Chapter 16 Moonlight #2
“Sorry.” The offending touch retreats, and I breathe in relief. “I don’t know why I did that. I think… I wanted to see how it feels.”
I suppress a bitter cackle that tickles the back of my throat, wanting to burst out.
“And? Was it slimy? Cold and vile? Like a reptile?”
“No.” His voice is very tender and so low, I have to step closer to hear. “It felt like you. Warm. Familiar. Powerful. How did it become so mutilated, Jaga?”
The sound of his voice lends me courage to open my eyes.
Chors has a soft, inquiring look on his face, not at all horrified like I expected.
Maybe I don’t disgust him, then. Or maybe I gave him enough time to school his expression.
It doesn’t matter, because I’ll take every shred of kindness I’m given.
“When Mokosz buried me, I had no magic,” I begin haltingly, the memory of plants living inside me, of insects crawling in my ears and wounds rushing through me like a full-body tremor.
“And when it replenished, her plants sucked it out at once. I couldn’t move.
I had no way of getting out. At one point, after months, I think, I realized there was something in my chest. The pendant with Woland’s blood. ”
Chors nods, evidently knowing all about it. How very fatherly of Woland to share everything with his son. I bite back my scoff of annoyance.
“I knew it had to come out. I didn’t know why at that point.
My mind was very slow, as if I was a plant myself.
Through excruciating effort and much pain, I managed to push it out.
Only—that didn’t help. The magic binding his blood still worked, even outside my body.
I realized I had to make the pendant break so the plants would suck out that magic and break my spell. So he would find me.”
“But you had no magic,” Chors whispers.
A powerful wave crashes into the cliff, and I pick up my coat, shivering. I don it fast, then warm myself with a hasty spell. My soul is tucked back in, my ignominy hidden away.
“My well was empty. It was magical starvation—and do you know how starving people can smell food from far away? Hunger sharpens the senses. My magical depletion made me aware of this tiny, hidden, heavily protected deposit of magic inside me. I used it. And Woland found me.”
“So that’s what caused this?” Chors asks, his brows drawing into a thoughtful frown.
I grin, baring my teeth in madness rather than in mirth.
“Oh, no. That’s when I cracked it open. I suppose it would have healed with time.
But I discovered that by spending that magic in my soul, I could make myself indifferent.
When the pain got too much, I simply burned through my soul, and it stopped hurting.
Somehow, the more I did it, the bigger my soul grew, and more powerful. ”
For a moment, I am back in Nawie’s Well of Souls, fury and resentment riding me. It was beautiful. Utterly striking—to see him up there, the god of life and death welcoming his creation back home—like a loving father embracing his children. I was so angry to be denied that.
“I ripped my soul apart for good in the Well of Souls,” I admit with a heavy sigh, ashamed for acting so recklessly with magic I don’t understand.
“I released large parts of it, and the stones swallowed them up. That was the point of no return, I think. I crippled myself. Those parts are gone forever.”
Chors is calm, no judgment in his steady gaze. “What happened when you toppled Perun’s oak?”
I shiver, remembering how it felt to sense nothing, be nothing, clinging to my body with the fading grip of my little soul claws.
“I burned through it all, and nothing was left. Nothing but an empty shell. It faded. But Weles—he breathed into it. He filled it. That’s when it got this big.
This… Unwieldy. I am powerful, Chors. I have more magic than any mortal or bies, I know.
But it feels wrong. If my body was like my soul, I’d have internal organs hanging out.
Heart, intestines, my womb. It’s… I’m sick. Can you help me?”
Even before he shakes his head, I know it’s hopeless. His eyes are kind but sad. I don’t think he’s ever looked at me with such pity before, and I hate it.
“You should show my father. If anyone can heal you, it’s him, but Jaga, I don’t think it’s an illness. You… It’s shocking, yes. Unnatural. But also beautiful. You are as powerful as a goddess, aren’t you?”
“But it hurts,” I grit out through clenched teeth.
“Yes. You’ll learn to live with the pain.”
I check my scream of rage before it leaves my throat. He’s gentle and infinitely understanding, and I remember how I saw him two weeks ago, dead but living, desiccated and hurting. If anyone has a right to say that to me, it’s him. I release my rage with a shaky breath and nod.
“Thank you.”
There is a call somewhere above, a scream of a lost bird. I shiver and wrap my arms around me, feeling naked. I guess that’s how it will be between Chors and me now. We are a strange blend of friends, past lovers, and family. I hate that I love him so much.
If I cared less for the beautiful moon god, I would seduce him to taunt Woland.
“That wasn’t a seagull,” Chors mutters, looking up.
He extends an arm high up, his palm open. A beam of silvery light shoots out, combing through the dark sky. For the briefest moment, it illuminates a large, feathery shape. The thing instantly shies away with a squawk.
“Upierzycas,” Chors says grimly. “We’d better go back and…”
The sky bursts into flames.