Page 5 of Fate and Fury

She fought for them, and for the Light. For her sacred mission, handed down to her by the Saints: to guard the borders of her village and the realm from demonic incursion. To be a force against the Darkness, with her Shadow’s aid.

She had faced demons many times, since childhood, and though she had faith in her ability to vanquish them, they never failed to strike a chord of terror in her heart. She had seen too much for it to be otherwise. What did it say about her, then, that, more than the threat of dying beneath the blades or teeth of the Grigori, she feared watching her Shadow take another as his wife?

A distraction, that was what she needed. Something that would take her mind off the kohannya ceremony and keep her from betraying the traitorous contents of her heart.

Crossing to where Mika grazed amongst the trees, Katerina made a show of sorting through the contents of her saddlebags. Antivenin, bandages, and salves, in case she and Niko encountered a demon on the road. Smoked sausages, cold vareniki dumplings. Bits of cheese. A full flask of water. A sheathed knife, though fighting with a blade was more Niko’s province than hers. She hardly needed an edged weapon to do damage.

Unfortunately, this position put her closer to the very people she was trying to ignore. Elena held up the boat, chattering about how much time she’d put into it, then hiding it playfullybehind her back when Niko tried to examine it more closely. “You’ll see it when you brave the river to catch it,” she said, trilling a silvery laugh. “You must earn your prize, my Shadow.” She batted her lashes at him, the implication clear: the true prize in this scenario washer.

“As you wish,” Niko said, stepping backward with his palms raised, and Elena beamed.

“Don’t worry, my Shadow,” she said, sidling up to him once more. “You don’t have long to wait.”

My Shadow.Was that all he was to Elena—a possession, proof that her maniacal dedication to Sant Viktoriya had paid off? For Katerina, he was so much more: her best friend, her conscience, the other half of her soul. How could he be someone else’s Shadow, when all her life, even before the blood vow that bound them, he had only belonged to her?

She ducked her head, terrified that the white-hot misery that scorched every inch of her being would show on her face. Inside her, power stirred, desperate for an outlet. The river wasright there,the Vila clustered on the bank in their rune-embroidered gowns, cradling their wax-coated paper boats as if cupping treasure in their hands. One gust was all it would take to send them flapping over the river like a flock of beautiful, shocked birds, their boats scattered to the four winds. One thought, and the river would crest its banks and swallow all of them whole, sucking Katerina and her humiliation into its depths.

She’d assured Baba that she had control of her magic. She had trained for years to channel it with the same focused precision with which Niko wielded his blades. Wasn’t her ability to resist Baba’s spell proof of her strength? She refused to be undone here, now, when to do so would mean exposure as a liar, not to mention the surety that Baba and the Elders would insist on performing the spell all over again. The thought of undergoing that agony a second time chilled her to her soul.

How could it be a bad thing to be in possession of all her powers, just a few short moonrises away from the full Bone Moon, with Grigori attacks increasing by the day? She couldn’t travel all the way to and from Rivki weakened, a fraction of her true self. Shewouldn’t.

But she couldn’t stay here another moment, either. Not like this. Every instant she lingered meant risking discovery—and devastation.

Maybe she was a coward, not to be able to watch her Shadow claim Elena’s boat—and, by extension, the Vila—for his own. Or maybe she was only looking out for the village she’d dedicated herself to protecting since her mother fell at the demons’ feet, throat torn open, a broken and bloodied doll.

Maybe both.

An idea came to Katerina then—a wonderful, terrible idea, destruction and deliverance in equal measure.

To reach Rivki, she and Niko would have to cross a bridge that spanned the river a half-mile to the north. A spring storm two weeks ago had left it in less-than-ideal shape. Katerina had seen the state of it, when she’d ridden upriver to gather medicinal herbs for their journey: the railing was loose and some of the spokes and slats were gone, leaving gaps like missing teeth. She and Niko had debated taking a different, longer route, concerned the bridge wouldn’t hold their horses, but Gabiska, Kalach’s head carpenter, had tested it and declared it fit for one last crossing. If it fell, though…

They would have to ride farther upriver, into the rolling hills that licked the base of the mountains, then through one of the lower passes. The trip would add hours to their journey. Time they couldn’t afford to waste, if they wanted to arrive on schedule for the feast that preceded the Trials and pay the Kniaz the respect he believed was his due.

A storm was on its way, telegraphed in the low-hanging clouds that darkened the horizon and the humid air, sparking with latent electricity. Half a mile upriver, who could say whether it had already begun to rain?

One hand on Mika’s back, she pictured the bridge: flaking, white-painted slats; struts rising from the riverbanks on either side of rushing water. Oaks and rowans curved overhead, their leaves stirring in alarm, speckled with the first drops that fell from a blackening sky.

Careful not to disturb the surface of the soil, she sent her magic out, snaking beneath the riverbank. It curled around the voles that crept through their tunnels. Wove between the knobbly roots of the great oaks. Tasted the thorny sweetness of guelder roses, slumbering until the warmer temperatures beckoned them to bloom.

The earth washers.Hers to embrace, to protect, to command.

She reached farther, carving her way, until her magic tasted something solid, rich with river-silt. Sending out another tendril, she found its companion, anchored deep within the earth: the clay footers of the bridge.

No one was looking at her, beneath the trees with Mika, pretending to forage through the saddlebags. The weather was poor; the bridge was in disrepair, a half-mile away; Katerina’s earth-magic was bound. If she went through with this, no one would suspect.

She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against her mare’s warm flank. Mika stood steady, her slow, even breath centering Katerina as she wrapped her magic around the footers: tight and tighter, until they creaked beneath the strain.

Yield to me,she commanded silently.

The earth heaved, struggling against her. The footers had stood for fifty years, since a storm had washed that sectionof riverbank away and Kalach had had to rebuild. The ground didn’t want to give them up. Its grip on the clay was strong, but Katerina’s was stronger.

Yield,she demanded again, drawing harder on her magic.Now.

Perhaps Sant Antoniya was with her, because though she had not called on her water-magic, the river stirred, its gentle lap-lap-lap against the shore becoming louder, more demanding. The sky opened, drops of cold rain spattering Katerina’s shoulders. Above her, the leaves of the low-hanging oaks whispered, disturbed from their rest. And upriver, two of the bridge’s footers broke loose at last, sending the dilapidated structure plunging into the water with a deafening roar and an impact that shook the forest.

Katerina opened her eyes to chaos.

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