Chapter 9 Wings #2
It’s strange. I expected to have a hard time controlling myself in this cave, but the longer Jaga sings, the easier it gets, until I accept what happened.
I brought her to that decision, I know. She was already mine, loving me, yet I couldn’t help but hate her when she refused me the one thing I wanted the most.
I was never a gracious loser, and after we lost that battle by the fence, there was no quenching the hate.
I hurt her, and she hurt me back. Isn’t that our tune, repeating over and over like the melody of this folk lullaby? Love and hurt, and hate, and yearning on an endless loop. Betrayal was inevitable, wasn’t it?
Maybe it’s perverse, but I’m relieved she picked him of all men. If I have to share—he’s the one. The only.
Jaga stops, and Chors sighs, sinking underwater. I take her hand.
“Come. He’ll rest now.”
The curiosity I awakened telling her about my son’s curse still lingers. She watches me with a faint frown, not pulling her hand away.
“You really love him.”
“I do. I love you both.”
She scoffs, neither offended nor moved, and I sigh. I don’t know what else to do. Unless…
I move us through the shadows into the Hall of Fires. This is where we had our recent breakthroughs. It’s lucky, I suppose, even though I don’t believe in luck. There’s only magic and powerful intent.
“What do you want, Jaga?” I ask, still holding her hand. “And don’t say death. That’s some obstinate bullshit, and you know it. What do you want for real?”
I’m not sure, but maybe seeing Chors has softened her. She gives my question some thought while her gaze slides over the clusters of sapphires and rubies glistening in the nearest pillar.
“Not to be hurt ever again,” she says finally, her voice heavy with despondence. “But I can’t have that if I stay alive. I want to die, Woland. I should have died so many times already. I’m tired.”
“But you aren’t yourself. Before Mokosz took you, there were things you wanted to do. You had important goals. There is something waiting for you in the past, isn’t there? I…”
I stop, warring with myself. Should I give away this, too? Should I strip myself of everything I can still bargain with?
Jaga saves me from making this painful decision by scoffing with anger. “She’ll have to die, as she should have all along. I don’t want it anymore.”
“Who will have to die?”
Jaga shakes her head, her fingers slipping out of my hold. “Wouldn’t you like to know. Take me back to your throne room if you won’t kill me. I like it there.”
She is sincere as far as I can tell, though this strange, new Jaga with darkness in her eyes is difficult to read. I study her, wondering what to do, and finally, shift into Weles. Her mouth twists in distaste, and she looks away.
“It was me all along, poppy girl,” I say, my voice different, less beastly.
I always feel so light after shifting back, because even just standing takes so much less effort as Weles. I take her chin between thumb and finger to force her to look. Her eyes slam shut, so I move closer, our faces separated by a mere inch of air.
“You’ll have to accept it at some point.
Back at your Kupala Night, winning your poppy chaplet, dancing with you, lapping between your thighs?
That was me. By that river, carving my name into your tongue?
Me. In the rebel base, fucking you in public so everyone would see?
Me, love. All me. Kissing Mokosz, me. Making you forget—that was also me.
I was there from the start, and I did all that. Hate me, for fuck’s sake!”
She flinches away, and I let her, breathing hard. “Tell me what to do!” I demand, my fury rising, because I know it’s futile. “And I’ll do it! Just tell me what you want!”
“I already said.” She sounds so cold, my anger sliding right off her. “Take me to your throne room.”
“You’re sick. There’s something wrong with you,” I grit out through clenched teeth. “You’re not yourself, you’re… Broken. And I will fix you. For now… We’ll go out to see Nyja’s nawkas. You’ll be safe if you’re with me.”
“Why ask me if you’re not going to do what I want?”
“Because you’re lying. Death isn’t what you want.
It never was, poppy girl. You said it yourself: you should have died so many times, but you didn’t.
You brought a child back from the dead, for fuck’s sake, because you wanted him to live.
That’s who you are—defiant in the face of the inevitable. Now come, or be taken.”
She shrugs with indifference, and I wrap my arms around her, my shadows swallowing us until we reappear in the central part of Nyja’s academy.
Jaga pushes me away without much force, and I let her. At least she’s interested, her eyes wide as they roam the vast space and the open skies above us.
“We’re still underground,” I explain, taking her hand. It’s so much easier when we’re closer in height. “Nawie is a powerful place, brimming with the magic of all the souls staying here, and so, it can be shaped into anything. This is where Nyja trains her soldiers.”
We stand on the side of a large arena, tall walls rising around it in an oval shape.
They aren’t solid, but rather thin and intricate, made of a latticework of dark and light gray stones held together with magic.
The sky above us is tumultuous, masses of silver and leaden clouds raging like a potion boiling in a cauldron.
Couples and groups of Nyja’s soldiers practice, wrestling and fighting with weapons. There are shouts, thunks of wood clashing with wood, sharp calls of the instructors. Some fighters are as young as twelve, the oldest in their twenties.
Jaga grips my hand tighter and pulls me into the fray.
We walk between the fighting areas, and she shakes her head when she sees a boy of sixteen with red feathers in his hair jump twelve feet up before he dives at his opponent, a small, wiry girl, who turns into a tiny bird at the last moment to evade his attack.
Next to them, two older fighters exchange blows, using just their hands, their feet not moving from spots delineated with chalk on the ground. Their hands move so fast, they blur, and their faces are tight with concentration.
We walk further, passing two young girls training high kicks under an instructor’s eye, and then, archery stations, where older soldiers shoot translucent, magical arrows that only materialize when they hit the wooden targets.
It’s my invention. Thanks to this, no accidents occur, since the training arrows pass through flesh without harm.
“They don’t look dead. Or like babies.”
Jaga’s voice is clipped and tight with suspicion. I smile and pull her faster toward the building at the far end of the arena, where we should find Nyja.
“Remember how outraged you were that miscarried babies had souls? You asked what the point was. To give a soul to a baby that would die in infancy and never experience life.”
She nods tersely. I grin.
“Well, love, I had the very same thought long before you were born, when mortals were still a delight to behold. I decreed babies’ and small children’s souls would turn into nawkas, and gave Nyja power over them.
They come here as tiny birds, and each newcomer has a choice.
They can remain a bird for eternity. Or they can receive a body, similar to a mortal one.
Some choose to spend endless sunny afternoons playing in the woods and lakes, remaining children forever. But many choose to grow up and fight.”
We walk through the high arch of the entrance into the academy proper. Outside, it’s humid and warm, but it’s cooler here, the tall, spacious hall lit with glowing orbs. I see Nyja talking to a few half-solid souls ahead. Above us roost the nawkas that chose to stay as birds.
They sit on perches of various lengths and thicknesses, a maze of them reaching from as low as nine feet above the floor up to the very ceiling, dozens of feet high. It’s made of crystal, and the roost is clearly visible in the bright light coming from above.
The nawkas coo and shake off their feathers in greeting. A few spread their wings, black and sharp against the light. Something falls—four somethings.
I have enough time to push Jaga away before I’m trapped.