Page 30 of Fate and Fury

“Do you vow to be a soft place for him after battle, to welcome him at your hearth and with your body, so that he may sire on you the next generation of Shadowchildren and Vila?”

“I do,” Elena said without hesitation. “I will.”

“Then take his hands,” Baba told her.

A beatific smile lighting her face, Elena reached for Niko. Her expression was one of elation and absolute trust, as if she never doubted he would receive her. But Niko wasn’t looking at her. He had turned his head, and his gaze fell full on Katerina.

What did he want from her? Acceptance? Approval? Neither of those things were hers to give. She looked back at him, head held high, and fought not to light the chapel aflame.

Niko’s gaze dropped from her face to the amulet around her neck, the one that marked him as hers. It throbbed against her collarbone once, twice. And then he turned back to Elena, squared his shoulders, and extended his hands to her.

The apprentices approached from the four corners of the chapel in their flowing white dresses. Each of them held a ribbon that represented one of the four elements: red for fire, blue for water, white for air, brown for earth. And then came a fifth, clad in black, weaving her way between the candles. Once. Twice. Seven times, for luck. She held another ribbon: yellow, for the light a Shadow brought to shatter the dark.

The fifth apprentice had been born with a deformed foot and one leg shorter than the other; Pietyr, one of Kalach’s cobblers, had crafted her an ingenious shoe that evened her gait. The wooden heel thumped, hollow, as Feya traced her path between the flames, clutching her yellow ribbon. The sound echoed throughout the chapel, an ominous thud-thud-thud that reflected the anxious beat of Katerina’s heart.

Baba lifted her hands, and one by one the apprentices in the circle brought their ribbons to her, laying them across her palm. They gleamed in the torchlight, dyed with madder root and wild blueberries, with saffron and walnut hulls. And one by one, Baba took the ribbons and twined them around Elena and Niko’s hands, binding them together.

“Blessed by the elements,” she intoned. “Blessed by the Saints.”

Katerina had always thought that when a Dimi’s heart broke, it would be a sound as loud as the shattering of a thousand glasses. That it would have the power of a hundred Dimis, drowning entire villages in a tidal wave, lighting the world aflame.

But her heart broke in silence, and the only person who drowned in its aftermath was Katerina herself.

15

KATERINA

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Niko whispered. “Please.”

Katerina spared him a glance, even though it hurt her to look at him. He was stretched out in front of the fire atop his blue quilt, chin propped on his hands, dark eyes fixed on her face. She’d dyed and sewn the quilt herself, a Dimi’s gift to her Shadow. In return, he’d given her the Mark that burned on his arm and the gift of his soul. Outdoing her, as usual.

He’d changed out of his finery, clad in the rough white linen he wore for sleep. His shirtsleeve was pushed up, and Katerina’s Mark glowed in the firelight, blue-black and gleaming, as if lit from within.

Her heart ached to look at it. It ached worse when she thought of Elena running her hands through Niko’s dark, unruly waves, even though she knew she herself had no right to touch him that way. He was hers, but not like that.Neverlike that.

“Katya,” Niko said, pleading. His voice broke on her name.

“I’m not thinking,” Katerina lied. “Just cleaning. See?” She straightened the ribbon at the neck of her shift, then tidied her bedclothes, pulling the quilt tight.

Niko’s lips twitched. “Making your bed before you get into it? I see.”

The Kniaz damn him. “I like a neat bed.”I like a neat bed?What in the name of all the demons was wrong with her?

Her Shadow’s gaze flickered. He took a sip of the ginger tea she’d brewed when they got back to their cottage: for purification, for healing, for strength. And then he met her eyes head-on. “I had to do it, Katya.”

Katerina’s pulse quickened. There was no point pretending she didn’t know what he was talking about, so she didn’t try. “Of course you did,” she said, occupying herself with straightening the spray of lavender above her headboard. “Why are you saying this to me?”

“You know why.” His voice was deeper now, skirting his black dog’s growl. “Last night… You must know how I?—”

“No!” Katerina’s fingers tightened on the flowers. They crumbled, bits of sweet-smelling petals falling onto her pillows.Blue for melancholy and blue for the lost,Baba’s voice echoed in her head, one of the elder Dimi’s many proverbs.Blue for the protection of the storm-tossed.

“I have to say it, Katerina.” Porcelain clinked as he set the cup down, and the air shifted as he rose. She didn’t have to look to know he was standing now, moving toward her, his feet soundless on the cottage’s floorboards. “Saints help me, but I do.”

“Youdon’t.”Her heart beat in an uneven shudder as she turned her back to him. What was the point of confessing something he could never take back, something that only stood to ruin them both?

She felt him behind her now, through the thin material of her shift, his big body a line of heat that trickled along her spine. When they were fighting, his presence meant both safety and power. But now…now it terrified her.

“Turn around, Katya.” The words were a demand, but the tone…it was a plea. “Turn around and look at me.”

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