CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

Aizhana enjoyed watching the tsar wriggle under her revelation. She had been so young when she’d met him and so enthralled by his confidence and charm. Naively, she had believed his sweet words and allowed him to seduce her. She could still feel the sharp sting of betrayal when he left, not more than a month after he first took her to bed.

She had been ruined three times by him then, and another time since. His first offense: he took her virginity and left her spoiled, damaged goods to any boy in her village. His second offense: he left her with child, an unwed mother in the barren land of the steppe. His third offense: bearing his child nearly killed her. And his fourth and most recent offense: he accepted his own son into the Game and all but sentenced him to death.

So yes, Aizhana savored the tsar’s current horror and fear. She still meant to kill him, of course, although, like a wildcat, she wanted to play with her food first. If not for the Game, she might have satisfied herself with informing him of the existence of another son. But since the tsar had crossed her one too many times and endangered not only her own life but also Nikolai’s, he would have to pay.

The tsar ceased his attempt to escape from the tent. What was he thinking, anyway? There was no way he could run from her. He sagged onto the edge of his bed. “Nikolai Karimov is your son?” he asked.

“Yours, as well.”

“Mine . . .”

“He does not yet know. But I shall tell him soon.”

“He is the tsesarevich’s best friend.”

Aizhana clapped derisively and gave the tsar a wry, rotten smile. “Bravo, Alexander. You watched one of your sons grow up but did not even recognize the other when he was right there beside your chosen one. What a remarkable father you are.”

“It’s not my fault.” He buried his head in his hands. “I could not have known.”

“No, of course not. You were too busy bedding other women to keep track of the consequences.”

“Is that what this is? A lover’s revenge?”

Aizhana stalked closer to him. “Oh, no. It is so much more than that.” She sat next to him on the bed—it was so similar to the bed on which she had lain with him, once upon a time—and placed her hands on either side of his face. He gagged at her breath.

She laughed and blew more of the rank air in his face, then smashed her lips against his. She forced her black tongue into his mouth, curling it and transferring the disease that flourished inside her into him. The tsar struggled but was no match for her, for she had imbibed the energy of the half-dozen guards she had slaughtered outside his tent. She quivered in joy at forcing the prolonged kiss upon him. What an ironic end to a courtship that had also begun with a lingering kiss.

One of Aizhana’s teeth broke off, so violently did she press herself against him. When she pulled back, the tooth tumbled from between their lips down to the floor.

The tsar stared at it in horror.

“Thank you, Alexander. That was the good-bye kiss I never had.”

He scrubbed at his face with his sleeve. “I can end the Game, you know. I will punish you. I will declare Vika Andreyeva the winner.”

“And murder your own son?”

The tsar shuddered.

“You will not declare the girl the winner. You will not be able to, for you shall not survive the journey back to Taganrog to inscribe the name of the winner onto the Scroll.”

“I won’t survive? What have you done?”

Aizhana shrugged. “Given you a parting gift, a token of my affection. However, you may not see it as such. You may see it as typhus.”

The tsar clutched his mouth.

She laughed as she rose from the bed and strolled to the tent’s entrance. “Good night, Alexander. May your eternal sleep be haunted by nightmares of your many sins.”

The tsar sounded the alarm as soon as Aizhana swooped out of his tent. The remainder of his Guard rushed him into his carriage and onto the long road back to Taganrog. But fever and aches descended that night, with delirium following soon after. The journey back to the Sea of Azov was too far. By the time they arrived days later, Death was waiting at the bottom of the carriage steps. The tsar tumbled out of the carriage, and Death swung his scythe. It took the tsar’s life just as he made it into the tsarina’s arms.

Death took the tsarina soon afterward.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

Pasha let his sister take his hand. They wore black from head to toe, and no one stopped them as they wandered through the Winter Palace. When they arrived in the massive hall, Yuliana pulled him through the hollow, deserted space, past the towering white columns and crystal chandeliers, until they reached the front of the room.

There on a dais stood a lone, empty chair, gilded in too much gold and upholstered in red, with the empire’s gold double-headed eagle prominent for all to see. It was surrounded by yet more red and gold, including an even more ostentatious double-headed eagle displayed on the red wall behind the chair. This was the tsar’s throne.

This was where Pasha would sit from now on.

But he didn’t touch it. For he could still see his father there, dignified and majestic in full uniform, ambassadors and ministers bowing at his feet. He could see his mother enter the room, and his father rise to greet her and offer her this chair.

Then Pasha thought of everything else he’d lost. His best friend, who had lied and made him out to be a fool. And the girl he loved, who did not reciprocate, and who would probably pick the traitorous enchanter over him.

All this, while he stared at the throne.

But Yuliana had only so much patience. She pushed Pasha, and he collapsed into the chair. He winced as his arm touched the gold.

“You will be tsar,” she said to him. “Whether you like it or not.”

Pasha closed his eyes. He exhaled deeply as he sagged into the throne. Then he nodded. I will be tsar. Because it’s the only thing I have left.

CHAPTER SIXTY

Nikolai stood outside the Winter Palace walls. Barriers had been set up in the snow, and the Guard was five men thick. If only he could evanesce, then he could get in to see Pasha. Not that Pasha would want to see him. Nikolai closed his eyes. He wished he could take back what he’d done and said, so he would be by Pasha’s side now, acting as both pillar and best friend, as he ought to have been.

The streets of Saint Petersburg roiled like a sea of black. It seemed as if every citizen of the city had poured outdoors, draped in their mourning clothes and covered in sorrow. News of the tsar’s death had traveled quickly from Taganrog earlier in the week, and just this morning, another messenger had come with an announcement that the tsarina’s heart had failed, and she, too, had passed.