Chapter 35
35
KATERINA
W eeks had passed since Niko’s betrothal. So much had changed. And yet here Katerina was, gathering elderflower in the forest, a mile outside Kalach, like she’d been after the first time she and Niko had kissed.
She shouldn’t be out here. But she hadn’t been able to think of anyplace else to go.
If the Darkness came for her now, she might welcome it. The thought of sitting alone in the cottage she and Niko used to share while he undid Elena’s wedding dress one hook at a time, pressing his lips to her skin, filled Katerina’s vision with a red haze. She’d been afraid the sheer rage and misery of it would make her burn the house down. So she’d escaped the wedding revelry as soon as she could and come here, to the clearing, where she’d ignited a circle of rowan-fires to keep the demons away and bent to her work.
She would make a life without Niko in her bed, without his lips on hers and his arms wrapped around her. She would find a way to have him at her side as her Shadow, and nothing more. It was what he wanted. She had to honor it. Even if it shattered her.
Or maybe she would leave him behind and go to the Magiya on her own. If she couldn’t have Niko, then at least she could try to reverse the prophecy and save Iriska.
And if she felt him near right now, if she imagined he was with her here as he’d been weeks before, then that was her weakness. She wouldn’t think about what he was doing at this very moment, if he lay naked in bed beside Elena, her blond hair fanned across his chest and his head propped on his hand, looking at her the way he always used to look at Katerina?—
“I leave you alone for one evening, and this is where I find you. Honestly, Katya. Have you no sense of self-preservation at all?”
Her head snapped up. There he was, standing at the treeline just like he’d been weeks ago, still in the ceremonial white he’d worn to marry Elena. The silver guelder roses on his collar set off his eyes, making them gleam like the Kalchek coins the children tossed into the village fountain on Wishing Day. By the light of the moon, his irises were flat, impenetrable disks, giving nothing away. With his black hair and pale skin, he looked as if he’d been carved from the night itself.
Katerina’s heart clenched. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve something to say.”
She dumped the flowers into the basket with such force that most of them flew out again, tumbling into the grass. “Doubtless Elena would have something to say as well, if she knew you were here. Perhaps it is you whose sense of self-preservation has gone for a short stroll off a high cliff. Can you not leave me in peace?”
“Maybe I missed you.”
Katerina regarded him in his wedding white, leaning against one of the oak trees that guarded the clearing with his ankles crossed as if he hadn’t a care in the world, and wanted to smack him. She settled for sending a spray of dirt up from the ground, sullying his clothes.
His lips quirked. “Missed me too, I see.”
“That part of our lives is done.” Spurring the flames of the rowan-fires higher, she blocked his passage. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Let me by, Katya. Please.”
“I see no reason why I should.”
Niko made a low noise of frustration. “I need to talk to you.”
“And I’m under the impression that everything has already been said.” She let the fires ebb, the better to glare at him. “Don’t make it worse.”
“If you won’t listen to me, then perhaps a visual demonstration will be more effective.”
He brushed back his hair, deliberately baring the white streak above his ear.
“Stop it.” The words came harsh, a Dimi’s command to her Shadow, but Niko didn’t obey. Instead he shoved his shirtsleeve up, revealing his tattoo.
“These are your marks. Both of them. And I’ll never regret them. They say I’m yours. That I belong to you.”
“You don’t!” Pain tore at her, and she pressed her fingers to her chest, trying to contain it. “Those marks say you’re my Shadow . As you will always be, more fool I. I should have known my feelings for you for what they were and sworn my gifts to another.”
His face paled still further. “Don’t say that.”
She forced her hands to her sides. “Why not? At least then I wouldn’t have to look at you every day, to fight alongside you. To have you closer to me than any living being and yet lost to me in the way that matters most. To have brought ruin upon Iriska.”
“Katya—”
“Go away, Niko.” She schooled her face to blankness. “Go home to your wife.”
“I didn’t lie with her.”
The words fell like stones into the still pool of the night. Slowly, Katerina’s head rose. “What do you mean?”
“I couldn’t, Katya. I couldn’t do it.” His voice broke. “I tried. I know it’s my duty. But Saints help me, to even get near her—to put my hands on her—I had to picture your face. To pretend she was you. But she isn’t. And I-I couldn’t touch her.”
Katerina was speechless.
“She wants me,” Niko said, each word precise, “but for the sake of the image she’s created—not who I truly am. She wants the Shadow in me. But you see through my pretenses and love me anyway, for the boy I once was and the man that stands alongside my Shadow. I cannot settle for less.”
The knife fell from Katerina’s hand, settling among the flowers. “What are you saying?”
He stepped over her guttering fires, cleaving through the night to stand in front of her. The scent of the sage and lavender incense Baba’s apprentices had burned at his wedding rose up around them like a cloud. “Once,” he said, his voice soft, “I told you that with a single kiss, you shatter me like ice and you scorch me like a flame.”
“I remember.” Katerina’s throat was so dry, the words came out as a croak.
His eyes were on hers, their expression no longer inscrutable. In them she saw desire, resentment, grief—and a raw emotion that threatened to undo her fragile control. “When I realized I couldn’t lay a finger on Elena—much less do as I must to get a Shadowchild on her—I wanted to hate you. For you have ruined me forever for another. But I can’t. I love you, Katerina. And all I want is to burn.”
Katerina’s breath caught, and she pulled him down to her. Their mouths collided gracelessly, his teeth sinking into her bottom lip even as she dug her nails into the back of his neck deep enough to draw blood. The kiss was a battle, their tongues tangling, his hands sinking into her hair and tugging at the roots until she cried out. In the circle around them, the fires flared, sparks rising up into the night.
“I’m yours,” he said, a vicious whisper. “Whether you wish it or no.”
She pulled back, keeping her grip on his neck. “You are mine, Niko Alekhin. To do with as I will.”
One dark eyebrow rose. “A threat, my Dimi? Or a promise?”
“Both,” Katerina said, and Niko’s mouth found hers again. His arms wrapped around her, their grip gentling until he simply held her, clutching her with tenderness and a desperation that pierced her heart.
“Excellent,” he said into her hair, his lips tracing their way down her neck, finding the spot above her collarbone that always made her shiver.
She moved out of the circle of his arms so she could see his face. “You really didn’t touch her?”
Niko shook his head. “Why do you think I’m still wearing these dreadful clothes? I assure you, it’s not for the sake of ease and comfort. Have you any idea how much this fabric itches?”
Now it was Katerina’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “If you’re angling for me to ask you to take your clothes off, you’re going to have to do better than that.”
He took her hand in his. “For once, I’m not. I’m asking you to run away with me. To the Magiya. We’ll figure this out once and for all. We’ll save Iriska. And then we can be together.”
Katerina couldn’t have been more shocked if the trees around them had grown feet and begun filing out of the forest. “What?” she managed.
“You heard me.” His gaze was on her face, gray and wary.
“But—” she said, puzzlement clear in her voice, “the last time I mentioned this, you told me it was impossible. I believe your exact words were, You cannot ask this of me, not as my Dimi or as my heart. What’s changed?”
With his free hand, he traced her chin, her bottom lip, her cheekbones, as if memorizing her face. “I can’t live like this, Katya. Not split in two this way. You’re more important than any obligation. And my love for you outweighs the price of my family’s honor. You are my blood, my blade, and my heart. My soul is bound to yours.” He took her by the shoulders, drawing her close. “I thought I could set all that aside—that I had to, or lose what mattered most. But what matters most is you. If I don’t have you, then I could populate our village with a legion of Shadowchildren and my life would hold no meaning. Not to mention,” he added, lips quirking, “apparently I can’t do what’s necessary to produce so much as one.”
Katerina drew back and punched him in the arm, but she might as well have been hitting stone for all the good it did. “Yes,” she said, her heart lightening for the first time in months. “Yes, I’ll run away with you. To the Magiya first, to find out how to put a stop to this. And after that, I don’t care where we go. I told you before, as long as we’re together, that’s all that matters to me.”
A wide grin broke across Niko’s face, and he swept her up in his arms, spinning her. The forest whirled, green trees and midnight-blue sky—and a flash of yellow, the moon reflecting off Elena’s spill of unbound hair as she stepped into the clearing, a black dog at her side.