The Crown’s Game by Evelyn Skye Read Free Book Online Page A

Fight fire with fire, not water or ice.” Then she whistled a short tune, and the fire on her arms, her torso, her skirt, snuffed out. The only flames left were on top of her head, a wind-tossed mess of loose red curls,and one lock of black. She whistled again, and the fire on the fallen trees went out as well.
    Pasha stepped backward onto a leaf. It crunched, ever so softly, but the girl whirled around. “Who’s there?”
    Nikolai and Pasha stood frozen, and not just metaphorically. She had iced their feet to the ground.
    “Who are you?” Pasha whispered as he gaped at the cinder-smudged girl.
    She stared at themfor another moment. Then she spun on her heel and fled, a streak of red hair and gray dress dashing into the woods and disappearing into its shadowed depths.
    But Nikolai didn’t need her to tell them who she was. He already knew. He had never seen the girl before, but she had to be the one.
    The other enchanter in the Game.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    T he tsar’s message came to Sergei as the lightning storm in the forest ended. The note, on imperial stationery, was brief but clear:
    Bring your enchanter to Bolshebnoie Duplo on 13 October.
    The Crown’s Game will then commence.
    What? The Crown’s Game? Sergei sagged onto the threshold of the cottage. It couldn’t be. All this time, he’d assumed Vika was the only enchanter. He’dsent word to Galina when he discovered Vika’s abilities, but she’d never informed him that she had an enchanter in her tutelage as well. He clenched his fists. So typical of his sister!
    His anger was short-lived, though, for he did not have the energy to devote to it. Besides, what could be done about it now?
    Because Galina had kept from Sergei that she, too, had astudent, there’d been no reasonfor Sergei to think another enchanter existed. It was the way it was supposed to be—when the Imperial Enchanter died, his or her magic returned to Russia’s wellspring, and there it recharged and eventually sought out another vessel in which to grow. It was rare that more than a single enchanter existed at once. As far as Sergei knew, it had happened only a handful of times in the thousand yearssince Russia was born. And he’d immersed himself so completely in the small sphere of his and Vika’s life here on Ovchinin Island that he hadn’t paid attention to whether another enchanter’s “otherness” lingered in Russia’s air.
    But now my Vikochka is not just one, but one of two, Sergei thought. And he knew how the Game always ended: there was only room enough for one Imperial Enchanter, forhe or she needed access to the full force of Russia’s magic. And therefore, the magic killed the loser of the Game.
    Sergei sat paralyzed, his trousers covered in dirt. How can this be? Especially when I thought I still had two years to train her, to spend with her. Now I have only three days. . . .
    And worse yet, how could he tell Vika, when he could hardly handle the truth himself?
    He neededtime to think. He looked to where the lightning storm had just abated. And he hiked into the woods in the opposite direction.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    N ikolai stumbled into the kitchen at the Zakrevsky house immediately upon returning from Ovchinin Island. His eyes searched the room, but there was no one around. Perhaps Galina had decided to lunch at a restaurant with some of her society friends, as she often did, and the staff had been able to take a break. Thank goodness for all his mentor’s ridiculous obligations.
    Nikolaifumbled for a glass of water and drank it greedily. A good portion of its contents sloshed onto his woolen breeches. He filled another glass and gulped that down, too, before he dropped into the lone wooden chair in the corner.
    A few minutes later, a servant girl walked into the kitchen with an armful of freshly laundered aprons. She started when she saw Nikolai and nearly dropped the apronson the dusty stone floor. Then she tossed them onto the countertop and hurried to kneel at his side.