Devil's Deal: A Dark Fantasy Romance

6. Gods

I don’t blink, don’t breathe, don’t move. All I do is stare at the dark, smoky shapes moving hazily between the five fires. I’m completely certain none of those shapes are mortal. They are something else.

Dark and made from shadows, they are opaque and ephemeral. But as I watch, my eyes watering from refusing to blink, the shapes harden and coalesce.

Suddenly, it’s not just smoke with a hint of an arm or a head here and there. They are shapes of people.

I blink once, because the tears gathering in my eyes make me doubt my vision. Then I inhale a deep breath, focusing on the air. Did I breathe in some of Jarota’s herbal smoke by mistake? Is that why I’m seeing things?

But the air I breathe is clear, smelling of wine, smoke, and the cool scent of the river at night. I dig my toes into the wet grass, grounding myself, and look at the circle of fires again.

This time, I see colors and faces.

The sounds of celebration behind me grow distant as I focus my entire attention on the visitors in the circle. I see luxurious green and blue fabrics, the likes of which I’ve never seen anyone wear before. The colors are bright, as if the fabrics had been spun from leaves and the blue of the sky. No dye I know can make a color like that.

Yet when I try to see their faces, they are obscured, as if covered by thick fog.

My body unfreezes and I take an uncertain step forward. Then another. Curiosity is stronger than fear and self-preservation, and so I walk, my mind stuttering through potent disbelief.

I’m looking at gods. The gods are here. I see them!

Yet, what exactly do I see? I squint, stopping when I’m about ten steps away, the celebration left firmly behind me. The shapes in the circle are filled with vivid colors and yet, there is an air of vagueness to them. The lines where the bodies end and the air begins are smudged.

“Here? Really?” a grumpy male voice rings out, and I flinch. It’s melodic and strong, and yet, there is an echo to it. As if we’re in a deep underground cave.

“A backward village where the dogs bark out of their asses,” a female voice answers, confident and strong. It’s marred by the same odd echo. Despite the scornful words, I don’t think it sounds truly displeased, only curious.

“Do they, really?” another male voice asks, ringing with laughter. A sudden gust of warm wind runs past, making my dress flutter. “Mortals are strange. Why would the dogs be backwards like that? Do they shit with their mouths?”

“Because it’s a backward place, and no, they don’t. It’s a figure of speech,” the first male voice, answers, sounding exasperated. “Please, Strzybog. Drop the idiot act and look around. We have a spectator.”

I gasp, not because they noticed me, but because of the name. Strzybog. The lord of wind, the son of Perun and Mokosz, one of the royal gods of Wyraj. My heart clatters in my chest like it wants to run, but my feet are frozen to the cool grass.

It really happened. The gods are here.

“It looks startled,” Strzybog says, and I don’t even get offended at being referred to like an animal. I stare at the five shapes in the circle, desperately trying to pierce the fog veiling their faces with my eyes.

Because if Strzybog is among them, who else came? I just hope neither of them is Perun. He would strike me with a lightning for daring to wear a spelled chaplet on my head.

Perun hates witchcraft just as he hates his evil brother, Weles.

“Not an it,” the female voice says, gaining an angry edge. “It’s a she, and moreover, I happen to know her.”

That jerks me out of my dazzled stupor. What? She knows me? How?

“You’re Jaga, aren’t you? Wiosna’s apprentice?” the woman calls out, and suddenly, the fog lifts and I see her face.

Dear gods, she’s gorgeous. Tall and robust, she has a regal air as she looks at me from her height advantage. Her skin is deep brown and gleaming like polished metal, her hair white. It flows down her back in beautiful waves, and she wears a long robe of dark green that clings to her body. I don’t know who she is. None of the goddesses I know looks like her, but then, our tales are old and some are forgotten. For all I know, Jutrzenka, Mokosz, or another goddess decided to change her appearance.

“I am, my lady,” I answer, and my voice sounds far away, like it’s not my own.

“I haven’t seen you in a long time,” the goddess says, looking me up and down. “My, but you have grown!”

Then, her eyes narrow as she looks at my chaplet. I flinch, a fresh wave of fear making my hands sweat. Oh, gods, what if she hates magic just like Perun?

She bares her teeth in a wide grin, and my heart gallops even faster when I notice how sharp her teeth are. Is she really a goddess? Or might she be something else, some kind of bies like a strzyga or an upir?

“Woland, she’s the one,” she says over her shoulder.

A tall shadow standing in the back behind the other four stirs. I haven’t paid it much attention before, because unlike the others, it hasn’t shown any colors. It’s just a tall, menacing black silhouette, the face obscured, the body bigger than the other gods’.

Now, it has my full attention as my stomach bottoms out with terror.

My knees grow weak and I lock them on instinct to keep myself standing. Some of the fog unravels, and now I see the shape of the being’s head. It’s big and perfectly proportional. Two jagged yet symmetrical structures spread from the temples, black and intricate with large and small prongs.

They are antlers, the biggest I’ve ever seen, and yet, they do not belong to a deer. The creature stands upright on two legs, towering above the other gods. He or she is almost two heads taller than me, not counting the antlers.

“That she is,” a deep, beastly voice answers, raising the hair on my nape.

“No way,” Strzybog says, turning to the dark shape in the back. “Did we come all the way from Slawa just so you can claim this slip of a mortal? Are you sure it’s her?”

Claim me? Slawa?I don’t understand what he says as the blood rushing in my ears distorts my hearing. My legs shake, and I can’t control it. All I know is that I’m terrified and completely out of my depth.

I don’t know any god or deity by the name of Woland. As the shadows refuse to dispel and his face remains obscured, my wild, fearful eyes take in the other faces when the fog hiding them blows away.

Strzybog looks handsome, his hair gold like ripe wheat, his beard a shade darker and trimmed to give his face a slightly angular shape. His eyes are as blue as high summer skies, creasing with impatience as he assesses me. Still, he seems kind enough. Playful.

Behind him stands another man, this one far less pleasant. He is tall, his silver hair shorn close to his head, and his eyes are red. It’s not just a reflection of the fire. They are truly red, and I shiver from fear even as I notice a silvery sheen to his cheekbones. It looks like scales.

A movement lower down catches my eye, and I bite back a gasp as I notice a thick, silver tail swinging behind his legs. What kind of licho is he?

“Forgive us, dear,” the beautiful white-haired woman says, coming closer.

I have an urge to step away but force my legs to keep still. She can’t walk out of the circle, I remind myself. I’m safe. As long as I don’t enter the circle of fires, they cannot touch me.

“For what?” I ask, surprising myself with how cool my voice sounds.

“We know your name, but we haven’t introduced ourselves to you. My name in Nyja.”

She nods with a sharp grin when my eyes widen and fists clench. Nyja. She is the goddess of death, the one who welcomes the souls of the dead in Nawie. Wiosna said she wasn’t sure whether Nyja was a god or a goddess, because that detail was lost in the old stories.

But now I know. She’s a goddess, and a damn beautiful one. Also dangerous. As sharp as a knife.

“Oh, don’t look so startled, little witch,” Nyja says with a laugh. “I don’t bring death to people. Where I come from, they call me the Mother of Nawkas.”

Suddenly, I understand how she knows me and my heart pounds harder in my chest. Nawkas are the spirits of babies and small children. Those miscarried, stillborn, or taken in their early years by a fever or another tragedy. I’ve assisted in enough births to see my fair share of dead babies. If she came to collect their souls, of course, she saw me.

Nawkas come to see their parents sometimes in autumn, for the Dziady celebration. They appear as small black birds that circle overhead, calling out their farewells.

“What happens to them?” I ask, stepping closer, so close the heat of the nearest fire warms my knees. “After you take them?”

She smiles and reaches out as if to touch my cheek, but her hand stops just short of the invisible line marking the circle.

“Oh, yes, you were always compassionate, weren’t you? Wrapping their little bodies in the best linen cloths you could find. Well, you’ll be happy to know I take care of them, back in Slawa. I raise them.”

“To be your little army,” Strzybog mutters, frowning at Nyja.

“And Strzybog you already know,” she speaks smoothly over him, her face not even twitching to show she heard him. I blink, unsure what to think of it. Army? And what the hell is Slawa? I know of Wyraj and Nawie, the two lands of the gods, the first ruled by Perun, the second belonging to Weles.

Could there be a third one? Why does no one know about it?

“This here is Foss, a dragon,” she says, sweeping her hand back to point at the man with red eyes and a silver tail. “He’s in his smaller form now, as the big one wouldn’t fit in this puny little circle you mortals set out for us.”

Her mouth twists in displeasure, and I have a distinct feeling she doesn’t like being trapped in the circle. But that insight is quickly replaced by awe and worry. I had no idea dragons could speak and change shapes.

Worst of all, dragons are Perun’s servants. They create storms and bring down punishments on the unjust. And Nyja called me a witch. Surely, that alone should earn me the biggest punishment of all.

That dragon is dangerous. And I hope with all my might he, like the goddess, can’t get out of the circle.

Nyja gives me no time to work myself into a panic as she sweeps her hand to the other side, pointing out a tall, slender woman who watches me with big, dark eyes.

“And don’t be put out by our quiet friend here. She rarely speaks at all, and to mortals, never. She’s a Rodzanica, but I don’t know which one. They are all alike, anyway.”

I press my lips together to keep back a gasp. The Rodzanica sisters are royal goddesses, albeit from the wrong side of the sheets. I stare at her and she stares back, sad and impassive.

Her skin is pale, so pale, even the face of the moon seems dark in comparison. I’ve only seen that kind of pallor on the dead before. Her long, black hair is braided in two thick plaits that fall down to her waist. She wears a simple white dress tied with a red sash, and her beautifully shaped mouth is turned down at the corners. She’s tall and willowy, more a specter than a woman.

She is one of the three sisters, daughters of Mokosz and Rod, who is the son of Mokosz. The very existence of the Rodzanica goddesses is an incestuous crime, so they were banished to Nawie and never saw the sun until Perun granted them a place in Wyraj.

“I, um. Thank you for coming,” I say. Because my unease grows the longer she stares at me.

The Rodzanica sisters are supposed to be the ones who mark every mortal’s fate after birth. They gather around the crib of a newborn child and put an invisible mark on their forehead to signify how their life will go.

She looks at my face so intently, the skin on my back crawls with foreboding. I wonder what she sees there. What mark she and her sisters gave me.

The Rodzanica doesn’t answer me when I speak but looks aside, studying the nearest bonfire. I notice with trepidation it looks low. If no one feeds it, it will go out soon.

The dark shape in the back stirs, and my insides twist anxiously. Before fear takes over, I clear my throat and speak up. Gods or not, I refuse to cower.

“And that’s… Woland.”

My voice doesn’t break as I say the unfamiliar name, even though it stings my tongue as soon as I pronounce it. As if the name itself is a weapon and a warning.

For a moment, I convince myself it can’t be true. Words do not sting or hurt.

But then, I taste blood in my mouth.

“Bold of you to say his name,” Nyja says with a laugh, looking over her shoulder at the dark, antlered shape.

As she does, the shadowy mist finally falls away, revealing his head. I stare, unable to look away, unable to blink, even as my eyes sting with the very same pain that his name cut into my tongue.

“Careful or you’ll bleed,” Nyja warns, but I don’t listen.

Primal terror seizes my body, rooting me to the spot. My limbs grow numb as a bone-chilling cold spreads from my feet up, through my pelvis and stomach, to my hands and face.

When I try to blink, I can’t. My eyes sting, and something warm trickles down my cheek, but I can’t close my eyes. I can’t move.

I can’t look away.

His presence is overbearing. He isn’t truly as large as a tree, but the robustness of his form and the canopy of antlers above his head make him seem like one. A dead, cursed tree, because there is no color to him, no life, only menace twisted around him like clothing.

He wears black, and it looks like tatters of smoke woven around him, yet I glimpse his skin underneath. It gleams dark gray, as if he covered himself with the ashes of the dead. His nails are black, opaque claws, thick and sharp like animal claws. His fingers are dark gray and long, curling at his sides.

The smoke covering him blows away for just a moment, giving me a glimpse of his nakedness. I try to close my eyes out of shame, but it’s as if a magic force keeps them open. I see a thick, black manhood and a ring of thorns at the root where mortal men have hair.

The thorns circle the base of his shaft like a crown.

The smoke blows back to cover it, and my eyes move higher, fearfully taking in a strong stomach and torso, lean and yet robust because of his size. His shoulders are broad, arms beautifully shaped in a way that would look pleasing on a mortal man, yet on him, it’s wrong. A jagged piece of beauty among death and terror.

When I look at his face, a scream lodges in my throat, painful and sharp just like the taste of his name on my tongue. I can’t let it out. My body is not my own. Someone else—he, it must be him—controls it.

His eyes are shockingly bright in the dark gray face, their irises deep yellow. The colors seem to swirl and twist in a hypnotic dance that keeps my gaze trapped as I stare, my body growing number, my mind dazing. More hot wetness trickles down my cheeks, and I think I hear a worried female voice in the distance, asking someone to stop.

I don’t pay it attention as I take in a prominent hook of a nose and a cruelly edged face, with broad yet sharp cheekbones and a strong jaw. In that face, his mouth is surprisingly beautiful, thick and lush, perfectly shaped, and black against the dark gray of his skin.

His ears end in sharp tips. A thin line of red just where his lips meet is the only splash of color save for his demonic yellow eyes.

Something cold grabs the back of my head and makes me look down. A breath wheezes out of my throat and I finally blink, a red film spreading over my eyes until I blink it away.

As the other gods stand aside, I have a clear, unobstructed view of his feet.

Except, they are not feet. They are hooves, black and bony, his legs muscular and thick. Behind his thighs, a long, hairless tail swings, its tip ending in a sharp, triangular shape. It looks like the tip of an arrow.

Behind me, someone screams. I think the others finally noticed the gods.