Chapter 10 Breathless
Chapter ten
Breathless
Jaga grunts, landing on the cool polished stone of the floor. I try to follow, but a familiar zap of magic bites my skin. There’s a barrier around me, four oak saplings growing rapidly in four corners of a square. I am trapped between them.
The stone floor underneath them splits and breaks as roots dig in. The oaks grow taller, and I throw myself at the invisible barrier, only to be repelled by magic far stronger than mine.
“Hello, little brother.”
I growl when I hear Perun’s smug voice rumbling from one of the oaks that’s now taller than me, spreading its branches in a green canopy. There’s a scream. Nyja calls on her soldiers to hack down the oaks, but I know we have a more urgent problem.
“Look up!” I roar. “Upierzycas!”
Four nawkas above us stretch and grow, their tiny beaks shifting into angry female faces, their wings growing bigger, feathered torsos elongating.
They crouch on their perches, each of the four the size of an adult mortal, with wings instead of arms, their birdlike feet gripping the wood that groans under their weight.
They are bieses, one of the few kinds made by Perun. Fast and birdlike, upierzycas are lethal fighters. I never saw one change into a smaller bird before. Perun must have dabbled.
They dive, one by one, and my heart bursts with panic when I see who they aim for.
“Is that the redhead whore Mokosz kept boring me with? I thought she was feeding worms.”
And now he knows, but there’s no time to worry about it.
“Nyja, no!” I roar, sending a powerful wave of magic to push the goddess away from the nearest oak, which she’s trying to uproot. “Protect her! Now!”
Nyja turns. The nearest upierzyca lands on top of Jaga with a screech of triumph, and they roll in a flurry of feathers and talons.
Nyja rushes into the fray, nawkas flying in from the arena to fight.
I don’t look away, ignoring Perun’s satisfied laughter, until I see Jaga get up, bloodied but safe. Nyja shields her with her body.
That done, I can focus on myself. This is a clever trap. Oh, so clever. The oaks keep me contained in a prison woven from magic stronger than mine. Perun channels his power into this space through the trees.
I push back with my own magic, sending claws of darkness into the nearest oak that now reaches as high as the lowest perches above me. Its bark splits, sap flowing out in rivulets like blood, but the tree doesn’t budge, and Perun’s power doesn’t waver.
“If you wanted to take me out on a stroll in a grove, you only had to ask,” I taunt him through gritted teeth.
“No strolling for you, little brother. You’re going back where you belong.”
My gut fills with ice. I suspected—and he just confirmed. This isn’t just a trap. Perun will use this square, his tiny domain right inside my kingdom, to transport me to Wyraj. I’ll be helpless. Mokosz was right, after all. They will imprison me again.
I look up in time to see Nyja wring one upierzyca’s neck. Her soldiers engage the other three, and Jaga watches everything with emotionless curiosity, her hands loose at her sides. I grit my teeth. I can’t let Perun take me. I have to protect her now that he knows she’s here.
I let my shadows loose, hiding from Perun, from everyone. I send everything I have to the trees, pulsing my magic deep into the ground where the roots reach, hacking at the trunks, poisoning the leaves. But my poisons work too slowly, and Perun purges them easily, laughing all the time.
“You’re so funny with your puny spells. Don’t you know nothing you do will work?
Only someone from the outside could bring them down if they were powerful enough.
Nyja is busy, and I don’t think she can do it.
Who else do you have? Right, your pathetic little son, the one who isn’t my slave.
He’s probably lying somewhere, drowning in his own piss. ”
I fall to the floor and slam both hands into the ground, ripping it apart to get at the roots, but the oaks stand, growing despite my frantic assault. My power flows out in powerful bursts, more and more until little tremors begin in my fingers, until it’s hard to catch my breath.
When I look up, Jaga is gone from her spot, and my heart plummets. I look around the thick trunks, finally seeing her. She’s fighting an upierzyca. A dead girl, the same one we saw sparring with the boy with red feathers, bleeds out at her feet.
“Nyja!” I scream. She rips apart the foe she’s fighting and turns to Jaga.
She runs, but before she reaches her, Jaga grabs the upierzyca, who’s visibly concussed from a hit to the head, and sticks two sharp-nailed fingers deep into the creature’s eyes. The bies screeches from pain, and Jaga digs deeper, her face flushed with fury.
My heart swells with pride. There she is, my strong poppy girl.
I attack again, mapping out the edges of my containment, shooting poisonous hexes into the trees until the bark blackens in spots, but it’s all too little.
Leaves rain down on me, and there’s a flutter of wings. I look up in time to see the nawkas attack in droves, pecking with their tiny beaks, clawing with their little feet. These are the birds that chose not to receive new bodies, the littlest, most peaceful souls.
Today, they fight. For me.
“You will not take Nawie,” I grit out with effort, reaching deep into myself for more magic.
My attacks have been useless, my power equally divided between all four trees.
But maybe if I only defeat one, the trap will be broken.
So I pick a tree, the smallest of the four, and dig my nails in the bark as I pour poison and fury into it.
Perun’s power greets me, slapping me away with force.
I sprawl on the floor. Everything hurts, but there’s no time to rest. I feel his power filling this space.
It might be too late already.
I lurch to my feet. Nyja stands on the other side, her face focused, as she throws hexes at the tree I picked. Jaga stands by her side, her hair messy, eyes blazing. Blood streams down her face, and I shake my head.
“No! Jaga, hide. Move back. He knows you’re here. Do you hear me, Nyja? He knows she’s here!”
“This is precious,” Perun mocks me, and both Nyja and Jaga jolt.
They hear his voice. “You want to hide this mortal from me? Be serious, little brother. Once we have you, we’ll have everything.
I will take Nawie this time. I’ll take your gods, chain them all by your side, and your little whore, I’ll give to my dragons.
Maybe I’ll let you watch if you ask me nicely. ”
“Don’t give up!” Nyja grits out, her eyes bright with effort.
I realize I’ve stopped fighting. I’m almost tapped out, and it’s no use. They built the perfect trap for me.
“Just keep her safe,” I command Nyja, stepping as close to her as I can. “He’ll take me away. I’ll come back. Just like before.”
“There will be nothing left for you to go back to.”
Nyja shakes her head frantically, straining against the tree, her entire body trembling. I look at Jaga, our gazes colliding. There is something in her eyes, something dark and angry.
“Move,” she says, her quiet voice barely audible among the fluttering of wings.
When Nyja doesn’t obey, Jaga shoves her aside. Her face is tight, her eyes on me, as she lays both hands on the tree. I want to shake my head, tell her it’s useless. If Nyja couldn’t move it, what can Jaga do?
She makes that face, scrunched up in effort and concentration, and the fluttering above us stills.
A bird trills a long note, and I can’t see it, but I feel it.
The air trembles with something, the scent of poppies and lovage mixing with the hateful smell of oaks.
Jaga strains harder, pushing her slim, underfed body into the tree.
A faint red aura shimmers around her hands, her throat and head, and she lets out a scream.
“Fall, you sick bastard!”
The tree stands. Nyja breathes hard, watching Jaga with a pained expression that I know I mimic. I want to tell her she should stop. No one is a match for Perun. He’ll put me in chains just as he did long ago, and there’s nothing I can do.
Nothing can ever be done.
“I see why you keep her,” Perun says with a snicker. “Entertaining little whore. Now, Weles, say your goodbyes, because I’m almost…”
He falls silent. A shudder goes through the hall, the floor trembling under my feet.
Above us, nawkas twit and call, and Jaga pushes harder, bloody sweat dripping down her face.
Her mouth is open in a silent scream, and more red light envelops her body.
Another shudder ripples through the floor. Another.
Slowly, I look up, horror and awe mixing in my chest. The tree creaks, rustling violently, and slowly, inch by inch, it tilts.
“What the fuck is she?” Perun asks, shock in his voice.
I don’t know. I can only watch as my poppy girl, bathed in red, singlehandedly topples Perun’s oak. The hall shakes, the foundations breaking apart as momentum rips out the roots buried deep underneath. The oak falls, majestic and slow, and the hall quakes a final time as it hits the ground.
I shoot out of the trap, half-certain it couldn’t have worked.
But the barrier is gone, Perun’s voice quiet.
His magic dissipates, though I know he can come back.
Wherever there is an oak, he can go. I have protections in place, so he needed four to reach me, but given enough time, he might try something with three.
“Everyone out!” I roar, scooping Jaga into my arms.
She’s unconscious, probably drained. She’ll be fine, so I focus on the nawkas instead. Nyja’s soldiers in their bird forms rush up into the perches, shooing all the little birds out of the hall. It will have to be purified until every last trace of the oaks is gone.
“Out! Remove everyone! It will be burned. Out, out!”