Pasha gave him a look so stern, even Yuliana would approve. “I’m staying.”
His sister waved the officer over. She bent from her horse to whisper something in his ear.
“Yes, Your Imperial Highness.” He darted a glance at Pasha, saluted to Yuliana, and ran back to his troops.
“What was that about?” Pasha asked.
“You’ll see,” she said. “Trust me.”
He considered pressing further. But Yuliana arched a brow, and he knew she would not relent. He looked up into the sky and touched the basalt pendant at his throat instead. “Vika? What can you see up there?”
Her voice came through as crisply as if she were still on a horse beside him. “I’m sure you noticed the soldiers who’ve doubled the Decembrists’ forces.” She said it matter-of-factly, possibly because magic was, actually, a regular fact of life for her, but also possibly for Pasha’s benefit, to keep him calm. “They’re preparing for attack, which under normal circumstances, your men could take. But Nikolai will be able to fire those muskets faster than an ordinary soldier can reload.”
Pasha again wanted to cram his hands into his hair. But he was the commander of an army at the front lines, no longer a boy who stayed home at the palace while others fought his wars. He had to think clearly, despite facing a threat stranger than any his father must have faced. He took a deep breath. “So even though we’re nearly ten thousand and they are only . . . five or six, we have to consider this an even fight.”
“Right,” Vika said.
Pasha swallowed the sour stomach acid that had crept up his throat. “All right. We’ll try to hold our own down here on the ground. And you . . .” Pasha glanced at Yuliana and remembered her order to kill Nikolai. “Do what you need to do, Vika. However you can.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
Vika looked down at the square and focused on Nikolai. He glanced up at the same time, as if the string that connected them tugged on him at that moment, too. His gaze locked with hers.
Don’t forget, she mouthed.
His shroud flickered for a second, only long enough for her to glimpse the shadow beneath. She didn’t know if he’d done it on purpose, or if her message had pushed its way through to him for that brief moment.
Irrational hope fluttered inside her.
She collected herself a second later. Nikolai had had plenty of chances to back down. He hadn’t. And now they were here, in the thick of a battle.
Vika bent her head in one last gesture of mourning for the boy she’d known.
Then she threw her arms out in front of her, and the winter wind rushed in their wake, whipping through the air, through the Decembrists, and knocking Nikolai to the ground. She struck her hands together and hurled ice crystals in his direction. The frost clung to him, and more and more layers piled on. Within seconds, Nikolai was frozen, completely suspended in a translucent block of ice.
The bracelet tightened around her wrist, but it didn’t burn. Because Vika wasn’t necessarily defying orders. In the rush of giving the command, Yuliana had forgotten she ought to specify when Vika was to kill Nikolai. And Pasha had only told Vika to do what she needed to do.
Her entire body quivered.
For an infinitesimal moment, Peter’s Square was quiet.
But then Pasha’s own artillery began to fire. Vika watched as Pasha whirled around to Yuliana. “What’s happening?” he shouted, his voice coming through since he still clasped the necklace in his hand.
“I commanded them to fire on the rebels,” Yuliana said. She was within range of the necklace so Vika could hear. “It’s time to finish this nonsense.”
Vika gasped.
“Those weren’t my orders!” Pasha said.
“Your orders weren’t aggressive enough.”
The soldiers loyal to the throne continued shooting at the Decembrists. But the Decembrists were not ill-prepared mercenaries. They were men from the same army who fired upon them. Their commanders shouted, and the rebels loaded and fired back. Bodies began to fall on either side.
At the same time, some of the shadow soldiers turned and aimed at Nikolai. Or rather, at the mass of ice. He must have been commanding them from within, for they opened fire and blasted off ragged chunks. They shot at him again and more ice fell away.
Vika flung more frost at him, but she couldn’t replace quickly enough the pieces that were exploding away.
Nikolai burst free from the inside, sending spears of ice through the air. They harpooned through some of Pasha’s soldiers. Then he began snapping his fingers, conjuring bullets, hundreds at a time. He shot them at Pasha’s forces, and as Vika had warned, it was as if there were ten thousand Decembrists facing them.
Despite heavy fire, Pasha held his horse steady. “Vika,” he shouted over the whiz of bullets and the battle cries of the men, “we need to do something to break their formations!”
“I know . . . but what?”
“Shake them somehow!”
“All right.” Vika nodded to herself. I’ll literally shake them off their feet.
She stared down at the center of the square.
Focus. Focus. Focus.
The ground near the Decembrists’ boots began to ripple, like soft waves on a peaceful day along the Neva. Some of the men lost their balance. Others continued to fire, though, including Nikolai with every snap of his fingers.
But then the cobblestones cracked like bolts of thunder, and Vika’s rocky waves grew, the crests higher and the lengths longer. The ground reared and hurled the Decembrists ten feet in the air and every which way. When they landed, the men’s bodies snapped. The shadow soldiers burst in puffs like smoke.
Mercy. Nausea wracked Vika’s body with every broken bone and limp soldier. They lay one on top of another, a chaotic jumble of limbs and muskets and drums and flags.
Vika had thought she would need this power if it came to war with foreign enemies. She’d never imagined she’d use it against Russia’s own men. Her heart rose to her throat. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t.
Pasha’s army continued to fire.
The Decembrists shrieked as their front lines collapsed. Some shoved their dead comrades out of the way and fumbled for their muskets again. But too many had fallen.
“Retreat! Retreat! Retreat!” the Decembrists yelled.
They stumbled over the dead bodies. More soldiers crumpled under fire. The ones still capable of running clambered over the piles of men, tripping over them onto the icy, blood-stained cobblestones, and fled past the statue of Peter the Great. They retreated onto the frozen Neva.
Pasha’s infantry was quick to respond. They were already loading cannons and aiming at the river.
“No!” Vika cried.