Page 24 of The Crown's Fate
Not unlike Nikolai. Perhaps he was not so different from his earlier self at all. Perhaps this malice had been inside him all along, and Vika had only chosen not to see. Her chest constricted at the thought.
Peter the Great craned his bronze neck and saw that Vika still sat on his saddle. He roared, then dug his heel into his horse, and they charged down Nevsky Prospect. Vika clasped onto his waist as he began to bellow again, “Grand Prince Karimov is alive, and he is the true heir to the throne! Shame on you, Tsesarevich, for the attempted murder of your brother!”
I cannot play nicely if Nikolai isn’t going to.
Vika climbed up onto her feet, balancing on the saddle in her boots, struggling to get upright even with the charm to keep her from tumbling off.
Finally, she managed to stand all the way up. “This ends now,” she yelled at the statue.
She looked to the night sky, cloudy but for the spot where the moon shone through. She took a deep inhale, breathing and sensing the particles of electricity in the air. It was mostly water in the clouds, eager to turn to more flurries, but there were enough sparks for her to work with.
“If I cannot stop you as you are,” she said to Peter the Great, “then I will changewhatyou are.”
She swirled her hands above her, and the air grew prickly. It crackled at her command. Then the electricity coalesced and shot down at an angle, a lightning bolt headed directly for Peter the Great’s head.
Vika undid the enchantment that attached her to the saddle, and she leaped off just as the lightning struck the statue.
Peter the Great’s face melted instantaneously, and his proclamations about Nikolai and Pasha devolved into incoherent shouts, his mouth full of molten metal. And then his mouth liquefied completely, and the proclamations ceased.
Vika rolled on the ground from the momentum of her jump, but she continued to command lightning bolt after lightning bolt. They hit Peter the Great and melted the rest of him into a puddle of liquid bronze, streaming off the saddle.
The horse, no longer having a rider to direct it, came to a standstill in the middle of Nevsky Prospect. It whinnied, and then a moment later, it transformed—along with Peter the Great’s melted remains dripping off its back—back into lifeless bronze.
Vika propped herself against the Bissette & Sons storefront, the glass etched with a list of their tailoring services. She panted as she caught her breath.
Disaster averted.
Or so she thought. But then she looked up, above the shops that were shuttered for the night, and saw that many of the windows in the apartments on the second and third stories were open, their occupants in their nightclothes, hanging over the ledges. Some stared at what was left of Peter the Great with their mouths agape. A few shrieked hysterically.
But the worst were the ones who whispered to those beside them, yet never took their eyes off Vika. She caught the shape of the word “witch” on their lips, and heard the word “devil” in the wind. They crossed themselves, and she knew from Father’s warnings during her childhood that these same people would soon conspire to hunt her down.
Vika might have stopped Nikolai’s rampaging statue before it shouted its message through all of Saint Petersburg, but she hadn’t stopped it soon enough. A good part of the city had seen a bronze tsar come to life and an enchantress command lightning to liquefy it.
Vika hurried down Nevsky Prospect, turning onto a side street as soon as she could.
Nikolai isn’t our only problem now,she thought, her pulse racing. For the existence of magic, so long kept a tidy secret, had been unveiled.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ilya had been on guard duty tonight, and when Pasha snuck out of the palace, Ilya had followed. He’d crouched against the side of a building at the edge of Peter’s Square and watched the entire confrontation unfold, far enough away that he could not make out what had been said, but certainly near enough to see. He had managed to keep himself from crying out in surprise—and revealing himself—by clamping his hand over his mouth when he first saw Nikolai’s shadow, and again when Peter the Great’s statue came to life.
But as soon as Nikolai departed the square, Ilya coughed, each sputter like its own cloud in the night air.
“The girl appeared out of nothing. Then disappeared, like she did to the tsesarevich,” he said to himself. “And that was Grand Prince Karimov.”
Ilya gave up crouching and sat in the snow banked against the building. The grand prince could command magic. And come back from the dead.
Or he had never been dead.
Ilya leaned back against the building as he tried to make sense of what he’d seen. It was unbelievable, and yet it was real.
He stared at the empty Thunder Stone and the square where the tsesarevich and the two enchanters had just stood. Then he shook his head as it slowly sank in.
“This changes everything.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
By morning, the churches of Saint Petersburg overflowed with those afraid of the devil’s arrival, and the streets filled with men concealing knives in every sleeve and pocket, whispering of capturing the witch and burning her alive. Vika was safely ensconced at home on Ovchinin Island, but she didn’t need to be in Saint Petersburg to know the city was on the brink of panicked hysteria. She’d seen it and heard it stirring already as she tamed Peter the Great’s statue. And fear always flourished in the dark of night.
