Page 80 of Fate and Fury

She couldn’t bring herself to finish the word. But apparently Baba decided that this was good enough, because she bent and lifted a knife from the stones, passing it once, twice, thrice through the flames. She reached for Katerina’s arm, holding it above the cauldron as she had done eight years ago.

“One for the fire,” she said, and raised the blade.

Katerina braced herself for the pain.I’m sorry, Niko,she thought desperately.I’m so, so sorry.

Down came the blade, glinting in the light of the false Bone Moon and the glow of the flames. It was three inches from Katerina’s arm. Two. One.

“Stop!”

For a moment, Katerina thought the word had somehow issued from her own throat. She raised her free hand to it, disbelieving. But then, the crowd scattered like pigeons as a familiar palomino cantered through them. On its back was Andrei, the Kniaz’s lieutenant, who Katerina had thrown into a grove of birch trees weeks before.

He reined up, his horse’s sides heaving. “I see I’m just in time,” he said. Behind him came his companions, but Katerina ignored them. She only had eyes for Andrei, and his pronouncement, which had saved her.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Baba snapped. “You dare to interrupt our most sacred ritual?”

“You sent a rider to Rivki,” Andrei said, his tone as dismissive as Katerina remembered it. “Informing us of what had happened here. The Kniaz dispatched me at once to ride with all haste. He’ll come in person to Kalach on the night of the full moon, bringing a Shadow of his choosing for you to bind to her. Not just anyone is fit to join the hallowed ranks of the Druzhina, after all. So whatever this is”—he waved a contemptuous handat the bubbling pot, the gathering of villagers, and Katerina and Valentin, standing in the center of it all—“you will disband it at once. For Dimi Ivanova, treacherous though she may be, has another future in store.”

Katerina had never expected to be grateful to Andrei, of all people. But even as the Elders murmured in disapproval and the villagers whispered to each other in dismay, as Valentin stepped back with an expression of unmistakable relief, she felt a rush of gratitude so strong, it nearly brought her to her knees.

So what if she were to be bonded to a stranger? She would deal with that challenge when it came.

She had five days to save Niko, before she was tied to another. Five days, when his soul and hers might still be one. And standing there under the light of the rising Bone Moon, she vowed to make the most of them.

She didn’t care what it took. She would find a way.

49

SAMMAEL

Sammael had done everything for his Vila, and still it was not enough.

He had recreated Kalach in his own realm, complete with the cobblestone village square, quaint shops, and rolling fields, which were not blighted here, but rather ripe with wheat. Even the accursed chapel in which his Vila had married her Shadow. Much to his minor demons’ annoyance, he had commanded them to take the forms of Kalach’s villagers, not pinched and starved as they had been since their crops had failed, but healthy and hale. He’d recreated every detail of Elena’s small cottage, the one she’d shared with her friend Alyona, down to the runes that were meant to keep demons such as himself out.

Of course, no matter how theylooked,the runes here spoke of different things: temptation and trickery, lust and craving, eternal hunger for power. But those were not such bad things, were they? After all, they had brought Elena and Sammael together. She had called out, there in the ruins of the abandoned chapel in the woods, and he had answered.

Not the Saints. Him.

He had given Elena everything she had asked for, and more. Had made of her a shining, burning thing that blazed up with infernal fire, sending his Grigori essence twining throughout her body, wedding his Dark gifts with her allegiance to the Light. She was meant to bear fruit, just as years ago, his congress with the demon Lilith had given rise to Asmodeus, prince among demons. Elena had been so beautiful, burning with their shared power as her hellfire licked at the form of the fallen Shadow. But there had been something else within her then, a power greater even than his own. He could sense it: the Darkness that had consumed Drezna and Satvala. It had poured from her, even as it fed on her. He had never felt anything like it.

He sat on a chair in the replica of Elena’s cottage, listening as she cooed to the shade of her Shadow. What remained of Niko Alekhin lay curled at her feet, in the form of his black dog. Sammael watched as Elena reached down and ran a hand through its fur. “Change for me,” she urged him. “Change, and then we can be together.”

The black dog flinched from her touch, as it did every time. And as it did every time, Elena’s lovely face contorted with rage. “You should be grateful,” she hissed at the dog. “I saved you fromher.But you still want her, don’t you? Even now, when you lie at my feet, you think of her. Well, I will cure you of this ailment, if it’s the last thing I do. You will worship me, as you should, for I am yourwife.”

She raised a hand and struck the dog across the muzzle once, then again. “Change,” she shrieked. “Or, much as it pains me to do it, you will spend the night in chains. For your own good.”

Sammael watched as the dog raised its head, defiance clear in the depths of its gray eyes, and bared its teeth. A low growl emanated from its chest, and Elena straightened. The hellfire that had consumed her in the clearing began to heat her once again, until she blazed with it.

“You dare to growl at me? Me, Elena-of-the-Void, beloved of Sammael?” She waved a hand at the black dog, clenching her fingers into a fist, andtugged.The dog let out a desperate yelp, but there was no resisting: Elena pulled his human form from within, like a butterfly being forcibly dragged from a chrysalis.

“Elena,” Sammael warned, but she ignored him, her attention trained on the crumpled form at her feet.

Sammael was all for employing violence when necessary. He’d had his fun with the Shadow when the creature had first arrived; he made a most amusing plaything, what with his ability to withstand pain. Sammael had enjoyed testing his limits. But no such thing was required here. The Shadow was already at Elena’s mercy. She gained nothing from this show of force. And after all, she belonged to Sammael now, did she not? They were each other’s. It was infuriating that she still harbored…feelings…for this pathetic creature.

And pathetic he was. Sammael had seen Shadows shift before; it was a natural, seamless transformation. This was different; it was slow, and agonizing. The dog fought it, but his power belonged to the Light, and here in the Underworld, there was precious little of that. It was no match for Elena’s Darkness. She pulled, and he growled, and when she was done, the Shadow lay naked, panting and bleeding on the wooden floor of her cottage, in his human form.

“You see,” Elena said to him, her voice laden with satisfaction. “You are mine. You do as I say. And now you will serve me, as you should have done when you took me to wed.”

The Shadow didn’t speak. He just glared at her, and in his silver-gray eyes burned an unmistakable, burning hatred.

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