Page 18 of Fate and Fury

Her Shadow. Where was Niko?

She couldn’t hear him. She couldn’t see him. In fact, she couldn’t see anything. This wasn’t normal darkness, but ratherDarkness—the sense that all Light had gone from the world. It was the pitch-black of the abyss.

She reached for her bond with her Shadow, and felt…nothing. There was a gaping hole where Niko should be. A bolt of horror ripped through her, and she fought to gain her feet. “Niko!” she howled. “To me!”

He didn’t answer her.

She opened her mouth to call for him again, but agonizing pain doubled her over, searing through every nerve ending. It was like being stabbed with a million blades, spiked with lightning…except the lightning was ice-cold.

Katerina clutched her chest. Had someone—something—severed their bond? Such a thing shouldn’t be possible, unless…

Was he dead? Had someone killed her Shadow, before she’d ever had the chance to tell him what was in her heart?

Her agony retreated into numbness. A sense of utter terror and hopelessness consumed her, weighing her down. Nothing was right, nothing would ever be right again…

Once, when Katerina was very small, she’d fallen into a snowbank. The snow had closed over her head, surrounding her. When she’d opened her mouth to scream, it had found its way inside, taking the place of her words. It had pressed her down, squeezing her lungs, stealing her breath, freezing her magic. Her Dimi mother had found her less than a minute later, melting the snow and setting Katerina free, but Katerina had never forgotten what it had been like to be trapped that way, inside an icy fortress that wanted only to keep her for its own.

This was like that: an ice-cold weight, pinning her to the ground, invading every part of her. She couldn’t see. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. When she reached for her magic, there was only…emptiness.

For an instant, an eternity, she lay crumpled on the path in the dark. And then a gleam appeared in the gloom—a tiny light, growing stronger the longer she looked.

The amulet at her neck that held Niko’s blood seared red-hot, scorching her. Her Shadow bond sparked to life just as a blaze illuminated the darkened woods.

Niko stood on the path, burning like the Lightbringer she’d always teasingly called him. A glow encased him, emanating from the blessed blade he held in his hand. She had never seen him look like that—a living embodiment of the Light to which he and Katerina were consecrated. For years, she’d thought of him as bringing her out of the metaphorical darkness that had lurked inside her ever since her mother’s death, but in this moment, she wondered if her assessment had been more accurate than she’d ever realized. The illumination spread from him in ever-increasing circles, until at last it touched the place where Katerina lay.

That awful sensation of being encased in ice retreated, taking the unbearable hopelessness with it. She ran for Niko, claiming her place by his side, as his Light chased the last of the unnatural gloom away and then faded, her Shadow assuming his normal form once more.

The world was as it had been before the Darkness had descended upon them: road and moon and forest. But both of their horses had fled. And emerging from the woods on all sides, surrounding Niko and Katerina, was the biggest horde of Grigori demons she had ever seen. Normally, they wandered as rogues or attacked in packs, commanded by one of their filthy brethren, but this was no pack. This was an army.

They looked like people; they always did. Only their characteristic rosemary-and-clove scent, meant to entice humans to them, gave them away—and with them en masse like this, it poured off them, permeating the air. Next to her, Niko choked on it.

In human form, her Shadow could meet his death at the hands of a blade bathed in Grigori venom or from a demon’s venom-coated bite. And there were so many of them here, encroaching nearer, closing the circle. Clad all in black, poisoned blades and bared teeth glinting under the light of the waxing moon.

Niko was right: they should have turned back. Damn her stupid pride, her insistence that they press onward. They were alone here, without the aid of a rowan-fire or the fellow Shadows and Dimis who always fought alongside them. It was just the two of them, and a host of demons determined to see them die.

There was no time to wonder why the Grigori were here in such force, on a lonely road far from Drezna. Whether she and Niko were their deliberate prey, or whether encountering thetwo of them was coincidence, en route to whatever the Grigori were really after. There was nothing to do but fight. To defeat the demons, or die trying.

Katerina prayed to Sant Antoniya, Sant Andrei, and Sant Viktoriya for strength. She called her magic, feeling it rise from the earth, filling her like she were a vessel and it a thick, syrupy liquid. “Stand by my side, my Shadow,” she said.

“Always,” he answered her.

And then the demons were on them.

Niko stood his ground, blessed blades in hand, spinning like a whirl of light, slicing through one Grigori after another before they could reach her. The Grigori howled as they fell, the sickly-sweet scent of their blood scorching her lungs and soaking the air. But there were always more.

Desperately, Katerina sent her sixth sense out, searching the woods. Her magic curled around one rowan after another, uprooting them and sending them hurtling into the fray, piercing the demons’ hearts. A thought, and she set the trees aflame. The fires consumed the Grigori’s corpses, and as others charged toward her, their flesh and clothing caught as well. They melted before her eyes, and their voices filled her mind, fraught with agony:Vengeance upon you, cursed Dimi. May Gadreel seek his revenge on your body and your soul.

Gadreel. The Fallen Angel of War himself, a king among Grigori and one of the first of the Fallen Watchers. The demon who had schooled humankind in the art of weaponry and killing blows. Helper of God, before he and the rest of the Grigori had fallen to the Dark.

Katerina had no time to consider why Gadreel’s army was loose upon this road, nor what it might mean to be the target of his vengeance. She stood, feet planted, hands outstretched, and called the wind. It rose to her bidding, driving the Grigori back. But there were so many of them, and they bent themselvesagainst it and just kept coming. One of them broke ranks and charged Niko, a blade in each hand. They flashed in the moonlight as the demon raised an arm high, meaning to take him through the heart.

She screamed, a howl so loud it scraped her throat. Magic exploded from her, harnessing the wind and blasting the demon backward. It flew through the air and tumbled into the flames. But there were five more right behind it.

They came for her, ignoring Niko this time. She pulled on the earth itself, tearing it up in front of them, tree roots catching at their legs, entangling them. One fell. Two. But the rest?—

Beside her, Niko’s body shimmered. A moment later, his blades clattered to the ground and a growl shook the forest. In the form of his black dog, he leapt, knocking the demons away from her. Snarling, he ripped out the throat of the closest one, coughing in disgust as blood poured from his mouth and drenched the ground.

You will never touch her.His voice echoed inside her head, the way it always did when he was in the shape of his black dog.She belongs to the Light, Grigori filth.

---