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“Where did you get that necklace?”
Mila reached up and touched the pendant dangling from a gold chain around her neck. “My mother gave it to me,” she hedged. Her mother had told her the story when she presented the necklace to Mila on her fifteenth birthday, and Mila was both terrified and thrilled every time someone asked about it. So far, every time had been because they just admired it and wanted to know where they could get one, or at least what artist to commission for something similar.
It was easy to understand why people asked about it. It was fairly large, a four-centimeter diameter circle, set with a gold X with the four quadrants filled in with onyx in the top, ivory on the left, coral on bottom, and lapis lazuli on the right. In Mila’s opinion, it was a bit gaudy, but her mother insisted she wear it every time she left the house or visitors came. The only time she was allowed not to wear it was when she was on the ice, as long as it was back in place as soon as possible after she stepped off.
According to family legend, the necklace represented a promise. Somewhere in the long-forgotten past, her ancestor had been a princess, betrothed to some warlord or other. He had given her the necklace as an engagement gift, vowing that one day, their families would be united and bring about a golden age of peace and prosperity for both of their lands. The warlord had then been killed in battle before the wedding could take place, but at the moment of his death, the princess had noticed a flash of light from the pendant. She had taken it to a wise woman, who told her that the warlord’s dying words had been a vow that no matter how long it took, he would see his oath honored, and one day one of his descendants would marry a descendant of the princess.
Mila didn’t believe it. Obviously she was descended from the princess because the princess married someone else, but how did the warlord have descendants if he’d never married? Her mother had told her not to worry about it, that it didn’t matter. All she had to do was be on the lookout for someone who recognized the pendant and came to fulfill the old vow.
“I’m Otabek Altin, and if this is just a coincidence, I’m about to sound incredibly creepy. I would like to apologize in advance and promise that every word I’m about to say is the truth, and if you are the person who needs to hear it, you’ll understand.” He paused, giving Mila a chance to protest if she wanted to. She ddn’t. “I think you may be the woman I’m supposed to marry.”
“You’re right. With no context, that does sound incredibly creepy,” Mila said, and Otabek flinched. “Luckily for you, I just might have some context. Unfortunately, it’s also my flight’s time to report, so we don’t really have time to talk. I’m competing…”
“Me too. If you can stay to watch the men’s competition, watch me skate. Pay attention to the song. The lyrics are in English, so you should be able to understand them, but it’s based on an old Uzbek folk song. Good luck.”
Mila was able to shut it out and focus on her own skating, and her score showed it. She took the gold medal for the ladies’ skate. Otabek was skating in the second group of the men’s skate, giving her plenty of time to relax and prepare herself to have her mind blown and her world rocked.
When Otabek took the ice, he looked a little rattled, but as soon as the music started, the nerves were gone and every gram of his body was focused. Mila was blown away by his skating – sure, it wasn’t the traditional graceful dance stuff she was used to, but the power and the way he used his body made him really stand out from other skaters. Where had he been her whole career? Yakov would scoff at it and Georgi would roll his eyes, but Viktor and Yuri, she thought, would love it – Viktor for the surprising choices he was making, and Yuri for how cool it was.
The song he’d asked her to pay attention to told a story of a warlord who rose to power despite his low birth and lack of advantage through his own determination and ambition. Despite that, he was beloved by his people; every step he took closer to his goal was at the expense of those who oppressed the farmers and ranchers and tradesmen. He was betrothed to a beautiful and wise princess, but tragically, he was killed in battle by a lucky arrow from one of his enemies before he could marry her. The entire nation mourned his death, vowing to protect the one known illegitimate son he had until he came of age and could take his father’s place.
Otabek’s skating was good enough to give him silver – not a surprise; Yuri was competing and took the gold. There was an odd tension between them on the podium during the victory ceremony, which Mila noted curiously. Yuri was always a tense little tiger, but to have that directed at someone who wasn’t Jean-Jacques LeRoy was odd.
Yuri was right beside Otabek when he came to find her. “Mila, this asshat says he’s not bothering you. He lying? Need some backup kicking his ass?”
“He’s not bothering me, he’s not lying, and you might want to start being nicer because he just might be my fiancé.” Mila giggled as Yuri’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “Otabek, do you mind if he comes with us to hear this? He’s kind of like a little brother to me, so if this does go like our ancestors say it should, you’ll need to get used to him.”
Otabek didn’t mind, so the three of them went to dinner. “So when I was fifteen, my mother gave me this necklace, along with a fairy tale to read and a long list of names to memorize. My mother, and her mother, and her mother, all the way back to Princess Ksenia of Altair. She was one of the ones in the fairy tale, betrothed to the warlord Timur, who died before they could marry but swore with his dying breath that one day the families would be united.”
“So I don’t have to feel like an idiot,” Otabek said. “My father was scandalized when I said I wanted to skate this program. I’m supposed to find you, not the other way around. I don’t care. I don’t even much care about the supposed engagement. My family puts a lot of stock in it, but… honestly I think it sounds kind of dumb. The thing is, where I’m from, arranged marriages are kind of traditional, and my parents refuse to consider any other possibilities for me unless I find you and we decide that our generation isn’t the right one. With you being about my age, I know that my family’s going to push hard for us to be together regardless of what we think.”
Mila nodded. “Mine too. Arranged marriage isn’t a tradition where I’m from, but my parents raised me with the expectation that until I was twenty-five, I was not allowed to consider marrying anyone but my warlord’s descendent. Which was fine by me, who marries that young these days anyway, but they even frowned on me dating.”
“Not that it stopped you,” Yuri interjected. “Are you two seriously considering this?”
“Well… it’s one thing for you, you weren’t raised with it the way we were, and to be honest I was kind of expecting the guy who found me to be like forty and looking for his fifth wife or something,” Mila admitted with an embarrassed smile to Otabek. “Obviously, he’s not. You’ve seen the guys I date. Look at him, he’d fit right in.”
“Not so sure about that,” Yuri said. “The guys you date, I get in their face about something and they get right back in mine or laugh. They don’t look terrified. This guy…”
“You’re a bad example,” Otabek interrupted. “Coaches, police, friends’ parents, I have no problem holding my own when someone’s coming at me. You’re a special case because you’re Yuri Plisetsky and you’re the reason I didn’t quit skating when it became obvious I couldn’t do the ballet part of it.”
Mila snickered as Yuri went through about five different reactions to that. “How the hell? Because that can’t have been news to you this year, and…”
“You were still in novices. I was put with the novices at Yakov Feltsman’s skating camp, and it was kind of humiliating when I couldn’t even keep up there. I almost quit, but then I saw you staring at me. You had the eyes of a soldier, and it made me feel that if I quit, I would never forgive myself for giving up. I went to America and then Canada looking for a training regimen and coach that would fit me better, and finally found the right combination last year. I had planned to approach you at the Finals if I made it, see if we could be friends, but then I saw Mila’s pendant.”
“Why Finals? Why not here?” Yuri asked, eyes narrowing. “Don’t tell me you’re an idiot like Katsuki.”
Otabek blinked a couple times. “Because until Finals, I was worried that you would be a distraction that meant I didn’t make Finals. At Finals, even if I did badly, I’d still have achieved my goal for this year. Even with Viktor out this season, I’m still a long shot to medal there. So am I an idiot like Katsuki?”
“So if I promise to kick your ass if you’re looking distracted, you’re okay with being friends now?” When Otabek nodded, Yuri held out a hand. “Not an idiot. We can be friends.”
Otabek took the hand for a shake, and then turned back to Mila, who was grinning. “So back to our situation. I’d like to give it a shot, if for no other reason than we can go to our families and say that things didn’t work out and it’s obviously meant to happen in some other generation and they need to back off. If you’re not willing or ready to give it a real shot, though, I understand.”
Mila bit her lip, thinking it over. She didn’t know much about Otabek Altin yet, but everything she knew, she liked. He was hot. He was able to get along with Yuri, who was the closest family she had. Her family would behave themselves, so it wasn’t likely that they ran him off – unless things weren’t working out anyway and her family got pushy about them trying to work out solutions and stay together instead of going their separate ways, in which case it would just be the excuse to end things instead of the reason. He was a skater, so he’d understand the devotion to the ice it took to succeed. They might have to be long-distance, but he might be willing to come to Russia. “I think we could be good together, and the only way to figure it out is to give it a shot. If we’d met at a competition and you asked me out without the whole arrangement hanging over us, I’d probably have said yes anyway unless I was with someone else at the time, so it’s not like our ancestors are the only reason I’m considering it, Yuri.”
“Still weird as fuck, but your lives, your decision, I guess. How bad is your sister gonna squeal?”
Mila groaned. “It’s gonna be bad. I’ll try to do it while I’m out of the country and her shrieks won’t hurt you or Potya’s ears.”