Chapter 9 Wings
Chapter nine
Wings
“Eat.”
Jaga stares unseeingly at the table of food I’ve put up by the daybed, where she slept for almost ten hours. Her hair is mussed, face bleary. She blinks and turns away.
“Fine. Don’t eat.”
I am Woland today, and my patience has reached its limit. I get down on one knee, grab her, and throw her over my shoulder. Jaga’s reaction is barely a sigh of surprise, and she hangs limp, like a dead animal draping down my back. She weighs next to nothing, and I hate it.
A woman like this, with so much mental and spiritual substance, should be a chore to carry.
“We’re going to visit my son and offer him some comfort since it’s a new moon, and he suffers.
I don’t give a damn how you treat him. If you’re kind, he’ll feel better.
If you’re indifferent, he’ll be hurt and less likely to want you.
And if you’re cruel when he is at his lowest, he’ll never speak to you again.
Any of these outcomes will please me, because I care for you both, but I want you for myself. ”
Shadows swallow us, and we reappear in Chors’ lake cave, the spring where Nawie’s underground river is born.
He lies on the water, his naked body buoyed up.
I can count his ribs, and his cheekbones are sharp under his pale, almost translucent skin.
He looks like a victim of a bieda’s starvation curse.
I dump Jaga in the sand, furious because I know this is where they fucked.
He told me everything, and since I was Weles, I just managed not to bury him alive the way Mokosz did Jaga.
It’s dangerous to come here as Woland, but this is my son’s sick chamber, the place that brings him comfort and ease when his body rebels against him. This is where I need to be.
And since Jaga doesn’t react to Weles… Here we are.
I’ll be on my best behavior, that is, I’ll do my damnedest not to murder them both.
Jaga heaves herself up to a sitting position, her unblinking stare sliding over Chors’ body. I take sick pleasure in knowing he’s at his least attractive tonight. Take it in, I think viciously. Look at what you fucked.
But when I turn to him, I sigh with pity. He doesn’t deserve this. He should be beautiful always, just as I made him. Happy. Powerful. Thriving.
“Hello,” Jaga murmurs, crawling closer to where the still water presses at the shore.
Chors doesn’t move his head, but his lips flutter with the quietest whisper. “Oh. You came.”
“She was brought,” I say, my voice calm with only an echo of a growl.
I don’t know how I manage to contain it all. Love for them both, jealousy so vicious, it curdles my blood, sadness, pity, heartbreak, and cruel, cruel hate.
“Why is this happening to you?” Jaga asks, her voice calm, for which I’m grateful.
Chors would hate it if she cried for him.
“Dadzbog’s curse,” I explain when he heaves a tired breath, his ribs flaring out in a horrifying display. “Can I tell her, son?”
“Yes. Please.”
I wave a hand, conjuring a seat for myself. I don’t bother with Jaga. She has enough magic to get a chair if she wants one.
“Chors was born as a being of night and water, but like all of us, he was shaped by mortal beliefs. Humans looked at the night sky and called on his name when they saw the moon until he and it became one. It’s called an emanation, since Chors doesn’t truly wander the sky every night—yet, the connection between them is unbreakable. ”
Jaga presses her palm into the water, sifting her fingers through the sand, and the underground lake ripples as if in welcome. Chors sighs, sinking a bit lower. I breathe through affection and pain, clenching my fists until my claws pierce my skin.
“The same thing happened to Dadzbog. Perun made him of fire and light, and so, he became the god of the sun. There was always a certain rivalry between our sons. I made Chors first, and he was perfect. Perun made Dadzbog out of jealousy, not love, so jealousy is at the core of his heart to this day. He was far less beautiful than Chors. Perun is a decent creator, but not as good as me.”
“So it’s because of jealousy,” Jaga whispers, engrossed.
I push away an image forming under my eyelids of them here, together, happy. Of him kissing her skin, of her touching him. No.
“The sun is more powerful than the moon in human consciousness,” I say bitterly.
“Its light is brighter, it gives heat and life. The moon is… A kind friend. A light guiding the lost at night. But not a force mortal lives depend on. Chors’ power diminished even more after Perun imprisoned me and made mortals afraid of the dark.
His worship dwindled, since it naturally occurs at night. Meanwhile, Dadzbog grew in power.”
“And he was angry about Jutrzenka,” Chors whispers, a gentle wave wetting more sand.
I sigh, closing my eyes. “Ah, Jutrzenka. How stupid we were. Yes, jealous and angry, Dadzbog cornered Chors when I was imprisoned. He got to him during a new moon, when Chors naturally had less power, though he wasn’t as weak as now.
“They fought, and when Dadzbog won, he tied him up using chains of fire Swarog made for him. They burned through skin and muscle but stopped at bone. I never had my bones directly burned—a lack in my education—but Chors told me it’s like no other kind of pain.”
“It feels like the fire will always be there, white heat in your marrow. Unquenchable,” he whispers.
Jaga shudders. She sits cross-legged in the sand, her side to me, watching Chors and glancing at me when I speak. She’s not outraged or crying, as I would have expected the old Jaga to be when hearing about her lover’s torture, but she’s curious, at least.
“Chors has an affinity to silver. Just like water, silver likes him and gains magical potency in his light. Dadzbog used it to tattoo the curse onto his skin, mostly arms and torso, and because he used very strong, hate-filled magic, the curse is almost impossible to remove.”
“It is impossible,” Chors counters, his whisper a gentle susurration carrying over water.
“We quarrel about it from time to time,” I say with a smile, affection for my beautiful son sweeping through me. “There is a way, and I firmly believe that. One day, we’ll take the tattoos off, grab Dadzbog, and put them on him. Or maybe something worse. I’ve got ideas.”
“The silver tattoos. You showed me,” Jaga murmurs, her fingers stroking water. “I didn’t know it was your curse.”
Chors says nothing, and my affection is gone, jealousy, always jealousy, pounding through me.
When haven’t I been jealous? Maybe at the beginning of creation, but after that, it was always something.
When Mokosz left my bed to go to her husband.
When Perun made my mortals worship him more.
And then, when he chained me at his feet and took away my dignity while he reigned.
And now, I am jealous of my own son.
“What does the curse do, exactly?” Jaga asks.
I clear my throat and grip the armrests of my chair.
“It binds him to his emanation beyond what’s normal.
Chors is doomed to an endless cycle of waxing and waning, growing stronger with his power peaking at full moon, and then growing weaker, starving, because no food can feed him, until finally, he dies for three days during the new moon.
“I’ve seen the moon up close, and I know it doesn’t change its shape over the course of the month, but that’s not what matters.
Human beliefs mold the magic of the curse, and mortals believe the moon grows thin and disappears.
Chors is dead right now. His heart is still.
Of course, as a god, he cannot die. You know how it feels, I assume.
You’ve had a few months of it. He’s had centuries of dreading it, and then going through it, every month. ”
Jaga blinks heavily, hesitant, but I see the moment when her curiosity wins. She levels me with a cool stare.
“You’ve seen the moon up close?”
I shrug. “Of course. After I got free, I spent years looking for a cure for my son. One night, I just traveled up into the night sky to see it. I made the moon, like I made most of what’s beautiful in the world, but I thought it might have changed since its creation.
Mortal beliefs shape so much—why not the night sky, too?
“It was very far, very cold, and there was no air. The moon is just a large piece of rock, certainly underwhelming when you know how much meaning mortals imbue it with. I can take you to see it one day.”
She swallows, giving me no answer, and turns back to Chors. “Can anything be done to ease your suffering?”
“Distraction works,” he murmurs. “Sing me something.”
“Sing?” Jaga is surprised, but I’m not. Chors loves music, and he’s a talented singer himself. Jaga isn’t the type to burst into song, though. She hums when she works, but I’ve never heard her perform for others.
She gets up slowly, brushing sand from her clothes, though little sticks to the leather. She thinks a moment, watching the floating, emaciated body of my son, and then straightens. Softly, she sings a lullaby, and I struggle a moment to remember where I heard it last.
“Sleep, my darling, and I shall
Brush all nightmares from your brow.
Sleep, beloved, on my breast,
Let me give you peaceful rest.”
Cold currents shoot up my spine when I remember.
The poludnica I sent into Jaga’s village sang that song.
She was a bies made from a jealous woman who killed her pregnant sister and snuck into her husband’s bed to steal him away.
The husband killed her in despair when he saw his pregnant wife’s body—but only after fucking the sister.
“Oh, jealousy,” I sigh, closing my eyes.
Jaga keeps singing, and the water laps at the shore to the rhythm of the lullaby. Her voice is soft, the melody even, but I can tell singing is not her forte.
“When the moon silvers the sky,
When beasts walk lands low and high,
I’ll be here, lover mine,
I will save you from the night.”