Page 77 of Fate and Fury

“Idon’t,”Ana protested.

“Well, if you don’t,” Katerina said wearily, “then you’re the only one.” She shot Ana a wary look as the two of them began walking toward Katerina’s cottage. Katerina was limping; her body hurt everywhere. She would be bruised tomorrow, and badly. “Why don’t you hate me, exactly?”

Ana bit her lip. “You’re my best friend. I could never hate you. Besides, you and Niko saved Alexei’s life. I owe you everything.”

She raised her hands, palms open. Two small flames flared within them, before she grimaced and they extinguished themselves. “I just wish you’d told me the truth, Katerina. Maybe I could have helped you somehow. My heart is cracked straight down the middle at Niko’s loss, and whatever I’m feeling, I know it’s only an echo of your pain. It hurts that you felt you couldn’t trust me. I would have kept your secret.”

Katerina’s shoulders slumped. “I wanted to tell you. But how could I? Niko and I knew how wrong it was, prophecy or no prophecy.” She hugged herself, wincing. “I kept telling him I thought Elena suspected, but he said I was imagining things. I told him she seemed different. Like she was hiding something. But Niko, he…” Her voice trailed off on a sob. “This is all my fault, Ana. And now everyone hates me—and Kalach…Kalach will…”

The tears were flowing now, streaming down her cheeks. She was crying too hard to speak, and Ana’s harsh expression softened as she wrapped Katerina in her arms.

“It’s not all your fault, Katya,” Ana whispered, rocking her. “Don’t do this to yourself.”

At the sound of her nickname, the one only Niko ever used, Katerina cried harder. “Itis,”she insisted, forcing the words out between sobs. “When we came back from Drezna, Baba said my power was what had called the Darkness. That the world neededbalance, and my Light was so strong, the Dark sought to cancel it out.”

She sniffed against Ana’s shoulder, trying and failing to pull herself together as she ticked off all the reasons she was to blame. “If I didn’t exist, Drezna and Satvala would still be here. Sofi and Damien wouldn’t have lost everything—and everyone. Nadia and Oriel wouldn’t be missing, or…or dead. Niko would have been bound to another Dimi, someone worthy of him. And he would still be alive.”

“Katerina—”

It hurt to say these words aloud, to let Ana know the worst of her, but they had to be said. Ana had stood up for her when no one else had been willing. Had stood between her and an armed mob. “You need to know who you’re defending,” she said stiffly, straightening from Ana’s embrace. “I don’t deserve your kindness or even your pity. I’m the one who urged Niko to consider running away with me instead of marrying Elena. I’m the one whose existence weakened the wards, so Sammael could find his way into Kalach and corrupt Elena. I should never have been born, Ana. It would be better if I hadn’t.”

Ana shook her. “Don’t you ever say that. You’re my friend, Katerina, no matter what you’ve done. You’ll never change my mind. Come on, let’s get you home.”

Sighing, Katerina pulled back from Ana’s grip. She limped alongside her friend in the direction of her cottage, her temple throbbing. “Do you think the Kniaz will still want me?” she said, her voice dull. “Baba sent word of what happened; she could hardly hope to keep it a secret. The arrangement was for both of us to go to Rivki. Not for myself alone. Now…it matters not where I go. But Lara, Svetlana, and Natalya will expect to come home. I couldn’t bear to think I was the reason that they’re marooned in Rivki forever…that Lara would think I broke my word when I promised she’d just be there for a little while…”

Ana wrapped an arm around Katerina’s shoulder. “If you’d run off to the Magiya, what would have happened to them then?”

“I don’t know,” Katerina admitted. “I wasn’t thinking. I guess I hoped I would find answers. That together, Niko and I would discover a way to defeat the Darkness and thwart the prophecy. And then we would use that as leverage to set them free.”

The words scraped at her throat. It was yet another way she’d failed. “There’s less than a week until the Blood Moon is full and the tithe is due, Ana. If I leave here, I’ll be deserting Niko. Who will watch for his shade then?”

“Niko’s gone,” Ana said, her voice gentle as she guided Katerina around a jagged rock that protruded from the path. “We have no way of retrieving him from the Void—or the Underworld, if that’s where he’s gone. You know that as well as I.”

A spark of rage flared within Katerina, the first genuine emotion she could remember feeling since her Shadow lay dying in her arms. Her magic spiked, radiating heat outward. “You’re saying there is no hope? That I should give up on him?”

Ana dropped her arm, giving Katerina an exasperated glance. “Watch yourself,” she said. “I’m only trying to help. And as for Niko…what can you do, Katerina? We’re creatures of the Light. We have no business trafficking in Darkness.”

“But if I could get him back…” Katerina said. “If there were a way?—”

“If there were truly a way to save him, then of course I’d help you. I’d do anything. But you have to accept it. He and Elena are both lost to us.” She took Katerina’s hands in hers, squeezing tight. “When you’re gone to Rivki, I’ll tend his grave each week, I swear it. I’ll bring him flowers and keep his marker free of moss and ivy. If his shade is watching, I’ll make sure he knows he’s not forgotten.”

When you’re gone to Rivki.Katerina tipped her head back, staring at the blue expanse above them, fighting the urge to weep at the thought of Ana kneeling by the tiny cross that marked Niko’s grave, abandoned in that unconsecrated clearing. Of his body moldering in the earth as his soul wandered through the Darkness. Of Katerina, miles away, unable to even care for him in death.

The thought sent fury and misery spiraling through her in equal measure. Her body trembled with the force of it, until it burst free, unable to be contained. Witchwind erupted from her, spiraling heavenward, sending clouds scudding across the sky. They darkened and swelled, then burst. Rain poured down, soaking the path, plastering Katerina’s clothes to her skin. But despite that, her witchfire stirred within her, creeping outward until it encased her in flames. She stood there, shivering and burning, as Ana gaped at her.

Blood from the wound on Katerina’s temple ran down her face in rivulets. She touched her fingers to it, then knelt on the path and drew the three interlocking circles of Niko’s Mark on the stones.

Ana gasped. To do such a thing was sacrilege; the drawing of a Shadow’s Mark was the right of Baba Petrova alone. But Katerina was far beyond caring about such things. And for just a moment, she could swear she felt her Shadow’s presence. For just a moment, she felt the pulse of his blood in the amulet that still rested above her heart.

To feel that again, she would do anything.

“One for the fire,” she said, tracing her index finger over the first circle, then the second. “Two for the storm.”

Above them, lightning split the sky. Thunder rolled, and in it Katerina could swear she heard her Shadow’s growl. She traced the third circle, whispering, “Three for the black dog that guards against harm.”

“Katerina,” Ana managed, her teeth chattering. “What are you doing?”

Katerina lifted her bloody hands to the streaming sky, calling on the power of the Saints. It thrummed in her words, in the circles that burned on the stones, in the thunder that rolled through her bones.

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