At the sound of his voice, an uneasy murmur spread among the gathered crowd. Now that the battle had subsided, villagers and Vila alike had joined them; Katerina caught sight of Konstantin gripping a rowan branch, its tip honed to a fine point. Behind him stood Alyona, Elena’s best friend, her eyes wide and dark and filled with hatred. Katerina searched the crowd for a friendly face, but only Ana and Alexei gazed back at her with anything other than disgust and fear. And on their faces, she saw something that was, perhaps, even worse: Pity.
“It speaks,” Konstantin hissed, his lip curling. “The abomination speaks to us.”
“He is not an abomination!” Katerina bit out, taking her Shadow’s hand in hers. He tried to pull away, but she held fast, claiming him.
“He is the walking dead,” Baba Petrova spat. “A nezhit. And you are blind if you can’t see that, Katerina.”
“That’s not true!” she protested, tears pricking her eyes. “He is my Shadow!”
“He is the undead.” Elder Dykstrova stepped forward, her gaze raking over Niko with contempt. “Filthy, unclean. Even the Underworld has rejected him. Now he walks between two worlds, belonging in neither. Two hearts he possesses, one clinging to what he once was and one claimed by Darkness. Two souls, both of them sullied beyond measure. Two mouths, for he speaks with forked tongue. All he can bring is misfortune and death wherever he travels, as he has done here today. Such is the fate of the nezhit; you know it as well as I.”
A tremor passed through Niko and into Katerina. She couldn’t stand it. “I know no such thing,” she snapped. “Gadreel invaded this village, not Niko Alekhin! It is the Fallen Angel of War who brought this upon you, and Elena, with her foolishness and arrogance beyond measure. I’ve seen her; she is no more than an agent of Darkness now. I fought her, to bring Niko back to us.”
She gestured at the flowing river of Light with her free hand, at the destruction that surrounded them. “And if I hadn’t—if I’d failed—then Gadreel would have come nonetheless, possessing the Kniaz and dragging the Darkness with him. He would have come, and more would have fallen, and the Darkness would have devoured Kalach whole. You would be fuel for the Void now, all of you. You are the blind ones, if you fail to see that!”
The murmur within the crowd rose to a dull roar, and Niko gripped Katerina’s hand tighter. “Don’t,” he muttered. “They’re right to be frightened of me, Katerina. I am unnatural; they put my body in the ground. I have no right to walk among them.”
“You are a Shadow, as you always were,” she told him. “True, you are changed, but it doesn’t mean you’re evil. They should want to talk to you, to understand what’s happened, to discover all you know so they can learn from you?—”
“They want to put an end to me,” Niko said simply.
As if to prove Niko right, Baba turned to the Dimis and Shadows who flanked her. She spoke, and the group advanced as one, Ana and Alexei with them.
“No!” Terror clutched at Katerina, and she called on her witchfire. A circle of protective flames sprang up around her and Niko. “You won’t touch him!”
“He is a blight upon all of us.” Konstantin broke from the crowd, clutching the sharpened rowan branch, his gaze flicking toward Niko as if considering whether to jam it through her Shadow’s heart. “As are you. I should have killed you when I had the chance.”
Niko’s upper lip peeled back from his teeth, and he snarled, a feral sound that made the hairs on the back of Katerina’s neck stand up. Deep within her, she felt a tug at the bond that bound them, a wave of rage that threatened to consume her. “One more word,” he growled at Konstantin, “and I will make you sorry you were born. One more step in her direction, and I will tear out your throat.”
While Katerina appreciated the sentiment, one look at the villagers’ faces, tight with fear, told her this had only made matters worse. “Not helping,” she muttered. “And he’s not worth it.”
Her Shadow’s gray eyes fixed on hers, something unfamiliar and dangerous swimming in their depths. “This man once thought to bed you,” he bit out. “To stand in front of all of Kalach and swear to honor and protect you. Now he wishes to see you shamed and dead at his feet? He will bleed out in the leaves before I let that happen.” His hand dropped to the blade at his waist, still wet with demon blood, as if to make good on his threat here and now.
The advancing line of Dimis and Shadows had paused, as if by common consent, just beyond the ring of Katerina’s fire. The air between them wavered, thick with shared magic. They were a barrier, a line of defense between her and Niko and what remained of Kalach. That was what Baba and the Elders thought of them; they were a menace, to be shielded against.
“Stop this,” she said, catching Baba’s eye. “You know me. At least hear me out. If you’d just listen, you’d know none of this is Niko’s fault. We didn’t have to come back here tonight—he didn’t have to save all of you?—”
But Baba Petrova was shaking her head. “Everyone knows a nezhit returns from the dead to haunt the places it once knew and loved,” she said. “That thing standing beside you is naught but one of the Nav, the unclean undead. Your Shadow is gone, and with him, the time for listening to what you have to say.”
“My Shadow stands here!” Katerina insisted, her flames flaring higher. “And I stand with him.”
“Katerina,” Niko said, his voice low. “You don’t have to?—”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh, but I do. I didn’t descend into the depths of Hell for you to lose you now.” How could everyone reject him, after all he’d done? Were they really that superstitious, that heartless? That close-minded?
“So be it.” Baba’s voice rang out across the clearing, the very trees trembling with the force of it. “Dimi Katerina Ivanova and the shade that was once alpha Shadow Niko Alekhin, you have brought death to our doorstep. Because of you, the Kniaz lies dead, his blood soiling the dirt of our village. Because of you, the Fallen Angel of War invaded our borders. Because of you, the very fabric of our world is torn.”
“That’s not true,” Katerina protested, but her words fell on deaf ears. Even Ana looked away from her now, sadness contorting her features. Beside her, Alexei bowed his head as Baba spoke again.
“Shadow Alekhin, wielder of Darkness, I banish you from Kalach, like your father before you.” The words had the ring of finality, of the pronouncement Katerina had last heard on the long-ago day that Baba sent Niko’s disgraced father away, for failing to stand by his Dimi in battle. For choosing love over war.
Pain lanced through their bond. For years, this had been her Shadow’s worst fear—that he would bring shame on their village, the way his father had. It was why he’d agreed to marry Elena: to reclaim the Alekhin name, to ensure his family line didn’t end with him. And now, this was how Baba chose to repay him for clawing his way out of the Underworld and straight into a fight, with no thought for his own well-being? By plunging the knife back into his deepest wound and twisting it?
“No,” Katerina whispered, and behind her, the river of Light began to crest its banks. It flowed around her ankles, rising ever higher, and within it ran a single skein of Darkness, a current of ink swirling in its depths. She glanced down and swallowed hard; the Darkness emanated from the place where Niko stood, gazing down at it with his jaw set. In her mind, Elena’s voice echoed as if she stood beside them, sweet and deadly as cherry kvass laced with belladonna: You are nothing but what I made of you.
What had the Vila made of Niko, exactly? What had she done to him?
Giving a cry of dismay, Elder Mikova stepped back, taking her guards with her. At a signal from Alexei, the line of Shadows and Dimis retreated, as if afraid the cresting tide would corrupt them, too. The river parted around Niko and Katerina, rising no higher than their ankles, but rising as it surged toward the others. In vain, Katerina tried to call it back, to redirect it to the gorge, but it resisted her. She could feel the Light struggling to obey her call, and the riptide of Darkness rejecting her power, wanting to exact revenge. To consume.
