Page 150 of One For my Enemy

Or, he thought quietly, he could carry it for her. Help her carry on.

He stood a little straighter, convinced of that much. How many times can you fail a woman before you redeem yourself for her? Let her burden be his now, he thought, and glanced down at the knife in his hand, and then back up at her.

His father’s death would not have made her whole.

Then what will?

“I will,” he promised her, and Bryn let out a muted sound of disbelief as Dimitri raised the knife and drove it into the vial around his neck; into the heart he carried there. It sank in through enchanted glass, the metal blooming crimson and dripping in slender rivulets down his hand, and from afar Marya stumbled forward, dazed.

It wouldn’t pain her. Not at this distance. She’d merely fade away if she didn’t come closer, but of course she did, reaching out for Dimitri until she caught herself on his outstretched arms. By then The Bridge’s face had gone pale, Roman’s expression more haunted than ever, but Dimitri was focused on Marya, on the agony spreading across her lips the closer she came to the heart in his hands.

“Masha,” he whispered, reaching for her as she stumbled to him, hands outstretched. “Masha, my Masha.”

“I always knew you would be the death of me, Dima,” she managed to say, her voice delirious with gratification as she dragged the tips of her fingers to his mouth. “But still, didn’t you promise me forever?”

Dimitri looked up at his father. His brother.

Then Dimitri Fedorov looked down at Marya Antonova, watching her eyes flutter shut.

Don’t you know we belong together, Masha?

It’s inevitable.

You might as well give in.

“Don’t worry, Masha,” he said quietly, pulling her close, his hand still tight around the handle of the knife. “I would never make you go alone.”

Dimitri took the blade, driving it through the scar on his chest until he felt it slice and puncture and burst, numbness flooding his limbs only to be swallowed up by a monstrous, quaking pain. It was incomprehensible discomfort, to say the least. His every bone and organ opposed it, and Dimitri knew from experience blood was never as beautiful as sacrifice prescribed. In reality it was carnal and human and real, and for that, it was everything he’d always sworn he’d give up for her. It was life itself, and death; it was forever, and so were they—and briefly, with the last of her strength, Marya managed to smile.

The last sound was a whimper from his father. It wouldn’t end with a bang, Dimitri thought, but at least it would end, and for that, he was comfortably satisfied.

Dimitri brought Marya’s lips up to his, letting himself grow drowsy with the inconsequential aching from his chest, the roaring rush of silence filling his ears. It was nothing, he thought wearily, nothing at all compared to her, and his last thought was peaceful, because it wasMasha.Because it was her, finally—at last—and then they tumbled together into nothing, her final breath of relief the very last thing to fill his lungs.

V. 26

(Inheritance.)

Some miles away, the witch called Baba Yaga sat upright, feeling for all her vitals. Pulse, breath, limbs. She counted her fingers and toes. She counted her daughters, listing them off in her head.Irina, who hears the dead. Ekaterina, who sees them. Yelena, my girl of stars. Liliya, my dreamer. Galina, my pretty one. Sasha, my little one.

Marya, my soul.

It struck her with a pang, and as the knob turned at her bedroom door, she knew before she saw that a tear-stained Irina stood behind it.

“She’s staying this time,” Yaga said, swallowing. “Isn’t she?”

Irina nodded silently.

“Did she say anything?” Yaga asked, bitterly hopeful.

Another nod. “She says you’ll understand.”

No,Yaga thought gently,this time, Mashenka, I do not think so.

She rose to her feet slowly, feeling blindly for the floor. Her limbs would not give out. She was Baba Yaga. She was the curator of an enterprise. She had risen up from nothing. She would rise again tonight.

Yaga rested a hand on Irina’s shoulder, saying nothing, and headed down the hall. Galina’s room was shut. Sasha’s was empty. At the end of the hall would be Liliya, who would be sleeping, as she often was; she was fondest of sleep and of quiet.

Yaga opened the door, slipping inside, and shut it behind her with only the ghost of a sound.

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