Page 29 of The Crown's Fate
“What happened?” someone shouted, as the crowd in the square fled.
It was the exact question raging through Nikolai’s head.
He blasted the boxes apart, sending shards of red and purple wood across the square and shattering the cobblestones beneath them. The few people who’d dallied ran screaming.
When the dust settled, the ballerina lay unharmed but limp in the middle of the rubble.
Click, click, click.Not clapping—for Palace Square was nearly empty now—but the sound of talon-like nails clacking together.
“So melodramatic,” a familiar raspy voice said.
Nikolai whirled around. A hooded figure lurked behind him.
“Please don’t glower at me like that,” she said. “Even though no one else can see the expression on your face,Ican feel it. A son’s disapproval is a special weapon, and it wounds me to my withered core.”
Nikolai almost felt bad. Almost.
“You extracted yourself from the Dream Bench,” Aizhana said quietly. As if she’d already known but was simply confirming the fact. But how could she have known? She hadn’t been there when Nikolai escaped.
“Renata came to visit me; perhaps there’s somethingabout her that gave me the mental strength to break free. But in any case, you see I didn’t need you.”
Aizhana sucked in air between her missing teeth.
He exhaled. A scrap of sympathy found its way to Nikolai. “I’m sorry. I’m not accustomed to having a ...maternal figurein my life.”
“Or someone like me who continues to show up unannounced.”
Well, that part I’m used to,he thought. Galina used to appear for lessons all the time when Nikolai least expected it, so often that he actually began to expect the unexpected. If that made any sense.
Aizhana ventured a step closer.
Nikolai took a step away. “If you’ll excuse me, I have somewhere else I need to be.”
“Which is?”
“None of your business.” The truth was, he was going to see Galina. Nikolai might have had his sights set on the Winter Palace, but until that was officially his home, he’d need a place to stay. A base from which to plan.
“You know I’ll follow you if you don’t tell me where you’re going,” Aizhana said.
Nikolai sighed. Hedidknow that. “Fine. I’m going to see Galina.”
Aizhana swiped away a lock of greasy hair from her face and grinned. “Your best idea yet. You’ll reap a great deal of energy by killing a mentor. Her power was nothing compared to what yours used to be, but her ability to command magic would likely benefit you.”
“I’m not going to kill her!” Nikolai’s earlier sympathy for his mother disappeared, and he glared at her. “I spent allnight wandering the city. I need a place to sleep.”
She shrank under her hood again.
He didn’t care. He began to stalk away.
“Nikolai, wait.”
He kept walking.
Aizhana scurried after him, her limp more pronounced when she had to hurry. “I have rooms at a boardinghouse in Sennaya Square if you want a place to live.”
He didn’t turn around. “Sennaya Square is a pit of filth and disrepute.” It was the home of gamblers and drunks, of lice and whores. Nikolai knew this, for Sennaya Square was where he’d spent his little free time during his youth—before he met Pasha, that is—playing cards with louts and enchanting decks so he would win. He always felt sullied afterward. He shuddered now, thinking of it.
Aizhana stopped trying to keep up with him. “Sennaya Square is also the sort of place where people know not to look each other in the eyes. The sort of place where a resurrected corpse and a living shadow might survive without too many questions. Because that, in truth, is what we are, my son.”
