She couldn’t let that happen. Were he himself, Niko would never have considered such a thing. After the heat of battle faded, he would regret this, and punish himself for it. It would be yet another reason he told himself—and her—that he was not deserving of the Light.
The shades crept upward from where they’d crouched at his feet, seething at his fingertips in a strange echo of Katerina’s witchfire, and an uneasy murmur moved through the Druzhina. Without the sedative tonic, they were at Niko’s mercy. And right now, he didn’t look like he had any mercy left to give.
No, she told him, mind-to-mind, her voice as firm as she could make it. Hold.
His head swiveled and his eyes met hers, the shadows in them flickering. They hurt you. The words were a growl, deeper even than his black dog’s. They want us dead.
This was true. And yet: We are better than they are, she told him. I will find another way.
His only reply was a frustrated snarl, but he obeyed her. He held.
Relief coursed through Katerina as Sofi came to stand by her side, the other Dimi’s witchwind stirring the air. With her came Ana, Alexei, and Damien, each gripping two horses’ bridles. These were battle-trained beasts, but they still shifted uneasily, nostrils flaring and feet stomping as the wind roared and the earth shook. They would stand steady, but for how long?
The three battalions converged, Dimi Novikova at their apex, driving Katerina and her friends back toward the lake. Trapping them. She made out Dimi Zakharova and her Shadow in their midst, the woman’s eyes hot with loathing.
“Saints,” Ana said, her hand trembling on the big bay’s bridle and her eyes wide, the whites showing all around. “What now?”
“We could ride them down.” Alexei bit out the words. “Create a distraction.”
That would never be enough. It might buy them a few minutes, but then they’d be right back where they’d begun.
Katerina’s mind whirled, sorting through options and discarding them. What gift did she have that could outweigh the Druzhina’s? What could she do that would stay Niko’s hand and still result in their freedom?
And then she knew. It was a long shot, but the best one they had.
As the Druzhina closed in around them, she drew a deep, centering breath, taking in the metallic tang of blood that stained the air, the perfume of burning roses, the crisp, dark scent of the night itself. Were these her perceptions, or her Shadow’s?
The line between them blurred, her power merging with his as she pulled on the very roots of her magic. And then, with a force of effort that she felt in every strained cell, Lake Krasa began to roil.
A collective gasp came from the Druzhina, and Damien’s hands tightened on his horses’ bridles, his face blank with shock. “Are you doing that, Katerina? Alone?”
Niko answered for her. “Yes,” he said, the single word carrying a world of pride.
The water seethed, as if stirred by a giant hand. Katerina gritted her teeth and clenched her fists, stirring the mud at the bottom, urging the water upward. And then it rose, lifting from the bed of the lake, gathering momentum with every inch of height. It soared up, up, up, until she laid the bottom of the lake bare.
The wave towered over them, frothing. Within it churned the Vodianyye who had been pent up for centuries. Born from the spirits of those who had drowned, the Vodianyye wanted nothing more than to drag others down to face their fate. They were a defense against evil, meant as a secondary line of protection should the Grigori demons find a way to cross running water…but they would be just as happy to consume human souls.
And Rivki kept them hungry.
As one, the Guard’s gaze flicked upward to the wall of water that hung over them, arrested in time and space. To Damien, Alexei, and Ana, holding the horses’ bridles. To Sofi, hands extended to summon the wind. To Niko, his shades milling about his feet like obedient hounds, awaiting his command. And finally, to Katerina, arms raised to the sky, droplets of riverwater spangling her hair, her clothes torn and stained with blood.
Her voice rang out over the melee. “Raise the gate!”
For a moment, she didn’t think the Guard would comply. But then, hatred marking every line of her face, Dimi Novikova gave the signal. The sentinels on either side leapt to attention, and the portcullis creaked up one blessed inch at a time, revealing the expanse beyond.
Niko’s shades thrashed at his feet once more, as if furious at being denied their prey. Well, that was too bad for them. Hold, she told Niko, who gave a tight nod as he took two of the horses’ bridles.
In her periphery, she made out the shapes of her friends mounting up and galloping across the bridge. She could spare them no attention. All her focus was on the wall of water hanging navy and cerulean and silver-black over the city, the color of a fresh bruise. It took all she had to hold it back. Her body shook with the weight of it, but she couldn’t let it fall. Not like this, without control; it would destroy Rivki, the Vodianyye hunting down all the members of the Guard within reach. No matter what they thought of her, that was not what she wanted.
“Let us go,” she told Dimi Novikova as Niko boosted her up onto one of the horses, “and I will let you live.”
Taking the woman’s silence for assent, Katerina let the wave descend back into the lake bed. It fell with a roar to rival Drezna’s collapse, bringing fish and the hulk of sunken ships and the Vodianyye themselves with it. The water overspilled the moat and washed into the streets, where the Druzhina ran for their lives.
Katerina drew a deep, shuddering breath, blackness nibbling at the edges of her vision. With an effort, she forced it back and seized the reins. Her Shadow at her side, she thundered under the portcullis and over the bridge, leaving the flooded streets of Rivki behind them.
Chapter Twenty-Three
GADREEL
