Page 251 of Golden Eagle

Fulk nodded. “Wear it on your left hip, so it’s in your strong hand when you draw.”

“Right.”

~*~

Alexei studied Dante’s profile, looking for signs of pain or stress. He saw only regular nerves, as Dante’s gaze flicked across the readying team spread out across the ballroom.

Back at the apartment, Alexei had let him sleep as long as he was able to, and he’d stirred with a groan and a bleary squint when he’d finally pushed himself upright in bed. He looked fully-awake, now, even if his eyes were shadowed, dressed in jeans, simple boots, and a thoroughly unlike-him utility jacket: practical and unflattering compared to his usual fashions. He’d tied his hair back in a simple, low bun. Alexei thought the light tracks of veins visible at his temples looked darker than normal, more prominent.

Sensing Alexei’s gaze, he turned and offered the barest scrap of a smile. “Everything alright?”

Alexei swallowed. “I feel like I should be asking you that.”

The smile stretched wider, with all the enthusiasm of someone using fingers to force the expression. “I’m much better, now. And I’ll have my guard up, this time.”

Severin said yourbrainwas injured, he wanted to say.Your brain. But he nodded instead, and turned to the mage – his mage, it would be easy to think, the way things were going.

They’d managed to piece together an outfit for the boy that wasn’t too ill-fitting. One of Alexei’s old sweaters, wool and warm, and a pair of Dante’s cropped jeans whose upturned cuffs hit Severin like regular-length pants. He wore the same size shoes as Jamie, so that had worked, though Converse sneakers probably weren’t the best things to wear into a warzone.

He’d insisted on wearing the overcoat, though, the one that smelled faintly of smoke, and which he’d been wearing when he showed up outside the old warehouse.

Alexei didn’t suppose he’d have to throw any punches, so his mobility wouldn’t matter as much. Why hit people when you could set them on fire instead?

“Sev, are you ready?”

The boy nodded, expression serious. “Yes.”

That would have to be answer enough.

Alexei took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders. Thought of what Dante had shown him before the dream-walk had been invaded: the glimpses of Romanovs past, of Byzantium falling, and Muscovy taking up the mantle of Rome.

Three cities of seven hills. Three empires destroyed from the inside out. Fate.

He felt every inch the scared boy, now, but he was a scared boy who’d crawled out of a pit. A scared boy who could trace his blood back, and back, and back, to heroes, and villains, to doomed emperors, and ruthless warriors.

I am the double-headed eagle, he thought, shoring up the gaps in his confidence with sheer, white-knuckled force.I am the last tsar.

Please, let it be enough…

---