Page 20 of The Crown's Fate
If only Father were alive and here to comfort her, as he used to do when Vika had nightmares and would crawl into his bed and his warm arms in the next room. But now that room was empty. Vika curled into a ball beneath the covers.
It was not easy to discern what was real and what was a dream. As Vika blinked the sleep from her eyes, her body actually did feel lesser than it had before. Was it the cuff that was draining her?
But that didn’t make sense, for she wasn’t doing anything against Pasha or Yuliana’s orders. If the bracelet was supposed to help the tsardom, it wouldn’t weaken her while she was asleep.
Actually, it wasn’t that Vika felt weaker. It was more that, with all of Bolshebnoie Duplo’s power, she’d recentlyfelt like a snake, poised to strike, able to accomplish anything. Now, however, she felt more like a coiled spring, still full of energy and potential but considerably less formidable. Why?
Vika bolted upright in bed.
What if ...
She recalled the snag in her magic in the dream. And the real hitch when she’d conjured the dome over the Kazakh steppe. She hadn’t understood what could have caused it if all of Bolshebnoie Duplo’s magic was hers.
Unless it wasn’t.
“The magic is meant for us together,” Vika whispered, remembering her dream.
It was Nikolai. It had to be. He was reaching for a share of the magic again, extricating himself from the bench. She knew it like she knew herself, because she could feel him on the other side of their invisible string now, tugging even if he didn’t mean to, tied to her because they were the sun and the moon, always together yet always apart.
The tea leaves.
Always fighting.
The magic pulled. Vika leaped out of bed.
She evanesced to where it was calling her.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
At midnight, Nikolai arrived. Pasha was already in the square, standing a few paces away from the statue of Peter the Great. His blond hair was damp from the flurries around him, his entire body tense as if ready to either pounce or flee, whichever the situation called for.
Nikolai approached with slow, measured steps, his boots making little noise on the snowy cobblestones. The sky was gray with clouds that parted only for the moon, and the few streetlamps around them were decorated in silver garlands for Christmas. But these decorations that used to bring Nikolai joy now elicited nothing within him; the lamps might as well be choked with black vines.
Pasha watched, his eyes widening as Nikolai drew near and yet remained a shadow under the moonlight. Or perhaps he was simply surprised to find Nikolai truly alive.
Pasha bowed slightly, attempting to hide his shock.“Bonsoir, mon frère.”
“I do not think that greeting is appropriate,” Nikolaisaid as he came up to the Thunder Stone. “It is not, in fact, a good night.”
At that moment, a gust of wind and snow blasted through Peter’s Square. Another moment later, Vika appeared.
Nikolai’s silhouette lungs forgot how to breathe. He stared at her, and it was as if time had been suspended in the square, the falling snow the only indication that the seconds continued to march on.
Despite the painful tightness of his lungs constricting for lack of air, Nikolai began to smile. Here they were. All three of them, together again. This was not supposed to be possible.
“Thank goodness you’re here,” Pasha said to Vika, breaking the quiet.
She gave him a quick nod.
Nikolai choked.Deuces, she’s here for Pasha?Air rushed back into his lungs, and his shadowed chest expanded again.
“Is it true that you’re here for him?” Nikolai tried not to glare at Vika, but he couldn’t help it. All he felt was a swell of cold inside him, much like when he’d escaped from the Dream Bench, and the chilly sensation washed over him so completely, it subsumed him.
“I’m here for myself,” Vika said.
Nikolai laughed mirthlessly. “Of course you are.”
“But the question is, why are you and the tsesarevich here?” she asked.
