Page 59 of My Dark Horse Prince

I’ve never been someone who has good luck. It’s not a stretch to think I might be one of the unlucky few. The thing I’ll regret the most if I do die, if I’m lucid enough to regret anything at all, is not riding before my surgery.

I never rode because of the risks. But what if I die from surgery? Then how stupid was my ten-year sacrifice? I wasn’t even on a horse when the worst happened and my leg was shattered again. Avoiding riding feels silly, now.

But what choice do I have?

I blow-dry my hair, swipe on a bit of makeup, and dress, surprising myself by struggling into a pair of the new riding pants Kris chose. By the time I start to zip up my boots, the painkillers are finally starting to kick in, and my leg isn’t even complaining as much as usual. The throbbing’s almost bearable when I strap on my leg brace, grab my crutches, and venture out.

Like before, Grigoriy’s waiting for me at the table. But this time, the table’s holding only the things we ate yesterday. The things we didn’t touch weren’t made again, apparently.

“Dasha says that if there’s something we just didn’t have room to eat, but that we want in the future, to tell her and she’ll be sure to make it from time to time.”

He says that like I’m going to be a permanent resident. “We already can’t eat all this food.” I gesture. “It’s already wasteful. The last thing we need is to add more.”

He shrugs. “Then tell me what you want for tomorrow.”

“I’ll be fasting tomorrow,” I say. “For my surgery.” That’s a sobering thought. “Actually, I’ll need to be up quite early, if it’s like the surgeries I’ve had in the past. Assuming it goes well, if you just sleep in, it might almost be over.”

“As if I’d let you go without me.” Grigoriy shudders. “It was rare for someone to be operated on a hundred years ago, because it was quite dangerous. I hope their success rates have improved as much as Aleksandr says.”

“We’ve learned a lot about medicine and the human body since then,” I say.

“If Alexei were here, none of this would even be necessary,” he says.

“How so?” I hate that his words make me hopeful. But if I don’t hope, doesn’t that mean I’ve given up? Besides, I watched him power up a few hundred gargantuan windmills yesterday. I’d be pretty obtuse if it didn’t occur to me to wish they could just heal my leg with magic.

“His power’s water, and that alone can heal illness—stopping typhus, for instance. If he hadn’t been cursed and disappeared, those twenty thousand people wouldn’t have died of typhus during the Russian Revolution.”

He’s an expert on the Russian Revolution, now? “What have you been doing while I was sleeping each night?” I grab one of the Russian cheese pancakes and coat the syrniki with raspberry jam and sour cream.

He shrugs. “I’m not sleepy. Maybe it’s because I’ve slept for so long, but I haven’t been able to sleep for more than about an hour. Aleks left me a computer and showed me the basics, so I’ve been studying up. It’s like trying to drink from a lake, though. The more I learn, the more I have to look up.”

I’m sure that’s true. There are so many preconceived notions he has to divest himself of, and there’s so much history to learn. I bet studying some of that feels more real to him than our modern-day problems, at least, the records dating back to the world wars and the Russian Revolution. I still struggle to wrap my head around the idea that he knew the Romanovs.

He may be a prince, but they were the Czars of Russia. A hundred years later, their story’s still being told. . .and as we talk, I discover that apparently history got a lot of it wrong.

“The most irritating part to Alexei would definitely be all the images and records saying he was a small, weakly child.” Grigoriy snorts.

“I take it he wasn’t?”

“The worst part about history is that the ones who are around get to reframe it in any way they’d like.”

“But those images,” I say. “How could—”

He frowns. “You’re really asking me? I’ve seen clips and videos of dragons and unicorns.”

“You’re implying that those aren’t real, but you’re a man who can control the wind, fly, and shift into a horse.”

Grigoriy blinks. “I suppose that’s true.”

My phone chirps, and I realize I’ve lost track of time entirely. When we aren’t arguing, he’s not bad to talk to.

It’s just Adriana, asking me whether I’ve got a surgery scheduled, but it reminds me I have no idea what time my pre-op appointment is today. “Do you know what time I need to be at the hospital?”

“Aleks sent me a message on the hand-held computer telling me they’d come to pick you up around two o’clock for the pre-operation testing.”

“Phone,” I say. “The hand-held computer’s a phone.” But as I say that, I realize that our phones today do so much more than just call people. They really are more of a hand-held computer than a device for calling others. I finish off my syrniki and grab a salami and cucumber sandwich. Grigoriy seems to love them, so there’s only one left.

“What did you want to do until then?”

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