Chapter Two

KATYA

ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

F or an instant, I'm flying.

My toe pick sends snow into the air as I pound it into the surface, the takeoff propelling me high into the air for four consecutive rotations.

And just like the snow, I come back down—only much less gently.

I let out a grunt as my backside slams onto the ice with a force roughly eight times my body weight. Again. It’s barely been two hours, but I can already feel the bruises blooming under my skin and my limbs stiffening from the number of times I’ve come crashing down. Which is more than I can count.

For a split second I wish I could just lay down on the ice and close my eyes. It’s seven on a Friday morning, and it’s still the New Year holiday, so there isn’t anyone else in the building. I wouldn’t have to worry about someone skating over my neck and killing me, as appealing as it sounds right now.

Unfortunately, that isn’t an option. So I grit my teeth, bracing my gloved hand against the ice under me to force myself back up. Then I brush away the snow stuck to my pants, and take off before the internal screaming of my muscles gets too loud for me to ignore.

It’s a good thing I can’t hear anything when I’m out here, other than the sound of blades cutting into ice, scratching and ripping into the shiny surface. People usually view the ice as unforgiving. To me, it’s a tool, one I use and can bend to my will.

At least that’s what’s supposed to happen. Lately I seem to be entirely at its mercy.

Out here, though, I can escape. Everything on my mind disappears. So I dig my edges in, speeding across the ice, cold wind biting at my face and making my sweat-plastered hair fly out of the way.

I’m pulled into the familiar rhythms of the same routine I’ve obsessed over for weeks, curving and gliding with the wind blowing my hair back in my face and air rushing in and out of my lungs. The cold stings, but it feels good. You’re always a little short of breath, and your calves are burning, and your toes are crunched to the point you lose feeling in them after a while, but that’s how you know you’re doing it right. If it doesn’t hurt, you’re definitely doing something wrong.

You’re not giving in to the music, Ekaterina! Tatyana’s voice reminds me, as inescapable as it’s been all my life. Give in! Let go! I’ve always managed to figure out a way to give just enough of myself over to the artistry of a program to make my performance believable, to win an audience over, while still maintaining one hundred percent of control.

Which is why I was so thrown when I screwed up at the Final. It wasn’t supposed to happen; I hadn’t even planned for the possibility of it. But I should have. I got careless, arrogant. I got lazy.

I’m never making that mistake again. Which is why I’m here right now.

I’ve skated this program so many times since then, trying to figure out what went wrong, that I could recite it from memory. The layout is practically inscribed in my brain, and I don’t need Khachaturian’s soaring violins to guide me as I progress through the edgework, the step sequences, the spins and the jumps.

Coming out of the spin combination, the momentum and the blood roaring in my ears make me think I might finally be able to land the combination that fucked me over—but the second I’m in the air, I can feel that it’s all wrong. I end up sprawled back on the ice, biting back a scream that’s less from the crunching sound I think my ribs may have just made and more from utter, blinding rage.

This is just stupid. I’m being stupid .

Why am I not landing it? I’ve had this combination for months, I can land both the Salchow and the toe loop individually, but it’s like the second I try to put them together my body just seizes up.

I smack the ice. “ Fuck!” The resulting stinging of my wrist just infuriates me more. And as if it can’t get worse, when I go to get up and balance on my skate blades again, pain bursts in my lower back from my old injury. I clench my teeth, swallowing a pathetic whimper, then try again, but it hurts more insistently and I have to bite down hard on my tongue to keep from crying out.

When did I turn into such a crybaby? My whole life, I’ve refused to be like that, to cry or complain. It’s a waste of time. We were trained never to complain if we wanted this—and I still want it.

I need it.

“Katyusha!”

My head jerks up midway through struggling to get to my feet again, and despite myself I’m smiling at the sight of a familiar dark-haired figure in even darker clothing waving from the side of the ice. “ Privyet , Misha.”

Mikhail joined our team as a senior assistant coach when I was twelve, right around the time I passed into the junior levels. It would’ve been odd to see a man not much older than the skaters that high up in the hierarchy of Tatyana’s camp if you hadn’t known he’d won two Olympic gold medals before the age of twenty, his first at the ripe old age of fifteen—yeah, fifteen. He’d achieved more than I have in my entire career by the time he was five years younger than me.

I’ve seen him almost every single day since then—his dramatic all-black outfits and ridiculous hairstyling regimen have been a staple of training these last eight years. He’s the older brother I never had, not to mention my favorite assistant coach.

Make that ex-assistant coach . Just like that, my mood sours again. “What are you doing here?”

He clutches a hand to his chest, faking offense. “I haven’t seen you in weeks, and that’s how you greet me?”

I get up, even as my eyes water, and skate over. “You could’ve come,” I mutter, and he bites his lip.

“We both know I couldn’t.”

He’s right, and I hate it. “M-hm.” I reach over the side for my bag, unscrewing my water bottle and taking a swig.

“So…”

I sniffle, and wipe my upper lip with a folded tissue—one of the downsides of this sport no one talks about is a perpetually running nose. “Spit it out, Misha.”

“I saw you skating.”

“You mean falling. That I’ve been doing plenty of.”

He laughs. “That too. No, really. How has it been?”

I scoff. “How do you think? Zhizn’ ebet meya. ” Translation: life is fucking me. Never has an expression felt so relevant than that particular one has these last few weeks.

“It can’t be that bad.”

“It can.” Really. It can. I toss the tissue into my bag, yanking my gloves off finger by finger. “I’m so sick of this. Why can’t things just go back to normal? Hasn’t Tatyana’s tantrum ended yet?”

“Come on, Katenka. You know as well as I do that ‘normal’ is impossible right now. And, as for Tatyana Nikolaevna, she’s in a constant state of tantrum.”

Any other time, I would laugh at his jokes. “It was one fall,” I mutter, for what’s probably the millionth time since the disaster that left me stranded here instead of Moscow. It was one fall . The first I’ve had in competition since I was fourteen—yes, I fact checked, because I genuinely could not remember the last time I’d screwed up like that. Shouldn’t my track record be enough to save me here?

Because I’m good. Better than good. I’ve held my position as second-best in the world for two years, and I was best period for three years before that. I came in gold at Worlds my first senior season, my very first time on that ice. This shouldn’t be happening to me—and yet I’m still standing here, with my friend probably risking his job to come see me. With my name scratched off the team roster.

I’m still a failure.

I shove down the thickness in my throat. No matter—Svetlana might be a second-rate coach, but she’ll do until I can get back onto Tatyana’s good side.

I must be subconsciously rubbing at my back, because Mikhail’s gaze travels, connecting the dots between it and my wincing. “Katya…”

“What?” I ask, the picture of innocence, and he sighs.

“Keep this up and you’re really out of the game. Don’t you remember what happened to Irina? Do you want that to happen to you?”

I do remember, actually. Irina Sokolovskaya: a legend, for all of fifteen minutes. She was a few years older than the rest of us, she’d been with Tatyana longer. We didn’t know her too well, even though we saw her every day; she was quiet, reserved. Liza and Polina thought it was because she thought we were below her, and maybe they were right. We never really got a chance to find out. She’d been doing worse and worse in competition. She was nineteen, like me—old.

Because in figure skating, your biological clock runs out as soon as you turn legal, if not before. Right now I’m the second-oldest Russian female senior singles skater after Galina Gorshkova, who’s only just turned twenty-three (and she’s nowhere near the podium, so she doesn’t even count). It’s a miracle I’ve lasted this long without my injuries piling up like an avalanche to crush me.

Which was exactly what happened to Irina. She hurt her hip in what had seemed like a minor injury, and the coaches and doctors decided that she was healed enough to return to training a few weeks later—Irina then proceeded to break it badly enough to need replacement surgery, forcing her into retirement. When you’re drilling as hard as I used to, how all the Zhukova girls do, bones are like paper. Often ripped to bits or crumpled up, and always expendable.

However, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to break my spine. So it isn’t really a valid example.

I don’t bother saying this, though. I just roll my eyes to the banner-covered ceiling. “I’m already out of the game. Just leave me in peace. Go back to Moscow, alright? I’m meeting with Svetlana Smirnova tomorrow.”

I turn to go, but Mikhail stops me. “Katya, she’s not going to say yes, and you know it.”

“What are you talking about? Of course she’ll say yes. I’m loads better than all her little twerps, she’d be mad to pass off this good of an opportunity.”

He shakes his head. “All the coaches have been told not to.”

What? “That’s impossible.”

“It isn’t.”

I laugh harshly. “What are they trying to do, drive me out of the country?”

Mikhail’s face is answer enough. My stomach sinks like a stone. “Go to hell, Misha. And take Tatyana’s mind games with you. I’m going to Svetlana, and you can’t stop me.”

“Would you just listen? There’s no point in going to Svetlana, this is what I’m trying to get you to understand. You’re not going to find a single half-competent coach between here and Yakutsk who’s willing to take you.”

No. I can’t shove down the panic this time—it springs back up even stronger. “So what am I supposed to do?” I ask, my voice coming out horrifyingly shaky. “Where am I supposed to go?”

He rubs at his face. “I’m working on it. I have contacts in France, Canada—”

I can’t help but snort. “Please, Misha. Be realistic.”

He doesn’t smile. “I am being realistic. I think I may actually be more aware of your situation than you are, Katenka. The best I can probably do at this point is get you to my friend Lian. It would be a big favor, but I can try.”

I stay silent, ignoring the fact that coaching me is apparently now a big favor even though this time last month I had camps here and abroad thirsting after me, and trying to avoid the feeling that he’s right about the realism part. I can’t afford to pick and choose here if I want my career to survive. I rub at my forehead—I feel a migraine coming on. I’m going to need to go home and take something before it can get worse.

I sigh, taking another sip. Lian? The name sounds Asian, and familiar. “Fine. Where is she, China? Japan?”

“America.”

I choke on my water.