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

by Evelyn Skye

The crack blew all sound out of his ears, and he was thrown to the ground as the lightning shattered the invisible layer protecting him. The palace was still too far. It was Nikolai against the weather now. The sky crackled and popped again. Recharging, readying for attack. He remembered the girl rising out of the fire on Ovchinin Island. He didn’t think he could fight that. Not without a shield. But if Nikolai was going to die, he was going to do it with dignity. He reached for his top hat, which had skittered away on the cobblestones and finally gotten wet. He brushed it off and rose to his feet. Then he turned to face the ballerina’s purple box in the center of the square. He wasn’t sure where the girl was, but he could address the puppet he’d created in her stead. He took a deep breath and stood as still and as serenely as he could, given the circumstances of thunder bellowing all around him. Electricity buzzed in the air. Nikolai tried to conjure another shield, but it sputtered out. “I don’t blame you.” He tipped his hat in the ballerina’s direction, but unlike the time he did so after the other enchanter had tried to drown him, there was nothing mocking in his gesture now. “I don’t blame you if this is the end.” Then the sparks in the sky extinguished themselves, and the gray clouds blew away with a hiss. Not a trace of violence—or even rain—remained. And the scar at Nikolai’s collarbone warmed. She’d ended her turn. Nikolai exhaled. She had spared his life. He let ...