One week after the end of the Game, Vika sat on the steppe bench and immersed herself in the dream. Soon, she would have to return to Saint Petersburg to take her post as Imperial Enchanter, but for now, she watched Nikolai"s golden eagle fly over the barren plains. It was so unfair that his benches were still here when he wasn"t. And yet, it was something. So she listened to the rustle of the dry gra.s.ses and felt the cool breeze on her face and remembered him.
Pasha had ordered an elaborate memorial service for Nikolai, but Vika hadn"t attended. Despite Pasha"s grief and his attempts to apologize for demanding the duel, Vika didn"t want anything to do with him. At least not for now. Until he was officially installed as tsar and she had no choice but to serve him, Vika needed s.p.a.ce. The wounds Pasha had inflicted were too deep and too raw.
There was another reason, however, that Vika hadn"t wanted to attend Nikolai"s memorial. It horrified her, but she was unable to cry for him. Perhaps she had used up all her tears before the duel. Perhaps the grief was so vast, mere tears could never be adequate. Or perhaps it was that something nagged at her, and she felt he wasn"t entirely gone.
Nikolai had crumpled in her lap at the end of the Game. But instead of the wands bursting into flame and consuming him, as she"d expected, he"d disintegrated into nothing. As if, with all his energy drained, he"d simply ceased to exist. And because he did not exist, there was no scar to alight and burn. Then Vika"s own scar had vanished from her skin. The Game had officially been won.
But even with Nikolai gone, there had remained a heaviness in the air, a lack of finality, as if his magic still lingered. It had been impossible to attend his memorial when it felt as if something of Nikolai was still there. Here.
The wind on the steppe whipped up, and the eagle soared on its gust. Behind Vika, someone pushed through the long gra.s.s. The footsteps on the hard-packed dirt were neither quiet nor particularly loud, as if the person could tread lighter but wanted to be sure Vika was not startled. She turned.
It was Pasha.
"I thought you might be here," he said. "I hope you don"t mind me joining your dream."
Vika bit her lip, but she tilted her chin in greeting. "It isn"t mine to keep."
He lifted his gaze up to the sky. For a second, it seemed as if the eagle turned its head at Pasha and glared. But then it was back to focusing on the ground. Vika probably imagined it.
"I miss him, too, you know," Pasha said.
The emptiness in Vika"s chest echoed with Nikolai"s absence. "It"s no fault but your own," she said.
Pasha sighed heavily. "I know. Trust me, I know."
Vika looked at him then, really looked at him. His face was gaunt, his blue eyes almost gray and ringed with dark circles. His hair was irretrievable chaos. He was Pasha, if Pasha were a ghost.
"If I could take it back, I would," he said. "I was . . . angry that Nikolai hadn"t told me he was an enchanter. And I was irrational with grief over my parents. Then Yuliana said I had to declare the duel, and she"s so sure of everything while I am sure of nothing, so I listened. It"s no excuse. I still made the decision. But I am acutely sorry for it. I didn"t think it through."
"You didn"t realize that if you demanded a duel to the death, one of us would die?"
Pasha shook his head. "I did, but I didn"t. I was all emotion and reaction. I wasn"t thinking."
Vika frowned. "I hope you clear your head before you become tsar."
"That"s why I need you, Vika. I can"t do this alone, or with only Yuliana by my side."
The look Vika cast him was so stony, it was worthy of the grand princess. "I"ll be your Imperial Enchanter. I committed to it in my oath to your father."
"But you won"t be there of your own accord."
In the distance, the eagle circled in the sky, then plummeted down toward the ground. A moment later, it flapped its mighty wings and emerged from the gra.s.s with a small animal drooping from its talons. The eagle rose into the air with its prey.
"Forgiveness doesn"t come so easily," Vika said, as much to herself as to Pasha.
He smiled sadly. But he nodded. "I understand. But perhaps with time-"
"Perhaps."
He swallowed. "Right . . . Well . . . I"ll leave you alone then. I shall see you after I return from my coronation."
Vika glanced at him. "I will be there in Moscow."
"You will?" The blue in Pasha"s eyes flickered through the gray.
"Yes. To ensure no harm comes to you. I promised Father I would do my best to serve the empire, and that begins with the tsar."
"Oh . . . all right. I . . . I appreciate it."
Vika gave him a curt nod. "Good-bye, Your Imperial Highness."
He hesitated, as if he wanted to say more, but then bowed and retreated. There was a rustle through the gra.s.s as he awoke and exited the dream.
Vika closed her eyes and rubbed her face with her hands. If only the past could be undone.
But at least there was this. This dream where time was suspended. This bench bridging then and now.
Vika turned her focus back to the sky. But the eagle was gone, having successfully killed its prey. She squinted at the horizon, hoping to find it again. It would be with its berkutchi, its master.
They were difficult to see at first. But eventually, she made out a shadow at the mountain"s base. The berkutchi sat atop his horse, the eagle perched regally on his arm. They were camouflaged in the shade.
Vika craned her neck and squinted harder. The outline of the rider sharpened. But it was not the profile of a burly Kazakh hunter, as Vika expected. It was instead the graceful silhouette of a gentleman, in a top hat.
She inhaled sharply.
The string at Vika"s chest tugged at her. The shadow turned in her direction, as if he, too, had felt the pull. He paused for a moment when he saw her. But then he dipped his head, like their mutual presence was no surprise at all, and he raised his hat in a distant h.e.l.lo.
She was supposed to be invisible to the people in the dream.
Vika lifted her hand to wave, her heart pounding to the beat of a mazurka.
He was almost the same as he"d been at Bolshebnoie Duplo. Almost, because the shadow boy on the horse wasn"t entirely there. Right now, he could only exist in this reverie.
But his silhouette was identical. Vika had been right that she could still feel his presence, and she could almost hear him in the wind, invoking the words he"d once written on her armoire: Imagine, and it shall be.
There are no limits.
Vika smiled. Her magic was not alone.
The shadow was undeniably Nikolai.
AUTHOR"S NOTE.
I first fell in love with Russian history and literature when I was in college. I had read Dostoevsky"s The Brothers Karamazov in high school, and curiosity led me to the Slavic Languages and Literatures Department at Stanford. I"d only meant to take a cla.s.s or two; instead, I graduated three years later with a bachelor"s degree in the subject and an unabiding weakness for all things Russian (including the food!).
The Crown"s Game is a work of historical fantasy set in an alternate Imperial Russia, but its foundation is based on true events and places. Much of the research for this book was actually done while I was in college, although inadvertently-little did I know then that my adoration of Tolstoy and my obsession with nineteenth-century Russia would one day lead to Vika and Nikolai.
I did, however, need to sh.o.r.e up on some historical details for The Crown"s Game, for which I referenced my old textbooks as well as Orlando Figes"s Natasha"s Dance and Martha Brill Olcott"s The Kazakhs.
An example of how I melded fact with fiction: Alexander I was the real tsar of the Russian Empire, from 1801 until 1825. He steered the country through much upheaval, including the Napoleonic Wars, and eventually brought about a period of relative peace to the empire.
It is undisputed that Alexander I had many affairs; he flaunted his mistresses openly, bringing them to court and even having children with them. He did, however, reconcile with the Tsarina Elizabeth near the end of his life, as well as find solace in mysticism, for which many questioned him, but the tsarina supported him. It was on a trip together to Taganrog, in an attempt to restore the tsarina to health, that Alexander died of typhus. Elizabeth soon followed (although I took some liberties with the dates of their pa.s.sing), dying of a weak-some say broken-heart.
The Crown"s Game diverges from actual history, though, in the story of the children borne by Alexander and Elizabeth. In reality, the tsar and tsarina had two girls, both of whom died in infancy. In The Crown"s Game, however, their children are very much alive and grown, although they have a boy and a girl-Pasha and Yuliana-instead of two daughters.
Probably the most fun I had while doing research for The Crown"s Game was investigating the profanity of the time. I turned to one of my professors at Stanford for help on this subject, and we have quite an amusing chain of emails discussing what Nikolai, Pasha, and Vika would or wouldn"t have said. I also reread parts of War and Peace in an attempt to cull some of the aristocracy"s exclamations from that period of time.
Many of the settings in The Crown"s Game were inspired by my trip to Russia in 2003, when I took a cruise along the Volga River from Moscow to Saint Petersburg. I remember seeing the shimmering wooden church on Kizhi Island and thinking it must have been constructed by magic-now it is indeed magical, as one of the locations in Nikolai"s Dream Benches.
And, of course, there is Saint Petersburg . . . perhaps I love it because one of my dearest friends lives there, or perhaps it"s because one can"t help but fall for the beautiful capital. Most of Vika, Nikolai, and Pasha"s Saint Petersburg is based on the actual city, from Ekaterinsky Ca.n.a.l to Nevsky Prospect, from the bronze statue of Peter the Great to the Winter Palace. The waterways and rivers are real as well, as is the Neva Bay and the many small islands linked by bridges and ferries that form the capital city.
However, both Vika"s home, Ovchinin Island, and the new island she creates are figments of my imagination. I like to think, though, that they"d fit right in with the actual islands that dot the Neva Bay.
I do have to confess we took artistic license with the cover of The Crown"s Game. The buildings in the crown would not have existed in 1825, but after many iterations, the team at Harper and I decided that this version best captured the essence of Vika and Nikolai"s story. I hope the historians among my readers will forgive me this transgression.
As for whether the magic in The Crown"s Game is real, well . . . that depends. Do you believe in what you cannot see?.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.
When I first came up with the idea for The Crown"s Game, I emailed a few of my friends and said sheepishly, "So, hey, I started writing this crazy fantasy about two enchanters in a deadly duel who fall into impossible, bittersweet love, and it"s all set in magical, Imperial Russia. . . ." I wasn"t sure how they"d respond, but I was pretty sure it would involve good-natured laughing along the lines of, There goes Evelyn on another nutty whim. But instead, all three responded immediately and emphatically with, YES. Yes, yes, yes, write it. So thank you, Stacey Lee, Sean Byrne, and Jeanne Schriel, not only for your friendship over the years but also for telling me to chase this idea and make it real. The Crown"s Game would not exist without you.
Thank you to my agent, Brianne Johnson, for loving Vika and Nikolai from page one, and for your gushiness and your sharp editorial insights and your mirrored Instagram pictures of your cat. Many thanks, too, to Cecilia de la Campa and Soumeya Roberts of Writers House, for bringing The Crown"s Game overseas, and to Dana Spector at Paradigm Talent Agency for giving Vika and Nikolai a tour of Hollywood.
I cannot express enough grat.i.tude to my brilliant and tireless editor, Kristin Rens, for helping me make this story bigger and brighter (and also darker) than I ever imagined possible. Kristin, you are the enchantress of publishing. Thank you to Alessandra Balzer and Donna Bray for championing The Crown"s Game from the very start. To Joel Tippie and Alison Donalty for the breathtaking, perfect cover. To Kelsey Murphy, Jon Howard, Nellie Kurtzman, Caroline Sun, Megan Barlog, EpicReads, and the Harper sales team-I am so lucky to have you on my team.
Special thanks to Professor Richard Schupbach of Stanford University and his colleague Anna Bogomyakova for their expertise (and amusing emails) on nineteenth-century Russian swearwords. And to all my other professors and teachers at Stanford, for being there as I fell in love with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and Russia"s history.
This journey would not have been possible without the love, laughter, and wisdom from my writing family: Stacey Lee, Sara Raasch, Emily Martin, Sabaa Tahir, Monica Bustamante-Wagner, Tracy Edward Wymer, Anna Shinoda, Lara Perkins, Sean Byrne, Morgan Shamy, Hafsah Faizal, Dana Elmendorf, Elizabeth Briggs, Betsy Franco, Karen Akins, Karen Grunberg, and Puja Batra. I owe you an infinity of cookies. And ice cream.
Thank you to Denis Ovchinin, my Russian pen pal since we were teens. For you, Den, I created an entire island. I hope you like it.
Thank you to Kevin Hsu and Chanda Prescod-Weinstein for your faith that one day, my words would become a real book.
To Paul, Dawn, and Karl Ehrlich, thank you for always cheering me on.
Enormous thanks to the Tsar"s Guard! Your enthusiasm and devotion have made this one heck of a year. The tsar could not have a better army in his service.
Eternal love to Andrew and Margaret Hsu, the very best parents a girl could ask for. Thank you for never setting a curfew, for letting me major in something as "impractical" as Russian literature and history, and for always encouraging my writing. I cannot wait to place this book-this real book!-in your hands. I love you more than you can ever know.
And last, but most important of all, thank you to Reese, for humoring me when my mind wandered to imperial Russia in the middle of breakfast, for spending weeks drawing a book cover for me, and for being proud of me and showering me with hugs and kisses. You are magic. You are the light of my life. And guess what? I love you!.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR.
Photo credit Joyce Goldschmid Photography.
EVELYN SKYE was once offered a job by the CIA, she not-so-secretly wishes she was on So You Think You Can Dance, and if you challenge her to a pizza-eating contest, she guarantees she will win. When she isn"t writing, Evelyn can be found chasing her daughter on the playground or sitting on the couch immersed in a good book and eating way too many cookies. The Crown"s Game is her first novel. Evelyn can be found online at www.evelynskye.com and on Twitter @EvelynSkyeYA.
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BOOKS BY EVELYN SKYE.
The Crown"s Game.
The Crown"s Heir.
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