The Crown's Game
Page 83

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.”
“But you won’t be there of your own accord.”
In the distance, the eagle circled in the sky, then plummeted down toward the ground. A moment later, it flapped its mighty wings and emerged from the grass with a small animal drooping from its talons. The eagle rose into the air with its prey.
“Forgiveness doesn’t come so easily,” Vika said, as much to herself as to Pasha.
He smiled sadly. But he nodded. “I understand. But perhaps with time—”
“Perhaps.”
He swallowed. “Right . . . Well . . . I’ll leave you alone then. I shall see you after I return from my coronation.”
Vika glanced at him. “I will be there in Moscow.”
“You will?” The blue in Pasha’s eyes flickered through the gray.
“Yes. To ensure no harm comes to you. I promised Father I would do my best to serve the empire, and that begins with the tsar.”
“Oh . . . all right. I . . . I appreciate it.”
Vika gave him a curt nod. “Good-bye, Your Imperial Highness.”
He hesitated, as if he wanted to say more, but then bowed and retreated. There was a rustle through the grass as he awoke and exited the dream.
Vika closed her eyes and rubbed her face with her hands. If only the past could be undone.
But at least there was this. This dream where time was suspended. This bench bridging then and now.
Vika turned her focus back to the sky. But the eagle was gone, having successfully killed its prey. She squinted at the horizon, hoping to find it again. It would be with its berkutchi, its master.
They were difficult to see at first. But eventually, she made out a shadow at the mountain’s base. The berkutchi sat atop his horse, the eagle perched regally on his arm. They were camouflaged in the shade.
Vika craned her neck and squinted harder. The outline of the rider sharpened. But it was not the profile of a burly Kazakh hunter, as Vika expected. It was instead the graceful silhouette of a gentleman, in a top hat.
She inhaled sharply.
The string at Vika’s chest tugged at her. The shadow turned in her direction, as if he, too, had felt the pull. He paused for a moment when he saw her. But then he dipped his head, like their mutual presence was no surprise at all, and he raised his hat in a distant hello.
She was supposed to be invisible to the people in the dream.
Vika lifted her hand to wave, her heart pounding to the beat of a mazurka.
He was almost the same as he’d been at Bolshebnoie Duplo. Almost, because the shadow boy on the horse wasn’t entirely there. Right now, he could only exist in this reverie.
But his silhouette was identical. Vika had been right that she could still feel his presence, and she could almost hear him in the wind, invoking the words he’d once written on her armoire:
Imagine, and it shall be.
There are no limits.
Vika smiled. Her magic was not alone.
The shadow was undeniably Nikolai.