When at last they reached the other side, unharmed, her companions drew an audible collective breath. Katerina stepped onto the packed earth and stared up at the cliffs that flanked the fortress with a deep sense of relief, followed in short order by a thrumming excitement that threaded its way through every vein and sinew. At last, they had accomplished what she’d been so desperate for, from the moment she’d begged Niko to run away with her and thwart the prophecy. Gods, that seemed so long ago, when she’d still believed that the two of them were responsible for the rise of the Darkness. They were actually here, outside Volshetska, and the Magiya was just on the other side of those imposing limestone walls. They would beg their way past the guards at the gate, plead their case, and surely the scribes would grant them an audience?—
Except, she realized as she shook the stars from her eyes and focused, no one stood at the gate. It gaped open, inviting entry, as if this were not the most secure fortress in all the realm.
“That can’t be good,” Damien said, his soft voice pitched to rise over the lap of water against the shore and the rush of the wind.
“No,” Sofi signed, biting her lip. “Do we turn back?”
“You can if you wish,” Katerina said, even though the thought of entering the fortress alone, when who knew what awaited her, sent a bolt of fear through her heart. “I’d understand. But this is our only hope of breaking Niko’s curse and driving back the Darkness, unless I choose to fight alongside Gadreel. I’m going.”
“Katya,” her Shadow said, casting a wary look at the gate, which hung like an unhinged jaw. “Are you certain?”
She set her feet on the gravel path that led to the fortress, the wind whipping her hair and rumpling her clothes, and nodded. “We’ve come this far. Where else would we go? What would we do? I’m not giving up, not on you and not on Iriska. If there are answers to be found on this side of the Underworld, they’re here.”
“I’m with you, then,” her Shadow said, and took the first step toward the open gate. A moment later, the rest of their party fell into step behind them.
There was no one at the entrance to Volshetka Fortress.
No one met them at the gate, to demand their identities and contest their right to enter. The guards’ station sat unmanned, and the scent of fire hung in the air of the courtyard, though no hint of a blaze remained. The cobblestones were slick with a coating of moss, as if they’d not been scrubbed for some time, and when Katerina and her companions passed beneath the arch that led inside, no Shadows or Dimis blocked their way.
This made no sense. Volshetska was guarded by members of the Druzhina who’d been ousted by the victors of the Bone Trials. Though their exile was viewed as somewhat of a disgrace, they took their responsibilities seriously, perhaps in defiance of their reputation. They would never abandon their posts, especially not in such dire times.
“Stay close to me,” her Shadow murmured, a comment whose irony Katerina let lie. She was too busy scanning the silent, abandoned entryway in bemusement.
“Hel—” she began to call out, but Niko clapped his hand over her mouth and gave a sharp shake of his head.
“What do you smell?” she asked him, but it was Alexei who answered.
“Death.”
On that ominous note, they entered the fortress proper. Bodies lay akimbo on the wood floor: Shadows and Dimis in black gear, a blue band around their cuffs that denoted them as members of Volshetka’s guard. Katerina had seen pictures of them in books when she was growing up, but then they had been standing tall and proud, not sliced open like butchered pigs.
“Demons did this.” Damien sniffed the air, pulling his blades free from their holsters. Beside him, Alexei and Niko did the same.
Katerina’s heart sank into her boots. If Grigori had penetrated the heart of Volshetska—if they had invaded the Magiya?—
“Come,” Niko said, the word a short, sharp command, as if he were still alpha. And without question, his fellow Shadows obeyed. Alexei moved up to flank him, Damien falling back to take the rear, as he had on the bridge. Between them, the three Dimis moved as silently as they could manage. Katerina summoned her power, letting it ripple beneath her skin, and from the surge of energy around her, she knew Sofi and Ana had done the same.
They had never been here before, had no sense of the floor plan. But the Shadows moved unerringly, drawn onward, Katerina imagined, by the stench of rot. They moved through dim hallways and vacant dining halls, through long corridors and outdoor courtyards, until they found themselves in front of a three-story stone building with white columns, its sills and columns decorated with intricately carved gargoyles. Above the entryway’s arch were engraved the words What history forgets, the page preserves.
The Magiya.
Girding herself, Katerina mounted the broad marble steps. On either side rose an obsidian statue of a black dog, each with a Dimi beside them. The statues’ eyes seemed to follow her as she passed beneath the archway and into the cold, still air of the library.
It was the beauty that struck her first. And then, the devastation.
They stood in a spacious rotunda. Above them, a gilded dome rose high, its skylights admitting the fractured light of the storm-ridden sky. Rainbows tilted across the marble floor, filtering through multicolor stained-glass renderings of the Saints. Doorways led from the circular space at intervals, floor-to-ceiling shelves visible in the rooms beyond. This was a sacred place, a well-loved place. At least, it had been before today.
The Magiya’s sanctuary lay in ruins: shelves overturned, hundreds of precious tomes torn from their bindings, and the bloodied bodies of Shadows and Dimis—their brothers and sisters—strewn across the rainbow-tinted marble. The air was thick with the scent of blood, the floor painted and slick with it, as if the slaughter had happened mere hours before.
It was not just warriors who lay here, though. Demons’ bodies were scattered across the rotunda, one of them intertwined with a Dimi whose pale face and spill of silver-shot hair looked eerily familiar. Katerina crossed to her, kneeled down, and gasped.
It was Dimi Novikova, the leader of the Druzhina.
She cried out, unable to help herself. A moment later, Ana did the same.
“This is Berezin,” she said, standing over a body that sprawled across the threshold of one of the doorways that led from the rotunda, a blade gripped tight in his hand. “Burned—what did you do to him, Katerina?—but I recognize him nonetheless.”
“At least ten members of the Guard lie here.” Niko’s voice was grim. “I don’t recognize the others. And two scribes. They died with blades in their guts and books in their arms, poor fools. Whatever happened here, it was recent.”
