Page 64 of The Crown's Fate
Nikolai took a deep breath, though, and stepped inside one of the doors that led to the part of the building that housed barracks. Again, he kept to the shadows and darted through the halls past soldiers as they departed the mess hall and prepared for the execution.
Click, click, click.
I’m nearly there.
Two police stood guard at the entrance to where Aizhana was being held. Nikolai waved his hand in the air, and the men’s pistols unholstered themselves and hit the guards in the backs of their heads. They slumped unceremoniously to the ground.
This was why ordinary men were insufficient for watching an enchanter’s mother.
Nikolai opened the door and slipped inside another hall, this one darker than the ones in the barracks. A few lamps hung from sconces in the wall, their flames flickering and taunting. Which room was Aizhana in?
Vika leaned against a wooden door in the middle of the hall. “You liberated yourself from my painted egg.”
“You made it difficult.”
“Not difficult enough, apparently.”
Nikolai advanced a few steps. “Is my mother in there?”
“Yes, but I can’t let her escape, too.”
“I don’t want to have to hurt you.”
“She killed the tsar, Nikolai. That’s not excusable, and she’s going to die today. That said ... I’m not heartless. Ididn’t have the chance to say good-bye to Father before he passed.” Vika looked directly at Nikolai, her eyes covered in a sheen of tears. “I’m going to walk over here, to the other end of the hall—which, mind you, is not very far—but I’m going to study this sconce on the wall, and if you should happen to find your way into the cell for a minute to say farewell to your mother, well, I might not notice.”
Nikolai just stood there for a moment. He’d been seething on the way here, but Vika’s kindness suddenly doused the anger.
“If you attempt more than a simple good-bye, though,” she said, “thatI will notice. And when you’re done, you and I have some unfinished business.”
“I ... thank you.”
Vika nodded and turned to look at the sconce as she’d promised.
Nikolai began to charm open the locks on the door. As the final one clinked open, Vika said, “And tread carefully in there. I have a couple of alligators inside, and they haven’t been fed.”
Nikolai laughed unintentionally. “Of course you do. Thank you for the warning.” He eased open the heavy wooden door and stepped inside. It was even darker in here than in the hall. He conjured a candle in his hand and shut the door. “Mother?”
Shackles clinked in the far corner, on a platform raised just out of the alligators’ reach. “My son. You have not been lost.”
“It is not so easy to be rid of me,” Nikolai said. “I believe it runs in the family.” He snapped his fingers and two short lengths of rope appeared. They wrapped themselves aroundthe alligators’ snouts and secured tidy knots, and Nikolai stepped over them as if they were merely logs. He crossed the cell and examined the icy chains on Aizhana’s wrists, ankles, and around her entire body. She was shivering. “I’ll get you out of here.”
“No,” she said. “They mean for me to die today, and I will. I only wanted to see you once more.”
Nikolai still focused on the chains. He could undo the charms. They were much less complicated than the painted egg. “What are you talking about?”
“I was selfish in the past,” Aizhana said. “I pretended I was selfless in giving a part of myself to you, but in truth, I was the opposite, for I did not give youeverything, Nikolai. I wanted to live, too, so I could see you grow. I was selfish, because I wanted to be able to be your mother.
“But that isn’t what you need from me, is it? You don’t need a mother; you’ve survived on your own. I’ve only made things more complicated. So I’ll give to you what I should have given you long ago, and the only thing I have to give... .” A black tear trickled from her golden eyes, down her skeletal cheeks.
Nikolai frowned at the tear. There was something familiar about it... .
“I’ll give you my entire life,” Aizhana said.
He shook away the half-formed thought about her tears. “Mother. No.” He could not ask her to die for him.
“I am as good as dead already, Nikolai. I won’t run from here with you. I would only bring you more trouble. So either I die now, on my terms and gifting my son all that I have to give, or I die on their terms, alone on a snowy platform with a noose around my neck. Have mercy on me and say yes.”
“I—”
