Chapter 46
46
KATERINA
K aterina stumbled back to Kalach, using her witchwind to guide Niko’s body through the air with what strength remained to her. He was too heavy for her to carry, and it was unthinkable that she abandon him in the clearing. She arrived to a village in pandemonium, the Shadows at the gate demanding to know what had happened to their alpha and Ana clinging to Katerina’s arm, saying everyone was searching for her, they’d heard and felt terrible things, Elena was missing and the river had burst its banks and there had been a sound that had eaten the world?—
Ana had nothing but questions, but Katerina couldn’t bring herself to answer. She crumpled to her knees, weeping, Niko cradled in her arms. The chaos around her faded into the background, a blur of how can it be and did the Darkness come and Katerina, speak to us were you attacked was Elena taken where have you been. She ignored them, clutching Niko tighter, burying her face in his hair. He still smelled like himself, beneath the ash and blood: mint and blade oil and the ineffable scent that just meant home.
Baba tried to pry her Shadow from her grip. But Katerina wouldn’t let him go. She pressed her lips to Niko’s cold cheek, running her fingertips along his stubble. An ache sprang up in her chest at the memory of their last kiss in the clearing, at his rough whisper, I’m yours, whether you wish it or no. At the way he’d held her, the desperation in his grip, as if he’d somehow known it would be the last time. Sobs wracked her body, and when someone—Konstantin? —tried again to take Niko from her, she snarled at them and clung to him, peppering kisses to the sharp line of his jaw, whispering how much she loved him.
Some part of her, still capable of rational thought, knew that this was a terrible mistake. All of the effort they’d gone to conceal their relationship, and here she was, proclaiming in the village square that they’d flagrantly violated one of Kalach’s most sacred covenants. But what difference did it make? Niko was dead, and nothing mattered anymore.
Around her, suspicious murmurs rose. Then more hands were on her, their touch gentle, familiar. “Come, Katerina. Let Alexei take him,” Ana coaxed, her voice breaking. “You can’t stay here.”
Katerina lifted her head, blinking back tears, to see Ana and her Shadow kneeling on the cobblestones. Alexei’s gaze was dark with grief, but his hands were steady as he reached for his alpha’s broken body. And Katerina had to trust someone . Swiping her fingers beneath her eyes, she gave a sharp nod of acquiescence, and Alexei lifted Niko in his arms.
She walked next to Alexei, Ana, and her fallen Shadow, following Baba to the old woman’s cottage—a silent funeral procession. The crowd parted for them, their accusatory, shocked gazes fixed on Katerina. Let them stare, then. She deserved every bit of their ire.
Niko had died saving her life. Because of her, he was dead.
Baba held the door for Alexei when they reached her cottage and he stepped through, careful of Niko’s sprawling limbs. At the ancient Dimi’s direction, he set his alpha on the hearth rug, and Katerina went to Niko at once, lifting his head into her lap. He wouldn’t be alone for an instant, not if she could help it.
Baba tsked, her frail shoulders heaving in a massive sigh. “Katerina?—”
“No!” She shook her head, her matted red curls sticking to her face. “I won’t leave him.”
“Sant Antoniya, help us,” Baba muttered, touching the rowan cross that hung next to the door. “The two of you”—she gestured at Ana and Alexei—“out.”
Casting Katerina a troubled glance, Ana lingered for an instant. Then she touched her Shadow’s arm, and Alexei stepped away, bowing his head. The front door snicked shut behind them, and an instant later, Baba was in front of Katerina, kneeling on the hearth rug.
“What has happened?” she demanded, each syllable a razor blade. “Is this as bad as it looks?” When Katerina didn’t answer, Baba gripped her shoulder. “Let go of him, Katerina. Sit up and speak to me.”
Katerina folded herself over Niko protectively. “No. You can’t have him. No.”
Another massive sigh, and then Baba stood, her joints creaking. There was the clatter of china, the splash of water, and then the sensation of something warm against Katerina’s chilled fingers, penetrating the awful numbness that had encased her. “Tea,” Baba said simply. “Take it.”
Katerina protested, but Baba forced the cup into her hand nonetheless. She clutched it, trembling so hard that the contents spilled all over Niko’s bloodied face. The scent of ginger wafting from the mug reminded her of the first time her Shadow had kissed her. How had it come to this? How had everything gone so horribly wrong? It had to be a nightmare; it couldn’t be real.
And yet it was. The hollow in her soul where her Shadow should be, the ache and stab of their severed bond—all of it meant this was no dream.
There was no fixing this. No turning back. Niko was gone, and now, Iriska would fall.
She sobbed until she couldn’t catch her breath, her throat aching and the tea sloshing everywhere. Dimly she was aware that it was hot, burning her fingers, but so what? At least she could feel something other than this awful grief, a rabid animal that clawed at her insides, fighting to be set free. She spilled it again, this time deliberately, and reveled in the pain.
“Katerina!” Baba said, snatching the cup away. “Pull yourself together. And speak.”
There was no point in lying. Baba had already seen too much. Struggling to stem her sobs, her voice a rasp, Katerina told the old witch everything.
The old woman listened without interruption, her expression growing increasingly grim. “Oh, Katerina,” she said at last, knotting her gnarled fingers in her lap. “You have doomed us all.”
“I—” Katerina tried, but Baba cut her off.
“You have spoken. Now it’s my turn.” She rose, slamming Katerina’s cup down on the table with so much force, the china cracked in two. “It’s bad enough that you’ve done this. Your blatant disregard for your duty, your violation of the prophecy and your thoughtlessness for Iriska, let alone Kalach—that is sin enough. But the display you made in the square…that is just stupidity. You are many things, but I never thought to call you brainless, Katerina.”
Deep inside Katerina, where the capacity for indignation still lived, a spark flared. “You call me ‘brainless,’ because I grieve my Shadow?” she snapped, her voice still thick with tears. “Well, I would rather be bereft of a brain than a heart.”
“You are a fool !” Baba glowered at her. “Had you not made such a public display of your illicit actions, we could have kept them secret from the villagers. Now, all those who were in the square when you returned will have spread the word that you lay with your Shadow, and brought disaster upon us all. They will see you not as their protector, but as their undoing—and they are likely right. There will be no hiding it. Instead, there will be chaos.”
Katerina’s nails dug into the ripped linen of Niko’s shirt. “What do I care how it looks? This is the truth. I am to blame, and I take responsibility for what I’ve done. But I won’t renounce my Shadow. My love for him is pure, prophecy or no prophecy.”
The floorboards shook beneath Katerina as Baba’s power rose, her cheeks purpling with fury. “This is not about you, Katerina! This is about our people. You have been unbelievably selfish. And now, not only you, your Shadow, and Elena, but all the rest of us, will pay the price.”
She knelt once more, the ground trembling in warning. “Let him go now, Katerina. Say goodbye to your Shadow. And pray, if you still believe the Saints will listen, that the Kniaz will spare your life.”
They buried Niko outside the small village cemetery late the next day, in unconsecrated ground. Normally, the entire village would turn out for the burial ceremony of a Shadow, to honor his commitment to Kalach. But even though he had died giving his life to save Katerina, his death wasn’t considered an honorable one. And so only his Shadow brethren and their Dimis, a small group of Vila, and Baba Petrova had come to see his body lowered into the ground. If Katerina hadn’t been so numb, it would have filled her with rage to see him being dishonored this way. Her Shadow, who deserved a hero’s farewell. But there was nothing she could do, other than stand silent witness. Certainly no one was interested in hearing what she had to say.
She stood alone, not daring even to meet Ana’s eyes. She hadn’t spoken to her friend since the other Dimi had persuaded her to let Alexei carry Niko’s body. And frankly, she was afraid to try. If even Ana wanted nothing to do with her, then Katerina truly had no one.
Alyona was bracketed by the other Vila, her face stark with shock and grief and her hands trembling with the nerves that had dogged her as long as Katerina could remember. Her companions all stared at Katerina with accusatory eyes. It made her want to scream. Did no one hold Elena responsible in the least for her actions? Yes, ultimately this devastation could be laid at Katerina’s feet. But no one had made the Vila listen to what the demon Sammael had to say. No one had forced her to hatch the misguided plan that had led to Niko’s death rather than going to Baba and confessing what she’d seen.
There had been a seed of Darkness inside Elena all along, hidden beneath the coy, charming surface she showed the world, like rot at the heart of a rose. But no one cared to acknowledge that Elena’s corruption had begun with a choice. It was, Katerina reflected as she fought to keep her face expressionless and her spine straight, far easier for them to blame her: Niko was dead and Elena was gone. Here she stood, a convenient scapegoat who had brought ruination upon Iriska. It was far easier to blame Katerina than to admit the role Elena had played in her own undoing…and everything that followed.
Alyona sniffed loudly, and Oksana, the Vila standing next to her, wrapped a protective arm around her shoulders. She glared at Katerina as Baba intoned, “Niko Alekhin, Shadow of Kalach, I commend your body to the earth and pray to the Saints for the restoration of your soul.”
A wind swept through the small clearing at her words, and Baba’s eyes sharpened, her gaze intensifying on Katerina’s face, as if to ensure Katerina wasn’t about to make a scene. But Katerina hardly noticed. She was too busy scanning the empty spaces between the trees that hugged the gravesite, straining to see whether Baba’s words had somehow summoned what remained of her Shadow. If he had not been sucked into the Void with Elena after all. But nothing stirred other than the sun-dappled leaves, bending to the will of the wind.
Katerina folded her arms across her chest, struggling to hold herself together, as, one after another, Niko’s fellow Shadows came forward to pour shovelfuls of dirt atop his coffin, honoring their fallen alpha, no matter his end. Alyona was weeping openly, doubtless thinking of how there was no such grave for Elena. Nor would there be, for the Vila was not truly dead.
Baba and the Elders had called a Council meeting as soon as the sun rose, summoning Alyona to testify, as Elena’s closest friend. She’d told Baba of waking to find herself in bed in her cottage time and again, with no memory of having gone there; that she had gaps of time she couldn’t account for. Given Katerina’s testimony about what had transpired in the clearing, Baba and the Elders had concluded that Sammael had needed to get Alyona out of the way, and so he had likely influenced her mind, to ensure she would remain unconscious while he worked his evil on Elena.
He shouldn’t have been able to do such a thing, not within the boundaries of the village; but with the weakening of the wards, much was possible that had been unthinkable before. A demon had been walking among Kalach, undetected by the Shadow guard. A Vila had been corrupted by the Dark. These were unprecedented times, and the village blamed Katerina for everything. She saw it in the way no one would speak to her, how even her fellow Dimi shunned her, how no one would meet her eyes as they stood around Niko’s grave. Even her magic had become unpredictable and furious over the past few hours, sometimes refusing to come when she called it, other times blasting through her with a ferocity that controlled her, rather than the other way around.
Katerina watched, head aching and sick with nausea, as Alexei poured a shovelful of dirt atop Niko’s coffin and tamped it down. He had been Niko’s second; Baba had promoted him to alpha now. The pack was his.
The other Shadows followed his lead. Then they stood, ringed around Niko’s grave, paying their respects in silence, hands laced behind their back as Baba said the final, painful words of the eulogy that would send Niko on his way: “Though your soul has been stolen from the Light, we pray that you will not lend your strength to the Dark.” Her gaze found Katerina, forbidding and grim, as she spoke. “May you not be cursed to wander; may the Darkness taste you and find you lacking; may you burn with the fervor of one who once held claim to the Light.”
Katerina lingered long after everyone else had gone, hoping against hope to catch a glimpse of her Shadow’s shade. She spoke to him when she was alone at his graveside, telling him how much she missed him, how she wouldn’t rest until she made this right—but the only answer she got was the sound of the wind whistling through the trees.
She’d had no choice. The Darkness she’d felt outside Drezna had been with her in that clearing. It had howled through Elena’s mouth and fought to crush Katerina beneath its weight. To take her with it. If she hadn’t forced the two demons and whatever Elena had become into the Void, closing the portal, surely the Darkness would have devoured Katerina and then come for Kalach.
But Niko…
This was her fault. Maybe Baba had been right, weeks before, when she’d said that Katerina’s power attracted Darkness in equal measure. But that didn’t account for the events that had set Niko’s death in motion. Katerina had told him she loved him. She’d urged him not to marry Elena, to flee with her to the Magiya instead. If she’d never opened her mouth, never acted on her feelings for him, all of this could have been prevented. The prophecy would never have come true.
She had to find a way to make this right, to free his soul and reunite him with the Saints, where he belonged. And she wanted, with an ache that bordered on the visceral, to wreak revenge on Elena—though how she would get her hands on the former Vila, she had no idea. Elena had gone where Katerina couldn’t follow.
But there had to be a way.
Rising from her knees, she brushed dirt from her mourning gown and walked slowly back down the road that led away from the gravesite. Her body ached with every step. She trudged through the woods, making her way back into town, passing the blacksmith’s shop and the bakery, where she used to buy Niko the pies he loved. Even after Trinika had been taken, her husband had kept the bakery going. But now, the shop was shuttered; flour was scarce these days, and few had money for treats.
As usual, people stared at her as she went by, but this time, they didn’t look at her with awe and envy. No—their faces were fixed in expressions of horror and disgust. Some of them whispered to each other, not even bothering to conceal their contempt. One gray-haired, bearded man, his face gaunt from hunger, spat in the dirt at her feet.
Katerina held her head high, trying to pretend that none of this troubled her. But in truth, it broke her heart. She deserved every whispered word, every curse. She had failed in her mission to protect Kalach.
The first stone came from behind, hitting her hard in the back and stealing her breath. Then came another and another, pelting her between her shoulder blades, thudding against her legs with a sharp pain that made her gasp. “Traitor,” a high voice called. And a man’s deeper one echoed: “Shadow-killer!”
Katerina could have called her magic. She could have summoned a wind that would have knocked all of them off the path, turned their weapons back on them. But that would have been a terrible perversion of her gift. She couldn’t imagine deliberately using it against the very people she was sworn to protect. Besides, she didn’t trust herself to control her magic. So instead she kept walking, down the road that was now lined on either side by angry inhabitants of Kalach. She saw Konstantin, his lips pressed together in a grim line. And there was Maksim, his face pinched, his normally jovial green eyes as cold as chips of ice.
They didn’t hurl projectiles or insults. But neither did they speak up for her. Neither did they lift a hand to save her.
Katerina concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. She just had to make it back to her cottage, where she could seek solace. Where she could grieve in peace and plot her revenge. Tearing her gaze from Maksim, she fixed her eyes on the distance and kept walking.
The stones came faster now, hitting her cheek, her stomach, her forehead. The crowd’s voices overlapped, each louder and more incensed than the last. “Shadow-killer!” “Betrayer of the prophecy!” “You have destroyed Kalach!” “You have doomed us all!”
A stone hit her temple, breaking the skin. Blood poured down Katerina’s face, blinding her. She gasped and tasted it on her tongue, copper-bright.
The other Dimis and Shadows had abandoned her. Baba was nowhere to be seen. She was alone and bleeding, a pariah. Her Shadow was dead. Kalach was starving. Maybe setting Niko’s soul free was a fool’s errand. Maybe she should just lie down and die on this road?—
“Shadow-killer!” a high voice cried again. Others joined it, a chorus of shame and blame.
A fusillade of stones hit her in the backs of her knees, and her legs buckled, threatening to give out altogether. The crowd roared as someone grabbed her by the arm, yanking her to her feet.
“Enough!” a familiar voice said. “The damage has been done. No matter her actions, Katerina Ivanova is still the strongest Dimi in Kalach. What good will wounding her do? How will that protect you from the Darkness? You’re only hurting yourselves.”
Katerina scrubbed the blood from her eyes to find Ana standing beside her. A wave of gratitude washed over her, mingled with shame, as Ana stood tall, meeting the eyes of each of the villagers who lined the road. One by one, they dropped their stones and backed away. Ana didn’t budge from Katerina’s side until the last of them had turned, muttering, and made their way back home or into their places of business. Then she sighed, stepping away, and said, “I’ll walk you home. Help you clean up.”
Katerina wiped her face with the sleeve of her mourning-gown. It came away wet with blood. “You don’t have to. I know you hate me.”
“I don’t,” Ana protested.
She gave the other Dimi an incredulous look. “Right.”
“I don’t,” Ana protested.
“Well, if you don’t,” Katerina said wearily, “then you’re the only one.” She shot Ana a wary look as the two of them began walking toward Katerina’s cottage. Katerina was limping; her body hurt everywhere. She would be bruised tomorrow, and badly. “Why don’t you hate me, exactly?”
Ana bit her lip. “You’re my best friend. I could never hate you. Besides, you and Niko saved Alexei’s life. I owe you everything.”
She raised her hands, palms open. Two small flames flared within them, before she grimaced and they extinguished themselves. “I just wish you’d told me the truth, Katerina. Maybe I could have helped you somehow. My heart is cracked straight down the middle at Niko’s loss, and whatever I’m feeling, I know it’s only an echo of your pain. It hurts that you felt you couldn’t trust me. I would have kept your secret.”
Katerina’s shoulders slumped. “I wanted to tell you. But how could I? Niko and I knew how wrong it was, prophecy or no prophecy.” She hugged herself, wincing. “I kept telling him I thought Elena suspected, but he said I was imagining things. I told him she seemed different. Like she was hiding something. But Niko, he…” Her voice trailed off on a sob. “This is all my fault, Ana. And now everyone hates me—and Kalach…Kalach will…”
The tears were flowing now, streaming down her cheeks. She was crying too hard to speak, and Ana’s harsh expression softened as she wrapped Katerina in her arms.
“It’s not all your fault, Katya,” Ana whispered, rocking her. “Don’t do this to yourself.”
At the sound of her nickname, the one only Niko ever used, Katerina cried harder. “It is,” she insisted, forcing the words out between sobs. “When we came back from Drezna, Baba said my power was what had called the Darkness. That the world needed balance, and my Light was so strong, the Dark sought to cancel it out.”
She sniffed against Ana’s shoulder, trying and failing to pull herself together as she ticked off all the reasons she was to blame. “If I didn’t exist, Drezna and Satvala would still be here. Sofi and Damien wouldn’t have lost everything—and everyone. Nadia and Oriel wouldn’t be missing, or…or dead. Niko would have been bound to another Dimi, someone worthy of him. And he would still be alive.”
“Katerina—”
It hurt to say these words aloud, to let Ana know the worst of her, but they had to be said. Ana had stood up for her when no one else had been willing. Had stood between her and an armed mob. “You need to know who you’re defending,” she said stiffly, straightening from Ana’s embrace. “I don’t deserve your kindness or even your pity. I’m the one who urged Niko to consider running away with me instead of marrying Elena. I’m the one whose existence weakened the wards, so Sammael could find his way into Kalach and corrupt Elena. I should never have been born, Ana. It would be better if I hadn’t.”
Ana shook her. “Don’t you ever say that. You’re my friend, Katerina, no matter what you’ve done. You’ll never change my mind. Come on, let’s get you home.”
Sighing, Katerina pulled back from Ana’s grip. She limped alongside her friend in the direction of her cottage, her temple throbbing. “Do you think the Kniaz will still want me?” she said, her voice dull. “Baba sent word of what happened; she could hardly hope to keep it a secret. The arrangement was for both of us to go to Rivki. Not for myself alone. Now…it matters not where I go. But Lara, Svetlana, and Natalya will expect to come home. I couldn’t bear to think I was the reason that they’re marooned in Rivki forever…that Lara would think I broke my word when I promised she’d just be there for a little while…”
Ana wrapped an arm around Katerina’s shoulder. “If you’d run off to the Magiya, what would have happened to them then?”
“I don’t know,” Katerina admitted. “I wasn’t thinking. I guess I hoped I would find answers. That together, Niko and I would discover a way to defeat the Darkness and thwart the prophecy. And then we would use that as leverage to set them free.”
The words scraped at her throat. It was yet another way she’d failed. “There’s less than a week until the Blood Moon is full and the tithe is due, Ana. If I leave here, I’ll be deserting Niko. Who will watch for his shade then?”
“Niko’s gone,” Ana said, her voice gentle as she guided Katerina around a jagged rock that protruded from the path. “We have no way of retrieving him from the Void—or the Underworld, if that’s where he’s gone. You know that as well as I.”
A spark of rage flared within Katerina, the first genuine emotion she could remember feeling since her Shadow lay dying in her arms. Her magic spiked, radiating heat outward. “You’re saying there is no hope? That I should give up on him?”
Ana dropped her arm, giving Katerina an exasperated glance. “Watch yourself,” she said. “I’m only trying to help. And as for Niko…what can you do, Katerina? We’re creatures of the Light. We have no business trafficking in Darkness.”
“But if I could get him back…” Katerina said. “If there were a way?—”
“If there were truly a way to save him, then of course I’d help you. I’d do anything. But you have to accept it. He and Elena are both lost to us.” She took Katerina’s hands in hers, squeezing tight. “When you’re gone to Rivki, I’ll tend his grave each week, I swear it. I’ll bring him flowers and keep his marker free of moss and ivy. If his shade is watching, I’ll make sure he knows he’s not forgotten.”
When you’re gone to Rivki. Katerina tipped her head back, staring at the blue expanse above them, fighting the urge to weep at the thought of Ana kneeling by the tiny cross that marked Niko’s grave, abandoned in that unconsecrated clearing. Of his body moldering in the earth as his soul wandered through the Darkness. Of Katerina, miles away, unable to even care for him in death.
The thought sent fury and misery spiraling through her in equal measure. Her body trembled with the force of it, until it burst free, unable to be contained. Witchwind erupted from her, spiraling heavenward, sending clouds scudding across the sky. They darkened and swelled, then burst. Rain poured down, soaking the path, plastering Katerina’s clothes to her skin. But despite that, her witchfire stirred within her, creeping outward until it encased her in flames. She stood there, shivering and burning, as Ana gaped at her.
Blood from the wound on Katerina’s temple ran down her face in rivulets. She touched her fingers to it, then knelt on the path and drew the three interlocking circles of Niko’s Mark on the stones.
Ana gasped. To do such a thing was sacrilege; the drawing of a Shadow’s Mark was the right of Baba Petrova alone. But Katerina was far beyond caring about such things. And for just a moment, she could swear she felt her Shadow’s presence. For just a moment, she felt the pulse of his blood in the amulet that still rested above her heart.
To feel that again, she would do anything.
“One for the fire,” she said, tracing her index finger over the first circle, then the second. “Two for the storm.”
Above them, lightning split the sky. Thunder rolled, and in it Katerina could swear she heard her Shadow’s growl. She traced the third circle, whispering, “Three for the black dog that guards against harm.”
“Katerina,” Ana managed, her teeth chattering. “What are you doing?”
Katerina lifted her bloody hands to the streaming sky, calling on the power of the Saints. It thrummed in her words, in the circles that burned on the stones, in the thunder that rolled through her bones.
“You swear you will tend his grave,” she told Ana. “But I swear revenge on the Vila who put him there. I swear release for his soul. On the Light I swear it. On my gifts I swear it. On the memory of Niko Alekhin, Alpha of his pack, prince among Shadows, I swear he will be no slave to the Dark.”
She stood, still burning, and limped up the path to her cottage, leaving Ana alone in the rain.