“I love you, my sunshine. And that’s what happens when you love someone. Sacrifices stop being sacrifices simply because they make you happy. Caring for you makes me happy. So it’s not a sacrifice. It’s what I want to do.”
The Crown’s Fate by Evelyn Skye is the thrilling conclusion to the events set in motion in The Crown’s Game. The tsar and tsarina are dead, leaving Pasha in the precarious position to assume the throne. The Crown’s Game is over, and Vika is the Imperial Enchanter, but she is not pleased with the result. Pasha is unable to handle the challenges of ruling a country, instead turning to mortal aids and leaving Vika to more or less babysit him. Animosity and secrets have caused Vika to despise Pasha – an unfavourable mood for the future tsar’s royal advisor to have. Russia is on the brink of war, and when a threat to Pasha’s legitimacy and a challenger to tsardom rises, many decisions have to be made very quickly. His sister, Yuliana, is more than capable of handling the perils the crown faces, but being a daughter and a second child, she does not have the support needed for her to save her country. Nikolai is a shadow, a near-dead thing trying to make his way back to his friends, his love, and the land of the living. He has few options in front of him, taking him down a dark and twisted road that may forever change him. In the background, the not-dead Aizhana is sowing seeds of discord and leaving destruction in her wake, seeking to set her child, the illegitimate child of the late tsar, on the throne of Russia and complete her revenge once and for all.
“But hadn’t they all changed? Life happened without permission, and it swept everyone along in its violent wake.”
Skye delivers a powerful, cursed, and sinister tale of subterfuge, broken relationships, the consequences of secrets, and the havoc that can be caused when these secrets reveal themselves. You are once again whisked away to Imperial Russia of the 1800s, back to bustling Moscow, the wild Kazakhan Steppe, and the topsy-turvy world of dreams and magic created by Vika and Nikolai during the Crown’s Game. Each character is slightly different, forever changed by the truths revealed at the end of The Crown’s Game. Vika is bitter and hunting for answers, Pasha is a drowning man, unable to stay afloat long enough to properly rule, and Nikolai is faced with the unwanted realities of who he is and the harsh choices set in front of him to come back home. The writing is sublime, bringing to life Vika’s acts as Imperial Enchanter and Nikolai’s decisions that will help him make his way back to the life he lost. Enemies against the young protagonists rise and fall, friendships are mended, romances are forged, and difficult verdicts are delivered in order to ensure the survival of the crown and peace in the Empire. You watch the characters grow, fall, and stand back up, and learn that it is not worth it to dwell on the past, but instead to push forward and forge your future.
“For although the past would always be a part of them, it was, in truth, the past. What they had to look forward to was the future, where anything was possible. Anything. And there was no greater magic than that.”
