Page 63 of Fate and Fury

This was, Gadreel recognized, the time when a lesser demon would ask for help. He could talk to Sammael, tell the other demon everything. He could admit he’d set the Darkness loose, that the destruction of the two villages hadn’t been his doing. That he was in over his head.

And Sammael might well help him. But afterward? Gadreel would lose everything.

He stood, pacing the floorboards. The illusion of Dimi Ivanova watched him, a smirk lifting her lips. He could command her to kneel, to do his bidding. She was an illusion; she would do it. But how pathetic would he be? The Dark Angel of War, reduced to commanding a false image because the real thing had defeated him in battle. He refused to stoop so low.

He paced some more. Back. Forth. Back. Forth. And then he froze.

The wards were weakening. He could likely follow Dimi Ivanova and her party all the way to Rivki Island, which his kindhad never been able to get close to before. And then…what if he could get inside?

What if he could get insidenow?

A world of possibility began to unfurl before him. He could see it. He couldtasteit.

His eyes on the illusion of the Dimi who had defied him, the Darkness growling and twisting within him, the fallen angel Gadreel smiled.

33

KATERINA

The day Elena Lisova married Niko Alekhin, it rained from dawn to dusk.

Katerina knew this was her fault. As Niko’s Dimi, she was the one to give him away. He stood by her side, resplendent in the traditional white garments that every Shadow wore to the altar. His clothes were marked by silver-and-red-threaded runes representing his union with Elena: hearts for Rozhanytsi, the spirits of fate and goddesses of fertility, hearth, and home; oaks emblazoned with guelder roses, for the fusion of Niko’s strength and Elena’s beauty. Every time Katerina glanced at him, the sky opened up, crying the tears she wouldn’t allow herself to shed.

A Vila’s wedding to a Shadow was a glorious occasion, followed by hours of revelry. The whole village attended, crowded into the chapel that had been built after the original one burned in the aftermath of a Grigori attack. The woods had taken that chapel back, devoured it Saints and all. It was desecrated ground.

Was it too much, Katerina wondered as Baba Petrova’s apprentices placed incense burners in a circle around the altar, to hope that a demon attack would interrupt the ceremony? Shewould gladly see the chapel destroyed, holy relics and all, if it meant she didn’t have to take Niko’s hand and place it in Elena’s.

This was what he’d wanted, she reminded herself. She’d asked him to leave with her. Had begged him, in a way she’d never begged anyone for anything. And he’d refused, choosing obligation and duty over love. Even after Satvala had fallen to the Darkness, he’d refused to go. Perhaps he hoped that marrying Elena would put an end to whatever had possessed Iriska. Perhaps he’d come to believe in the prophecy, after all. The end result was the same.

She respected him and hated him for it, all at the same time. But if she loved him, she had to honor his wishes, even if it decimated her.

So she stood at the altar next to Niko, her face a mask, wearing the iridescent gold-and-red gown that marked her as his Dimi. She watched as Elena’s Shadow father walked her down the aisle, between rows of villagers who exclaimed in awe as they passed. Katerina couldn’t blame them: Elena was a vision in her wedding white embroidered with hearts and guelder roses, her platinum hair threaded with rosebuds and her wide blue eyes transfixed with bliss.

Katerina didn’t dare glance at Niko to see if he were as mesmerized as the rest. Instead she stood, eyes fixed straight ahead, as Baba Petrova’s apprentices lit the burners, sending the scent of white sage and lavender into the air. Sage, for purity; lavender, for peace.

If Katerina hadn’t been so miserable, she would have laughed at the irony.

“Who stands witness for this Shadow?” Baba Petrova spoke from the front of the altar, white hair braided in a complicated twist, draped in her ceremonial blue robes. Her voice reverberated off the wooden walls of the chapel, resonant and full even over the sound of the rain that lashed the stained-glasswindows. It looked, Katerina reflected, as if the Saints depicted on the windows were grieving too.

She took Niko’s hand in hers. Despite the warmth of the chapel, his fingers were freezing. “I do,” she said, and forced herself to look into his eyes.

What she saw there almost leveled her. He gazed down at her as if they were the only two people in all the world. As if they stood here on this altar to be joined to each other.

It made her want to hit him.

“Unto another each must cleave,” Baba intoned. “Katerina Ivanova, do you give your Shadow to this woman? To have and to hold, to share his heart as you share his soul?”

Niko’s fingers tightened on hers. Pain flickered across his face, and Katerina felt an answering pang.

You have to do this.

“I do,” she said, and placed Niko’s hand in Elena’s.

Thunder boomed, drowning out the words of the ceremony. But there was nothing to keep Katerina from seeing Baba Petrova give the slim gold ring to Niko. Or from seeing him take it and slide it onto Elena’s waiting finger.

Katerina closed her eyes and prayed for grace.

34

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