Chapter 8
8
KATERINA
“ D imi Zakharova,” Katerina said in wary greeting.
By all the Saints and demons, how had the woman gotten here so quickly? And why?
As the Kniaz’s consort, she traveled with a retinue. Yet here she was, a glass of kvass in each hand, clad in her dusky blue velvet gown, her hair spangled with tiny diamonds. Next to her, wearing blood-and-dirt-spattered battle leathers, Katerina felt nasty to the nth degree.
“Why are you here?” It came out less than polite, but she’d used up the last of her good manners when she’d refrained from ripping off Fyodor’s head and sending it flying at his murderous bitch of a Dimi. Not to mention playing nice with the Kniaz.
“Perhaps I’m just here to offer you a drink,” the other woman said, her voice saccharine as she extended one of the tumblers of kvass to Katerina. “You must be thirsty, after…extending yourself in the arena tonight.”
There was the slightest pause before ‘extending,’ but it was enough to tell Katerina all she needed to know. The woman had seen, damn her. The question was, how much?
She gathered her magic, feeling it tingle in her fingertips and sizzle beneath her skin. “I’m fine, thank you,” she said curtly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get changed for the feast.” She took a step forward, but Dimi Zakharova didn’t retreat.
“I know what you’re doing,” the woman hissed, her gaze raking over Katerina. “You intend to worm your way into the Druzhina, and then to take my place.”
Katerina snorted. “Is that what this is about? Believe me when I tell you that’s the last thing I want.” On every count. “Now, step aside. I won’t ask again.”
“ Believe you ?” The marble statue of Sant Antoniya in the alcove by Katerina’s door tipped, then righted itself, as Dimi Zakharova’s earth-magic rose. “Because you’re so truthful, Katerina Ivanova. The Magiya’s records say you’re a firewitch, like your mother before you. But you’re not, are you?” She took a step closer, until the skirts of her gown brushed Katerina’s legs. “Who has lied for you, Dimi Ivanova? If the truth came out, what price would they pay?”
The woman had sent for copies of Katerina’s genealogy and bonding ceremony from Iriska’s largest repository of knowledge, halfway across the realm from Rivki. Did that mean she’d suspected Katerina long before the incident in the arena today?
Maybe it meant nothing. Perhaps this type of surveillance was done on all of the candidates for the Trials. Still, fear iced the blood in Katerina’s veins.
Steady , she told herself. Hold the line.
“I am a firewitch,” she said, each word dropping like a stone into the still air of the hallway. “If you’ve troubled yourself to look that deeply into my origins, you know every woman in my mother’s line since the Saints conferred their blessings on Iriska has been a firewielder. What else would I be?”
She let her lips rise in a mirthless smile, the one that usually preceded stabbing a demon through the heart and sending it hurtling into the Void. “I’m sorry to waste your time. But I am flattered you’ve concerned yourself with me, Dimi Zakharova. Why, I don’t know the slightest thing about you, save that you’re happy to warm the bed of a tyrant and a fool.”
The other woman’s eyes narrowed, rage heating their depths. A muscle in her jaw twitched, and the ground beneath Katerina’s feet shook, forcing her to fight to keep her balance. “You dare to speak so of the Kniaz? Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps you truly don’t want to share his bed.” Her voice lowered to a hiss, laden with suspicion. “I saw the way you looked at your Shadow, when you thought he couldn’t see. Is that where your heart lies, Dimi Ivanova? For if so, you’re a threat of an entirely different kind.”
Katerina’s pulse kicked up, pounding so hard, she swore she could taste it. A quarter-hour in the arena and five minutes in a hallway, and Dimi Zakharova had seen deeper into her heart than anyone ever had. It was insufferable…and dangerous.
“How dare you suggest such a thing?” she said, her voice ice-cold. “My Shadow will be betrothed to his Vila before all of Kalach the night of the Bone Moon. He is a man of honor.”
“One can be betrothed, and even marry, and still betray one’s vows.” The other woman was so close, her breath brushed Katerina’s cheek. “So many lies, Dimi Ivanova. So many lives you hold in your hand. For surely everyone in your village knows you are not merely a firewitch. Keeping a secret that could mean so much to the realm…the price for such a thing would be steep beyond measure.”
By all the Saints and demons, she refused to make twenty-one years of sacrifice and silence be for nothing. “What is wrong with you?” she snapped. Better to put the other woman on the defensive than to be constantly caught wrong-footed like this. “Are you so desperate to keep your place in that bastard’s bed that you’re willing to betray a fellow Dimi to have what you want, inventing threats where none exist?”
She dropped her voice, letting a full measure of viciousness fill it. “Or is that he’s grown tired of you, Dimi Zakharova? Does he not reach for you as often; do you sense his gaze roving, as he seeks a wife to give him heirs? I feel sorry for you. Such petty insecurity is beneath a Dimi. The world bends to our will, not the other way around.”
The woman sucked in a sharp breath. She stepped back, scanning every inch of Katerina, her lip curling in scorn. “I don’t know what you are, little Dimi,” she said. “But I intend to find out. Because you might not wish to be the Kniaz’s consort, but he covets pretty things. He covets power. The choice might not be yours. And I have no intention of being displaced at all, much less by a liar and a traitor.”
The marble floor beneath them cracked with the force of her outrage, the movement jostling the glasses in her hands. As liquid sloshed over the rims, Katerina smelled what she hadn’t before: bitter cascara, a potent laxative.
If she’d accepted the kvass, she wouldn’t have died, no. But she would have spent a very uncomfortable evening, away from the covetous gaze of the Kniaz, just like Dimi Zakharova wanted. And next time, her drink might be laced with something worse.
Her gaze flicked to Zakharova’s face. The other woman was watching her, dark eyes glittering with malice. A satisfied smile lifted her painted lips.
For the love of the Saints. This was what happened when a greedy tyrant pinned a beautiful, powerful woman under his thumb: insecurity and jealousy. In another world, Katerina and Dimi Zakharova would be allies. Katerina might even look to her as a mentor; the woman was politically savvy, able to navigate the treacherous waters of this despicable place without so much as turning a hair. But instead, the other Dimi hated and feared Katerina, not because of her power but because she inspired the Kniaz’s unholy lust.
It was just one more reason to despise the man. But right now, he wasn’t the threat. Dimi Zakharova was, and though Katerina would never have started this fight, there was no way to turn from it now.
She couldn’t light a fire inside the Kniaz’s palace. Nor could she use her other magic, without confirming Dimi Zakharova’s suspicions and endangering everyone in Kalach. She was trapped, Saints curse it. Hatred burned inside her, desperate for an outlet, as she bared her teeth. “Count yourself lucky I don’t yet call Rivki home. You may not know what I am, but trust me when I say I am powerful enough to end you. For your insinuation that something improper exists between myself and my Shadow alone, I should make you pay.”
The other woman lifted one shoulder in an elegant, disdainful shrug. “Watch what you eat and drink tonight, Dimi Ivanova. For I have taken on far more worthy opponents than you. And the Kniaz can’t Reap you if you’re dead.”
Giving Katerina one last, weighted look, she turned and strode through the carved wooden doors at the opposite end of the hallway, the earth trembling in her wake.