Chapter 11 Bite
Chapter eleven
Bite
The next two weeks pass fast. I’m busy strengthening our defenses with Nyja, combing through every level of Nawie in person to make sure nothing else snuck through. We prepare new protocols for soul threshing to make sure we won’t fall for the same trick again.
I go out as Woland, desperately rallying up another rebel attack to keep Perun’s forces occupied. My brother still doesn’t know Woland is me, which is the only silver lining in that entire situation. I make it a point not to wander Nawie’s halls as the devil anymore, even for Jaga’s sake.
It doesn’t matter, anyway. She ignores me, but there’s a new frantic energy to her.
When I check on her in rare free moments, she usually paces my throne room.
Sometimes, she sleeps. I catch her a few times muttering to herself, but when I send my shadows closer to eavesdrop, she always stops, her watchful eyes finding my spies in the dark.
She glows. There is a reddish halo around her head and wrists, scattered and uneven, but when I try to study it, she slams her barriers down, shutting me out.
At least she’s not apathetic and indifferent anymore.
When everything I can possibly do is done, and I drag myself back into my throne room after an unsuccessful rebel attack that at least let me slaughter some dragons, I find Jaga sitting at a table with Wiosna. They talk in hushed voices but fall silent as soon as I appear.
I pretend to ignore them and strain my ears, just catching Wiosna’s harsh whisper.
“He’s the only one who’ll know. You have to ask him.”
Jaga shakes her head, and I turn, offering the old whisperer a smile. “I see you’ve made a feast. It smells delicious.”
Indeed, the table is laid with simple fare that I recognize from my trips into the mortal world. There’s dark, heavy bread, fresh butter with green parsley, roast vegetables, and some kind of meat stew. Fresh berries with honey sit in tiny bowls.
“Why don’t you join us, Weles?” Wiosna asks graciously, inviting me to my own table.
I incline my head and sit, piling my plate high with food. Jaga watches me with her brow gently arched, maybe curious, maybe judgmental. I pay her no mind and eat fast, replenishing the magic I lost slaying dragons.
“My, my, I’d have never guessed the great Weles himself would eat my food,” Wiosna says with pleasure, shaking her head. “Make sure you have this for dessert, too. You’re too thin.”
She pushes a bowl of honeyed fruit toward me, and Jaga sighs in exasperation, her nostrils flaring.
“Has death muddled your brain?” she asks viciously, stabbing a piece of carrot with her fork. “Stop treating him like… Like a grandson! He is Woland. Don’t you remember what he did to me?”
Wiosna pats her hand. “There, there. Of course I remember. But let me be a bit selfish here. If he falls, I’ll cease to exist, Jagusia. It’s in my best interest to keep him fed and strong, eh?”
I swallow a bite of meat and laugh, amused by Wiosna’s pragmatism. “Is that really why you’re nice to me? Aren’t you a cunning vixen.”
She shrugs, smoothing her black dress on her lap. “Am I wrong? Jaga told me Perun almost took you. If he conquers Nawie, I doubt he’ll want to keep things as they are. Souls are magic, aren’t they? He’ll just devour us all to gain more power.”
Souls are magic.
I shoot Jaga a sharp, inquiring look. Is that really it? But how?
My suspicion is confirmed when I catch her giving Wiosna a murderous glare. The old whisperer ignores it, leaning back in her chair with a happy sigh.
“Well, I spent a lot of time in this body to cook. Forgive me.”
The edges of her physique grow blurry, her form becoming transparent, less solid. She exhales for the last time and settles into an incorporeal state, where she needs no air, no food, no magic to exist.
“Be smart, Jagusia. Goodbye.”
The half-transparent ghost of Wiosna kicks away from the floor and rises up, passing through the ceiling. Since I brought her here myself, she can come and go as she pleases. Jaga follows her with her gaze, a mixture of resentment and hesitation on her face.
“I can’t get used to it,” she finally says, leveling me with a cool look of her narrowed eyes. “How they just flit about one moment, then go solid to fuck someone or eat before they shed their body again. Why did you set it up this way?”
I press a linen napkin to my mouth before I take a healthy drink of dewberry wine.
“I didn’t. After I created mortals, and they multiplied, I didn’t give much consideration to what would happen after they died. Afterlife was a purely hypothetical concept since I’m immortal.
“So when the first souls found their way to me, their maker, I just let them settle in my kingdom. More kept coming, and I built more tunnels, more halls, entire areas that grew out into towns, meadows, forests… They come here as birds, but they aren’t truly solid.
Most change into forms resembling their former bodies after a few days.
I suppose they go back to what’s familiar. ”
“And they can grow solid for a few hours a day?”
I nod, taking another sip. I don’t think I’ve had her wine in weeks, and it’s like cool water soothing my parched throat.
“Usually, they have enough magic to last a few hours, yes. Then, they go back to their spirit forms and recharge until they can manifest a body again. Those bodies are only facsimiles of the true mortal ones. For example, they can choose not to feel pain or anything else they don’t like.”
Jaga frowns. “And bieses go to Wyraj after they die? Why?”
I snort with amusement. “You have to remember we weren’t wise or intentional when we played with creation back then. It was just games and experiments. Not mortals. That was my project of love. But after, with the bieses, every god joined in the fun. Each wanted to make their own.
“Now, a bies is a mortal that’s twisted and wrought until they become something else, but they still have a soul.
That’s the key. To make a bies, the soul needs to stay trapped behind, and it twists together with the body.
Bieses can die, too, as it turned out. First bieses were made by Mokosz and Strzybog, and they found their way to their makers after death. Perun claimed them.”
“But bieses can have children, too?” Jaga asks, shaking her head in frustration.
“Yes, but unlike mortals, they don’t have inborn souls.
You see? Their bodies were made in ways that allow them to procreate, but Perun and Mokosz, and other gods joining in the fun, forgot to add that godlike spark.
They used what was available—the mortal souls—but once they are twisted beyond recognition, those souls don’t proliferate like the mortal ones.
A bies soul is like a mule, I suppose. You can make one, but it won’t breed.
“So now, whenever a bies woman conceives, she receives one of the multiple souls roosting in the Great Oak.”
Jaga grimaces, crushing her berries with a spoon. “There is no logic to this. How can you be gods yet do such a sloppy job of, well, everything?”
I shrug. “We devised solutions as problems arose. The system worked perfectly until Perun schemed to grab more and more power. He skewed the scales, and now everything is out of balance.”
She glances up, sighing as if to concede the point. “I guess you’re right. One cannot make a coherent system if the rule-makers fight for dominance.”
“How would you make it better?” I ask with a smile, at which Jaga throws her spoon into the bowl and pushes it away, uninterested in dessert. I grab it and eat it myself, feeling a pathetic little thrill at having her food.
“It’s a moot point, isn’t it? Since Perun will conquer us in the end, and we will all perish. I suppose I’ll sleep until then. Goodnight.”
She stands up, but my shadows curl around her wrists and ankles before she takes a step. Jaga throws me an angry look, and I let go, standing, too.
“Wait. You don’t mean that. Jaga, the way you fought Perun was magnificent. I gave up at that point. You didn’t. You pushed through, and you won. That’s who you are, always defiant, always fighting. Come back to me.”
Her lip curls in disdain. “To you? Please. And fight? I’ll never make that mistake again. It was stupid and I learned my lesson. Deal with Perun on your own.”
“But we won’t perish if he wins,” I say bitterly. “Like I told you long ago, we’ll be chained side by side, probably getting raped and tortured whenever they get bored. Mokosz told me as much, and Perun threatened to give you to his dragons. Are you truly fine with it?”
She sneers with such obvious hate, I recoil. “I suppose you trained me well. I’m sure I’ll manage.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Only that you always took what you wanted. Making doors disappear. Tying me to your bed and raping my ears with cruel, horrible lies. I took it, didn’t I? I’m sure I can take a few dragon dicks. They will be pleasant in comparison.”
I reel back as if slapped, and Jaga turns away, her body shaking with tension until she throws her head back and screams. I wait for the familiar whirlpool of magic she always releases when she’s overwhelmed, but it doesn’t come.
“They weren’t lies,” I growl, rounding the table to get closer. “I lied when I said I didn’t love you. But that night you speak of? Nothing I told you was a lie. Nothing!”
She turns, her hands contorted, her nails growing into long, thick talons. Her hair whips around her shoulders, and she’s taller, her body transforming under the strain of fury.
“You can’t even keep track, can you? ’It’s just this once’, ‘This will be the last one’!” she screams, throwing my words from long ago in my face.
I snort. “But you knew those were lies! It was a game you enjoyed, for fuck’s sake. It’s different. I only told you the truth when it mattered!”
“You’re lying even now!” she roars, throwing herself at me, hands aimed at my face. “You don’t even care to remember! Always lying!”
She scratches down my cheek, my throat, and I don’t stop her. Jaga screams with fury and hacks at me with long claws, her teeth sharpening as she goes. My clothes tear under her assault, and I raise my arms to the sides, offering myself to her. Pain flows free, and I don’t stop it. I take it all.
“You. Fucking. Liar!” she grits out, scratching deep gouges into my sides, pummeling her fists into my chest. “Never! Never again!”
She opens her mouth wide, her teeth grotesquely sharpened. It’s like a strzyga’s maw, and I flinch in dread but don’t move away. She sinks those fangs into my bicep, and I grunt from pain. Jaga bites down to the bone and sucks my blood out of the wound.
I can’t help it. Despite the pain, despite her hatred, I get hard.
She sees how my trousers tent and pulls away, staring at me with infinite contempt.
“You’re a pig,” she snarls at last. “I should bite it off.”
My cock twitches as if in encouragement, and I close my eyes, ashamed for once.
“I can’t help it,” I whisper, defeated. “If it’s you doing it, I want it. Whatever it is. Bite me if you want. I’ll probably love it more than hate it.”
“You can’t even let me have my revenge,” she scoffs, pulling away as she licks my blood off her lips.
Her nails and teeth return to their normal shape, her body shrinking back to its natural size. I keep my wounds from healing, all the scratches and the bite pounding with pain that goes straight to my cock. I wish she’d do more. I crave it like I never craved pain before.
But Jaga hangs her head with despondence, trudging away toward my throne. She sits heavily, breathing hard, her eyes closed.
“You can do it again when you want,” I say softly. “I’ll try better not to enjoy it.”
She shakes her head. “Get out of my sight.”
I obey instantly. Finally, it feels like atonement is possible. I’ll take Jaga’s fury over her apathy and kiss her feet in gratitude.
But this thrilling progress doesn’t mean I can stop trying. I gave up too easily when Perun trapped me. I know it’s a fault of mine. Ever since I was imprisoned centuries ago, I lost my drive. There are so many days when I don’t believe I can ever win.
Jaga showed me my error. She never stopped to wonder if it made sense, never tried to evaluate her chances. She just fought. She always does, only giving up when all her resources are utterly spent. I should learn from her.
Magic whips around me as I turn into Woland, a new plan forming. I’ll get her to care. After all, I know Jaga better than anyone.