Chapter 4 Hooves
Chapter four
Hooves
I sit opposite Jaga at the table and watch her eat.
We’re in my throne room, which I believe she finds the most comfortable.
I have a set of private rooms on this level of Nawie, but when I tried to bundle her into my bed before, she bolted and went to sleep, half-sitting, half-curled, on my throne.
She sits on it when awake, too, for hours on end.
So I moved things here. There’s a long table with chairs, a cluster of daybeds, her wardrobe filled with beautiful gowns she hasn’t even looked at.
But she’s eating with appetite. That’s a welcome development after our fight yesterday.
“Wiosna cooked it,” I say, watching her reaction closely as she cuts up a turnip dripping with golden butter.
For a moment, she ignores me, and I clench my teeth, afraid we’re back to this horrible standoff when Jaga pretends I don’t exist and I do my best not to throw things in rage.
Thankfully, it’s not that. After chewing and swallowing a piece, she looks up, her eyes cold, face impassive.
“I know. It tastes familiar.”
I drum my fingers on the black wood of the table. Frustration and impatience ride me today. Jaga’s answers are short and uninviting.
“How many times should I apologize?” I ask, keeping my voice even.
I am Weles today, and pretending to be calm is fairly easy.
“I am sorry for everything I did, Jaga. I am doing my best to protect you and help you heal while waging a war. Please, help me out a little. What do you need to forgive me?”
She smiles, a private, cutting smile, and doesn’t look up from her plate.
“Oh, I forgive you, if that’s what you want. I forgive you for everything.”
I wait, but she keeps eating, perfectly content with or without my input. Nothing changes between us.
“Will you tell me what’s wrong with you?” I ask carefully when she puts her fork away to drink a cup of sweetened elderberry wine.
Jaga shrugs, that smile again playing on her lips. “Nothing’s wrong. I am better than ever. This is delicious.”
I tamp down the urge to slam both fists on the table.
So that’s her game now. She’s speaking to me, yes, but she’s as indifferent as before.
I think it’s an act—I hope it is, but Jaga could never pretend to be dispassionate in the past. She’s a fiery creature, and the only time she was broken and numb was after I got her chased out of her village.
Back then, all it took to break through were a few hard truths.
“You spent a month refusing food,” I say with exaggerated patience, as if talking to a slow child. “You don’t take care of your body, which has degenerated to an alarming degree. You are not fine, poppy girl. You’re a husk of a person.”
Jaga shrugs in disinterest. “I suppose.”
“I almost raped you yesterday,” I grit out. “As Woland.”
She doesn’t look up. Her voice is dismissive. “I know.”
“What, don’t you feel anything? Aren’t you angry? Afraid? Don’t you want revenge or protection against me?”
She snorts and spears a piece of succulent beef onto her fork. “It’s just a body. I don’t care much what happens to it, so feel free to use it as you want.”
I stare at her, outraged and baffled. Only yesterday, she sobbed and crawled away when I pursued her—a normal human reaction. What is this new devilry?
“Free to use it? Really? You don’t care? Should I just walk over there and put my cock inside you?”
I’d be lying if I said the idea didn’t have appeal. My loins fill with warmth, but not enough to get me hard yet. Something is profoundly wrong.
Jaga glances up with a shrug, her eyes as cold as the heart of winter.
“If you want to. As I said, I don’t care.”
“Is this because of what Mokosz did to you?” I push back my chair with a scrape and pace to release some of my tension. “Did you get disconnected from your body while you were buried? Have you lost sensation? Hunger cues? Is that why you didn’t eat?”
She heaves a long-suffering sigh, rolling her eyes as if she finds my questions trivial.
“If you want to know so much, why don’t you lie in a grave for a few months and see for yourself?” she asks, cool and sharp like a knife. “Don’t worry, no one will miss you.”
Anger burns my throat, but I hold it back. If I were Woland, I’d rape her right now just to make her lose that cool, haughty air.
“I was buried in the roots of the Great Oak for a few centuries,” I say, my voice dropping low with fury.
“Believe me, I know exactly what it’s like, which is why I’m baffled, Jaga.
I check up on you every night when you’re sleeping, sifting through the tiniest fibers of your physical body.
I found nothing wrong. You are perfectly well. ”
She raises her fork and waves it a little with a cool, triumphant smirk. “See? There you have it. I am perfectly well.”
“I can’t fucking do this.”
I storm into the bathroom, filling the enormous bath with water with a snap of my fingers.
The water is so cold, ice forms on the surface at once, and I get in with a series of crunches, my feet punching through the thin barrier.
I lie on the bottom in my clothes as the surface above me freezes solid.
It barely helps. I want to take her up on her offer, even now, as Weles. If she’s pretending, I’m confident I can break through that with enough attention and roughness, all the things she likes.
What stops me is the fear sex won’t change anything. If she looks at me with the same cold disinterest while I’m inside her, it will destroy me.
“Fuck you, poppy girl,” I mouth, bubbles rising to the iced-over surface, where they freeze.
I bleed more and more magic into the water, cooling it until the entire bath is a block of ice with me like a strange insect frozen within.
My blood cools enough to clear my head. At last, I feel confident I won’t try to hurt Jaga just to wipe that smirk off her face, but still, I stay in there, deprived of oxygen and warmth, for half an hour longer just to be sure.
Oh, the things I do for love.
When I emerge, Jaga is still eating. As every day in the past month, I arranged for her to have a large variety of dishes in the futile hope that maybe she’d cave and eat if she saw something she liked.
In the past, she almost always ignored the feast laid out for her. Today, she ate everything. Her cheeks have filled out considerably, and her collarbones, while still prominent, aren’t as alarmingly sharp.
It’s impressive, I have to admit. Few people possess a handle on magic so precise, it allows them to speed up digestion and the following transmutation of food into flesh. She’s crammed weeks of refeeding her starved body into a little more than an hour.
“Did you learn this from Nienad?” I ask, my clothes still dripping with cold water, frost in my eyebrows and hair.
I am cold, cold and calm, and I intend to stay this way.
Jaga shoots me a disinterested look. “No. I experimented when you were busy pampering yourself in the bath. It worked.”
“Experimented—on yourself. You really don’t care about your body, do you?”
She huffs and puts away her fork, all plates empty and shining with the remnants of butter.
“I can experiment on myself, because I’m immortal. Nienad picks helpless people he deems disposable to run his experiments on. It’s something you condone and encourage.”
“You mean the rot.” I nod, watching her closely. She’s not angry, exactly, not as she used to be, but there is a definite air of menace around her. “You don’t agree with our methods.”
The look she gives me is beyond contemptuous. I have to bite back a smile, because finally, she’s not indifferent. She cares. I can use this.
“Do you want me to stop the rot program? I will. For you.”
The ice in my hair melts, water trickling down my shoulder-length hair as excitement heats me up from within.
But Jaga laughs with obvious scorn. “Do what you want. I don’t give a damn.”
My elation turns into burning fury, and I clench my hands and teeth to hold back words and deeds that will alienate us beyond redemption. It’s like the ice bath never happened.
When she shoots me a sly glance, the corner of her mouth curling in a smirk, I know she’s doing this on purpose. I am like a fiddle she masterfully plays. It’s infuriating.
“Fine,” I say after I get a grip on my voice, cooling myself forcefully with magic. “Would you like to see more of Nawie today? I can take you to Wiosna, or show you the souls. Or we can just wander.”
She pauses, her eyes firmly focused on the table, forehead lined with a frown. She’s surprised, having expected me to go on like before, hoarding her to myself in this room. But the fact I’m old doesn’t mean I don’t learn. Going out is what broke our standoff.
We need more of that.
“You’ll follow me everywhere like a faithful dog, I take it.”
Dog. If that’s what I am then you’re my bitch.
I keep the sharp retort to myself, instead replying in the most pleasant voice I can squeeze out through my clenched teeth.
“Yes. I’ll be your guard dog so Mokosz doesn’t kidnap you again and bury you somewhere no one can reach this time. You’re welcome.”
It’s cruel to remind her, and as Jaga’s shoulders tense, her throat moving with a nervous swallow, I look away in shame.
I don’t apologize, though. She should be aware of the danger. She should be careful. Even though last I checked, Mokosz still believed Jaga to be buried, that can change any moment. All she needs to do is visit the grave.
“Will you change or are you fine with people seeing your nipples through the holes?” I ask cooly as she pushes back from the table, tense and angry.
For a moment, she seems confused, looking down at herself like she sees the dress for the first time. She raises her hands next, staring at the filthy, long nails, some of them broken.
“Oh.”
I bite back a mocking retort. For someone who has so much wit when it comes to riling me up, Jaga is so unobservant about other things. But that’s a symptom, too.