The Crown's Game (The Crown's Game, #1)

by Evelyn Skye

What? The Crown’s Game? Sergei sagged onto the threshold of the cottage. It couldn’t be. All this time, he’d assumed Vika was the only enchanter. He’d sent word to Galina when he discovered Vika’s abilities, but she’d never informed him that she had an enchanter in her tutelage as well. He clenched his fists. So typical of his sister! His anger was short-lived, though, for he did not have the energy to devote to it. Besides, what could be done about it now? Because Galina had kept from Sergei that she, too, had a student, there’d been no reason for Sergei to think another enchanter existed. It was the way it was supposed to be—when the Imperial Enchanter died, his or her magic returned to Russia’s wellspring, and there it recharged and eventually sought out another vessel in which to grow. It was rare that more than a single enchanter existed at once. As far as Sergei knew, it had happened only a handful of times in the thousand years since Russia was born. And he’d immersed himself so completely in the small sphere of his and Vika’s life here on Ovchinin Island that he hadn’t paid attention to whether another enchanter’s “otherness” lingered in Russia’s air.