Page 27 of Fate and Fury

What was happening?

She forced herself to think of the men in the village who she might wed. Of Konstantin or Maksim. Katerina didn’t have tolove them. But they were the ones she should want to kiss. To bed. Not Niko.

It was no use. Despite herself, she pictured him pressing his lips to hers. Touching her. Tasting her. And what would become of them then? Already, the demon horde had destroyed Drezna. What if her love for her Shadow burned down their entire world?

“Katerina,” Niko said, low-voiced. She could see him trembling.

A hint of witchfire escaped her—not enough to burn, just enough to caress. It curled around Niko, tendrils of heat slipping down the column of his neck, twining down his arm. Seeking his Mark, and finding it.

The moment her magic met her own blood, infused into the tattoo Baba had given him at their bonding ceremony, the spark became a flame. She felt the sear of his brand as if it marked her own skin a moment before he leapt back from her. She caught a glimpse of his face—pale and shocked, with blotches of high color staining his cheekbones. His eyes were wide and dark, the pupils blown wide, consuming the irises.

They stared at each other for a long moment. Niko’s chest heaved, and he pressed his palm to his Mark, teeth bared. Around Katerina’s neck, her amulet throbbed. She reached for him, but he took one shaky step back from her, then another.

She opened her mouth to speak, but Niko shook his head, turning away. Without another word, he lay down on his pallet by the fire and pulled the quilt over himself, leaving Katerina standing there, cold and alone, her back against the wall.

Shame coiled through her. What had she done?

Niko lay still and silent, eyes fixed on the flames. The six feet between them might as well have been a gaping crevasse. She didn’t know how to cross it. Didn’t know if she should.

Drawing a deep, shuddering breath, Katerina straightened her spine. She wasn’t some helpless girl, a Vila destined to vie forNiko’s attention or a villager who dreamed of one day bedding a Shadow. She was a Dimi, and the world bent to her will, not the other way around. If he was going to ignore her, then Saints be damned. She wasn’t going to beg him.

She made herself move, scrubbing her teeth with a willow twig, then walking down the path to the necessary. Back inside, she stepped behind the screen in her bedroom and changed into the thin white shift she wore for sleeping. She washed her face and brushed out her long red hair as she always did, sitting at the vanity by her bedside. A hundred strokes; she counted them, trying to time her breathing with each passage of the brush through her hair. It was no use: her heart pounded like a wild thing, and her breath came short, no matter how she tried to calm it. In the living room in front of the fire, Niko didn’t move. Didn’t joke with her, or greet her with a smile, or chastise her for walking to the necessary without him.

Had she broken things between them? Had she ruined everything?

For a moment, she could have sworn he wanted the same thing she did. But of course, he hadn’t. What had she been thinking?

Grimly, she stood and went to her bed, slipping between the crisp white sheets, beneath the spray of lavender Niko had hung for her. She tried to tamp her magic down, but it roiled inside her. The wind picked up, sending a loose shutter banging against the cottage.

Katerina stared at the white plaster ceiling, watching the shadows of the rowan’s branches play across it, listening to the thud of the shutter. Her stomach churned.

She’d touched him with her magic, when he hadn’t asked for it. She’d let her witchfire twine around his body, committing an act that was intended only between a Dimi and her lover, andthen, only in the marriage bed. How horrified by her he must be now. No wonder he wouldn’t speak to her.

Then again, he’d slammed a fist into the wall next to her head. Perhaps they were even.

No, she told herself. They would never be even, not when she felt this way for him. And tomorrow night, he would be formally betrothed to Elena, in front of the entire village.

It was bad enough that she’d lied and betrayed Kalach, that the Kniaz had chosen the two of them to advance to the next round of the Trials, all because she couldn’t stand to see Niko hurt. Now, she’d disgraced herself. She had compromised her bond with her Shadow, while hordes of Grigori were afoot. If she had indeed loosed the demons on the world because of her feelings for her Shadow, then surely she had just made things ten times worse. She had ruined everything with?—

“Niko,” she said, before she could stop herself.

Through the gap in the door, she saw him stir, though he didn’t turn. “Go to sleep, Katya.”

“But—”

“Sleep,” he said again. “I’ll keep you safe.”

Katerina lay still. She closed her eyes, feigning unconsciousness. But sleep didn’t find her that night.

14

KATERINA

The Bone Moon rose, pitiless and all-seeing, the night Katerina Ivanova’s Shadow pledged his life to another.

It was a holy ceremony, the promise of a Vila to a Shadow. The entire village of Kalach had turned out for the occasion: the farmers and the artisans, the shopkeepers and the scholars. The other Vila, of course, to witness the moment Elena had dreamed of since she was a child. Niko’s fellow Shadows, to stand in solidarity with him. Katerina and her fellow Dimis. The five Elders, who governed Kalach. And Baba Petrova, who presided over it all.

Clad in their ceremonial blue robes, emblazoned with runes for wisdom, knowledge, and justice, the village Elders took their places behind Baba Petrova. They fanned out in a line, with Elder Mikhailova all the way on the right, to give him the best angle of sight from his chair.

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