Page 13 of The Crown's Game
Bring your enchanter to Bolshebnoie Duplo on 13 October.
The Crown’s Game will then commence.
What? The Crown’s Game? Sergei sagged onto the threshold of the cottage. It couldn’t be. All this time, he’d assumed Vika was the only enchanter. He’d sent word to Galina when he discovered Vika’s abilities, but she’d never informed him that she had an enchanter in her tutelage as well. He clenched his fists. So typical of his sister!
His anger was short-lived, though, for he did not have the energy to devote to it. Besides, what could be done about it now?
Because Galina had kept from Sergei that she, too, had a student, there’d been no reason for Sergei to think another enchanter existed. It was the way it was supposed to be—when the Imperial Enchanter died, his or her magic returned to Russia’s wellspring, and there it recharged and eventually sought out another vessel in which to grow. It was rare that more than a single enchanter existed at once. As far as Sergei knew, it had happened only a handful of times in the thousand years since Russia was born. And he’d immersed himself so completely in the small sphere of his and Vika’s life here on Ovchinin Island that he hadn’t paid attention to whether another enchanter’s “otherness” lingered in Russia’s air.
But now my Vikochka is not just one, but one of two, Sergei thought. And he knew how the Game always ended: there was only room enough for one Imperial Enchanter, for he or she needed access to the full force of Russia’s magic. And therefore, the magic killed the loser of the Game.
Sergei sat paralyzed, his trousers covered in dirt. How can this be? Especially when I thought I still had two years to train her, to spend with her. Now I have only three days. . . .
And worse yet, how could he tell Vika, when he could hardly handle the truth himself?
He needed time to think. He looked to where the lightning storm had just abated. And he hiked into the woods in the opposite direction.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Nikolai stumbled into the kitchen at the Zakrevsky house immediately upon returning from Ovchinin Island. His eyes searched the room, but there was no one around. Perhaps Galina had decided to lunch at a restaurant with some of her society friends, as she often did, and the staff had been able to take a break. Thank goodness for all his mentor’s ridiculous obligations.
Nikolai fumbled for a glass of water and drank it greedily. A good portion of its contents sloshed onto his woolen breeches. He filled another glass and gulped that down, too, before he dropped into the lone wooden chair in the corner.
A few minutes later, a servant girl walked into the kitchen with an armful of freshly laundered aprons. She started when she saw Nikolai and nearly dropped the aprons on the dusty stone floor. Then she tossed them onto the countertop and hurried to kneel at his side. “Nikolai, you’re shaking! Are you all right? Did something happen on the hunt?”
Nikolai rubbed his face with both hands. He could tell Renata what he’d seen. Besides Galina, Renata was the only one who knew of his abilities. Not that he’d shared them with her purposely. Two years ago, he had forgotten to lock his bedroom door while he was reassembling a music box with his mind—these disassembly and rebuilding projects had begun when he was a child as lessons from Galina—and Renata had walked in with clean linens for his bed while the music box’s cranks and gears were suspended in midair.
“Oh!” she had said. “Forgive me, Master Nikolai, I—I—”
The pieces of the music box had gone clattering onto the desk. He’d snatched them up and stuffed them into the pocket of his waistcoat. “It’s not what it seems.”
She looked down at the scuffed toes of her boots. “That they were floating of their own accord? Of course not, Master Nikolai.”
“I could make you forget what you saw.” He raised a finger to his temple.
She trembled. “No need, sir. I promise I won’t tell a soul.”
“How can I trust you?”
“I read tea leaves, Master Nikolai. I don’t fear what you do.”
Nikolai lowered his finger. “You read leaves?” He’d never met anyone who could do that. Or anyone who’d admit to it. The Russian Orthodox Church had quashed magic as superstition and heresy centuries ago.
“Yes,” Renata said.
“Show me.”
He followed her to the kitchen, and Renata poured him a cup of tea. When he drained it, she studied the gnarled black leaves that remained.
Then she shook her head so violently, her braids lashed across her face. “Perhaps it would be better if you made me forget what I saw in your room, sir.”
Nikolai frowned, then looked from the teacup to Renata and back again. “No. There’s something in those leaves that you’re frightened to relay. Tell me. I won’t hold it against you.”
She swallowed hard.
“I give you my word.” Which, to Nikolai, was a serious thing, because if your word could not be trusted, you were nothing as a gentleman, and that was its own dreadful shame.
Renata nodded. But she took another moment before she spoke, her voice shaky. “You see there is a cluster of leaves on the left, but a single one, isolated, on the right? It means . . . It means you’re lonely.” She hunched over the cup, as if waiting for Nikolai to cuff her. She had been hit on numerous occasions by Galina, for much lesser offenses.
