Chapter 19 Honesty
Chapter nineteen
Honesty
When Jaga hears my plan two days later, she is appalled.
“No! You can’t! It will be like always: you’ll wreak havoc, and the people of Slawa will pay for your crimes when Perun takes it out on them. If you want me on your side, don’t do this.”
She’s beautiful today, her loose hair falling in soft, fiery waves down her corseted back.
She’s been eating ever since Chors took her to the cliffs.
There is a new energy about her, determined and present, and it hasn’t dissipated.
Jaga takes care to sleep, bathe, and explore Nawie, never straying too far, never without company.
Usually, she asks Chors to go with her. Sometimes, Wiosna. Not me.
Now, her eyes are bright with righteous fury, and there’s a speck of blood on her wrist, a souvenir from her research session in my old bedroom turned Nienad’s torture chamber. What a splendid, vengeful Jaga. My fingers itch with the need to touch her, but I know she’ll recoil, so I don’t even try.
“Fine. I’ll figure out a way to make him leave Slawa alone this time. Do you have any other objections?”
She purses her lips, watching me with narrowed eyes. “I want to come with.”
“No, love. You’re supposed to be in Nawie with Weles, remember? If you show up with me when I’m Woland, my secret will be out.”
She folds her arms, pushing her breasts up in the tight corset. I avert my gaze so as not to react. Jaga ripe with magic and hungry for life is a thousand times more appealing than her former apathetic self.
But I’m done humiliating myself. I bled for her, I knelt, and I gave her my heart. The least I can do for my own dignity is keep my unrequited lust less apparent.
“I will disguise myself. No one will know it’s me,” she says with conviction.
I shake my head with an indulgent smile, because Jaga still has so many blind spots. In some ways, I know her better than she’s ever known herself.
“You’ll find a reason to reveal yourself, if only through the sheer power of your magic. Or do you want to tell me you’ll sit on your hands if the violence looks too good not to join in?”
She looks away, biting the inside of her cheek. A tight line settles between her eyebrows, and I almost reach up to smooth it. She gives in with a sullen huff.
“Fine. But I want to see what happens. Just to make sure you’ll keep your promise.”
“I can’t lie, remember?”
She puts her hands on her hips, leveling me with a hard stare. “No, but you can deceive.”
I sigh, pretending to hate this concession I’m about to make, even though my heart sings with triumph. I’ll get to touch her and be closer than anyone before.
“Very well. There is a way, but you won’t like it.”
She folds her arms on her chest with an obstinate expression that I know very well. “What is it?”
“We can join our minds with magic. It will allow you to see through my eyes, even speak to me in thoughts if you need to. You’ll stay here, safely hidden, and witness everything as it happens. However, I’ve never done this before. It might not work.”
I wait with bated breath while she mulls this over, her gaze pinned to my face. It’s difficult to relax when my heart pounds with excitement, but I do my best, softening my features into a mask of reluctant helpfulness.
See? I don’t want to do this. It’s definitely not my fucking dream—to hold your face in my hands, to breathe your air, and slide deep into your mind—to be inside you.
“What does it entail?” she asks at length, suspicious and on guard.
“It’s an exchange of trust,” I explain with a wry smile. “That’s why I said I’m not sure it will work. The process is simple. We only have to look into each other’s eyes and let each other in.”
“Forget it.”
She turns too fast to make out her expression, but I still catch the way her shoulders tense as she strides into Nienad’s room, her steps hurried and frantic.
“Who’s a coward now?” I murmur under my breath, just loud enough for her to hear.
She speeds up, and now she’s running, her heels clattering loudly on the floor. I laugh out loud, and my laughter is beastly, just like Woland’s. Jaga stops, clenching her fists, and turns.
“Calling me a coward won’t work,” she grits out, spitting hate, though I see the fear underneath. “I won’t let you in my mind.”
I spread my arms wide, showing her I have nothing to hide.
“Love, this bond works both ways and is very limited. I won’t rummage in your memories or twist your thoughts.
I only want to give you what you asked for—a way to watch me.
You said you want to see what happens. This is the only way to give you that without taking you with. ”
She turns on her heel and walks into the bedroom. Nienad welcomes her with a fearful mumble through his sewn up lips, and Jaga takes him in with cold assessment. She’s just been with him an hour, so it’s telling that she’s back so soon.
“How about I simply burn the rot out of you?” she asks in a low, menacing voice.
His eyes roll up in his sweaty face, and he mumbles desperately, his pleas muffled and incomprehensible.
Nienad is a shadow of his former self, his silver hair matted and dirty, hanging in tangled clumps down the sides of his face.
His eyes are bloodshot, and he’s developed a constant nervous twitching in his cheek and legs.
Jaga keeps healing him to keep the rot from spreading too fast, but the sickness won’t be gone until she finds a cure.
I’m truly curious what she’ll do with him after he serves his purpose. Will she be merciful and kill him? Or will he be released into the world, his mind and body broken?
“Love, you’re taking your emotions out on him,” I chide her, leaning my shoulder on the wall covered in smooth gems. I’ve mostly used obsidians with splashes of sapphires, rubies, and diamonds here and there. The room is dark, a shrine to sleep.
Needless to say, I don’t use it anymore with poor Nienad stinking it up with his rot.
“Should I take them out on you?” she asks.
“How about you face them, instead? You’re afraid I’ll try to mess with your memories. I will not. The mental link I proposed doesn’t serve that purpose.”
“I don’t care.”
She raises her palm, leveling it at Nienad’s stomach. It’s riddled with the disease, bloated with pus, his hairy skin mottled. Dark red flames shoot out of her hand, and the planetnik howls in pain, his body snapping into a taut arch.
It lasts a few seconds, and his skin doesn’t burn, but it steams, and the scent of roast meat fills the room. My stomach rumbles, and Jaga breaks the spell, stepping away. She gives me a look of utter disgust, and I shrug. I’m hungry, and it smells like food.
Nienad faints from pain, and she doesn’t revive him.
“Hm. Shockingly, it worked, but it’s not a viable healing method,” she mutters under her breath, examining him with her magical eye.
I step closer, sending my shadows inside Nienad to assess her progress. A moment later, I’m out, grimacing from displeasure. So much pus. My appetite is gone.
“It didn’t work. There’s still some left. You should have burned him longer.”
She shakes her head. “He was about to die.”
With a sigh, Jaga lays her hands on Nienad’s swollen, bruised abdomen. She closes her eyes, breathing evenly despite the smell, and heals the damage her spells and the illness have wrought.
His stench clings to the walls, the aura of suffering poisoning the air.
I think I’ll burn this room after she’s done with Nienad, purify it with salt and the blood of babies, and only then build it anew.
I don’t understand how Jaga can willingly spend hours in here, but she’s the least squeamish person I know.
Truly, a great healer. It’s troubling that touching the mess that’s Nienad doesn’t disgust her, yet she flinches away from the brush of my fingers.
When she’s done, I take her hand firmly and pull her out of the room, slamming the door behind us.
“Let me go, you horrid, beastly…”
“Of course.”
I let her yank her hand out of my grip and Jaga turns away, her shoulders rigid. I study her frame, humming under my breath.
“Come on. What is it, love? Tell me or I’ll conclude you’re falling for me again.”
“Conclude what you want.” Her voice is tight, and she won’t grace me with a look.
“So frustrating,” I whisper, shaking my head.
“I think I know what happened. You tortured me, you made me pay, and then we fought a common enemy together, and you no longer know what to think. You’re scared to trust me, but you don’t hate me anymore.
We’re supposed to be allies, and it’s new and confusing, isn’t it? ”
She shakes her head, her back ramrod straight. I keep my eyes firmly up, because she’s not wearing her coat, and the curve of her ass clad in tight leather draws my gaze.
“Trust me just a little, poppy girl,” I cajole her gently, pouring all of my polished charm into my voice.
Woland can’t ever speak to her this way, but I can, and I’ll exploit it without shame.
“We have to work together, after all. It will be miserable and unproductive to keep butting heads. I don’t ask for much. Just be my ally.”
Her shoulders drop, and she turns to me, her face schooled into a dispassionate mask.
“Nyja said allies don’t have to trust each other.”
“But we’re different. Do you want to see inside my mind? I’ll let you in. It’s a privilege. No one got to do that with me before.”
She is silent for a moment, then scoffs, avoiding my eyes. “Oh, I am so honored.”
“Come on.” I step closer, sensing her hesitation. “You don’t want to be stuck in this strange place between trust and fear, either. We need to go one way or another. I’m not asking you to love me. Let’s be on one side for once, with no secret agenda, no manipulation, no power plays. Just us.”
She clutches the pendant with my blood, frowning in concentration, and I realize she thinks the magic ran out, and I can lie again. When she looks up, it’s with a miffed, frustrated expression.
“Every time I trusted you before, I got hurt,” she growls, her words disjointed, like she has trouble getting them out. “I never want to hurt like that again.”
“I hurt every day when you choose other people over me, when you look at me with scorn, when you step away if I come closer.” I look steadily into her eyes, letting her see the truth in my gaze.
“That’s our thing. We hurt each other, and I don’t think it will stop. But what I’ve decided for myself is that it’s worth it. There is no one out there like you. I can either let you go or take you as you are, with barbs and knives, and be grateful.”
A small smile plays in the corner of her mouth before she twists it cynically. “And I suppose I should take you, thorns and all?”
“That would be perfect,” I admit with a smile.
Jaga shakes her head. “Oh, Woland.”
A shiver goes down my spine. I am Weles today—and most of the time, since I try my best to be good to her and control my urges. And yet, she knows it’s me. There is a thrill in that, and my heart swells.
I wish I could kiss her.
But Jaga isn’t done speaking, and what she says turns my blood into ice.
“You’ve had many lifetimes, thousands of lovers, relationships with mortal and immortal people.
It is unfortunate that after all this time you’ve decided I am the one you want.
Because you see, unlike you, I haven’t met many men—or women.
I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that I must be yours, because I am fairly certain that someone better waits for me out there.
Someone who won’t hurt me. Someone who will choose me above all else. ”
I don’t know what to say. All I can do is watch her, incredulous and angry.
Thousands of arguments crowd my tongue, fighting to be said, yet I remain silent, struggling with her cold, vehemently logical point of view.
Jaga sighs with pity and curls her fingers around the pendant.
My tongue tingles, her spell growing more potent.
“Can I trust you?” she asks softly, looking into my eyes. “If I let you in my mind, will you refrain from interfering in my thoughts and memories? Am I safe with you?”
“Yes.” The truth is forced out of me, her spell not only preventing lies but compelling me to answer with full honesty. Jaga nods, satisfied.
“Then, yes. I want to see what happens, and if I can’t be there, so be it.”
The tingling in my tongue stops, and she lets go of the pendant, rubbing her hands together in discomfort. I step closer, gratified when she doesn’t retreat. At least I have that.
“Now?”
She nods sharply. “Let’s get it over with.”