The Crown's Game Part 32

"Oh, yes. He didn't simply die." Spit flew from Galina's mouth onto Vika's gown. "You killed him."

Vika looked as if all the blood in her veins had drained out, just like the life had drained out of Sergei. Perfect, Galina thought. Let her despair do her in. Perhaps she'll simply lie down and lose the Game. She deserves it.

Frigid air began to stir inside the room, and it merged into the tornado Galina had been expecting. She yelled over the churning of the wind, "You have all the training you need, Nikolai. Try not to make a mess of things. You ought to win."

Then the whirlwind enveloped Galina completely, blew open one of the windows, and rushed out into the winter cold. She hoped it was not carrying her back to Siberia.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR.

Vika fled as soon as the whirlwind had taken Galina away. She climbed out the open window onto the banks of the frozen river.

"Wait," Nikolai said, clambering out the window as well.

"Leave me be." Vika turned her back to him. She swirled her arm over her head, and a small blizzard appeared. It spat snow into Nikolai's eyes and pushed him back against the wall of the palace. Vika levitated, and a sleigh of ice formed beneath her.

"Vika, please. Wait."

But she either didn't hear him through the storm or she chose not to listen. She tapped on the sleigh, and it glided away on the surface of the river.

The blizzard pummeled Nikolai until she was gone from sight. As soon as the snowstorm vanished, Pasha's Guard appeared on the other side of the window.

"Hey, you! What are you doing there?" Two rough pairs of hands seized Nikolai by his collar and dragged him back inside. A thick layer of snow tumbled off his hair and coat onto the wooden floor below. The guards righted him and gave him a shove toward the door. "Make haste before we arrest you. The exit is that way."

Nikolai picked up his top hat, which had fallen off as he chased after Vika. He glanced back over his shoulder at the window, but the guards moved their hands to their swords in warning. He nodded and placed his hat back on his head, cold and wet from the now-melting snow, and trudged out of the room, down the hallway, and out into the square.

He bit his lip as he left. It might be the last time he walked through that door.

Nikolai stopped every so often on his walk home to steady himself on a streetlamp. The scar had been burning him, hotter and hotter, nearly unbearably, for the last two weeks as he contemplated his final turn in the Game. Vika had attacked him aggressively by ransacking the Zakrevsky house. Nikolai had needed time to calm down-to let it sink in that it was Vika's grief that had driven her to it, not hatred or real viciousness, he hoped-and to consider how he would respond.

Now, however, it was all moot. Pasha had changed the Game, and each scorching throb of Nikolai's scar served as a reminder that Renata's life was at risk. How could Pasha do this? It was bad enough that Nikolai and Vika might die, but to add Renata and Ludmila? It was as if Pasha's goodness had died when the tsar and tsarina did. Or maybe Nikolai had killed it by betraying him. Nikolai clutched the streetlamp tighter, although this time, it was as much from shame as from the pain of his scar.

Finally, the searing at his collarbone eased a bit, and although he was still sick with guilt, Nikolai released his grip on the streetlamp. But there was no relief, for at that moment, the stench of decay washed over him. He reached for his handkerchief and covered his nose.

"My apologies," a cloaked woman said as she crossed a small bridge over the nearby ca.n.a.l and approached him. "I need to speak with you, enchanter. Would you be able to cast a shield around yourself-or around me-to block the unpleasant smell, so that we may have a conversation?"

Nikolai started to respond but instead gagged into his handkerchief. It was as if the rot were crawling into his mouth. He waved his hand in front of the woman and formed an invisible bubble around her to contain the odor, not so much because of her request, but out of self-preservation. Only when he could breathe again did he register that this stranger had known he was an enchanter, and that, d.a.m.n it, he had just performed magic in front of her without question. She had not even flinched.

"Thank you, Nikolai."

He took several steps away. "How do you know my name?"

"I know many things about you, perhaps even some you do not know yourself. Will you walk with me? I promise, you are safe."

"Tell me who you are."

"I will. That I also promise. But first, would you like to know who your father was?"

"My father?" Nikolai took a tentative step toward the woman.

She began to hobble down the street. "You inherited from your father not only his broad shoulders and confidence, but also his adaptability. Despite his many flaws, he was quite skilled at adjusting himself to thrive through change. He would not have survived the war with Napoleon and all the other upheavals without it."

"I knew he was a soldier. But that is all that I knew."

The woman laughed, although it was more a shrill screech than a joyous chuckle. Nikolai cringed. "Your father was no mere soldier. He was a leader of men. Your father was the tsar."

Nikolai stopped in the middle of the street, in front of a small church. "Pardon?"

"You heard me right. Your friend the tsesarevich is your half brother."

"That's impossible."

"Is it? I think I ought to know. The tsar took me as his mistress during a monthlong visit to his army on the steppe. I was young and beautiful then, and we spent every night in his tent. Eight months after he left, I bore him a son, whom I named Nikolai."

"No." Every muscle in Nikolai's body tensed. It had to be a lie. What game was this old hag playing at?

"Oh, yes." She paused in front of the church's wooden doors, as if for dramatic effect. "In fact, since you are a year older than the tsesarevich, you could contend his right to be the next tsar. It's rumored the tsarina had her own affairs, as well, and it is reasonable to doubt whether the tsar was Pasha's father. You could be tsar, my darling. I've already been busy spreading gossip about the possibility around the city."

Nikolai clenched his fists. Then he s.n.a.t.c.hed the invisible edge of the bubble surrounding the woman-he knew precisely where the edge was, for he had created it-and yanked her into the church. It was empty at this hour. He slammed her into the pews. She cackled.

"You could be arrested for treason," he whispered furiously. "I could be arrested for treason, simply for walking and talking with you. How dare you spew these lies."

The woman straightened her cloak and adjusted the hood over her head. Being hurled into the pew seemed to have had little impact on her.

"I don't know how you came to know my ident.i.ty as an enchanter, but I could chain you to this bench for eternity if I so desired."

"I have no doubt. But you wouldn't do that to your mother, would you?"

"I have no mother. She died when I was born."

"I almost died. But I resurrected myself." The woman lifted the hood and let it fall to her shoulders.

Nikolai stumbled backward into another pew across the aisle. The woman looked as horrid as she had smelled before he contained her stench in the bubble. Her skin was yellowed and mummified in places, gray and sagging in others. Only her eyes glowed, wild with savagery.

G.o.d forgive me, Nikolai thought. I've led the devil into Your sanctuary.

"It is truly I. My name is Aizhana Karimova, and I was a faith healer on the steppe. The village thought I had died, but I actually lay in ante-death, the amorphous s.p.a.ce between life and death. It took eighteen years, but I healed myself, leaching energy from the worms and maggots that squirmed over me. And when I emerged from ante-death, I went in search of the only thing that mattered: you."

Nikolai clutched a book of psalms that had been left in his pew. "It's not possible to rise from death."

Aizhana sighed, and all her audacity fell away. "It is when you are motivated by love." She frowned. Or what would have been a frown had the muscles of her face worked as they were supposed to, rather than pulling taut in some places and hanging loose in others. "But, my dear, why should you not believe in ante-death, simply because you did not know it exists? Healing is the business of transferring energy; resurrection is healing, but more ambitious. And there is nothing too ambitious for a mother separated from her son."

Nikolai remained in his pew, but his grip on the book of psalms eased. Just a fraction. It was nonsense, what she spoke of, and yet . . . it seemed possible that there could be a kernel of truth. Perhaps even more than a kernel.

She inched closer and opened her arms as if to embrace him.

"Stay back."

Her entire body slumped, but she did not try to advance farther. "I have been in the city a while now, but I did not feel worthy of you, Nikolai. I failed to protect you, and protection was my job as your mother. I could not face you until I felt I had been redeemed." Her face drooped. The skin near her mouth looked as if it might fall off her chin. It was a ghoul's rendition of regret.

"And are you redeemed now?"

Her eyes brightened. "I am."

"How?"

Now the skin near her mouth tightened, and she bared her rotten jaw in a monstrous, gap-toothed smile. "The villagers who neglected you have been punished. When I find Galina Zakrevskaya, she will feel my wrath as well. And the tsar . . . let us simply say his death was not accidental."

Nikolai clung to the psalter again. "You killed the tsar?"

"Believe me, he did not deserve to live."

"And the tsarina?" Nikolai's voice was hardly audible.

"She died of natural causes. She meant nothing to me."

If Nikolai hadn't already been sitting, he would have buckled onto the floor. His mother had come back from the dead. And she had murdered the tsar, who she claimed was his father.

He summoned the power to rise from the pew. "You may have been my mother in your past life, but not in your current reincarnation."

Aizhana's shriveled lips twisted with a sob. "But-"

"The bubble I've cast around you will remain to spare others from your fetor. But please leave Saint Petersburg. I do not wish your presence here."

"Nikolai." She whimpered. She attempted to stand. She fell back into the pew.

"I have charmed you to the bench. The spell will wear off in a few hours. Meanwhile, it may do you good to spend some time in this holy place. To think about what you've done."

"No! My son! I did everything for you. I love you, Nikolai."

But he strode out of the church without looking back. He had a mother who was a demon of the dead. He had a father who was actually dead. And he had a duel tomorrow, at the end of which either he or Vika would be dead.

Again, Renata's tea leaves were correct. Nikolai was born of Death, and Death would always follow him. The only question that remained was, would he also help usher in Death?

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE.

In the evening, Vika woke in her bed on Ovchinin Island with her eyes nearly glued together from salt crust, and her mouth pasty and dry. Her flat in Saint Petersburg had been too quiet without Ludmila, and the city too big and impersonal. Vika had needed stillness and familiarity to sort through her thoughts, so she'd come home.

And cried and cried.

It was worse than after she'd first learned of Sergei's death. Then, she had been sad, but she'd also been furious. She'd been upset that he lied to her about her mother, and that he never dispelled her delusion that he was her real father. Her grief had been diluted by her sense of betrayal. It had taken time to come to terms with his untruths, and to understand that whether or not he was her biological father, he had cared for her and taught her everything he knew, and he'd been her father in everything but name.

However, unlike the letter about Sergei's death, Galina's accusation that Vika had been the one who took his life hit Vika directly. There was no one else to blame. And so she cried.

But now she sc.r.a.ped the salt from her eyes. It wasn't my fault, Vika realized. I couldn't have known and couldn't have stopped what happened. Sergei had never taught her it was possible to channel energy as he had done. And it must have been his plan that when the Game began, he would sacrifice himself if he had to in order to help her. Oh, Father.

With this understanding, Vika rose from bed and cobbled together supper from the tins of fish in the cupboard and some old beets from the garden. Then she dived into her last few hours before the duel.

She did little in preparation for the duel itself. She figured that what she already knew would have to suffice; there was little else she could learn in these final hours. Besides, she wanted to save her strength.

Vika also had no inkling of what to expect from Nikolai. In fact, she had no clue about what to expect from herself. If he attacked, she would react. If he didn't, well . . . she did not know.

What Vika did do was tidy up the loose ends of her life. She made a list of all her valuables-there weren't many, but the contents of the chest buried under the valerian root (Father's "hiding spot") would be enough to last a comfortable lifetime-and left instructions that they were to go to Ludmila in the event Vika died. She also composed a letter to Ludmila and charmed both the list and the letter to self-destruct should Vika survive the Game, and to find their way to Ludmila if she did not.

After she'd run out of ch.o.r.es, Vika hiked into the forest to say good-bye to her longtime refuge. She climbed over icy logs and pushed her way through snow-covered shrubs until she reached Preobrazhensky Creek. It was frozen over, but she could still imagine its soft burbling, the fish glistening silver beneath its surface, and the frogs croaking their deep, vibrating songs on midsummer nights.

"Farewell," she whispered, and the wind between the trees stirred and carried her message through the woods.

Vika sat on a boulder on the creek's bank and touched the basalt pendant at her neck. Sergei had made her promise, long before the Game began, to remain his little Vikochka, no matter what the future would bring. Had she done that? Had she played the Game in a way that would've made Sergei proud? Or had she changed too much and lost herself?

"It would have been impossible not to change," Vika whispered. And as soon as she said it, she knew it was true, and she accepted it. But she didn't know if she would be able to accept becoming an outright murderer.

She sat in the forest for a long time, until the winter cold truly set in, and even the branches shivered. She rose from her rock to leave, perhaps forever. "Good-bye, my island. Thank you for everything." If she'd had any tears left, she might have wept.

As Vika returned to her cottage, the full moon glowed red in the sky. She thought of a saying Sergei had taught her when she was young.

White moon, angel moon.

Blood moon, demon moon.

She made haste and hurried inside.

At the stroke of midnight, as the calendar shifted to the date of the duel, a wolf howled at the red-black sky. It sounded like a funeral dirge.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX.