The sun was long gone, but Pasha liked the challenge of shooting in the dark. Well, nearly dark, for Gavriil would not allow the tsesarevich to practice at the archery yard—or anywhere, for that matter—without any light, both because it was a danger to Pasha (it made it impossible for the Guard to protect him if they couldn’t see) and because it was a danger to any poor soul who wandered into Pasha’s line of fire.
Not that anyone would do that. And not that Pasha would miss his targets, even if he couldn’t see them. Archery might not have been a necessary skill for war anymore, but it didn’t stop Pasha from being one of the best archers in all of Europe. He knew this for a fact. He’d triumphed in many a challenge—for sport, of course—by princes and military officers across the continent and in England whenever he’d gone abroad or hosted them here in Russia’s court. And Pasha did not mean to ever give up his place in those elite ranks.
He nocked an arrow against the bowstring in the swift motion of someone for whom the weapon had become a natural extension of his own body, and he released the arrow just as quickly, listening to it streak through the air and hit an icicle on a nearby tree in a satisfying shatter of crystal. Pasha didn’t need the torchlight to let him know his arrow had landed on its intended icicle, even though the branch was lined with them. He already knew by feel what the arrow’s trajectory had been, and by sound the precise distance it had flown.
He also knew by feel and by sound when Vika approached the archery range, not only because all the guards shifted slightly, standing a bit taller at the presence of a woman, but also because the wind seemed to blow a little more fervently.
Pasha’s hand, steady a moment ago, now shook. He hadn’t seen her since he and Yuliana had taken away her ability to use her powers.
The torchlight illuminated her. Vika’s features were pinched, and she glared at the guards, almost like Yuliana would. Pasha handed his bow and quiver to Gavriil and walked slowly (he wasn’t eager to be yelled at) to meet Vika in the middle of the range. His boots crunched on the fresh snow.
“Send them away,” she said, eyeing the guards.
Pasha frowned. He hadn’t expected to jump straight into whatever business was at hand.
Vika kept looking at the guards.
“Gavriil,” Pasha said, turning to his captain. “A moment, please. All of you.”
Gavriil hesitated but then bowed, and the guards moved to the outer perimeter of the archery yard. Still watchful, but out of earshot.
Pasha turned back to Vika. “What happened? Are you all right?”
She scowled at him for a moment.
Of course she wasn’t all right. He’d taken enchanting away from an enchanter. “I’m sorry,” Pasha said. “I know it’s difficult—”
“I’m not here to discuss that. Well, not yet.” Vika inched closer to Pasha and angled her chin to speak into his ear.
“Oh. Then what is it?” He bent slightly to get closer to her. He exhaled at the same time, relieved that she wasn’t here to protest the edict.
“Nikolai is planning a coup, to take place in two days.”
All the tension that target practice had released now came rushing back into Pasha’s body. “What? How?” From what Pasha had learned in the barracks, the talk had been about blocking his coronation next month. Not an imminent revolt.
“I overheard him and your guard Ilya Koshkin talking about a group called the Decembrists. They supposedly have twenty thousand men already committed. They’ll refuse to take the oath of allegiance to you and instead install Nikolai on the throne.”
That familiar spiral in Pasha’s stomach began again, caused by Nikolai, making Pasha pay for what he did. And now Ilya, one of his best guards, betraying him as well. Had Ilya been one of the constitutionalists all along? Was there no one upon whom Pasha could rely?
Vika looked up at him. “So what are we going to do?”
He blinked. “We?”
“Yes, we,” she said. “This has gone on too long. It needs to end. And I am here—not at your service, but by your side as an equal—if you’ll have me.”
Pasha furrowed his brow, but he nodded. Because while everything else was wrong, this was right. Vika was the sun, and she could not be eclipsed. She’d never deserved to be labeled as “lesser.”
Neither had Pasha. All his life, he’d doubted himself, second-guessed his ability to wear the crown. He wasn’t lesser, either. Lesser than his father, than Yuliana, than Vika or Nikolai. The furious eddying in his stomach slowed, then came to a stop.
Pasha was also a sun in his own right.
He strode through the snow to the nearest weapons rack and retrieved a bow and two quivers of arrows. Gavriil and some of the guards began to move back into the yard, but Pasha shook his head, and they halted.
Across the yard, there was a large, blank sheet of canvas. No bull’s-eye, just plain cream. Pasha plucked an arrow from the first quiver, took aim, and let it fly. It hit square in the center of the empty space.
He took three arrows in his hand now and fired them rapidly, one after another, and before the third had landed, he had another three in his hand. Thwack, thwack, thwack, over and over, the first quiver empty and onto the next, arrow after arrow after arrow in the same sharp rhythm until the second quiver, too, was spent.
The entire yard was silent. Vika stared at the canvas with her mouth slightly open.
The arrows formed the shape of the Great Imperial Crown.
“I intend to be tsar,” Pasha said. “I denied it all my life when it seemed inevitable and forced upon me. But now that the throne could be taken away, it’s as clear as the icicles on the trees that I want it. And I am willing to fight, to risk my life, to prove it.”
Vika stared at him, much like she’d stared at the canvas full of arrows. “I might need to start calling you ‘Your Imperial Highness’ again, because that was the most kingly thing you’ve ever said.”
Pasha clutched the bow in his hand. “Is that good?”
“I like this version of you,” Vika said. “And I think the people will, too, even more than they already love you. That is, if we defeat Nikolai and survive. Can I use magic again?”
“Would it be possible to be . . .”
“Discreet?”
Pasha grimaced at the reference to Yuliana’s complaint at how Vika had handled the statue of Peter the Great. “I wouldn’t have put it that way,” he said. “But yes, something like that.”
“I’ll try not to do anything that would further frighten the city. I just need to have magic at my disposal again to help you.”
“I know. Yes, you’re free to use your power again. It seems the damage of Nikolai’s aggressions has already been done anyway, if he’s amassed twenty thousand troops. I will prepare my men for your presence.”
“Do you need to renounce your earlier edict? Or . . . get Yuliana’s approval?”
Pasha barely stifled a wince at the allusion to his past inability to make decisions without his sister. But it was the truth, and it would take a while for him to establish a new presumption that he could, in fact, act like a tsar on his own.
“No. Yuliana has helped me in the past, but your oath as Imperial Enchanter binds you to the tsar. I’m the closest to that at the moment. And the edict was just a declaration for the benefit of the people.”
Vika nodded, her lips pressed together in a way that was neither smile nor frown, but something in between. Which was precisely how Pasha felt, too. What they were about to embark upon would not be easy.
“If this is really going to happen, we should both get some rest,” he told her. “Be careful in the meantime.”
“I don’t believe in careful,” Vika said. The moonlight glinted in her eyes.
As she walked away, Pasha knew one thing for certain: he’d never love another girl quite the same.