Page 85 of The Crown's Fate
“I do. The Nikolai I once knew would see it.”
He shook his head, as if doing so would obliterate the truth that there was a difference between him and whom he’d once been.
“Please, stop whatever you’re planning. Your mother’s energy taints you. But together, I’m sure we could still make things right.”
He furrowed his brow. “I doubt that.” He turned as if to go.
“Nikolai, wait.”
He didn’t look at her again, but he hesitated, his hand still in hers.
It was something. More than something. She would hold on to it as long as she could.
“No matter what happens,” Vika said, “don’t forget.”
“Forget what?”
“That I love you.”
His fingers tightened around hers for a brief moment. “I love you, too,” he whispered.
He shook himself and disappeared from the dream.
Vika stayed, looking at the spot where Nikolai had stood. Only minutes later, however, the walls of the volcano began to tremble. No, not just tremble, but quake. Chunks of basalt rained down on her, and lava began to roar into the room. Vika shrieked and backed into a corner.
“Don’t be afraid, my dear,” a voice that sounded eerily similar to Vika’s said, echoing throughout the cylindricalchamber. “You were born of this. It won’t hurt you.”
Vika pressed herself against the wall anyway. She stretched and yawned and shook herself awake, just as the lava began to lick at the soles of her boots.
She gasped as she jolted upright on the Dream Bench. She gulped in the fresh air, no fire and ash here.
Then she hurried back to the dock for a ferry.I’m really beginning to hate dreams.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Aguard knocked on Yuliana’s antechamber door and announced Pasha. She looked up from where she’d been working at her desk.
Pasha frowned as he walked in. He took in the room, still full of letters and envelopes, then looked pointedly at Yuliana. “Who are you?”
“What?” She scrunched her nose.
“This room is a disaster. My sister would never tolerate something like this. Therefore, you are clearly an imposter.”
Yuliana could see the grin itching to break at the edge of his mouth. “Very funny.”
“I thought so.” He allowed himself to grin now and cleared a small space on the chaise longue. He picked up an envelope as he sat down. “So tell me, whyisit such a mess in here?”
Yuliana rose and grabbed her notes from the desk, then wove through a thin break between the stacks of papers. Pasha shifted on the chaise to make space for her.
“These are Mother’s things,” she said as she sat down beside him.
Pasha nodded. “I recognize her perfume on the pages. But that doesn’t answer my question of why it appears a storm has blown through your quarters.”
“I went through her letters to figure out who your father was.” Yuliana shoved her notes at Pasha. There were pages and pages of neat columns, listing dates and descriptions of the contents of each letter.
His grin disappeared. “I’m afraid to ask what you’ve discovered.”
Yuliana scooted closer to him and took back her notes, shuffling through them until she found what she was looking for. “Well, to be honest, I haven’t found anything definitive yet. The rumors are that Mother and Okhotnikov were involved early in 1808, right? Which would mean he could be your father, since you were born in October that year. And yet, look.” She pointed to several entries, dated 1807. “These are the letters in which Mother’s friends console her over the loss of ‘the candle that lit her nights.’ From what I can gather from her other correspondence, that’s code for her lover.”
