Chapter 2
2
KATERINA
K aterina had always thought the kohannya ceremony was sweet, if silly. For a Dimi like herself, who had the freedom to choose whoever she wished to marry, there was no need to cast a tiny boat into the river that bordered Kalach and wait to see who scooped it up downstream. But for Vila, raised to marry Shadows and perpetuate the Vila and Shadow lines, there was an undeniable romanticism to the tradition. Vila spent weeks crafting their miniature boats, sealing them with wax dyed from red madder, then hand-painting them with runes for love, loyalty to Sant Viktoriya, and steadfast hearts.
The whole village turned out for the annual ceremony, where the Vila launched their boats and waited with bated breath to see which Shadows would pluck them from the water. For while Baba Petrova and the Elders had final authority when it came to marriage pacts, Vila and Shadows’ wishes held considerable weight. Kohannya was a time of crushes revealed, of discovering whether love was requited. It was, Katerina thought dryly as she strode down the path to the river, one hand knotted around her horse’s reins, a Vila’s dream come true.
And today, it was Katerina’s nightmare.
“Are you all right?” Next to her, her best friend, Ana, poked Katerina in the side. Never one to sit still, Ana was always in motion—whether it be her hands, her body, or her magic. When the two of them were children, she was always getting in trouble for touching things she shouldn’t. Today, apparently that thing was Katerina.
“Ouch!” Rubbing her side resentfully, Katerina tore her gaze from the gathering in the distance, just visible through the copse of trees. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Ana rolled her eyes. “Let’s pick a reason, shall we? Maybe because I’ve called your name at least three times. Maybe because you’re staring straight ahead with a death glare on your face, as if you’d like to light the whole lot of them aflame.” She gestured at the crowd clustered on the riverbank, the rays of the early-spring sun breaking through the canopy of evergreens to illuminate her olive skin and the blue-black highlights in her hair.
“Or maybe it’s because you just endured a binding ceremony the likes of which hasn’t been attempted in our lifetime,” she went on, her tone deliberately innocent. “Maybe it’s because we could hear your Shadow raising a commotion all the way in the village square. Maybe it’s because you look like you’re about to fall over, or because when Niko came to collect Alexei for the ceremony, he snapped at my Shadow like he was about to murder someone?—”
“Okay, okay.” Katerina held up a quelling hand. “I get it. Enough.”
Ana was a firewitch, and a powerful one at that. She held up her own hands, a small flame burning above each palm. “You don’t get to tell me what to do, Katerina Ivanova. And you can pretend to everyone else that you’re just fine, but you don’t have to put on an act with me.”
Sighing, Katerina guided her mare, Mika, around a log that had fallen across the path. The worst of it was, she did have to pretend with Ana. There was no way she was going to burden her friend with the knowledge that the spell hadn’t worked, and that she had no intention of letting Baba try again. If the truth came out somehow and Baba discovered Ana had known all along, it wouldn’t be pretty. “It was awful,” she admitted. That much, she could share. “I felt like I was dying. Like an essential part of me was being torn right out of my body. The pain—that’s why Niko got so angry. He couldn’t stand that it was hurting me.”
Ana nodded in sympathy, stepping to the side to make way for a small group of Dimis and Shadows hustling down the path. “I’ve never heard anyone shout at Baba, much less threaten her like that,” she said when they passed, her voice hushed. “It was all we could do to restrain the other Shadows from going to his aid. Can you imagine? They would have ripped that cottage apart.”
“We did enough damage on our own.” Katerina knotted her hands in Mika’s reins, and the mare whickered, sensing her tension. “I suppose destroying Baba’s cottage and setting the entire pack of Shadows on a rampage would have been a poor beginning to kohannya.”
Her voice was light, but Ana’s gaze sharpened, nonetheless. “Is that what’s gotten you so out of sorts? This silly ceremony?”
They were on dangerous ground now. Katerina shrugged, as if the answer were simple, obvious. “It just seems so frivolous, knowing what’s out there. We’re ten days from the full Bone Moon. Every day until then, the veil between the living and the dead thins, and the demons find it easier to break through. And the increasing attacks that travelers between villages have reported—the raid on Povorino…” She snorted. “It’s like none of that matters to the Vila. Like none of it’s real. All they have to worry about is tending the children and looking pretty, while we…”
She let her voice trail off, afraid of saying too much. Sounding too bitter, because although everything she’d said held a grain of truth, the real reason that this particular kohannya ceremony made her stomach churn was something she could never, ever speak aloud. Not even to Ana. Not to anyone.
“While we fight on the front lines.” Ana finished her sentence. “It’s their role, Katerina. They take pride in it. Just as we take pride in protecting Iriska and the world beyond our borders. You can’t begrudge them that.”
Neither Katerina nor Ana had ever left Iriska. The realm was protected, hidden. Still, though she’d never set foot beyond Iriska’s wards, she knew well what lay beyond: a world filled with innocent humans, unaware of the demonic threat that lurked beneath their feet. As a Dimi, it was her job to make sure they never knew—to stop the Grigori from overrunning Iriska and spilling, hungry, into the world beyond, where no one had the tools to defend themselves.
It was a heavy burden, but one she was used to carrying. One the Vila would never have to bear. Though the latent gifts that simmered in their blood empowered them to bear Shadowchildren and Vila, they possessed no magic of their own. They were nurturers, not defenders.
“I suppose I can’t.” Katerina ducked to avoid an overhanging branch. “Maybe I’m just restless. The sooner we go, the sooner I can fail to impress the Kniaz at the Trials and the sooner we can come home.” She forced her voice to sound neutral, not to reveal the fact that she was dreading and looking forward to returning to Kalach in equal measure. Because when they returned, the night of the full Bone Moon, Niko would be betrothed to his Vila.
Chosen for him for her beauty and piety, Elena Lisova was everything Niko needed and deserved. She would be loyal to him, faithful.
She would break Katerina’s heart.
Romantic love between a Dimi and her Shadow was beyond forbidden. The prophecy in the Book of the Light said so, the one every Shadow, Dimi, and Vila learned from the cradle: if a Dimi and Shadow lay together, demon-infested Darkness would fall upon Iriska and overtake the realm. Dictated by the three Saints to their scribes centuries before, the prophecy was sacred. Defying it was unthinkable.
So Niko could never be Katerina’s, not in the way she sometimes dreamed, in the depths of her most secret heart. If he knew she looked at him with the slightest hint of desire, anything beyond the holy bond that tied a Dimi to her Shadow, he would be horrified. And if anyone suspected how Katerina felt about him, the punishment would be swift. She and Niko would be separated, their bond severed, or worse. It would destroy them both.
This was the real reason she was dreading this ceremony. Because today, her Shadow would stand downriver and wait for Elena’s boat to sail into his outstretched hands. And the moment he rescued it from the waters and held it high, he’d be acknowledging that he wanted Elena just as much as she wanted him. That their bond wasn’t simply dictated by Baba and the Elders, a match made for an alpha Shadow to perpetuate the strength of his bloodline—it was something Niko chose, a future he was proudly claiming as his own.
Katerina wanted him to be happy, more than anything. If marrying Elena and giving her Shadowchildren and little Vila was what he dreamed of, she should support him. But how could she, when the thought hurt more than having her magic nearly torn out of her body by the roots?
Her agony must have shown on her face, because Ana squeezed her free hand in solidarity. “You will come home,” she said fiercely. “You will come home, and Baba will unbind your magic, and together we will stand against the Grigori, just like we always have. Whatever threat is rising, we will face it with our Shadows at our side.”
Ana didn’t voice the unthinkable—that Katerina and Niko would die in the arena. It happened, more often than the Kniaz acknowledged. The purpose of the Trials was to single out the strongest among them. If that meant crippling or even killing their rivals, so be it. A Dimi and Shadow pairing that could not stand against their own, or against whatever horrors lurked in the arena to test them, was unworthy of defending Iriska.
Katerina was spared a response, because as Ana finished speaking, they stepped off the path and into the clearing that bordered the river. It buzzed with activity, crowded with Dimis, Vila, Shadows, and villagers alike. Clouds had gathered, heralding a coming storm, and the air was thick with brine, overlaid with the spicy scent of the rowan-fires that burned by Kalach’s borders, to keep the demons away.
Elder Balandin gave an approving nod when she caught sight of Katerina, as if relieved that robbing her of her gifts hadn’t reduced her to a sniveling heap. Baba had no doubt reported the havoc they had wreaked on her cottage, and if Ana spoke true, the Elders had heard Niko’s vociferous objections for themselves. They had no reason to believe the spell had failed, and Katerina intended to keep it that way.
All of the Elders were looking at her now, their gazes heavy with expectation. Elder Mikhailova gazed up at her from his wheeled chair, hands clasped atop the blanket draped over his withered legs and eyes narrowed as if taking her measure. Offering him a small smile that she hoped conveyed both resignation and resilience, Katerina tied Mika up and gave the mare a carrot from the saddlebag to keep her happy. Then she and Ana crossed the clearing, joining their fellow Dimis. They stood some way back from the riverbank, in between the cluster of giggling, wide-eyed Vila and the leather-clad, blade-wielding Shadows. Instinctively, she scanned the clearing, looking for Niko, but didn’t see him among his brethren.
As their alpha, it was unusual for him to be separated from his pack in a gathering like this. She opened her mouth to ask Ana where Niko had gone after he’d come to collect Alexei, his second in command—but the words died on her lips as her Shadow emerged from the trees, leading Troitze, his ornery, midnight-black stallion. Alexei strode by his alpha’s side, head tilted as he took in Niko’s last-minute instructions to hold the village in his absence.
Ana had been right: Niko’s jaw was tight, his muscles tensed, as if he were striding into battle rather than about to collect a love token made by his soon-to-be-betrothed. Her friend elbowed her, perilously close to the same spot where she’d poked Katerina earlier. “What did I tell you?” she muttered. “Braced for murder.”
It was true that, unlike the Shadows who stood downriver, loose-limbed and smiling, Niko looked far less at ease. His gaze roved over the crowd, settling first on his pack, who straightened and came to attention under his scrutiny. It flicked over Katerina, lingering long enough to make sure that she was, indeed, unharmed. Guilt flashed through her at not telling Niko the spell hadn’t held—that she was whole. But how could she make him complicit in her deception? Why should they both be punished for her refusal to surrender?
She already kept one secret from her Shadow, after all. What was another?
A hum of excitement arose from the cluster of Vila, and Niko’s eyes left her, seeking its source. Elena stood in their midst, her buttercup-yellow gown and matching tresses gleaming, as if the sunbeams that broke through the clouds had done so for her benefit alone. She separated from her sisters and walked toward Niko, her face lit with joy.
Katerina forced herself to watch as her Shadow handed Troitze’s reins to Alexei and met Elena in the middle of the clearing. The Vila was as lovely as a storybook princess, with her long, flaxen hair and eyes as blue as the hyacinths that bloomed, defying the lingering touch of winter, on the riverbank at their feet. The perfect disciple of Sant Viktoriya, she was everything Katerina wasn’t: demure, soft, willing to bend to please others. Coming to a halt in front of Niko, she lifted her gaze, dimpling prettily, and held her ornate, gold-painted boat up for his inspection. The wind ruffled the loose tendrils of hair around her face, and she brushed it back, twining the strands around one finger before letting them go.
Niko said something to her, but Katerina couldn’t make it out. Was he telling the Vila how beautiful she looked? How he’d miss her dearly when he was gone? Maybe, Katerina thought, throat tight with misery, he was confessing how he couldn’t wait to be the one to cradle the golden boat in his hands at the end of its maiden voyage—the same hands that had clung to Katerina as if she were something precious in Baba’s cottage not two hours before.
Suppressing the jealousy that clawed at her, Katerina looked away. Her gaze swept over the assembled Vila, Shadows, and Dimis, then shifted right, toward the villagers crowded behind the ribbons Baba’s acolytes had strung up between the trees.
The kohannya ceremony was much-anticipated throughout Kalach; for weeks, children had traded bets on which Shadows would pluck each Vila’s boat from the waters. The little ones jostled for position, clutching boats of their own making: crude hunks of wood that were as likely to sink as swim, painted brightly with the pigments of crushed flowers. Behind them stood tradespeople and teachers, seamstresses and blacksmiths, all of whom it was Katerina’s job to protect. Farther down the riverbank stood the small Shadows, Vila, and Dimis, watched over by the married Vila whose kohannya days were behind them.
This was what she was fighting for. These people, who trusted her.
She fought for them, and for the Light. For her sacred mission, handed down to her by the Saints: to guard the borders of her village and the realm from demonic incursion. To be a force against the Darkness, with her Shadow’s aid.
She had faced demons many times, since childhood, and though she had faith in her ability to vanquish them, they never failed to strike a chord of terror in her heart. She had seen too much for it to be otherwise. What did it say about her, then, that, more than the threat of dying beneath the blades or teeth of the Grigori, she feared watching her Shadow take another as his wife?
A distraction, that was what she needed. Something that would take her mind off the kohannya ceremony and keep her from betraying the traitorous contents of her heart.
Crossing to where Mika grazed amongst the trees, Katerina made a show of sorting through the contents of her saddlebags. Antivenin, bandages, and salves, in case she and Niko encountered a demon on the road. Smoked sausages, cold vareniki dumplings. Bits of cheese. A full flask of water. A sheathed knife, though fighting with a blade was more Niko’s province than hers. She hardly needed an edged weapon to do damage.
Unfortunately, this position put her closer to the very people she was trying to ignore. Elena held up the boat, chattering about how much time she’d put into it, then hiding it playfully behind her back when Niko tried to examine it more closely. “You’ll see it when you brave the river to catch it,” she said, trilling a silvery laugh. “You must earn your prize, my Shadow.” She batted her lashes at him, the implication clear: the true prize in this scenario was her.
“As you wish,” Niko said, stepping backward with his palms raised, and Elena beamed.
“Don’t worry, my Shadow,” she said, sidling up to him once more. “You don’t have long to wait.”
My Shadow. Was that all he was to Elena—a possession, proof that her maniacal dedication to Sant Viktoriya had paid off? For Katerina, he was so much more: her best friend, her conscience, the other half of her soul. How could he be someone else’s Shadow, when all her life, even before the blood vow that bound them, he had only belonged to her?
She ducked her head, terrified that the white-hot misery that scorched every inch of her being would show on her face. Inside her, power stirred, desperate for an outlet. The river was right there, the Vila clustered on the bank in their rune-embroidered gowns, cradling their wax-coated paper boats as if cupping treasure in their hands. One gust was all it would take to send them flapping over the river like a flock of beautiful, shocked birds, their boats scattered to the four winds. One thought, and the river would crest its banks and swallow all of them whole, sucking Katerina and her humiliation into its depths.
She’d assured Baba that she had control of her magic. She had trained for years to channel it with the same focused precision with which Niko wielded his blades. Wasn’t her ability to resist Baba’s spell proof of her strength? She refused to be undone here, now, when to do so would mean exposure as a liar, not to mention the surety that Baba and the Elders would insist on performing the spell all over again. The thought of undergoing that agony a second time chilled her to her soul.
How could it be a bad thing to be in possession of all her powers, just a few short moonrises away from the full Bone Moon, with Grigori attacks increasing by the day? She couldn’t travel all the way to and from Rivki weakened, a fraction of her true self. She wouldn’t.
But she couldn’t stay here another moment, either. Not like this. Every instant she lingered meant risking discovery—and devastation.
Maybe she was a coward, not to be able to watch her Shadow claim Elena’s boat—and, by extension, the Vila—for his own. Or maybe she was only looking out for the village she’d dedicated herself to protecting since her mother fell at the demons’ feet, throat torn open, a broken and bloodied doll.
Maybe both.
An idea came to Katerina then—a wonderful, terrible idea, destruction and deliverance in equal measure.
To reach Rivki, she and Niko would have to cross a bridge that spanned the river a half-mile to the north. A spring storm two weeks ago had left it in less-than-ideal shape. Katerina had seen the state of it, when she’d ridden upriver to gather medicinal herbs for their journey: the railing was loose and some of the spokes and slats were gone, leaving gaps like missing teeth. She and Niko had debated taking a different, longer route, concerned the bridge wouldn’t hold their horses, but Gabiska, Kalach’s head carpenter, had tested it and declared it fit for one last crossing. If it fell, though…
They would have to ride farther upriver, into the rolling hills that licked the base of the mountains, then through one of the lower passes. The trip would add hours to their journey. Time they couldn’t afford to waste, if they wanted to arrive on schedule for the feast that preceded the Trials and pay the Kniaz the respect he believed was his due.
A storm was on its way, telegraphed in the low-hanging clouds that darkened the horizon and the humid air, sparking with latent electricity. Half a mile upriver, who could say whether it had already begun to rain?
One hand on Mika’s back, she pictured the bridge: flaking, white-painted slats; struts rising from the riverbanks on either side of rushing water. Oaks and rowans curved overhead, their leaves stirring in alarm, speckled with the first drops that fell from a blackening sky.
Careful not to disturb the surface of the soil, she sent her magic out, snaking beneath the riverbank. It curled around the voles that crept through their tunnels. Wove between the knobbly roots of the great oaks. Tasted the thorny sweetness of guelder roses, slumbering until the warmer temperatures beckoned them to bloom.
The earth was hers. Hers to embrace, to protect, to command.
She reached farther, carving her way, until her magic tasted something solid, rich with river-silt. Sending out another tendril, she found its companion, anchored deep within the earth: the clay footers of the bridge.
No one was looking at her, beneath the trees with Mika, pretending to forage through the saddlebags. The weather was poor; the bridge was in disrepair, a half-mile away; Katerina’s earth-magic was bound. If she went through with this, no one would suspect.
She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against her mare’s warm flank. Mika stood steady, her slow, even breath centering Katerina as she wrapped her magic around the footers: tight and tighter, until they creaked beneath the strain.
Yield to me, she commanded silently.
The earth heaved, struggling against her. The footers had stood for fifty years, since a storm had washed that section of riverbank away and Kalach had had to rebuild. The ground didn’t want to give them up. Its grip on the clay was strong, but Katerina’s was stronger.
Yield, she demanded again, drawing harder on her magic. Now.
Perhaps Sant Antoniya was with her, because though she had not called on her water-magic, the river stirred, its gentle lap-lap-lap against the shore becoming louder, more demanding. The sky opened, drops of cold rain spattering Katerina’s shoulders. Above her, the leaves of the low-hanging oaks whispered, disturbed from their rest. And upriver, two of the bridge’s footers broke loose at last, sending the dilapidated structure plunging into the water with a deafening roar and an impact that shook the forest.
Katerina opened her eyes to chaos.