Page 21 of Fate and Fury

Then he was running, Katerina clutched tight in his arms, leaping over the bodies of the fallen beasts as only a trained Shadow could. The path widened, the way it always did when they arrived in Drezna. But the warmth of the fires didn’t burn to greet them, nor did a Shadow stand sentinel at the gates. Here, all was quiet and dark.

“Niko,” Katerina said, her voice breaking.

“I know.” He shifted her weight, lifting a hand to smooth her hair back from her face. “Something bad happened here, Katya.”

Dizziness swept Katerina as they followed the road that led to the heart of the village. The gardens that hugged it were bled by that same frost, their nascent plants lying limp and dead. She caught sight of the apple orchard, the tree limbs blackened andpeeling beneath a layer of ice. Nothing moved on the path or in the fields.

“Hello?” she called out. “Is anyone here?”

But no one answered her call. Not so much as a dog came trotting out to meet them.

A village would never leave itself unprotected this way. Shadows rotated on constant patrol each night, especially so close to the Bone Moon. No one could simply walk into Drezna, not in these times.

They passed Baba Volkova’s cottage. The door hung open, a gaping maw. When Niko peered inside, the place was empty. But in the hearth, a fire still blazed.

A chill ran through Katerina again. With him holding her like this, they were vulnerable. “Put me down,” she said. “I may not be able to fight, but I can still use my magic.”

Without a word, he set her on her feet and put an arm around her, supporting her. She limped by his side as they made their way toward the heart of Drezna, where the marketplace and the artisans’ shops hugged the town square. At night, they’d be locked up tight, but most merchants slept above their places of business. Surely someone would come out if Niko and Katerina called.

“They must be hiding,” she said, unable to conceal the note of hope in her voice. “Maybe they’re afraid. They’ll see we’re here to help them, and they’ll?—”

Her Shadow had never lied to her. He didn’t start now. Instead, he took more of her weight as they walked the last few steps, emerging from the path that wound past the field where children had played the last time they visited, chasing each other in an age-old game of catch-the-demon. Now, it was deserted and sheathed in ice, the blades of grass shriveled and the stems of the yellow-wreathed preteska snapped.

Clouds scudded over the face of the moon as they left the field behind and stepped onto the cobblestones. She took one step, two. And then Niko jerked her back with such force that she almost tumbled to the ground. A growl rumbled from his throat, low and threatening.

“What—” she began indignantly. But then she saw for herself what his keener Shadow vision had noticed at once.

The two of them stood at the verge of a precipice. Another step, and Katerina would have tumbled into it. Where the bustling village center used to be, there was nothing but a crater—as if everything that once stood there had been sucked into the earth.

It was impossible. It was also true.

The village of Drezna was gone.

12

KATERINA

In shock, she and Niko walked the length and breadth of Drezna, unable to believe it had vanished. They stared into the depths of the crater, and the Darkness stared back at them. It whispered to Katerina, hissing her name.

For all she knew, she was staring into the Void, the vacuum from which the Darkness originated. A shard of it lived within each of the Grigori, its evil powering them. She had never seen it like this before: ink-black smoke, swirling free, a residue of demonic assault.

By the time they were done, Katerina’s leg ached so badly she could hardly stand. They had found no survivors. It was as if that awful crater had swallowed the village whole.

“The portal to the demon realms lies outside the village limits,” Katerina said at last, as they stood again at the precipice. “But somehow, the Grigori must have come out of the earth here. That sound we heard before they attacked us…I’m sure it was the destruction of Drezna. What other explanation can there be?”

Niko shrugged. It was an odd, uncomfortable movement, as if his shirt had suddenly become too tight. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll tell you what I do know, though.” He raised a hand,ticking off his points one by one. “You’re injured. Night is falling. We’re alone, without our horses. Trouble is here, and in our road. We need shelter. And to heal you as best we can.”

Katerina nodded, the movement jerky. “But not here, Niko. I don’t care if Baba Volkova’s house is still standing. I can’t…I can’t stay here.”

“Agreed.” His mouth set in a grim line, and his jaw clenched as he gazed down into the pit. “The healers’ cottage may be gone, but Baba will have medicinals. We’ll patch you up and take what we need, and then we’ll leave this place.”

Predictably,Niko wouldn’t let her enter Baba Volkova’s cottage until he’d gone over every inch of it for threats. She waited, leaning against the wooden siding to take the weight off her leg, her eyes roving over the silvered runes painted on the eaves, the trim around the windows and doors. They were meant to be a defensive layer against demonic invasion, and they had held; Baba’s house stood, when so many had been lost. But Baba herself was nowhere to be found. She must have run for the center of the conflict, despite her advanced age. She’d fought for Drezna, and died defending it.

At least Sofi and Damien had survived, safe in Rivki—though ‘safe’ was a relative term. Katerina had never been grateful for the existence of the Bone Trials before—but because of them, her friends lived, when so many others had fallen. Their home was destroyed, though, their families gone. What if she and Niko returned to Kalach, only to find it had met the same fate? Pressing her hand against the strength rune that twined around the doorframe, Katerina suppressed a shudder.

At last, Niko loomed up in the doorway. “No Grigori have been inside,” he said, his dark brows knitted. “I found Baba’s medicines and some food to replace what we lost in the saddlebags. Come in, Katerina, and let’s be done with this.”

Katerina followed him inside and instructed him as to what she needed. Then she lit a taper and sat on one of Baba’s high-backed chairs, trying to hold back the wave of sadness that threatened to swamp her. “Niko,” she said as he set willowbark to brewing on the stove and mashed garlic, ginger, and echinacea into a paste under her direction, “so many of our friends. Tanya, Alexandr, Sasha, Leonid…gone. How can this be?”

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