understand what it was. The years of hiding away her powers in the shielded forest of Ovchinin Island seemed a distant past.
Vika scooped handfuls of air and flipped them up, then puffed on them with her breath. In the river, spheres of water flew up to the clouds, then burst like transparent fireworks and sprinkled down like rain. The audience cheered.
The other enchanter stood close to the river’s edge. Perfectly close for Vika’s purposes. Too close for his own.
Just where I want you. She made a slithering motion in the air, and a stream of water climbed up the embankment and puddled around the enchanter’s feet. It swirled around his right ankle and tightened itself like liquid rope. As he realized what was happening, she flicked her wrist, and the water yanked him into the Neva. “Prekrasno,” she said again as she grinned to herself.
A woman in the crowd screamed.
“Someone’s fallen into the river!” a man yelled.
But the other enchanter didn’t resurface.
Vika turned away from the water, even as she continued to direct it to hold her opponent down. Suddenly, she couldn’t watch. But drowning him was a necessity, a part of the Game. If she didn’t kill him, he’d kill her. And she wanted to be Imperial Enchanter; she’d wanted it all her life, to use her magic for the tsar.
And then there was Father . . . she had to see him again. If she lost the Game, she never would. It didn’t make what she was doing any easier. But it made it possible. Unavoidable.
Vika held on to the watery rope as long as she could, and then she collapsed against the boulder at the base of the bronze statue.
People were still leaning over the embankment, searching for the drowned boy. Vika gasped for air, as badly as if she were the one underwater. Something inside her felt like it had drowned, too.