Confused, Niko stared at the metal links. “You still have that,” he said. “Good. I’ll find the pendant, like I said. Just tell me where you saw it last, and I’ll get it back for you.”
“You can’t,” Katerina said in that same cracked voice. And then she lifted one small hand and pointed into the flames.
Niko’s mouth fell open as he gazed into their depths. He thought he could make out a hint of copper, the edge of an engraved wing. “You…you melted your coin?” he managed. “Why would you do that, Katya?”
Her lower lip began to tremble, but when she spoke, her voice was steady. “They’re gone. And I couldn’t help them. I couldn’t save them. My father said I was his Firebird, but when it counted, my fire failed me. I don’t deserve to wear it. And so I made it burn.”
There were so many things Niko could have said then. That it wasn’t her fault, that she was only seven, that no one could have expected her to stand her ground against a Grigori. That if her Dimi mother and a trained Shadow hadn’t saved themselves, how could she have fought a demon and won? That if she’d tried, she would be dead now. That he couldn’t stand to lose her.
But as he looked into Katerina’s eyes, where tiny reflections of the flames danced and burned, he knew none of that would matter to her. Her face was a mask of devastation, pale save for the hectic spots that heated her cheeks. This time, when she spoke, her voice shook, though her tears still didn’t fall.
“I won’t fail you,” she vowed. “When we are joined, I will never choke on my magic that way. No matter what happens or what befalls us, I will fight at your side. I swear it.”
Finally she looked at him, glancing away from the flames for the first time. Grief marked her features; her bones pressed, stark, beneath her skin. The whites of her eyes were bloodshot, and she’d been chewing on her lower lip until it cracked and bled. Still, she was beautiful to him, the way she’d been since the first time he saw her. Beautiful and brave.
He took her hand, the links of the necklace’s chain crushed between their palms. “I’m here,” he’d said simply as, in the belly of the blaze, her father’s last gift dissolved into nothingness. “I won’t leave you.”
When it was over, he’d led her home. Not to that damned cottage, where the Vila would fuss over her, but to his own house. He’d taken her straight to his room and tucked her into bed, ignoring his mother’s protests. For the first of many times, he’d laid down on the hearth rug and stayed awake all night, guarding her. Keeping her safe. And when she’d woken the next morning and found him there, curled up in the form of his black dog, she’d smiled for the first time since Gadreel snuffed out her mother’s life. He’d brought her back to him.
In all the years that he’d known Katerina, he’d never seen that devastated, furious look on her face again, except when he lay dying. But tonight, after he’d begged her to take his life…
He’d known she wouldn’t want to do it. That it would be a fight. But the way her face had crumpled…the way her hand had gone to the amulet that hung around her neck, the one that held a drop of his blood…
Gods, it had reminded him so much of the way she’d looked, staring into the fire, watching her father’s coin burn. The moment she’d lost the last vestige of the life she’d known. The one she’d dreamed would be hers, for always.
I need you to kill me.
Katerina had blinked when the words left his lips. Once, twice, as if processing what he’d said. Incredulity had washed across her face, her scent sharpening with horror, then deepening with determination…and something else, something he couldn’t quite place.
“I made you a promise once,” she’d spat at him as the final syllable faded into the air. “And I meant it. I won’t fail you. Even if fighting at your side means fighting you, I will do it.”
She’d glared at him, and the more he tried to explain, the worse it got. He’d tried to tell her his plan—that if he could take Gadreel’s shard of Darkness into himself, then absorb the rest of it, she could toss him into the Void before he could do any more harm. Gadreel would be vanquished, the Darkness would have found its natural home, and Iriska would be saved.
“You will live, Katya,” he’d said, taking her cold hands in his. “You have to live. And part of me will live on, with you.”
A strange expression crossed her face, there and gone, too quickly for him to track it. “Do you think I went to all this trouble in order to live on without you?” she’d demanded, so angry her voice trembled. “Have you lost your mind? I’ll do no such thing, unless it’s out of pure rage at how impossible you’re being. How ridiculous. I could no sooner lop off my own arm than take your life. In fact, I’d rather do that, so I could beat you with it until you see sense.”
“Katerina—”
“No!” She’d whirled away from him then, stalking off down the trail that led to the stream. “Don’t you follow me,” she’d tossed back over her shoulder. “Don’t you dare.”
And so he hadn’t, even though part of him—most of him—worried more about her safety than he cared about her edict. Katerina’s temper burned fast and hot, like her witchfire. And there was no forge here for her to hurl his amulet into, though if she’d cared to, she could incinerate it with a thought. She would find another way to channel her emotions, and he would go back to camp and wait for her to return. He had next watch, anyway, and he’d be no good to anyone if he were exhausted. The shades were harder to control when he hadn’t slept.
Sleep was a mixed blessing, of course. But there was nothing he could do about that. So he would get what rest he could, and they would talk things through in the morning. She would come to see that he was right. That this was the only way.
He turned and headed back, guided by the sap-laden, spicy scent of burning rowan. Alexei raised an eyebrow when he returned without Katerina, but he didn’t have the energy to explain. Instead he lay down, his back to the fire and his blade gripped once more in his hand, and braced himself for the slide into unconsciousness.
He had faith that he could defend them against whatever lurked in the woods. Too bad he couldn’t say the same thing for the monsters that stalked his dreams.
Chapter Thirty-Two
ELENA
Elena peered out the window at the lava coursing down the slopes of Mount Woe, an answering burn echoing inside her.
The demon-hounds had failed to slay Katerina and retrieve her Shadow. That had been their singular mission, the one she had charged them with when she’d summoned the Darkness. It had come, curling through the cracks around the lead-paned windows, obedient as any pet. And when she told it what she wanted—to kill the Dimi who’d stolen her beloved and to bring him back to her—it had been only too happy to oblige. Niko carried the Darkness within himself now, after all. It belonged to him, as he belonged to her. The Darkness wanted to call him home.
And the emptiness within her, the gaping hole seeded with longing that naught could slake—it would vanish when the two of them were reunited. They would complete each other. She would rule from Sammael’s throne, and her Shadow would kneel by her feet.
