Page 83 of The Crown's Game
She smiled back kindly at him. “Indeed.” She turned to Vika. “I believe Alexander and I are truly ready now.”
The tsar nodded, himself pulling on a fur-lined greatcoat.
Vika glanced at Nikolai. Again, he gave her his subtle nod, his confidence. She turned to the tsar and tsarina.
One breath. Two breaths. Three . . .
And she evanesced the tsar and tsarina out of the Winter Palace, all the way to the sea.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Sergei cried out from his bed. Galina dropped the armload of firewood she was moving near the fireplace—with nothing else to do in Siberia, and with Sergei indisposed, she had begun finding solace in the daily chores of their household—and rushed to his side.
His forehead beaded with sweat, and his black eyes were open but seemed not to see her. “Galina . . .”
“Shh, mon frère.” She dipped a nearby washcloth in a basin of water and dabbed it on his head. “I’m right here.”
“Something happened. There’s no more.” Delirium tinged his whisper.
The composure Galina had been trying to keep fell from her face. Her jaw tightened. “No more what?”
“No more of me left.” He rolled toward the sound of her voice, his eyes still unseeing. “Tell Vika the truth about who I am. Who she is. And tell her I loved her.”
Galina dropped the washcloth back in the basin. “Sergei, no.”
“I am finished.”
“No! I shall write to the tsar. I’ll request that he declare a winner and end the Game. You will recover.”
“Hm?” Sergei grunted.
“You’ll get better.”
But he ignored her. It was as if his ears were failing him, as well. “Tell Vika I am proud of her. And not to be upset at me for the bracelet, and for not telling her about me, or about her mother. I did it all because I love her.”
“Sergei . . .”
His eyes drifted closed. Then they flitted open again, only to droop and fly open once more.
“Please don’t go,” Galina whispered.
“Sing to me,” he said.
She swallowed the dread lodged in her throat, and she began to sing his lullaby. Her voice carried out from the cabin across the fields of snow.
Na ulitse dozhdik,
S vedra polivaet,
S vedra polivaet,
Zemlyu pribivaet.
Sergei sighed when she finished, and she tucked the sheets tightly around him. “Sing again,” he said.
So Galina did.
At the end of the song, Sergei let out a low moan. Buzzards screeched outside. And then the light in Sergei’s eyes snuffed out.
