“Perhaps,” Oleg said softly. “Perhaps I do need your permission.”
“Then you have it.” Lazlo shoved Oleg away and swung himself up on his horse. “Do what you need to do.”
“Three minutes!” Rudov called out.
Oleg’s groom walked over with his mount, and Oleg swung himself up before he urged his horse to the edge of the field next to Lazlo’s.
They waited, watching the last two minutes tick down.
“What youdon’tneed to do,” Lazlo continued, “is break up this empire that you kept together even before Truvor died. It is your empire, Oleg. Not that bastard’s.Yours.”
Coats of blue and gold. Slashes of red. Pops of green. Oleg watched the stands, the mounted spectators, and the wind vampires hovering overhead. The colors of his people hardly mixed at all; most of the clans remained among their own.
“Did I though?” Oleg looked at Lazlo. “What have I really created, brother?”
“Them!” Lazlo said fiercely. “Don’t look at me—look at all of them.”
The vampires and humans in attendance were ebullient as they let out a cheer, and while they did not sit together, they were singing together.
An old song. A folk song. A rowing song that all of them passed down if they came from Truvor’s blood. Oleg remembered singing it as they rowed the rivers of the Kievan Rus, as he and his brothers sat around fires, and as they walked through eternal nights in the cold and the chilling wind and the snow.
We walk along the river
We sing our song to the moon
We bid farewell to the sun
For the river is our home.
Mother River, deep and wide
Feed the earth, feed the trees
We bid farewell to the sun
For the river is our home.
They finished singing; then as one, the crowd began counting down the seconds before the bell rang and the second half of the match began.
“Forty-seven, forty-six…”
“You held them together,” Lazlo said. “Youkept us from chaos and war. We’re not like other peoples, Oleg, but you have allowed our children and their children to find a little bit of peace in a harsh world. Are you willing to throw all that into the fire?”
Oleg looked away from the cheering crowds in the last seconds before the bell rang. He looked at his brother. “We did not choose death.”
“No,” Lazlo said. “Death would have been easy. So we did not choose death.”
The bell rang out, and the riders returned to battle.
“And for thevictors of this match tonight…” Rudov held up the wreath of fir branches with red and blue ribbons tied around it over his head, making a show of the presentation even though everyone knew who had won. “…our new queen?—”
“Hey, bastard!” Lazlo shouted as everyone laughed. “You can only cheat in her favor so much in one match.”
“The winner is, of course, our beloved knyaz, Oleg Truvorovich Sokolov!” Rudov shouted. “And his fine team, who probably all cheated even though I could not catch them.”
The crowds laughed and cheered, breaking into another song as Oleg mounted the steps in front of Rudov’s grand house.
Tatyana, urged on by her teammates, reluctantly walked up the stairs on the opposite side.
