But…where were the Druzhina? Surely, the Kniaz hadn’t traveled here alone, puppet or no. Where was his guard? Why did they not fight to defend the village’s borders?
Maybe they, too, were in the midst of the battle. It was the only explanation.
There was a tremendous roar, as if the earth itself had cracked open. Katerina ran faster, her heart pounding so hard, she could hardly breathe past it. What if that sound heralded the destruction of Kalach, the way it had in Drezna? What if everyone she knew and loved was plummeting into the Underworld, and she and Niko were too late to save them?
She summoned her witchwind to aid her, sweeping at her back, pushing her and Niko forward. And then, between one step and the next—she was airborne. It took her a moment to realize that Niko had grabbed her tunic in his jaws and was holding her back, dangling her above the ground as if she were no more than a marionette.
“What are you doing?” she snapped at him. “Put me down!”
He shook her, demanding she pay attention. And then, as had always been the case in battle, his voice spoke inside her mind. Look, he said, a grim command.
Katerina did as he bid—and gasped. Darkness bubbled up from the ground where she’d been about to step, thick as welling tar. It sucked in everything it touched: leaves and twigs and even a squirrel whose instinct to flee had come too late to save it. With a squelching sound, the puddle of Darkness swallowed its bounty whole and seethed, its edges blurring outward hungrily, seeking additional prey.
“By the Saints,” Katerina breathed.
There are no Saints here. Her Shadow’s voice was rough, laced with fury, as he set her down to the left of the Dark quicksand. Come, Katerina. But tread carefully.
Katerina wanted nothing more than to race toward the rising screams. They emanated from the square in the middle of Kalach, which meant the village stood, at least in part. It meant there was still someone to save. But she knew Niko was right; if she ran toward the fight, heedless of where she stepped, she’d be the Darkness’s next victim.
Instead they made their way one arduous step at a time, relying on Niko’s enhanced Shadow vision and the small flame Katerina called to her hand to make out the places where the earth of Kalach had been subsumed by Darkness. On one horrifying occasion, they came upon a submerged body, only its fingers sticking up aboveground. Katerina made for the figure nonetheless, ignoring Niko’s warning growl, only for the Darkness to suck whomever it was down into its depths with an obscene gurgle. She shuddered, fighting the urge to vomit, and pressed on.
At long last, they reached the village center, where the brightly colored tents and makeshift stage lay in ruins. In the midst of the square, Dimis and Shadows battled Grigori, horribly outnumbered. There was Ana, thank the Saints, flanked by Alexei, in the form of his black dog. As Katerina watched, her friend ignited a ball of fire and hurled it straight at a demon’s head, only for the creature to dodge and lunge for her. Alexei leapt at the thing, but the demon bared its teeth, slick with venom, and reared up, knocking Ana’s Shadow to the ground?—
Katerina shrieked. She was still screaming when a black blur hurtled past her and sank its teeth into the demon’s throat, shaking it like a rag doll. Silver-blue blood sprayed everywhere as Niko tore its flesh open and dropped the creature, dead, at Alexei’s feet. Her Shadow threw back his head and howled in victory, and for a moment Alexei echoed him. Then his jaw dropped and he stared at Niko, the look in his eyes as clear as if he’d spoken.
How?
There was no time for explanations. From between the blacksmith’s shop and the stables, sentient shadows curled like spilled ink, seeking a target. As the battle in the square raged ever onward, the shades plucked children from doorways and dragged them through windows. They twined around their victims like vines and seeped into their open mouths, leeching the life from everything they touched. The children’s eyes shriveled like wizened grapes, their bodies blackened as if frostbitten. They tumbled to the ground, mere husks, reminding Katerina of the blanched fields and fallen animals on the road to Drezna.
From inside the houses that flanked the square, where some of the Vila must have taken refuge, came a bloodcurdling shriek. “No,” a woman wailed, her arms extending through the broken glass of the window, reaching for one of the little ones who lay, discarded, on the stones below. “No, please, not my Pyotr…”
The shades swept onward, as if driven by an invisible wind, swarming straight for the square. If they weren’t thwarted—if they reached their destination—then Kalach’s best defenders would fall. Already, Lara’s witchwind faltered as she attempted to drive a dark-haired demon back. Next to her, Ilya fought in human form, his blades slicing another demon’s arm open as it reached for Dimi Assol. The creature drew back, its squeal of agony like metal-on-metal, but as its blood hit the stones, the shades charged.
Assol stumbled back, out of their reach, tripped over a body lying on the ground, and fell. In an instant, the shades were on her, swarming over her body like bees from a provoked hive. She screamed and screamed as they descended, growing ever-darker as they consumed her life force. Her Shadow, Bretzin, gave a howl of terror and denial, but there was nothing he could do. Assol’s voice cut off mid-shriek, and the shades drew back as if satiated, revealing her desiccated corpse, mouth frozen in a rictus of her final scream.
Katerina had no idea whether Gadreel had commanded the shades to do his bidding, or whether, summoned by bloodlust, the Darkness was raging through Kalach of its own accord. Either way, the result was the same: disaster.
Within her, fury simmered—righteous and potent as the dark, sweet fruit of the blackthorn tree, an ancient protection against evil. She turned to face the shades, hands extended, and reached deep, deep into the well of her magic, the same way she had in the woods outside Drezna, when Gadreel’s army had come for them. She couldn’t ignite all of these demons, not when so many of Kalach’s citizens and warriors were scattered amongst them. But if there was anything the Darkness could not stand against, it was the Light.
Now, she told Niko, and felt him brace as she drew on their bond with all she had.
Light burst from her, driving the shades back. It illuminated the entirety of the square: the space between the buildings, the trees that surrounded them…and the ravine beyond. Behind the Shadows and Dimis, by the treeline opposite where Katerina and Niko had emerged, the earth had split like a ripe peach. This must have been the sound Katerina had heard, the one she feared heralded the destruction of Kalach.
Around them, her fellow Dimis froze, their expressions unified by a single emotion: shock. It would’ve been amusing if they hadn’t all been about to die.
Their gazes flicked from Katerina to the black dog by her side. To the shades, cringing against the battered buildings like animals whipped by their mistress. And then slowly, surely, in the direction of the crevasse.
At its opposite edge, clad in red finery, his sightless eyes fixed on the moon above, lay the Kniaz.
And next to him, glaring at Katerina with unadulterated wrath, stood Gadreel.
Chapter Three
GADREEL
As the tendrils of the Darkness retreated at Katerina Ivanova’s attack, just as he’d hoped they would, the demon Gadreel didn’t know whether to rejoice in his good fortune or prepare for his demise.
This was an exaggeration, of course. The Dimi who stood opposite him, on the other side of the crevasse that the earthwitches had wrought in a fruitless attempt to stay his hand, could not possibly kill him now. For one thing, she needed him. He alone had loosed the Darkness, knew how to curry its favor and seduce it into submission. Only he knew the spells and sacrifices that had coaxed it from the Void, and thus the ones required to lay it to rest again, in concert with the Light. She had the might to drive back the shades, the bits of Darkness that had torn loose from the whole; he had the knowledge to put an end to this misbegotten venture. They would be partners.
