Chapter 5 #2
Niko’s upper lip peeled back from his teeth, and he snarled, a feral sound that made the hairs on the back of Katerina’s neck stand up.
Deep within her, she felt a tug at the bond that bound them, a wave of rage that threatened to consume her.
“One more word,” he growled at Konstantin, “and I will make you sorry you were born. One more step in her direction, and I will tear out your throat.”
While Katerina appreciated the sentiment, one look at the villagers’ faces, tight with fear, told her this had only made matters worse. “Not helping,” she muttered. “And he’s not worth it.”
Her Shadow’s gray eyes fixed on hers, something unfamiliar and dangerous swimming in their depths.
“This man once thought to bed you,” he bit out.
“To stand in front of all of Kalach and swear to honor and protect you. Now he wishes to see you shamed and dead at his feet? He will bleed out in the leaves before I let that happen.” His hand dropped to the blade at his waist, still wet with demon blood, as if to make good on his threat here and now.
The advancing line of Dimis and Shadows had paused, as if by common consent, just beyond the ring of Katerina’s fire.
The air between them wavered, thick with shared magic.
They were a barrier, a line of defense between her and Niko and what remained of Kalach.
That was what Baba and the Elders thought of them; they were a menace, to be shielded against.
“Stop this,” she said, catching Baba’s eye. “You know me. At least hear me out. If you’d just listen, you’d know none of this is Niko’s fault. We didn’t have to come back here tonight—he didn’t have to save all of you—”
But Baba Petrova was shaking her head. “Everyone knows a nezhit returns from the dead to haunt the places it once knew and loved,” she said.
“That thing standing beside you is naught but one of the Nav, the unclean undead. Your Shadow is gone, and with him, the time for listening to what you have to say.”
“My Shadow stands here!” Katerina insisted, her flames flaring higher. “And I stand with him.”
“Katerina,” Niko said, his voice low. “You don’t have to—”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh, but I do. I didn’t descend into the depths of Hell for you to lose you now.” How could everyone reject him, after all he’d done? Were they really that superstitious, that heartless? That close-minded?
“So be it.” Baba’s voice rang out across the clearing, the very trees trembling with the force of it.
“Dimi Katerina Ivanova and the shade that was once alpha Shadow Niko Alekhin, you have brought death to our doorstep. Because of you, the Kniaz lies dead, his blood soiling the dirt of our village. Because of you, the Fallen Angel of War invaded our borders. Because of you, the very fabric of our world is torn.”
“That’s not true,” Katerina protested, but her words fell on deaf ears. Even Ana looked away from her now, sadness contorting her features. Beside her, Alexei bowed his head as Baba spoke again.
“Shadow Alekhin, wielder of Darkness, I banish you from Kalach, like your father before you.” The words had the ring of finality, of the pronouncement Katerina had last heard on the long-ago day that Baba sent Niko’s disgraced father away, for failing to stand by his Dimi in battle. For choosing love over war.
Pain lanced through their bond. For years, this had been her Shadow’s worst fear—that he would bring shame on their village, the way his father had.
It was why he’d agreed to marry Elena: to reclaim the Alekhin name, to ensure his family line didn’t end with him.
And now, this was how Baba chose to repay him for clawing his way out of the Underworld and straight into a fight, with no thought for his own well-being?
By plunging the knife back into his deepest wound and twisting it?
“No,” Katerina whispered, and behind her, the river of Light began to crest its banks.
It flowed around her ankles, rising ever higher, and within it ran a single skein of Darkness, a current of ink swirling in its depths.
She glanced down and swallowed hard; the Darkness emanated from the place where Niko stood, gazing down at it with his jaw set.
In her mind, Elena’s voice echoed as if she stood beside them, sweet and deadly as cherry kvass laced with belladonna: You are nothing but what I made of you.
What had the Vila made of Niko, exactly? What had she done to him?
Giving a cry of dismay, Elder Mikova stepped back, taking her guards with her.
At a signal from Alexei, the line of Shadows and Dimis retreated, as if afraid the cresting tide would corrupt them, too.
The river parted around Niko and Katerina, rising no higher than their ankles, but rising as it surged toward the others.
In vain, Katerina tried to call it back, to redirect it to the gorge, but it resisted her.
She could feel the Light struggling to obey her call, and the riptide of Darkness rejecting her power, wanting to exact revenge. To consume.
The ground creaked as the earthwitches among their ranks sent their power down into it, uprooting trees that fell across their path, forging a dam.
Against it, the river of Light and shadow frothed and roiled with the force of Katerina’s misery, the fractured moon churning like pieces of a broken mirror in its depths.
For an instant, in their jagged fragments, she could swear she saw strange reflections: the gleam of gold thread, the flash of a blue eye, the swirl of shadows.
Then they were gone, and the river reflected only their surroundings once more—witchfire, cursed moon, the faces of those who had once called them friends.
From the other side of the barrier of fallen trees, Baba spoke again.
“I give you one opportunity, Katerina Ivanova, to break your bond with the nezhit. Only come to us, and we will fight to cleanse you, to return the undead to his rightful grave. Take your place at our side once more, and we will bind you to Valentin, as we once planned. We will stand against the Darkness together, and fight for all that is good and true and right.”
Katerina stole a glance at Niko, his fingers still woven through hers. He was looking down at her, his eyes wide with pain and fear and—resignation. As if he believed this was best for her. As if he assumed she would say yes, and abandon him when he needed her most.
Well, to all the Saints and demons with that.
She laughed, a harsh sound, ripped from her chest. “My Shadow is good and true and right. I stand with him, and with the Light, for they are one and the same. If you ask me to break my bond with him, you might as well ask me to sever my soul from its moorings. If you cast him out, then you cast me out with him, for wherever he goes, there will I be also.”
Niko’s free hand forged a fist around his blade’s hilt, clenched so tightly the knuckles stood out, bone-white, against his skin.
“Katya. You don’t need to do this.” The words emerged from between his teeth, so quietly they could have passed for the wind stirring the tangled, exposed roots or the lap of the Light-river against the trees that held it prisoner.
“Yes,” Katerina said, putting every inch of her conviction into her words. “I do. One for the fire, my Shadow. Two for the storm. I will always stand by you.”
At her words, the amulet around her neck throbbed, as if to the beat of Niko’s pulse. And did that not prove that his heart still beat? In the distance, a lone wolf bayed, a lonely cry and a summons, and beside her, Niko flinched. Did he hear his own fate in that sound?
She vowed it to not be so. He might have lost his pack, but as long as she lived, he would never be alone.
“So be it, then.” Baba’s cracked voice was sorrowful, but heavy with command, nonetheless. “Leave, then, Katerina Ivanova, and take your cursed nezhit with you. Leave, and call this village home no more.”
The edict pierced Katerina to the core, but she refused to let it show.
Without another word, she turned and strode toward the woods, still gripping Niko’s hand tight in hers.
The last thing she saw before the two of them disappeared between the trees was Ana’s gaze fixed on hers, bright with tears, and Alexei’s pinned to Niko, every muscle in the Shadow’s body drawn tight as he watched his former alpha walk away.