She pulled the blade out of her body and took several deep breaths. The blood that soaked her cloak began to fade, as if it seeped out of the cloth and back into her flesh. Then she tossed the bloody sword with a clank onto the tent’s floor.
“Y-y-you healed yourself.”
“Do you remember me now?” Her mouth twisted in what might have been a smile, but appeared more a terrible grimace of rotten teeth.
The tsar took several more steps backward. If he could get close enough to the front of the tent, perhaps he could escape. “I don’t believe it.”
“Believe it, Alexander. It is I, Aizhana, your once beautiful, golden-eyed lover from the steppe. After you left with your army, I bore you a son. In fact, you have already met him. His name is Nikolai. But you may know him as Enchanter One.”
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.”