As the birds’ plump bodies slid down the glass, their necks at unnatural angles and their soft gray feathers the hue of Niko’s eyes, Elena hurried to retrieve the bowl of water on her dressing-table, meant for her morning ablutions.
She had a far better purpose for it now.
Her eyes on the doves, she knelt and set the bowl on the floor before the window. The words of a long-ago nursery rhyme came to her, one that she and Aly used to say as they skipped rope together. It was more than that, she saw now. It was a zagovor, a spell, disguised as a children’s poem.
It was everything she needed.
Elena drew a deep breath, preparing herself. And then she spoke the first line.
“One for sorrow.”
She pricked her finger, and a drop of blood fell, swirling in the clear water.
“Two for a dove.”
Drip.
“Three for death.”
Drip.
“Four for love.”
Drip.
“Five for Darkness.”
Drip.
“Six for mirth.”
Drip.
“Seven for the gift of a Shadowchild’s birth.”
Yes, the spell was apt. Sorrow and death would befall all those who stood against her. She and Niko would find love in the Darkness, where they would reign together. And how Elena would laugh at all those who had opposed her, when she grew ripe with her Shadow’s child.
The last drop fell from her finger, ruby laced with the silver-blue that marked a demon’s blood. It was a beautiful sight.
Her hand went to the hidden seam she’d sewn inside the bodice of her wedding dress and tore it open. Inside was a single lock of Niko’s hair, tied with a red ribbon, kept close to her heart all this time. She pressed her lips to it, then dropped it into the bowl, where it caught fire.
“He was mine,” she intoned as the last of the birds’ broken bodies slid down the pane and disappeared from sight. “He will be mine again. I summon him; I speak his name. Niko Alekhin, prince among Shadows. May the moon above hear me; may the Darkness below heed me; may what I speak come to pass.”
The blood in the bowl coalesced, spinning in a kaleidoscope of fire. Elena’s vision blurred; her heart pounded. She opened her mouth to cry out, and crows spilled from her throat in a cascade of beating wings. One turned to face her, its beak yawning wide. And then it spoke, in the hollow-toned, rust-edged voice of the Darkness itself.
“It will be done.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
GADREEL
The Dark Angel of War stood, staring into a mirror that failed to reveal his reflection, and marveled that for once, luck was on his side.
After he’d torn himself loose from those accursed vines in which the tree-men had entangled him—it had taken some doing, and his wings had been considerably worse for wear—Gadreel had descended into a simmering rage. Another of his companies lost, and bested by that half-dead Shadow yet again…it was unthinkable. He’d wanted nothing more than to charge through the forest, catch up with Katerina Ivanova and her party of insolents, and take her from them by main force. But when he’d tried, the forest had closed around him, blocking his way. It would not let him pass, and he’d been forced, at last, to retreat back to the Underworld, through one of the portals that had ripped its way out of the earth.
He’d returned to a kingdom in chaos. More of his soldiers had defected, and even the most stalwart of his housemaids refused to enter his throne room, which the Darkness had ceased to use as a dumping ground and had begun to consider its crypt. Even Gadreel found the sheer number of skulls offensive, especially because before she’d fled, one of his more enterprising servants had decided to use them as vases. The end result was a dreadful profusion of half-wilted blooms that poked from the carnage at random intervals, perfuming the air with a sickly-sweet perfume that, layered over the stench of rot, was rather throat-clenching. Gadreel had shut the door of his beloved throne room behind him with a shudder and retreated to his bedchamber instead, where he sat with his head in his hands, contemplating how bad things had become.
At his wits’ end, he’d determined to try to defeat the Darkness himself. He’d summoned it using every spell at his disposal, but it had refused to come, perhaps suspecting foul play. Frustrated, he’d spent days in the purgatory that had once been his grand palace, marshaling what remained of his army, eating tepid food since the kitchen staff had fled, and indulging himself with subpar bedpartners. And then, tonight, as he paced his bedchamber, racking his mind for a way forward, he’d heard it: the ripple of water, at once lulling and luring. He’d lifted his head, seeking its source, and found his eyes drawn to the mirror above his dresser.
