The Crown's Game
Page 9

The tsar nodded again. “It’s why I’ve never told you about the existence of enchanters and magic. I knew this generation would require a Game. And I didn’t know if the two of you—Pasha, really—would be able to stomach its viciousness.”
But Yuliana could. Her mouth curved up at the corners. Her smile was both a fierce and wistful thing.
CHAPTER SIX

Two days later, Nikolai sat on a palomino mare on Ovchinin Island. He had never been there before, even though it was only an hour’s ferry ride from Saint Petersburg, but when Pasha had asked where they ought to hunt, “Ovchinin Island” had sprung from Nikolai’s tongue before his mind could catch up with the idea. He had no inkling where it had come from. But it turned out to be a grand decision. The sky was clear, the forest was dappled in red and gold, as it was wont to do in these early days of October, and the hounds were salivating for a chase. Nikolai watched as Pasha, smiling atop a white stallion, surveyed the land in front of him. The tsar had wanted Pasha to stay at the Winter Palace to listen to the mundane demands of farmers whose crops had been damaged by blight. But Pasha had escaped, and here, in the countryside, the tsesarevich rode wild and free from royal expectations.
“What are we hunting for today?” Pasha asked.
“I believe grouse, pheasants, and mink are all plentiful in this part of the country,” Nikolai said. “Whatever Your Imperial Highness desires.”
“‘Your Imperial Highness’? Why are you being so formal?” Pasha glanced over his shoulder at the rest of the hunting party, the sons of barons and counts and other lesser nobility, all social-climbing buffoons, in Nikolai’s opinion. “Don’t do it on their account,” Pasha said. “In fact, I rather wish you wouldn’t.”
Nikolai bowed his head. “As you wish, my heavenly sovereign, crown prince of all Russia.”
Pasha laughed.
Nikolai couldn’t maintain a straight face any longer, and he smiled. This was why they were friends, because Nikolai was the only one who didn’t kowtow at the tsesarevich’s feet.
They had met when Pasha was twelve and Nikolai thirteen. Nikolai had been crouched in the dirt in Sennaya Square, a sordid part of town, playing cards with a handful of other boys of questionable origin. He’d been betting money he didn’t have, but he hadn’t cared, for he’d long since mastered the ability to change the face of each card to whatever he wanted before the dealer flipped it from the deck. Nikolai lost often enough that the others didn’t know better. It was just that when Nikolai won, he always made sure to win more than he’d given up before.
After a particularly horrendous hand of cards, in which Nikolai sacrificed a painful sum of rubles, an unfamiliar voice piped up from behind a nearby building. “Can I play?”
“Who are you?” Stanislav, the leader of the gang, said.
“Uh, my name is Pasha.” There was a tremble as he answered, but that wasn’t uncommon around Stanislav, who at thirteen was already as stout as a dockworker.
The other boys turned to survey the new arrival. They looked him up and down, from the mess of his blond hair to the torn knees of his trousers. “It’s pay to play,” Stanislav said.
“I have some coins.” Pasha produced a small pouch. It clinked heavily.
Satisfied by the sound, Stanislav waved him over and began to deal him in. But there was something oddly familiar about Pasha, like Nikolai had seen him before. He couldn’t place him, though. Then he looked at Pasha’s boots, which were covered by a thin layer of dust. . . .
Nikolai flicked his fingers, just barely, and a small puff of air blew the dust away.
Pasha’s boots were shiny and completely unscuffed. And they weren’t fashioned from cheap leather. No, they’d been master-crafted from sumptuous burgundy calfskin, the kind reserved for nobility. Nobility with a lot of money. This Nikolai knew from a short stint polishing shoes for a cobbler.
And from the gleam in Stanislav’s eye, the extravagance of Pasha’s boots hadn’t slipped his notice either.
An hour later, Pasha had won a fair sum. “Thank you for the game,” he said too politely. “But I’m afraid it’s time for me to be going.” He gathered up the coins and crumpled bills from the center of the circle into his pouch and stood to take his leave.
“Not so fast, pretty boy.” Stanislav rose, and he towered over Pasha. “I think you cheated us.”
“W-w-what?” Pasha reddened. He jammed his hands into his hair, tugging frantically on it, and in doing so, flattened the blond waves into something neater than they’d been when he arrived.
Oh, blazes! Nikolai thought as he put Pasha’s fine-boned features together with the now-tamed hair. Pasha is the nickname for Pavel. And Pavel is the name of the tsesarevich. That was why he looked so familiar, despite the smudges of dirt on his face. Nikolai had seen Pasha with the rest of the imperial family in a parade only a week before. What the devil was the tsesarevich doing out of the palace, trying to pass himself off as a commoner? And in Sennaya Square, of all places.
Stanislav opened and closed a meaty fist. “I saw you slipping in your own cards,” he said to Pasha. “What d’ya think I am, stupid, just ’cause I can’t afford dainty shoes?”
“I—I don’t know what you think you saw. But I didn’t cheat.” Pasha backed into the wall of the building behind him.
Nikolai stepped forward. “Give him all the money,” he said to Pasha. “That’ll appease him.”
“Don’t speak for me, Kazakh,” Stanislav spat.
Nikolai’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t send Stanislav careening through the air like he wanted to. Instead, he held out his hand to Pasha, who dumped all his coins and bills into Nikolai’s palm. Nikolai set them on the ground in front of Stanislav. Then Nikolai emptied out his own pockets of all his hard-earned cash (true, Nikolai had actually cheated, but it didn’t mean he hadn’t worked hard for it—it took a great deal of restraint to charm the cards in his favor only once every five or so hands) and added that to the pile of Pasha’s money. “There, Stanislav, you can have my take, too, and consider the debt paid, all right? Besides, you don’t want trouble with Pasha. If he has fancy shoes, you can bet he has fancy parents, too, with connections to the sorts of people you don’t want poking around in your business.”