Chapter 5
Chapter Five
KATERINA
Gadreel soared above the woods, leaving only the promise of violence behind.
Deep in the ravine the earthwitches had torn, the coursing river of Light bubbled.
It was a beautiful thing, reflecting fragments of the moon’s face and the looming trees, as if it hadn’t just swallowed a demon army whole.
But it was terrifying, too. She shouldn’t have been able to create such a thing, and yet here it was, sparkling under the eye of the false Bone Moon, rippling with its own currents and tides.
Next to her, Niko stirred. He’d leapt across the chasm to stand by her side as soon as Gadreel vanished, and Katerina had forced herself to look at him, afraid of what she might see.
But the swirling shades were gone, as if they had never been there at all—as if he hadn’t summoned the Darkness with a crook of his finger, like a recalcitrant pet, and then let it bathe him in its power.
As if he hadn’t vanquished it by becoming one with it, somehow.
What had he done? Where had the Darkness gone, when he’d absorbed it that way?
Had it become part of him, somehow, feeding the corruption she’d felt in their bond ever since he appeared in the clearing by the ruined chapel?
And if so, when she’d drawn on him for strength, had she used Darkness, in part, to blast those demons into the Light-river?
Was that why he’d hesitated…because he feared it would spread through their bond, infecting her?
At the thought, Katerina shivered, remembering the hopelessness that had swept her in the Underworld—and the soulless, vengeful creature Elena had become, with only a tiny spark of Light still burning within her, where once there had been a flame.
She herself would rather die than live that way, as a perversion of her Dimi birthright.
She would think this through later, debate its implications.
For now, the important thing was that those insidious, vicious shades hadn’t stolen her Shadow’s life, as they had the lives of the children and Dimi Assol.
He had survived their onslaught, and then he had vanquished them.
She didn’t understand how or what it meant, but he had used his gifts for good.
He was watching her, his gray eyes guarded, and she did her best not to let her apprehension show on her face.
They had saved Kalach; that was what mattered.
There would be time enough for questions and explanations later.
Now, they had to face the village…and from the thud of footsteps on the ground behind them, that time had come.
She turned, squaring her shoulders. And there they all were: the Elder Council forming an arrow, with Baba Petrova at its point.
Behind them stood a phalanx of Dimis and Shadows.
Instinctively, she counted the pairs; six had fallen.
Fury and grief flooded her at their loss, though thank the Saints, Ana and Alexei still stood.
For a long moment, they just eyed each other—she and Niko, with their backs to the river of Light, and what remained of Kalach’s forces.
Katerina straightened her spine, determined not to crumple under the cold weight of their collective gaze.
There was no gratitude there, no sense that they had thwarted the village’s doom.
Instead, each face—other than Ana’s and Alexei’s—bore nothing but terror and dread.
Baba spoke first, accusation lacing every syllable. “How is this possible? What have you done?”
Katerina wasn’t sure whether the question was directed at herself or Niko.
Either way, she wasn’t going to burden her Shadow with replying, not when she could feel the shock and self-hatred baking off of him like residual heat from a rowan-fire.
She stepped forward, in front of Niko, and lifted her chin.
“What I had to. You might thank us; without Niko, you might all be ash right now, or fodder for the Void.”
“Thank you?” Baba’s voice was heavy with scorn.
“This is your fault, Katerina. You have brought the Darkness to our very doorstep by flaunting the prophecy, and then salted the wound by resurrecting the dead. All of this”—she gestured at the burning village, the square where the Kniaz’s body lay, and the rubble that surrounded them—“can be laid at your feet.”
“That’s not true!” Katerina protested. “The prophecy wasn’t about us at all. It was about Gadreel. He’s the one who freed the Darkness from its confines. Everything that’s happened since then is because of his choices, not ours. If you would only listen, you’d see—”
“Silence.” Elder Mikhova’s voice split the air as she stepped forward, bridging the space between them.
Two Shadow and Dimi pairings—Lara and Ilya, Svetlana and Luka—moved with the Elder, protecting her from them, Katerina realized, sickness rising in her stomach.
Her fellow Dimis and Shadows thought she and Niko were a danger, something to be guarded against.
Niko had been Ilya and Luka’s alpha; they had answered to him, obeyed him.
And now, they couldn’t even look him in the eye.
How must that feel, to return to his village only to discover his pack answered to another?
And worse, that the Shadows who had revered him viewed him now as a disgrace and a menace?
Her heart broke for Niko, who had been the one to demand they return to Kalach.
That they not abandon those they had sworn to protect.
But what of abandoning him? Did the blood he had shed in Kalach’s name mean nothing?
Elder Mikhova’s forest-green robes brushed her feet as she came to a stop in front of them.
She circled Niko, eyeing him with horror.
“How? We weighted his eyes with metal coins, to pay his passage into the otherworld,” she said at last, retreating between the two pairs of Dimis and Shadows.
“We filled his mouth with stones, so his spirit could not return, and dusted his coffin with ash. And yet here he stands. What Dark magic have you wrought, Dimi Ivanova?”
Katerina opened her mouth to reply, but for the first time, Niko spoke. “I mean none of you any harm. True, I am changed, but I am not the force you fear. I fight, still, for Kalach; surely you can see that. No matter what has befallen me, I fight on the side of the Light.”
At the sound of his voice, an uneasy murmur spread among the gathered crowd.
Now that the battle had subsided, villagers and Vila alike had joined them; Katerina caught sight of Konstantin gripping a rowan branch, its tip honed to a fine point.
Behind him stood Alyona, Elena’s best friend, her eyes wide and dark and filled with hatred.
Katerina searched the crowd for a friendly face, but only Ana and Alexei gazed back at her with anything other than disgust and fear.
And on their faces, she saw something that was, perhaps, even worse: Pity.
“It speaks,” Konstantin hissed, his lip curling. “The abomination speaks to us.”
“He is not an abomination!” Katerina bit out, taking her Shadow’s hand in hers. He tried to pull away, but she held fast, claiming him.
“He is the walking dead,” Baba Petrova spat. “A nezhit. And you are blind if you can’t see that, Katerina.”
“That’s not true!” she protested, tears pricking her eyes. “He is my Shadow!”
“He is the undead.” Elder Dykstrova stepped forward, her gaze raking over Niko with contempt.
“Filthy, unclean. Even the Underworld has rejected him. Now he walks between two worlds, belonging in neither. Two hearts he possesses, one clinging to what he once was and one claimed by Darkness. Two souls, both of them sullied beyond measure. Two mouths, for he speaks with forked tongue. All he can bring is misfortune and death wherever he travels, as he has done here today. Such is the fate of the nezhit; you know it as well as I.”
A tremor passed through Niko and into Katerina.
She couldn’t stand it. “I know no such thing,” she snapped.
“Gadreel invaded this village, not Niko Alekhin! It is the Fallen Angel of War who brought this upon you, and Elena, with her foolishness and arrogance beyond measure. I’ve seen her; she is no more than an agent of Darkness now.
I fought her, to bring Niko back to us.”
She gestured at the flowing river of Light with her free hand, at the destruction that surrounded them.
“And if I hadn’t—if I’d failed—then Gadreel would have come nonetheless, possessing the Kniaz and dragging the Darkness with him.
He would have come, and more would have fallen, and the Darkness would have devoured Kalach whole.
You would be fuel for the Void now, all of you.
You are the blind ones, if you fail to see that! ”
The murmur within the crowd rose to a dull roar, and Niko gripped Katerina’s hand tighter. “Don’t,” he muttered. “They’re right to be frightened of me, Katerina. I am unnatural; they put my body in the ground. I have no right to walk among them.”
“You are a Shadow, as you always were,” she told him. “True, you are changed, but it doesn’t mean you’re evil. They should want to talk to you, to understand what’s happened, to discover all you know so they can learn from you—”
“They want to put an end to me,” Niko said simply.
As if to prove Niko right, Baba turned to the Dimis and Shadows who flanked her. She spoke, and the group advanced as one, Ana and Alexei with them.
“No!” Terror clutched at Katerina, and she called on her witchfire. A circle of protective flames sprang up around her and Niko. “You won’t touch him!”
“He is a blight upon all of us.” Konstantin broke from the crowd, clutching the sharpened rowan branch, his gaze flicking toward Niko as if considering whether to jam it through her Shadow’s heart. “As are you. I should have killed you when I had the chance.”