The Chalice of Immortality (12 page)

The three cousins stood in the middle of the Egyptian desert. A moon hung in a cavernous sky with stars stretching for eternity.

Nick shivered. “How can it be so hot during the day and so cold at night?”

“If you would study, you would know the answer to this,” Theo teased.

Nick noticed that his cousins' bruises were still visible from their fight with the Shadowkeepers. They had been outnumbered, but fighting together, they had slain the minions with a combination of spells and fighting skills.

Damian held up the chalice. “Are we sure of this?” he asked.

Theo nodded solemnly.

“Kolya? You are sure?”

Nick nodded, too.

“Then the location of the chalice will be known only to the three of us. We each solemnly vow never to reveal it. Now, let us place our hands on it,” Damian commanded.

When the three of them all touched the stem of the chalice, a light glowed from it, as brilliant as sunshine and spreading upward, like a beacon.

“What's going on?” Nick breathed, squinting.

“When the chalice was created, it was by the three most powerful Magickeepers, the originators of the bloodline. Now, we three are the most powerful in the world. We will bury it, safe in the sands of time, at its point of origin far below the earth, guarded by the spirits of our ancestors, where it has belonged all this time. Our power will create the shield around it. Our power will ensure the chalice never sees the world again.”

Together, the three of them formed a circle, and with their minds, they pulled the beam of light downward. Nick had never tried to control such energy before. It was like containing a hurricane in a tea cup.

He concentrated, feeling himself united with Theo and Damian in a way he had never been before—as their equal, not just as their little cousin. He had trained with them, learned from them, but he now knew that his actual power, what he had been born with, was as strong as theirs. Together, the three of them focused until all the light was again contained in the chalice, and then, in a final burst of flames, it disappeared from their hands and shot down into the sand, creating a gaping hole. The three of them almost slipped in it—and Nick knew when he had seen a spell like that before: when Rasputin made Madame Bogdanovich's shop disappear.

They fell to the desert floor and scrambled backward. Then Damian rose up in the air, commanding the sands, which flew in a whirlwind around them before settling down.

“Look,” Nick pointed as his cousin alit on the ground again.

The desert floor was undisturbed.

“And there it shall remain, in the sands of our origin,” Damian pronounced.

“May it never be uncovered,” Theo said.

When the three of them returned to the Winter Palace, the family was waiting. They looked like they were mourning.

“What's wrong?” he asked Isabella, who was crying uncontrollably into Sascha's furry neck. She looked up, and at the sight of him, she began shrieking.

“Nick! Nick! Nick!”

Around him, a huge cheer went up.

“We thought you were lost to us forever,” said Irina. She kissed him on both cheeks. Then she eyed Damian and Theo up and down. “I take it you did not get these bruises from playing badminton.”

Damian shook his head. “It's been a very long night.”

They all went into the dining room, and then Nick recounted what had happened in the cave. He thought they might think he'd imagined what happened—with Tatyana's ghost and the light and the defeat of Rasputin. He looked down at the Grand Duchess. She nodded. “There is one thing I have learned having lived a long, long time, Kolya. The ones we love never truly die.”

Theo nodded. “We have ensured that the chalice will never again be used by those unknowing of its power. It is hidden forever, as it should be.”

Damian signaled, and platters of food arrived. Someone started playing the balalaika. Damian stood on top of the table and tapped his boot and clapped his hands, beginning a Russian folk dance. Irina rose up and joined him. His father was even there, looking tired but laughing next to Grandpa. The Grand Duchess was beaming, her two tigers by her side.

There was dancing and music and joy and laughter. Nick was enjoying himself so much, he didn't even notice that Theo had excused himself at some point in the evening.

Nick left the dining room and slipped down the hall to Theo's classroom. He found his cousin writing in the book—
the Book
—where all of the family's history was recorded.

“What are you doing, Theo? Don't you want to be with us?”

“I wanted to record the events while they were fresh in my mind.”

“What did you write? Can I see?”

Theo scowled at him. “I think not. History…is best left in the book, and life is best lived in the moment.”

“But why is it so important? Why do you record everything?”

“So we learn. From our mistakes. From our victories. From our celebrations.”

“What did you write about me?”

Theo sighed. He took off his glasses. Nick could see that aside from the bruises and scratches from his battle, Theo's eyes were worried and a little sad. Theo cleaned his glasses, put them back on his nose, pushed them up, turned a page, and began reading aloud.

“Today, in an act of selflessness, a new prince of the Magickeepers was born. For only the wise and the brave know that immortality is not a blessing but a curse. And only the wise and the brave would sacrifice their own lives for others.”

Nick stared at his cousin. “Was my mother really in that cave?”

Theo nodded. “And now…all of the power of your entire lineage courses through you. On your thirteenth birthday, those months ago, you learned about the world of magic. You learned who you are and where you came from.”

Nick thought back to that night. It seemed so long ago.

“But,” Theo continued, “tonight, in the ice caves beneath Mother Russia and in the sands of our ancestors, you, Nicholai Rostov, Prince of the Magickeepers, became a man.”

Nick exhaled. He knew it was true.

A Prince of the Magickeepers and all the responsibility it entailed.

As his cousins had reminded him from the first day he met them: This was his destiny.

Erica Kirov
is an American writer of Russian descent. She lives in Virginia with her family and a large menagerie of pets. She cannot play the balalaika, but she does enjoy a blini from time to time. She is hard at work on her next novel and may be reached at www.magickeepers.com.