Page 68 of Fate and Fury

Katerina couldn’t have been more shocked if the trees around them had grown feet and begun filing out of the forest. “What?” she managed.

“You heard me.” His gaze was on her face, gray and wary.

“But—” she said, puzzlement clear in her voice, “the last time I mentioned this, you told me it was impossible. I believe yourexact words were,You cannot ask this of me, not as my Dimi or as my heart.What’s changed?”

With his free hand, he traced her chin, her bottom lip, her cheekbones, as if memorizing her face. “I can’t live like this, Katya. Not split in two this way. You’re more important than any obligation. And my love for you outweighs the price of my family’s honor. You are my blood, my blade, and my heart. My soul is bound to yours.” He took her by the shoulders, drawing her close. “I thought I could set all that aside—that I had to, or lose what mattered most. But what matters most is you. If I don’t have you, then I could populate our village with a legion of Shadowchildren and my life would hold no meaning. Not to mention,” he added, lips quirking, “apparently I can’tdo what’s necessary to produce so much as one.”

Katerina drew back and punched him in the arm, but she might as well have been hitting stone for all the good it did. “Yes,” she said, her heart lightening for the first time in months. “Yes, I’ll run away with you. To the Magiya first, to find out how to put a stop to this. And after that, I don’t care where we go. I told you before, as long as we’re together, that’s all that matters to me.”

A wide grin broke across Niko’s face, and he swept her up in his arms, spinning her. The forest whirled, green trees and midnight-blue sky—and a flash of yellow, the moon reflecting off Elena’s spill of unbound hair as she stepped into the clearing, a black dog at her side.

36

KATERINA

“Not so ill as all that, I see,” Elena said. Her jaw was set, her eyes fixed on the two of them. At some point, she’d changed out of her wedding dress and into the clothes she usually donned for childcare or working in the garden: a serviceable shift of rough beige cotton. With the part of Katerina’s brain that panic hadn’t swallowed, she realized this was the excuse Niko must have given his new wife: He didn’t feel well. Then, of course, he’d slipped away to find Katerina—and Elena must have followed. How long had she been standing there?

Cold sweat broke over Katerina’s body at the thought. Her mouth opened, but no words came out.

They were so close to escaping. He’d asked her to run away with him. She’d said yes. And now this.

Niko set Katerina on her feet and backed away from her, hands open at his sides. “Elena, I can explain?—”

“Don’t bother making excuses. I heard everything.” She turned her accusatory gaze on Katerina. “When I realized I couldn’t lay a finger on Elena,I wanted to hate you.For you have ruined me forever for another.You should hate her, Niko—for shehasruined you. She’s cast a spell on you, and you can’t even see it.”

Silence fell. When Niko spoke, his voice was gentle. “It’s not like that. I love her and I always have. I never meant to hurt you.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying. You’ve been bewitched. But I can help you. I can set you free.” The Vila reached down, burying one hand in the fur of the black dog at her side. For an instant, Katerina feared it was Elena’s Shadow father, accompanying his daughter to the woods to avenge her honor—but no. Anatoly Lisov had a torn ear in dog form, the result of a Grigori attack from which he’d been lucky to escape with his life.

So then, who was it? Who had Elena told about the two of them—and how much time did they have before the wrath of the village came down upon their heads?

As if he had read her mind, Niko’s eyes narrowed, his gaze darting to the dog. “Who is that, Elena?”

“A friend.” The Vila’s voice held a smug, self-satisfied note.

Most of the time, when her Shadow was in human form, it was easy to forget the black dog lurked inside him, biding its time until needed. Above all, Shadows were taught control, to erect a barrier between their human selves and the guardians their skin sheltered. But there were occasions, like this one, where the division between man and beast blurred. Niko raised his head, sniffing the air. Then his upper lip curled back, displaying his canines. Wariness trickled through their bond as he regarded the dog, a territorial growl rumbling low in his throat. The animal stared back, its gaze flat, challenging.

Alarm rippled through Katerina. Something was terribly wrong. She could feel it in every cell of her body, in the touch of the breeze against her skin. Inhaling to see if she could sense what had troubled Niko, she took in the scents of sage and elderflower, lavender and rowan-fire. The smellsseemed painted on the night’s surface, concealing the rotten, dank stench of loss—and something else beneath, something she couldn’t quite catch.

She forced herself to think, assessing the situation with the cold detachment she usually reserved for battle. She didn’t recognize the black dog who stood beside Elena, but it was dark, excusable to mistake one Shadow for another. Niko had no such impediment. Even in human form, he could identify all of his brethren by scent. As alpha of his pack, they knelt to him.

And he didn’t know this Shadow.

Now that Drezna and Satvala had fallen, Kalach was the only village that was home to Shadows, Dimis, and Vila within thirty miles. There had been no strangers at Niko’s wedding, no visitors to the village since the Kniaz’s emissaries. There was no way Elena had managed to conjure one out of thin air.

Unless that dog was not a Shadow.

A terrible, unfathomable possibility began to take shape in Katerina’s mind. As soon as it coalesced, she wanted to dismiss it. Elena was innocent, naïve. She could be petty; she could be vain. But she wasn’t evil.

Winging a prayer to the Saints that she was wrong, Katerina inched closer to get a better look. “‘A friend,’ Elena?” she said, sarcasm clear in her voice. “There are nineteen Shadows in the village, not counting the children and the one standing next to me. Their identities are hardly a mystery. You’ll have to do better than that.”

The black dog moved at her approach, placing his body between the Vila and Katerina. He snarled, and Niko echoed the sound, menace vibrating from every wordless syllable.

“Call him off,” her Shadow said, dark eyebrows lowering. “Or I will.”

The wind shifted, blowing the smoke of the rowan-fires toward Elena and her companion. The dog coughed, a strangled,choking bark, and the fine hairs on Niko’s arms lifted, rising like his hackles did in beast form.

“Elena,” he said again, his voice deeper now, threatening, “who is that? What have you done?”

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