39. Chors
“On that note, Rod will be here soon to pick up this little bird,” Woland says, standing up. “It will be reused and sent to control another mortal before they are even born. Now, my dearest, let me remind you that you can end your people’s suffering with just three little words. As soon as you say them, I’ll take the poludnica back to where she came from.”
I shake my head with a smile. “No. This won’t work.”
He sighs, stretching his neck. “I suppose it won’t. What about a smaller trade? I can give you something you badly want, and I’d like just a trifling little favor in return.”
I press my lips together and look at him without conviction. He grins his wolfish smile and comes closer, cupping the side of my face. His fingers bury in my hair, mussing my tightly braided updo.
“You’ll love doing me that favor, little witch. So hear me out.”
I do my best to keep my voice even, though my heart flutters wildly from his touch. Oh, I long for him. There’s no hiding it.
“Fine. What is it?”
He presses his thumb to my lips, stroking to the side until they part. With a low, hypnotizing voice, he lays out the conditions of the trade.
“I want this mouth on my cock, sucking me until I come down your throat. In return, I’ll give you the secret of time magic.”
My breath catches, and I don’t know which part of the trade makes me buzz with more excitement. He’s right, I do like the favor.
Woland smiles, seeing how speechless I am. “Consider it a sign of my respect for your doggedness. You had me on my knees, which no other mortal can boast, and you still said no. I’d like to show you exactly how much that impressed me.”
His grin widens, eyes sparkling with predatory intent, and I shiver, fear and anticipation pulsing through my veins. I already know not to take his deal at face value. He doesn’t want to reward me for rejecting him. No, he’s far more likely to punish me. But how? I can’t spot the trick, but there must be one, of that I’m sure.
The trade seems way too beneficial for me, giving me the one thing he knows I desperately need. Meanwhile, what does he get out of it? Something countless women, mortal or not, can doubtlessly deliver with far more skill than me.
This is a trap. And I still want to do it.
He leans in and kisses my chin right below my lower lip. The kiss is so chaste, I blink in confusion.
“Think about it.”
He disappears, sucked into the shadows, leaving me shaken and thrilled the way he always does. I wonder where he went. What he’ll do now. How, where, with whom he’ll spend his time. I know I shouldn’t, because thinking about those things will only make me feel bad, but I can’t stop.
By his own admission, Woland has voracious appetites and probably countless lovers. He wants things I can’t deliver. It’s useless to be jealous.
And yet, I can’t help it, just like I can’t help wanting him. It’s such a thin line I walk: keeping him at a distance so he comes back, yet letting him close enough to satisfy my craving.
One day soon, I’ll fall. I’m not sure whether it terrifies or excites me.
Magda’s ancestral soul gives a lone trill, and I look up just in time to see Rod materialize against my door.
“Hello.” I welcome him, much more composed than last night.
“Good evening, whisperer.”
He looks at me for a moment, not approaching Magda yet. I swallow my nerves. Yesterday, he didn’t answer my question, but I feel tempted to ask him something again.
“Can I ask you for advice, oh mighty one?”
I’m not sure how to address him properly, but this seems to work. His serious mouth turns up in a quarter-smile. “Ask.”
“What is the best way to get rid of a poludnica?”
He snorts softly and shakes his head. “I shouldn’t work against my master.”
“Your master?” My eyes widen. I think he means Woland, and yet, Woland told me Rod serves Perun, because he has no other choice.
Before I have a chance to question him about it, he adds, “But you asked me respectfully and I am in a good mood. It’s very rare that I have the occasion to speak with such a vivacious woman.”
I blink a few times, taken aback by the compliment. “Uh, thank you, mighty one.”
He nods with a smile. “A poludnica takes her power from Dadzbog. Ask Chors to help you. He is the opposite force to Dadzbog.”
I nod dumbly and thank him, wondering how I’m supposed to ask the god of the moon for help. Will he even hear me from up there? But Rod already stands by Magda, his smile gone. He coaxes the ancestral soul to come out, and I instantly notice it’s identical to Jacek’s, pale and large-eyed. In the light of what Woland told me, this makes sense. Since all the ancestral souls have the same purpose, it’s no wonder they look the same, too.
“Goodbye, Jaga,” Rod says, disappearing. The eerie little bird sits obediently on his finger.
When I go out a few minutes later, I’m really grateful for my period a few days ago. I spent enough time in bed to make up for all my sleepless nights.
I already know I’ll have no rest tonight.
The sky is clear, Chors a bright crescent right overhead. He doesn’t look like a god up there, simply like the moon, the same way Dadzbog doesn’t look like a godly presence. I’m not sure how it works. Are those gods really up in the sky, making the arduous journey every day? It doesn’t seem very godlike. More like they are servants to their tasks.
I try to remember if any tales I know explain how to invite a god to speak with a mortal.
In one story, a woman who wanted to enter Nawie was told to follow Chors for many days until he led her to a large lake, and once there, she asked him to take her with when he was about to submerge. He did, and they entered Nawie through the water. In the tale, he was the moon in the sky and a man all at once.
There is no lake nearby, just our river. I’m not even sure if the water is necessary to call him, but the riverbank seems to be a place as good as any. I’m wary of speaking to a god in my garden. If somebody hears, they will think I’m out of my mind or, worse yet, dabbling in witchcraft.
Which reminds me, I’m due for a spell. But not tonight.
I walk to the river, and the moon seems to follow me across the sky, always staying right above me. I think of the tales about Chors. According to one of them, after Perun sent his son, Dadzbog, to the sky to make light, Weles was jealous, and he also created a son for himself. Born from the still, dark waters of Nawie, Chors was pale and serious.
Weles sent him up to the sky to follow Dadzbog and spill light over the land, but Dadzbog hated having competition. He pushed Chors from the sky and forbade him to eat for fifteen days, which explains why the moon grows smaller for half a month—because he can’t eat. It’s also why he only comes out at night to avoid Dadzbog’s ire.
Another tale says wolves hate Chors, and when he’s bright and full, they howl at him and give chase, biting off pieces each night until he grows smaller and finally disappears to be reborn from the waters of Nawie.
I don’t know which tale is true, or if any of them are, but both leave an unpleasant taste in my mouth. They are so cruel. What did Chors even do to deserve such a fate? The tales say nothing about that, they just describe him as this sad, slender man who travels across the black sky every night.
He’s always scorned and lonely, and yet, he helps mortals. Without him, the nights would be infinitely darker and scarier.
By the river, I sit on the flat stone Woland sat on when he watched me bathe. For a time, I just look and breathe, listening to the quiet murmur of the water, tasting the cool, humid air on my tongue. It’s always so fresh here, as if the air itself is cleansed by the river.
When I’m ready, I throw my head back and look directly at the silver crescent. It looms above me, faraway yet so bright. I squint, trying to see the man in the moon, but no matter how long I look, I don’t see a face.
I don’t know how to call him, so I just start with the simplest way. Apprehensive, yet thrilled, I murmur under my breath, “Chors.”
“Rod told me you’d call.”
I startle, forcing back a shriek of surprise, because his voice comes right from next to me. When I turn, there he sits, looking at me with his head tilted, a graceful palm braced on the stone between us.
He is breathtakingly beautiful.
His hair is dark and long, framing his face in soft waves. His skin shimmers as if covered with silver dust, highlighting beautiful cheekbones and a smooth forehead. Everything about him is proportional, graceful, lean, only his eyes are large and long-lashed. Glowing silver irises surround pupils blown wide in the dark.
I stare, and he studies me, too, his face serious and a little melancholy. He sits close enough that if I shifted just a bit, my hip would touch his little finger. His long limbs are comfortably arranged, projecting an air of effortless elegance.
He wears a black shirt and trousers, everything intricately embroidered with a silver thread.
And his voice is so melodic and husky, I immediately want to hear more of it. That, finally, prompts me to speak.
“You and Rod don’t look alike.”
He hums in thought, lifting his face up to look at the moon that’s still in the sky even though Chors sits by my side. I suppose what I said is not entirely true—they have the same dark coloring—but otherwise, Chors doesn’t look like Rod’s brother at all.
“Maybe that’s because he has a goddess for a mother, and I don’t. My mother is the eternal river,” he says thoughtfully.
The murmur of the water changes, matching the rhythm of his voice. I gasp under my breath. The river seems to have stopped flowing. Now, small waves lap at the shore, as if reaching toward Chors. Like the river wants to touch him.
“Water likes you,” I whisper, watching, transfixed, as the waves beat against the shore, clamoring for him.
“I was born from water,” he says, stretching out a languid hand.
A few glittering drops rise from the surface and float to him through the air, splashing into his open palm. He smiles.
“How is the moon still up in the sky when you’re here?” I blurt out, my mind wiped clean by this man’s ethereal beauty. I forgot what I was supposed to ask him, I only know that I want to be in his company for as long as he allows, and listen to his voice.
He looks at me, smiling gently. “The moon is not me. But it exists because I do. It’s an emanation of my power, just like the sun is an emanation of Dadzbog’s.”
I don’t understand it but still nod, and he looks away, gazing at the moon’s reflection on the river.
“Is it true?” I ask, even though I know it’s a sensitive topic. “The tales about the wolves biting off pieces of you?”
He snorts and looks at me like I’m daft. Suddenly, he seems much more real, his brows furrowed with a slightly mocking tilt, his mouth curved in amusement.
“The only true part is that I run with the wolves, and they run with me,” he says with a scoff. “Do I look half-eaten to you?”
“Well, no,” I say defensively. “But that’s because you’re currently growing. Not shrinking after a full moon.”
He nods once, conceding the point. I chew on my tongue, but since he already thinks I’m an idiot, I might as well ask another question.
“And the part about Dadzbog telling you to starve?”
The corners of his mouth drop, and his frown tightens. More water rises from the river and falls into his open palm. He squeezes his fist like he wants to hold it, and I have a ridiculous notion he takes comfort from that. Like it’s a touch.
The water trickles down his fist and forearm, small drops darkening the stone we sit on.
“There is some truth to that.”
I hesitate for a moment, but he looks so lonely, so beautiful and fragile, I have an urge to comfort him. I wrap my fingers around his wet, chilled palm and give it a gentle squeeze. He shivers and looks at me with those silver, bottomless eyes.
“Thank you.”
I don’t want to let go, and he doesn’t extricate himself, either. Shamelessly, I drink in his beauty, awed beyond expression. A part of my conversation with Woland echoes in my mind—the way he described Weles as so much more than what I was taught.
When I look at his son, whose beauty makes my chest ache, I realize Woland must be right. Whoever fathered this creature cannot be evil and murky.
Maybe Woland told me the truth tonight. Maybe all mortals are just Perun’s playthings, and we have it all wrong about who is good, and who should be feared.
Chors sighs and pulls his hand free. I drop mine into my lap and blink, waking from my daze.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “You’re just such a pleasure to look at.”
He smiles faintly. “Don’t be sorry. Not many people do, you know—look at me. What kind of help do you need?”
“Oh, right.” I look away to gather my scattered thoughts. “Well, there is this poludnica in the fields by our village. She killed two people already, and almost killed me, and I just want to deal with her. But I don’t know how.”
He laughs, the soft, husky sound drifting over the water as it splashes over the shore, eager to pull closer. I scratch my cheek in embarrassment, wondering what foolish thing I said this time.
“You’re playing the devil’s game and you’re asking for my help?” Chors says with incredulous amusement. “You are a bold one.”
“Rod said you could help,” I mutter, looking at my hands clenched together in my lap.
I don’t see the joke. It must be another of those things mortals don’t know. Maybe Chors and Woland are connected somehow, but I can’t figure out how, because I don’t know any tales about Woland apart from him being the devil.
And since the devil’s name is not to be spoken, his tales aren’t told, either.
Chors shakes his head, a smile playing on his lips. His cheekbones shimmer with the movement.
“I will help you, if only for making me laugh,” he says. “Give me your left hand.”
I hesitate but do as he says. He grips my wrist delicately, like he’s afraid to damage it, and turns my palm inner side up. He lays a single finger in the middle right above my wrist, pressing in. The place grows cold and tingly, and my hand twitches in his hold, but I don’t pull away.
“And done,” he says softly, removing his finger.
Where before there was only clear skin, now is a silvery crescent shape surrounded by three tiny stars. It shimmers just like his face, and I turn my palm slowly, marveling at the sheen.
“Now the poludnica can’t hurt you with her sun-focusing power,” he says. “Hold her down until the moon is up in the sky. My light will burn Dadzbog out of her. She’ll be harmless.”
I’m still unsure whether I can hold her for so long, but at least now, she won’t be able to burn me. I can work with that. I can actually end her for good.
“Thank you,” I say with wonder, looking away from the beautiful symbol. “You are very generous.”
Chors snorts, playful sparks appearing in his eyes for just a moment.
“Don’t thank me. Instead, promise to tell me in detail how he reacts when he sees my mark on you. Goodbye, Jaga.”
He vanishes in an explosion of silvery mist, and I blink, suddenly uneasy. I look at the mark again and rub it experimentally with my thumb. It doesn’t come off, not even a bit. It seems to be embedded in my skin.
And now I wonder if Chors actually wanted to help me, or if I’m just a piece in a divine game I don’t understand.