The Crown's Game
Page 54

“I’d say that Maxim is the wiser of the two of you, although that’s nothing we don’t already know.”
Pasha laughed.
“Maxim, I believe you’re finished here. Pasha and I will shoot at something safer. A stationary, nonhuman target.” She gestured at the bull’s-eyes that were set up a hundred fifty feet away, at the end of what was the normal archery range, not Pasha’s extended one.
“Yes, Your Imperial Highness.” Maxim bowed to both Pasha and Yuliana, hung his bow and quiver on the weaponry rack, and left the field.
“You’re no fun,” Pasha said through a smile.
“But I’m rather good at keeping my brother alive,” Yuliana said.
Pasha set down his bow for a second to roll his sleeves to his elbows. After an hour of shooting—much of it involving running while hitting moving targets that Maxim threw in the air—Pasha was hot, and the muscles in his forearms were taut from the exertion. But if Yuliana wanted to shoot with him, he’d press on. There was no holding back anyway when it came to target practice, for it was one thing for certain in which Pasha was better than Nikolai, and he wouldn’t cede that ground. Even if archery was a completely useless hobby.
“What are you musing on?” Yuliana asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You come out here when you need to think. Something’s on your mind.”
Pasha laughed. He actually hadn’t realized that he came to the archery range to think, but now that his sister mentioned it, he found that it was true. The library and the range were solace to him.
“Nothing slips your notice,” he said.
“As a general rule, no,” Yuliana said. “So what is it that’s preoccupying you?”
Pasha picked up his bow again and drew an arrow from his quiver. “Do you think she likes me?” he asked Yuliana.
“Who?”
“The girl from the ball.” Pasha’s stomach somersaulted just thinking about her.
“Which girl? You danced with half the room.”
Pasha lowered his bow and cast a wry smile at his sister. “You know the one. Lady Snow. She was, as far as I’m concerned, the only girl in the room.”
Yuliana walked—or rather, stomped—her way to the weapons rack and lifted a small bow. She strapped on a quiver, too, then returned to Pasha’s side. “Well, if she’s the one you’re pining after, I’d say you ought to move on.”
“And why’s that?” Pasha aimed at the target again.
“She’s not at all your equal.”
Pasha let three arrows fly in rapid succession. Two of them hit their marks, but the third landed far awry with a thwack in the outer ring. He sighed. “I know. She’d probably like Nikolai better than me.”
Yuliana rolled her eyes at him. “I didn’t mean that she’s above you! You’re the tsesarevich. You have few equals, if any at all.” She sighted her arrow and shot. It hit two rings off center. “And Nikolai is no competition. He’s a commoner. At best, he can aspire to work for you someday.”
Pasha laughed. Nikolai, working for him! He could only imagine what that would be like, having Nikolai in his Guard. He could probably slay an entire enemy army with a single scowl. “I cannot picture Nikolai taking orders from me.”
“It’s your future,” Yuliana said. “Not necessarily Nikolai, but people in general. You have to get used to the idea that you’re better than everyone else.”
“That sounds horrible and lonely.”
She shrugged. “It’s not so bad, being horrible.”
“Yuliana . . .”
She glide-stomped over and stood up on her toes. She pecked him on the cheek. “Oh, don’t worry about me, brother. It’s I who ought to worry about you. You haven’t a horrid bone in your body, which means you’ll make a wretched tsar.”
Pasha smiled down at her. She was chilly, to be sure, but it was impossible for him not to respect her. His sister knew what she wanted, and she knew how to get it. That certainly couldn’t be said of himself.
“So do you think she likes me, even though I’m destined to be a disaster of a tsar with no friends and sadly un-horrible bones?”
Yuliana sighed, but there was a light in her eyes. “Pasha, if you want her to like you, she’ll like you. You’re the tsesarevich. It’s time you got that into your pretty little head.”
CHAPTER FORTY

Nikolai landed on the Stygian-black shore of the new island at half past ten. He had “borrowed” a rowboat from the dock and charmed it to sail across the bay. The waters were savage at this late hour, a combination of the wind and the tide, and if it weren’t for the enchantment to smooth the way, the boat would have ended up capsized or smashed against the rocks. Once on solid ground, Nikolai unpacked a bundle of balsa wood and sandpaper from his satchel. He was quite sure now that the island wasn’t a trap, as it hadn’t tried to swallow him whole or otherwise kill him the last time he was here; perhaps the ball had changed something after all. What he wasn’t sure of was what that meant for the Game.
But the scar beneath his collarbone still burned, insisting that Nikolai play. If he didn’t, he would burn slowly, painfully, to his death. And so self-preservation plunged him forward with his turn, even though he no longer knew how he wanted the Game to end.
First, he intended to build the island a proper dock. This place—this magic—was something the people of Saint Petersburg should have the chance to see, even if they couldn’t understand it.
Nikolai slashed his index finger through the air, slicing the wood boards into sticks. He charmed notches in the wood where the pieces could fit snugly together. He enchanted the sandpaper and set it about evening out the rough edges, before he commanded the pieces to fit themselves together. Just like being a child again. A simple project, like the ones Nikolai had mastered when he was only a boy, when Galina had taught him the physics of construction and architecture by drilling him with kit after kit of model bridges and towers and masted ships.
When the miniature dock was finished, Nikolai leaned over the rocky edge of the island and dropped the model pier into the water. Now was where the effort came in. He gritted his teeth and focused all his energy on the dock, and it began to expand, growing larger and larger until it was wide enough and long enough for a ferry to anchor itself at the end.