Page 50 of The Crown's Fate
They were not far away, possibly on the Neva, where the disastrous fête had been. Vika evanesced herself to the frozen river.
She gaped at the detritus of Nikolai’s party, not only tables covered with leftover food dripping off their dishes and overturned chairs, but also decapitated dolls with their heads smashed in. It was like the state of Nikolai’s soul, laid bare on the ice.
There was also a crowd gathered on the embankment. They formed a circle, surrounding something Vika couldn’t quite see. But their chanting was unmistakable.
“Burn the witch! Burn the witch! Burn the witch!”
Vika gasped and ducked behind a nearby tree. This was what Sergei had warned her about when she was young, that normal people would not be able to understand magic, that their fear would propel them against her.
And it was Vika they wanted to burn, not Nikolai, for she’d convinced Pasha and Yuliana that it was better not to reveal the existence of another enchanter, because the city was frightened enough of one. Hence, Vika shouldered the blame (again) for what Nikolai had done. But it was to protect him, and to keep some semblance of sanity in the empire.
Vika was not sure if the latter was working.
A girl’s scream pierced through the mob’s shouts. “Let me go! I’m not the witch! Someone help!”
“Tie her tighter,” a man yelled. “Don’t believe her lies!”
Oh, mercy, they’re trying to burn someone else in my place!Vika spun away from the tree and hurtled toward the mob.She probably should have cast a shroud around herself, a disguise or at least less identifiable hair, but all she could think about at the moment was getting to the girl.
The crowd was larger than she’d initially thought. They formed a tight-knit ring, six to seven people deep. Vika tried to shove them aside but was met with snarls and elbows.
One of the men she attempted to push away glared at her. But when he looked at her—or, more likely, recognized the black stripe in her red hair—he grabbed her arm. “You!”
Vika jerked back, but his grip tightened. “You’re the witch! You’re the one who has my Misha vomiting blood tonight!”
“It’s not my fault,” Vika said, not that he would believe her. “But it’s not that girl’s either, and I have to stop them from burning her before it’s too late. Release me.”
The man spit in Vika’s face. “You’re not going anywhere. And for all we know, that’s your sister at the stake. Better to burn her just in case than to be sorry.”
Vika charmed the spit off her cheek and flung it back at the man’s face. He yelped.
“I respectfully disagree on both counts,” Vika said. “It is not better to kill someone ‘just in case.’ And I am absolutely going somewhere.”
With that, she commanded the wind to rush at her assailant, and it lifted him off his feet, hurling him onto a snowbank several yards away. The string of profanities he shouted at Vika were equally blown away.
And then she evanesced into the center of the mob.
They cried out as she rematerialized. “It’s another witch! The girl has called her kin!”
Vika stepped between the red-haired girl, who wastied to one of Nikolai’s upended tables, surrounded by broken chair legs, and the hysterical crowd. “You poor thing,” she said to the girl, “to be born looking like me. But don’t worry. I’ll get you out of here safely.” Vika conjured an iridescent bubble around herself and the pyre, and she charmed the ropes that lashed the girl to the firewood to come undone.
The girl fell to her knees. Silent tears and snot streamed down her face, and her entire body shook.
The mob pounded on the outside of Vika’s bubble shield.
Vika wrapped her arms around the girl. “You’re safe now.”
The girl shook her head.
“I put up an enchantment to protect us.”
“But what about after you’re gone?” The girl’s voice was so hoarse, it was more like scratches on dry air than proper words.
“You can’t hide from us forever!” a woman punching at the shield yelled.
A man opposite her shouted, “The Lord will bring justice! Beware, daughters of the devil!”
Vika looked from them back to the girl. “Where do you need to go? Do you have family? I’ll take you where you feel secure.”
