“Well, I would have.” Alexei’s voice was gruff. “There are things you can come back from, and things you can’t. Without you, Ana, I wouldn’t want to live.”
Silence fell over the campsite as his words sank in. Niko was sure they were all thinking of the same thing: how Niko had given his life to save Katerina, and how Katerina had in turn ventured into the Underworld to bring him back. Was it possible Alexei’s feelings for Ana were more than simply those that a Shadow should entertain for his Dimi? Did Niko and Alexei have more in common than he’d ever dreamed?
He thought of Ana’s tales of her exploits, bedding half of Rivki when she and Alexei went to deliver the tithe. Alexei had never seemed to mind. But what if it had all been an act?
This was hardly the time to contemplate such things. Dragging his attention back to the issue at hand, Niko said, his tone as flippant as he could manage, “Fortunately for both of us, I didn’t kill you. And you didn’t kill Katerina. But why attack her in the first place? Were you sleepwalking? Dreaming?”
Ana shook her head, still looking down. “I don’t sleepwalk. I never have. And even if I did, there’s no part of me that would hurt her. Why would I help the two of you escape, only to strangle her? It makes no sense.”
No, it didn’t. Nor did it make sense that Gadreel would be behind this. The Dark Angel of War wanted to use Katerina, not to eliminate her. As for the Druzhina, even if such magic were within their grasp, they wouldn’t use it. They would drag Katerina back to be publicly excoriated and executed, along with Niko and the rest. If Ana hadn’t been sleepwalking or dreaming, and neither Gadreel or the Druzhina had been behind this, then who? Who else wanted her dead?
He could think of one obvious choice. But it was impossible.
Wasn’t it?
“You have a lot of enemies,” Sofi signed to Katerina, coming to stand beside them, as if she’d read Niko’s mind. “Could one of them have acted through Ana, somehow?”
His Dimi bit her lip, her gaze flicking to Niko. “I suppose…” she said, and he wondered if she was thinking of that night in Rivki’s dungeons, when he had touched her without being there at all. He hadn’t had the opportunity—or the courage—to ask her if she recalled it.
Because what if she did, and he’d touched her against her will? What if she’d been repulsed by him? How would he go on, then?
“I do remember something,” Ana said slowly, disrupting his unwelcome line of thought, “but it makes no sense.”
“Anything will help,” Katerina urged. “Just tell us.”
“There was Darkness. So much Darkness.” She shredded a bit of bark between her fingers, letting it fall to the ground. “And laughter, but none I would care to hear again. I saw the most beautiful mosaics, but everything in them was wrong. They depicted demon armies, victorious against the Light, and Darkness rising like a wave to smother us all. And I…I wanted.” The word came low, filled with shame, but audible nonetheless.
“What did you want?” Niko feared the answer, but the question had to be asked.
“Freedom. Katerina’s death. Power. But most of all…” She swallowed hard, her shoulders heaving. “I wanted you.”
The single syllable fell into the clearing like a lump of fiery coal and lay there, smoldering, between them. Niko tried to swallow, but his mouth had gone bone-dry.
No. No. No.
“I’m sorry,” Ana whispered again. She had begun to shiver.
Damien stood by Sofi’s side now, the five of them all looking down at Ana, who wrapped her arms around her knees as if trying to hold herself together.
“Is that all?” Katerina asked at last.
Heaving a deep, uneven breath, Ana shook her head. “Running through my mind was a single sentence. It was my voice, but not. I heard it over and over, as surely as if whoever said it stood beside me. I would’ve done anything to make it stop.”
“What was it?” Alexei squared his shoulders, like he was preparing to receive a missive from Gadreel himself.
“It’s nonsense. Gibberish.” Ana fidgeted, rolling the remaining shards of bark between her fingers.
“Please tell us.” Katerina’s voice was gentler than Niko could have managed in a thousand years.
He wanted to level the forest. To rip the trees from the earth. To Change and howl his fury to the unnatural moon, because no matter what he did, he could not keep his Dimi safe. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t escape the person he hated more than any other.
Ana lifted her head, and her tear-wet eyes met Katerina’s before she spoke.
“You are nothing but what I made of you.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
SAMMAEL
