Fate and Fury

Chapter 30

30

KATERINA

K aterina was exhausted.

They’d spent the day training with the other Dimi and Shadows under Baba Petrova’s vigilant eye. Katerina had been terrified that with every glance she and Niko shared, they risked giving themselves away. She’d gone out of her way not to touch him, until Baba had snapped that if they didn’t stand closer together, a demon could waltz right through the space between them, black dog and witchfire be damned.

There had been another Grigori attack on the village two days before. This one had been minor, squelched almost as soon as it began, but she couldn’t remember a time when one attack had followed so closely on the heels of another. An ever-present sense of wrongness, as if the universe had spun off its axis, pressed heavy on her chest, making her breath come short.

She tried to tell herself this was normal—who wouldn’t be anxious about the constant threat of demonic invasion, especially when your village was depending on you to save it, and Gadreel himself was out to get you? Not to mention that the man she loved was soon to wed another. But logical as these reasons might be, she knew them for the flimsy excuses they were.

Something was off. She felt it in her bones and sinew, the same way she felt the call of earth and flame.

The clock was ticking, the sand running through the hourglass. They had barely more than a week until Niko and Elena wed, and just over a fortnight until they had to deliver the tithe to Rivki. She dreaded going back there, especially now that the whole of the Druzhina knew why she’d performed so well in the Trials. After what she’d managed on the road to Drezna and Nadia’s confession, there was no hiding anymore. They’d see her both as a traitor and the means to their salvation, triggering a potent mix of contempt, gratitude, and creeping envy. The Kniaz might not want her dead or banished, but his Guard was another story, even in terrible times like these. Katerina would spend every second watching her back.

Not to mention, now that Dimi Zakharova knew what she was capable of, the Kniaz’s consort would see Katerina as more of a threat than ever. She’d have to sleep with one eye open and a knife under her pillow, since Niko would no longer be curled by her hearth. And Saints protect them all if Zakharova somehow made good on her suspicions, discovering the truth of what Katerina and her Shadow had been up to. Even if they never laid a finger on each other again after arriving in Rivki, what they’d already done was worthy of condemnation.

Perhaps, condemnation was the least of it. Quite possibly, it had doomed them all.

The fields were shriveling, struck by a blight like the one that had laid waste to Drezna: a terrible, blackening frost, suitable more to the dead of winter than to the burgeoning spring. There were murmurings about the prophecy, and even Ana, usually so practical, had turned to Katerina during dinner, the rations for which grew ever-smaller, asking if she imagined that such a thing could be coming true.

“Who would do that?” Ana had said. “Seek to cleave to their Shadow, knowing what devastation might follow? With so many men and women ripe for the picking, who would choose the only one they were never meant to have?”

Katerina had only shrugged, turning away from her Dimi sister for fear that her face would betray her guilt. “A fool,” she’d said, filling her voice with the disgust she felt for her inability to let her Shadow go. “Someone who should know better.”

She hated lying to her friend. She hated this.

Maybe Baba Petrova was right; she could only bring trouble to Kalach. Maybe it was for the best that she was leaving. But the blight that was devouring the fields—if she were truly responsible, would it leave when she did? Would it follow her, like a well-trained dog? Or was she merely the epicenter of destruction that was doomed to spread throughout Iriska?

And then there was Gadreel. What did he want her for? Did he simply want to harness her strength, to turn her Light to Darkness? Why did he believe he’d seen her before? Was he behind what had happened to Drezna—had his soldiers caused it? And if that was the case, did it mean that Katerina herself wasn’t to blame? That, as Niko had always believed, the prophecy wasn’t the source of their strife? Surely it couldn’t be based on a romance between Dimi and Shadow that ran only the course of a single month—from Bone Moon to Blood.

She was desperate for answers. But none were forthcoming, and it was far too soon for Nadia and Oriel to return from the Magiya.

Restless, she puttered around the cottage, sweeping the floor, setting sweet herbs to burn atop the stove. Niko lay on the bed watching her, eyes half-shut, one arm crooked behind his head. He looked so peaceful, she hated to break the silence. But she did, anyway, voicing one of the myriad worries that troubled her.

“Do you think Elena suspects anything?”

“Hmmm?” Niko said, his voice lazy.

Katerina plucked a drooping petal from the spray of daisies on the table. “Elena. Do you think she knows?”

“Of course not, Katya,” he said, pushing himself up on one elbow. “It’s been a long day. Come here. Let me hold you.”

“I’m serious, Niko.” She tugged another browning petal from its stem.

“I can tell.” Sighing, he sat up and shoved his hair out of his eyes. “Leave that poor plant alone, would you? And stop cleaning, for Saints’ sake. Sit down and talk to me.”

Katerina hesitated to comply, for fear of where it might lead. Each time she kissed him, each time he laid her down on the rug before the hearth and covered her body with his, she vowed it would be the last. He would be married soon. This had to end.

She should have turned him away the night they’d fought Gadreel. But the fear in his eyes, the need in his touch, had been so blatant. She’d been as desperate as he was to feel his heart pounding against hers, to know that they’d survived.

“Katya,” Niko coaxed. “Enough stewing. Come tell me what’s on your mind.”

“You’re bossy tonight,” she said, cutting her gaze at him.

“It’s been known to happen. Why are you so worried about Elena all of a sudden?”

One of the shutters, as always, refused to latch. It banged against the house, filling the silence between them, as Katerina came to stand beside the bed. “I just…have a feeling.”

“I’m listening.” He rose to his knees and dug his thumbs into the column of her neck, massaging the tense muscles.

“She wouldn’t be the only one. Before we left Rivki,” she said, letting her head fall forward, “Dimi Zakharova suspected there was something between us.”

Her Shadow’s hands paused, then gripped her shoulders tight. “What are you talking about?”

“She saw how I looked at you.” Katerina sighed. “She…threatened to betray me, as a means of getting rid of me once and for all.”

“That’s why you were so eager to leave.” He shifted behind her, bewilderment pulsing through their bond. “Katya—why did you not say something?”

Katerina twisted, looking up at him through her lashes. “What should I have said? I wish to do with you all manner of things a Dimi should never wish to do with her Shadow, and the Kniaz’s consort sees right through me. Shall we go, before I bring ruination upon us all, or would you prefer I undress you on the hearth rug and prove her right? ”

Despite the gravity of their situation, a low chuckle moved through Niko’s body. She felt as well as heard it, and the gust of his breath against her neck made her shiver. “All manner of things, hmmm? I don’t know that my imagination is up to the challenge, my Dimi. Perhaps you should elaborate.”

“This is not funny.” How had they reversed roles this way?

“Of course not.” His hands caressed her once more, but this time they moved more slowly, tracing an intricate pattern on her skin. It took her a moment to realize he was shaping a series of runes: love, promise, protection. And then, simply, her name.

“I’m waiting, Katya,” he said aloud, the edge of menace in his voice at odds with the gentleness of his touch. “Tell me. When I answered the door and you looked at me like you couldn’t decide whether to flee for your life or lick the water off my chest, what were you thinking?”

Katerina’s jaw dropped. “You—you knew?”

“Not then.” He took firm hold of her shoulders and turned her away from him, his hands taking up their slow, tortuous motion again. One of them slipped lower, his palm flattening on her belly. “Then,” he said, his lips ghosting across her neck as his hand drifted lower still, “I thought you were simply distracted and impatient. But now…” His lips curved against her neck in a wicked smile. “Now, my Katya, I have you where I want you.”

She squirmed against him in a halfhearted attempt to get away, but he held her captive, that low chuckle coursing through him again. His free hand gripped her hip, fitting the hot, hard lines of his body to her curves. A raw, hungry sound rumbled from his chest as his fingers found their target, brushing her shift aside and sinking into her.

“Tell me,” he whispered. “What did you want to do to me that night?”

“N-nothing,” she managed, but it took an effort. Already heat simmered along her nerve endings, igniting everywhere Niko touched her, as if of the two of them, he were the firewitch.

“Wrong answer,” he said, scraping his teeth over the delicate skin of her neck. “Try again, my Dimi.”

Her body fluttered in response, and his fingers thrust harder. Now Katerina wasn’t just aflame; she was melting, clenching around him. How could something that had the potential to doom them all feel so right? Why, despite everything, could she not stop craving him this way?

“Again,” he demanded, his free hand rising to cup her breasts, pinching first one nipple, then the other. The pain was exquisite, and she cried out, her head falling back against his shoulder. It was unfair how well he knew her body, after years of training by her side. And yet, when he was touching her the way he was right now—as if he were addicted to the feel of her, his mouth descending over hers to swallow her moans—she could hardly complain.

“Katerina,” he coaxed, pulling away.

Damn him. “If I’d told you what I wanted to do to you,” she said, breathless, “what I’d imagined doing for months— years —would you have gone along with it, my Shadow?”

Niko withdrew his fingers, drawing a whimper from Katerina, and turned her so that she sat astride him. Arms tight around her, he arched upward, rolling his hips. Even through the rough linen of his pants, she could feel every inch of him, and from the way he shuddered helplessly beneath her, she knew he felt the same.

“I think,” he murmured, his lips brushing her ear, “that you know exactly what I would have done, Katerina. But in case you need proof of how well I take instruction, perhaps we should experiment with it now. Hmmm?”

Katerina would have loved nothing more. She ached to finish what they’d started, to tell him every filthy thought that had gone through her mind when she’d seen him framed in that doorway. But that would only end one way, and no matter how much she wanted to lose herself in Niko, they had important things to discuss. Kalach was crumbling around them, and Elena might know more than she should.

She opened her mouth to tell him so, but Niko stopped her with a kiss, his tongue sliding against hers and his teeth skating along her bottom lip, devouring her. “Since you’re so uncooperative,” he murmured, “maybe I should tell you what I wanted to do that night. I wanted to get on my knees and crawl to you, my Dimi. Peel off your fighting leathers and taste every inch of your skin, until you called out for me instead of for the Saints.”

Katerina gasped, and her Shadow gave a sinful, knowing smile. He thrust against her, his hips arching in a punishing rhythm, and Katerina’s core clenched, aching for him. “Niko—” she bit out, knotting her fingers in his hair.

She wasn’t sure what she wanted—to tell him to stop, to tell him to never stop—but it didn’t matter. She couldn’t manage more than the two syllables of his name.

“I’m not done,” he promised darkly. “Then and only then, when I had you pleading for more beneath me, as desperate for me as I’ve been for you, would I bury myself inside you.”

Niko wasn’t inside her now, but Katerina felt him everywhere, nonetheless. Her body pulsed, climbing higher and higher. It would be so easy to reach that peak and slip over it, to forget everything but how good this felt. And yet?—

“If you had done that,” she panted, drawing back to see his face, “then Dimi Zakharova could well have caught us. And where would we be then?”

“What do you take me for?” He tugged her close again, one hand twining in her curls. “As soon as you licked the first bead of water from my body, I would have locked the door.”

“I mean it, Niko.” Much as it pained her to do it, she caught his free hand as it threatened to slip between their bodies, driving them both to a fever pitch from which there could be no return. “Stop for a moment. We need to talk about this.”

A groan escaped his throat. “Right now?”

Katerina ignored the way her body throbbed in protest. It had no interest in conversation, unless said conversation involved more descriptions of what Niko had planned for her. She closed her eyes, fighting for a shred of common sense amidst the frenzy that threatened to consume her.

“Yes,” she said, nodding vigorously. “Because if we don’t talk now, we won’t talk at all.”

Her Shadow gave a dissenting rumble, but he disentangled his hand from her hair, leaning back against his palms. She opened her eyes to find his fixed on her, dark with need. His pupils were dilated in the firelight, his lips swollen from their kisses. The sight almost undid her.

“Hell’s teeth , Katerina. You’re going to kill me. But all right,” he said, blinking up at her. “A small percentage of blood remains in my head. By all means, proceed.”

Katerina struggled to put it into words, especially because she wasn’t finding it all that easy to concentrate herself. Not with Niko sprawled beneath her, looking at her like he’d far rather be following the agenda he’d had in mind in Rivki than talking. “Dimi Zakharova is one thing,” she began. “But Elena… Normally there’s an air about her—not diffidence, exactly, but a hesitation…a shyness, almost…”

She drummed her fingers against her thigh in frustration. “I’m not saying it properly. It’s just—she won’t look directly at me. She hasn’t since she saw us together in the courtyard, after Alexei was hurt. I swear she disappears sometimes. And there’s this sense I get from her—a smugness, as if she knows something I don’t…”

Niko pressed a kiss to the hollow of her throat. “You’re imagining things, Katya. You feel guilty, and so do I. It makes you see things where there’s nothing to be seen.”

The nighttime breeze wound through the cottage, bringing with it the scent of rain. Katerina drew a deep breath, steadying herself, and made a low, skeptical sound.

Her bed creaked as Niko shifted her off his lap and got to his feet. Gone was the playful Shadow who’d doubted his imagination was up to the privilege of determining what she had in mind for him, or the hungry one who’d crooked his fingers inside her and lowered his mouth to hers. His expression was set in harsh lines as he looked down at her, his body rigid.

“This is hurting you,” he said, his face grave. “I hate it. You know I don’t believe in the prophecy, but still. Maybe—maybe we should stop, even before I wed.”

She stared at him, trying to hide the grief that ran through her. “Is that what you want?”

Niko shook his head, sending his black hair flying. “I want to be with you for as long as I can, in whatever way I can. But I know how selfish that is. If you want to end this now, I’ll do it, even if it breaks me.”

She regarded him in silence, interrupted only by the thunk of the broken shutter as it moved in the wind, trying to see him with her eyes, instead of how she usually did…with her heart. It didn’t matter. His gray eyes, his scar, the pleading expression he was doing his best to disguise—all of it was Niko. She wanted what he wanted: to be together as long as they could. “No,” she said at last. “I don’t want to stop.”

Relief lit his face. He reached to tuck a wayward curl behind her ear, the gesture tender. “I’m glad, Katya. Still, I’m sorrier than you know.”

The guilt in his voice gutted her. “Don’t be. After all, I’ll be married one day too. It’s the way of things.”

His jaw set. “I have no right to object.”

“And yet you do,” she said, studying him.

“I hate the thought of you with another man.” His hands clenched into fists at his sides. “All the more because I know he’ll be someone you choose. At least, with us at Rivki, I won’t have to watch you marry that fool Maksim, with his insipid smile. Or Konstantin, who looks at you like you’re something to eat. And not in a good way,” he added, lips rising in a bitter smile.

“I—” Katerina began, unsure what to say. She had never spoken to him of Maksim or Konstantin. But her Shadow, sworn to protect her, had missed nothing.

Niko rubbed his chest, as if it ached. “I can’t stand the thought of it, whoever you choose. But I want that freedom for you, my Dimi. I would never want you to be trapped as I am. Watching the Kniaz try to claim you—knowing you’d rather incinerate him than go to his bed—would ruin me. If he pressured you or touched you without your consent, I’d kill him, ruler of the realm or no.”

“We could leave now,” she whispered. “Before we’re sent to Rivki.”

“Leave?” he said, his voice cracking. “And go where?”

“Anywhere. We could follow Nadia and Oriel to the Magiya. Find a way to subvert the prophecy—if it is real,” she said, holding up a hand to keep him from interrupting, “stop the Darkness from encroaching. And if we fail, then we’ll be gone from here. What does it matter, as long as we have each other?”

“You mean desert the village.” He stared at her like he’d never seen her before. “Abandon our obligations.”

Katerina straightened to her full height. When she spoke, her voice was cold. “I’m suggesting the opposite, actually. I want to save Iriska, with you. And we can fight demons wherever we are. They’re unfortunately quite portable, and there’s no shortage of them. Unless you’re referring to another obligation entirely.”

“I promised myself to her,” Niko said. He sounded miserable, but Katerina forced herself to press onward.

“You promised yourself to me as well. First, I might add.”

“I love you.” His voice was hollow. “More than is right. More than I should. But you cannot ask this of me, not as my Dimi or as my heart. You know the choice my father made—and what it cost him. You know I’m the last chance for my bloodline to survive.”

Compassion softened her voice as she thought of the wounded, orphaned boy he’d been. “Your father failed Dimi Sokolova. Abandoned her in battle. You would never do such a thing.”

“I would never desert you in battle, true. But to renounce my duty, to break the covenant between Vila and Shadow…it’s almost as shameful.” He drew a deep, resigned breath. “And I care for Elena as a friend. I wouldn’t humiliate her before the village. She’s done nothing wrong, Katerina. She deserves better.”

The truth of his words hit Katerina like blows. Instinctively, she deflected them. “You may love me, but Elena loves you . Do you not shame her by taking her as your wife when your heart is given elsewhere?”

His gaze dropped to the floor. “What can I do? I stood before Kalach and promised her faithfulness in heart and body. I can give her neither. But the promise of marriage—I can keep that, if in name only. I can give her the Vila or Shadowchildren duty demands.”

Katerina’s face burned. “And I suppose you’ll hate every minute of it!”

Niko ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “I don’t want her. I want you . My heart is yours. If there were any other way—any honorable choice left to me—I would seize it. And when one day you take another man to your bed, Kniaz or no, it will destroy me.” His voice was hoarse. “The way I feel about you is the greatest gift I’ve ever been given. And the deepest curse.”

For once, Katerina was speechless.

He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. “Elena knows nothing about us.” His lips trailed from behind her ear to her collarbone, nudging the material of her shift aside. “If she did, do you think she’d keep it to herself for a second? She’d go running to Baba Petrova and have the Elders on our doorstep a moment after she found out the truth.”

“That does sound like Elena,” Katerina admitted.

“I know.” She felt him smile against her skin. “Can we stop talking about her now, please? And finish what we started?” His fingers traced a path down the front of her shift, loosening the ribbon.

Despite the uneasy feeling that still shifted like mercury low in her belly, Katerina couldn’t help but laugh. “Really? You’re not tired?” she teased.

“There’s tired, Katya,” he said, tugging the ribbon free, “and then there’s dead. And I’d have to be the latter to give up a chance to be with you. That said, if I fall asleep in the middle, feel free to wake me up again.”

She looked down at his dark hair, head bent as he pressed a kiss to the slope of her breast. When she spoke, her voice was soft. “I love you, Niko.” She had never been brave enough to say the words before, though she had thought them often enough.

Niko froze. Then his head came up and his eyes fixed on hers. In their depths she saw all the lifetimes they might have had: A thousand nights spent together, a baby with his black hair and her black heart—for she had long thought that of the two of them, he was kinder and more forgiving, not to mention far more honorable. If he only said the word, Katerina would flee with him in an instant, responsibilities be damned.

“Say that again,” he whispered.

“I love who I am when I’m with you. With you by my side, I believe I can do anything.” A sob wrenched its way from her throat. “I don’t know how to give you up.”

“My Katya.” He ran his thumb beneath her eyes, wiping away her tears. “I love how you burn in battle. How your magic fills me, welling beneath my skin until I can’t tell where you end and I begin. How every time we kiss, you shatter me like ice and you scorch me like a flame and you never let me lie.”

Katerina fisted her hand in his shirt and tugged him toward her. He came, his eyes darkening as he bent to her and she took his mouth with hers. The kiss was greedy, filled with her fear that it might be their last. How many more times would she hold him this way?

His breath caught as she pushed his shirtsleeve up and found his Mark. It came alive under her touch, its pulse echoing through her body.

So many times, he had faced down a horde of demons at her side, wielding his body like the weapon it was. But here, in her arms, he was undone by nothing more than a touch. The power of it—of what they were together—overwhelmed her.

Her hands went to his face, fingers tracing the stubble that lined his jaw. “If I’m the fire,” she whispered, “then you are the kindling that lights the flame. Mind yourself, Shadow. Fire wants nothing but to burn.”

He gathered her hair in his hands, then let it fall. It cascaded onto her shoulders, sparking red and gold in the light of the hearth. “Burn away, Dimi Ivanova. I dare you.”

Katerina drew on the hearthfire, tracing his Mark with her fingertips as a line of heat slid down his neck, his chest, the flat plane of his stomach—then lower still, touching him everywhere her hands did not. His eyes widened with surprise before they fluttered shut. “Saints,” he muttered, reaching out to steady himself against the wall.

“Do I shatter you, my Shadow?” she said, lips curving against his skin.

Niko went to his knees. “Every time, Katya,” he said, his voice hoarse.

“Break me, then,” she said, a challenge. “Break me like your promises.”

Pulling her down to him, he did as she asked. But even as he stroked her hair and whispered how beautiful she was, as she cried out and he echoed her, she couldn’t put that ever-present sense of wrongness to rest.

A storm was coming. And this time, hers was not the hand that spurred the wind.

Afterward, she lay with her head on his chest, listening to the reassuring thump of his heart. He brushed his lips across her hair, his thumb tracing a gentle path along her collarbone, coming to rest in the hollow of her throat. “Now,” he said, his voice a rumble beneath her, “I’m tired.”

Though she hated to do it, she sat up at once, one knee on either side of his body. “I’m sure you are. You should get up, then.” They were careful not to risk him falling asleep in her bed, lest someone barge in and discover the two of them together.

“Hmmm,” he said, quirking a brow. “In a minute. Let me appreciate this view for a bit.”

She poked his shoulder. “Now, Niko.”

“I see how you are.” He wrapped his arms around her, rolling her beneath him. “Get what you want from me, and then just kick me out of bed. I’m not going anywhere, Katerina. Not unless you want to use your witchwind, in which case you’ll probably extinguish the fire, and I’m not rebuilding it for you. I’m tired, like I said.”

“Ugh. Get off, you oaf!” she protested, shoving him.

Both brows were at it now. “Make me.”

Katerina pushed harder at his chest, with exactly as much impact as if she’d attempted to move a brick wall. He grinned down at her, a bright, beautiful smile that made her heart ache. “You’ve got to try harder than that, Katya.”

They were wrestling, then, the way they used to do when they were children, and Katerina was honest-to-Saints giggling, Niko mock-growling at her in response, and?—

Someone was pounding on the door.

Her Shadow let go of her as if she’d scorched him. She leapt from the bed, scrambling for her shift, as he stood, eyes wide with panic, and yanked on his pants, which had somehow managed to land on Katerina’s dresser.

“Dimi Ivanova!” It was Natalya, one of the younger Dimis that Baba had been training to take Katerina’s place. “Shadow Alekhin! Wake up!”

Niko had managed to button his pants and was struggling into his shirt. “One moment,” he yelled in the direction of the door, and then, under his breath to Katerina, “Stay here. Get dressed. I’ll delay her.” He ran a hasty hand through his hair in a futile attempt to tame it. Throwing Katerina a look that mingled desperation and regret, he strode out of the bedroom. The door clicked shut behind him.

Adrenaline shot through Katerina, as much from being summoned in the middle of the night as from the fear of discovery. She sank onto the bed, struggling to catch her breath. On the other side of the bedroom door, she could hear Niko questioning Natalya, the Dimi’s voice rising in hysterical response and another, deeper voice following a beat behind. She spared a quick glance in the mirror atop her dresser: color burned high on her cheeks, and her eyes were bright, the pupils dilated. Perhaps Natalya wouldn’t notice, or if she did, she would attribute it to the excitement of being awoken so suddenly.

What was she doing, thinking about this now? Something was horribly wrong. She needed to act like a Dimi, not a lovestruck girl.

Katerina laced the ribbon of her shift and pulled a shawl from the hook on the back of her bedroom door. Then she drew a steadying breath and rushed into the main room of the cottage, rubbing her eyes as if to erase the sleep from them.

Natalya stood there, with Gregory, her Shadow, behind her. The younger Dimi’s chest heaved with alarm, her brown hair coming loose from its usual bun. “Dimi Ivanova,” she cried when she saw Katerina. “Baba sent me to find you. Something terrible has happened.”

Katerina didn’t dare look at Niko. “What?” she demanded, anxiety sharpening her voice.

Natalya hiccupped. Tears glossed her eyes. “Nadia—Nadia?—”

A spike of fear jabbed Katerina in the belly. “Nadia what? Is she back? Is she all right?”

The young Dimi shook her head, sniffling. “Her…her horse came back. B-burnt. Just hers. Not Oriel’s. Without a rider.”

Niko’s expression was grim as he turned to the cabinet where he kept his blades. “Gregory was just telling me that he was on patrol when the mare found its way home,” he said, buckling his holster around his waist. “She’s in the stables now, in terrible shape.”

“I want to see her,” Katerina said immediately. Maybe there was a clue she could glean, some kind of explanation. She slipped on her shoes and pushed past Natalya and Gregory, heading for the door.

Niko got there first, holding it open for her. She was sure they were thinking the same thing—how Mika had spooked on the road to Drezna. How the mare had returned, lathered and scratched, her normally calm disposition shattered. How Troitze had never come home.

Natalya followed them. “But—but Dimi Ivanova. That’s not all. There…there was a note in the horse’s saddlebags. In Nadia’s writing. Except it was written…written in…”

Katerina grabbed the younger woman by both shoulders and shook her, hard. “Written in what?”

“Her blood,” Natalya whispered. Tears tracked down her cheeks.

A chill ran through Katerina. Her mouth had gone bone dry. “What did it say?”

Natalya was an earthwitch, still gaining control of her magic. The ground beneath their feet trembled as the younger woman bit her lip, then found the courage to speak.

“It said… Tell Katerina. The Darkness is loose. The village of Satvala is gone.”