Now. Now was his chance.
His Firebird, her black dog, and their companions galloped over the bridge and into the forest beyond, and the Dark Angel of War followed, his most loyal soldiers at his side.
After recovering from the wound that Niko Alekhin had dealt him, which had taken longer than he pleased, Gadreel had pursued the Dimi and her cursed Shadow, with the intention of killing one and leveraging the other. But to his disgust, the Druzhina had gotten there first. They’d dragged Katerina and her Shadow away, and in his compromised state, Gadreel hadn’t dared take them on—not with so many of his soldiers obliterated, lying dead in Kalach.
He’d followed at a distance, lurking in the woods as the Guard bore their captives away, through the blight-stricken forest, past the ruins of Drezna, and into their stronghold at long last. And then he’d tried to slip across the bridge, as he had before, to gather intel before returning to his realm for reinforcements, but something had blocked his passage. It made no sense, not when the wards had yielded to him so easily before, and the Darkness had only grown in strength—but he could not set foot beyond the forest. The trees themselves refused to let him pass, their branches bending to block the way and their roots rising from the very earth to bind him. In all of the millennia since he had fallen, he had never experienced such a thing.
It had sent uneasiness gnawing at his very bones. And when he’d returned to his realm, things had been no better. The Darkness had dragged more trophies into his throne room: half-alive villagers, foxes whose innards festooned the tile floor, dirt and tree limbs and half a river, turning his sanctuary into a swamp. His velvet-and-bone throne floated atop the wreckage, bobbing as if to mock him with its emptiness.
He’d summoned underlings to clean up the mess, demanding to know how they’d let it get this bad to begin with—but only one minion had arrived, shaking and wringing her eight-fingered hands, the serpent-strands of her hair hissing with dismay. He’d left her mopping up and stalked off to contact Sammael, but for the first time, he’d gotten no answer. Usually, the Venom of God was only too eager to respond to any request for a meeting. The fact that he was ignoring Gadreel’s request for a sit-down was perhaps more unnerving than everything else combined.
It left Gadreel assured of only one thing: Sammael knew that he’d loosed the Darkness. He knew, and he’d begun turning Gadreel’s legions against him.
To test his theory, Gadreel had summoned his most trusted advisors, who had confirmed his suspicions. Azazel, who had fought by his side during more battles than he could count, had turned traitor and now served with Gremory, under Sammael’s dominion. The archduke of Gadreel’s domain had always been motivated by self-aggrandizement, more so than most. Whatever Sammael had said to him must have been sufficiently persuasive to convince Azazel that Gadreel was doomed to fail. That he, Sammael, would emerge victorious from the war against the Darkness. After millennia, Azazel had defected to Sammael’s side, without tendering so much as a resignation parchment, and taken his forces with him, leaving Gadreel more weakened than he’d care to admit.
First, Dimi Ivanova had decimated his detachment on the road to Drezna months ago. Then, she and her ilk had incinerated a hundred more in the battle in Kalach. With Azazel and his soldiers gone, his kingdom was teetering on the brink of instability, even without the Darkness on the rampage. So far, it had only brought Gadreel disturbing gifts, like a deranged cat with an insatiable appetite depositing offerings at its master’s feet. But soon, it would run out of gifts to give and would turn on itself, like a viper devouring its own tail. It would starve, and suck the Underworld and the world aboveground into its gaping, hungry maw.
Besides, Gadreel was no longer its master, if he had ever been. If anyone walking the earth exercised mastery over the Darkness, it was the cursed Shadow. Gadreel had seen him wield it, as if born to the occasion.
He had to be stopped, and the Darkness with him.
But first, he had to be separated from Dimi Ivanova.
And so, Gadreel had done the only thing he could think of. Taking his most devoted remaining minions with him, he had returned to the woods outside Rivki. There, he had waited for his Firebird to emerge, counting on the fact that if he could not defeat her, neither could the Druzhina. And after ten interminable days, he’d been proven right. The lake had risen, frothing, from its bed, and then Dimi Ivanova and her entourage had come thundering over the bridge, hell-bent for leather. They looked much the worse for wear, but they lived.
Gadreel let them ride for a bit, getting far enough away from Rivki so that any attack he and his soldiers launched would not be interrupted by the pursuit of the Guard. But his Dimi must have done something dreadful to them, because they did not follow. At least, not yet.
He and his demons slipped through the trees, far enough back so that the Shadows could not pick up their scents. The forest let them pass without incident, and it occurred to Gadreel to be troubled by this: if he had not been able to cross into Rivki, then why, within the depths of the woods itself, did the flora offer no obstacle to his pursuit? But perhaps, despite the faltering of the wards, the Druzhina had been able to cast a protective spell of a different kind…one that weakened as he and his soldiers retreated. If so, he was grateful for it.
Or maybe it was just that the earth itself was corrupted here. The farther they got from Rivki, the more patches of viscous, tar-like substance seeped from fissures in the ground, choking roots and smothering flowers. Fascinated, Gadreel reached out to touch the petal of a blackened rose. It crumbled to ashes in his palm, carrying the burnt-amber scent of the Darkness.
It had begun, then. With the veil between the worlds crumbling, the Darkness no longer needed to rely on portals to breach the surface. It was making portals of its own.
He was running out of time.
Dimi Ivanova and her traveling party rode hard; the ground trembled with the force of their passage. But after an hour’s ride east, they slowed, and Gadreel signaled to his minions to split their forces. Half of his demons faded into the woods on the left of the well-worn riding path; the others stayed with him, keeping to the right. They flanked the Dimis and Shadows, closing the distance as the horses cut their speed from a gallop to a canter and then, finally, to a walk.
Lust stirred within Gadreel as he inhaled Dimi Ivanova’s scent. Not for her body, though there was that too, but for her power. For her Light.
Unaware of their presence, the traveling party led their horses off the path, toward a still, clear pool. They were traveling toward the mountains at Iriska’s eastern edge, and already, the soft earth had begun to give rise to granite. The sun crested the horizon, and a boulder topped by a lone, crooked rowan loomed over the pool, its speckled white surface reflected in the water’s depths. Unease stirred in Gadreel’s gut; the place had the feel of someplace holy, though he saw no runes or consecrations to the Saints.
His Firebird felt it too. He saw it in the slump of her shoulders, in the deep breath she drew, as if tension bled from her veins. She knelt, washing her face clean of grime and a strange, red stain that could be blood but was not. Beside her, her Shadow led both of their horses to the pool, stroking their lathered necks, urging them to drink. But he was not at ease. The Light here troubled the Darkness that fomented within him; Gadreel would stake his wings on it.
Something had shifted within the corrupted Shadow. The curse that owned half of his soul, drawing him ever-downward toward the Underworld and Sammael’s pathetic Vila, still chained him; but now, the Darkness had laid claim to him as well. It pulsed inside him, calling to the shard that lived inside Gadreel. As if, somehow, they were the same.
The Dark Angel of War shifted his gaze to the two Dimis and Shadows that accompanied Katerina Ivanova and her black dog. They were irrelevant, no more than sacks of blood and bone to be disposed of should their presence inconvenience him. He saw, now, that one of them was familiar; he was the one that Sammael’s Vila had whined about. Alexei, that was his name. And beside him stood the woman who must be his Dimi, her hands flying as she signed to the third Dimi, a small, black-haired woman who foraged for plants at the water’s edge.
“I wouldn’t advise eating anything from here.” It was the forager’s Shadow, standing tall and straight, peering into the woods as he gripped his blade. Beside him, his horse lapped at the water, its flanks heaving, but the third Shadow paid it no mind. “This ground is poisoned.”
“It is not.” Dimi Ivanova’s gaze fixed on the rowan that grew from the white boulder, sparkling with chips of mica in the sun. “The forest beyond this pool, perhaps. But not here. Why else would we let the horses drink?”
“I still say we should have gone farther,” he argued. “We shouldn’t tarry here. These woods feel…strange.”
The black-haired woman straightened, dropping the weeds she’d gathered into her horse’s saddlebags as it drank. Freeing her hands, she signed to him, her lips quirking. Gadreel had no idea what she was communicating, but it didn’t matter. Her Shadow, the suspicious one, was looking at her now, taking in whatever she was saying. His eyes had drifted from the woods.
Signaling to his troops to draw closer, Gadreel closed ranks. Now, his soldiers stood in a semicircle within the treeline, venom-infused blades bared. Waiting.
Niko Alekhin had dipped his head into the water like the dog he was, and was shaking his hair to dry it. Now, though, he froze.
