Page 76 of Fate and Fury

Alyona sniffed loudly, and Oksana, the Vila standing next to her, wrapped a protective arm around her shoulders. She glaredat 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. Thesewere 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 theDarkness 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.”

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