The tsar stared at the girl from his arboreal throne and shook his head as if unable to believe she was interrupting again, and doing so to ask about logistics, of all things. He rose from his throne and towered before them. “When I declare a winner, the Game’s own magic will eliminate the other enchanter. Even if, for some reason, I did not declare a winner after you had each taken five turns, the Game would make the decision for me and extinguish one of you. Russia will have only one Imperial Enchanter to wield the full force of its magic. Understood?”
The girl seemed undisturbed. In fact, she pursed her lips, considering the tsar’s answer. It’s as if she’s contemplating the possibility that the tsar’s word isn’t absolute, Nikolai thought. The girl was made of daring. Or recklessness.
“I see,” she finally said. “Thank you, Your Imperial Majesty.”
“If there is nothing else . . .” The tsar paused just long enough to glare at the girl, like a challenge to interrupt again. The message was clear that there would be consequences this time if she did.
She didn’t.
“Fine. Then let us commence the oath.” The tsar opened the oaken chest he had carried into the caverns. A yellowed scroll and a long black quill floated out. The scroll unfurled itself, and both Nikolai and the girl took a step back. The Game was its own living magic.
The parchment hovered beside the tsar, and he read its timeworn instructions. “Bolshebnoie Duplo has been imbued with ancient enchantments that will bind you to the Game and to Russia. Now, reveal your true selves to me.”
Nikolai glanced at the girl. They would both have to maintain their shrouds but open up the enchantment so that only the tsar could see. He needed to know who his future enchanter was.
The girl looked at Nikolai, too.
Nikolai yanked his gaze away and faced forward. He focused on protecting his shadow veneer—he might know the girl’s identity, but she did not know his—and allowed a pathway for the tsar to see him.
Would the tsar recognize him as Pasha’s friend? Or not, given that the tsar gave hardly a whit about his son’s social affairs? He cared only to engage Pasha on matters important to his training as tsesarevich.
The tsar squinted as he looked upon Nikolai, as if trying to place him. A moment later, it seemed to click in his head where he had seen Nikolai before, and he frowned.
“Interesting.” The tsar drummed his fingers on the arm of his wooden throne. And then he cleared his throat and continued as if the presence of his son’s best friend in the midst of a magical battle to the death were nothing extraordinary at all. Of course, it made sense that the tsar would appear unruffled at this turn of events. Certainly he had encountered much greater surprises in his career. Or perhaps the tsar truly didn’t care that Nikolai was one of the enchanters. After all, who am I but a common boy who happened to befriend his son?
“Repeat after me,” the tsar said to both Nikolai and Vika as he read from the Russe Scroll.
“I hereby swear my loyalty to the tsar,
And promise to abide by the rules of the Game,
A duel of enchantment, until a winner is declared.
To this and all traditions here before established, I commit myself
As an enchanter in the Crown’s Game.”
Nikolai and Vika repeated the oath back to the tsar in unison. Nikolai kept his voice even, but hers carried and echoed throughout the cave, as if even in this inaugural moment of the Game, she was already trying to gain the upper hand.
But Nikolai had little time to think on that, for as soon as he uttered the last words of the oath, a searing heat bit into his skin, just below his left collarbone. “What the—!” He stopped himself before he let out a string of obscenities in front of the tsar, but not quickly enough to save his dignity.
A pair of crossed wands branded themselves onto Nikolai’s chest as if by an invisible iron. Even after the branding was over, the scar still glowed red-orange on his skin like live embers. Nikolai bit the inside of his cheek to stave off the pain.
The girl had not protested or screamed or made any sound other than a sharp inhale. Nikolai flushed, both at the heat of the fresh scar and at his weakness compared to this elfin girl.