Chapter 25 Buzz #2
“We never make up fate,” she whispers. “Only when… Ah. Can’t say.”
“Only when heroes are born, and you must give them a quick death,” I finish what she can’t admit out loud, prevented by Perun’s magic. “Some heroes defy their Dola-given fates, though. I have Jaga and the King of Bees in Nawie. Will that be enough to convince your sisters?”
A tiny nod. “We’re ready.”
“Any new spells binding you to Perun?”
Dola shakes her head. “He neglects us.”
“Good. Then we’ll break your shackles once you arrive.”
She looks up with a tight smile. “Thank you, Grandfather.”
I am about to leave when the laboring mother makes the loudest scream yet, one that’s desperate, coming straight from her spasming womb. The midwife does her job without another word of complaint, and a few moments later, the squeal of a newborn child joins the whimpering of the mother.
“A hero?” I ask Dola.
She shakes her head. “Another for the herd.”
I try to muster some sympathy for the wailing, bloodied little creature, but I fail. Perun’s ancestral soul binds his magic and wit, making him nothing more than a dumb servant. He’s only another mortal feeding Perun’s power through blind belief fueled by lies.
“We’ll free the herds and let them roam free,” I whisper to Dola, who doesn’t pay me any mind.
She stands by the bed, pressing her thumb to the baby’s forehead while it squirms, still crying viciously. None of the mortals perceive her as she seals the newborn’s fate.
I go back home, telling Jaga what I did along the way. She doesn’t reply, but I sense her frustration. I think she can’t help but enjoy my company, and she hates it.
Maybe I’ll wear her down someday—and she will finally give me her soul.
It takes a few days for my allies to arrive.
Dola and the other two rodzanicas, Niedola and Odola, come together with Rod.
We spend a full day in the Hall of Fires together, unweaving the magic binding them to Perun’s will.
It’s a lengthy and irreversible process, because once it’s done, Perun will know they left his side.
If he gets them again, they will be punished, maybe buried like Swietowit. I don’t say it out loud, but I am very happy about their circumstances, since they ensure absolute loyalty. Yes, Rod is my son, and his daughters are my granddaughters, but blood relations mean little among gods.
Especially since the blood of Mokosz runs in all of their veins. The rodzanicas are more hers than mine, since she is both their mother and grandmother.
And yet, they are here, ready to risk it all to support me.
Not so Strzybog. When Nyja presses him to join us for good, abandoning Wyraj and his lousy spying, he hedges and complains, trying to convince her he will be much more useful in Wyraj.
“I couldn’t listen to him any longer. He had three excuses for every suggestion I made, and after ten minutes, I was ready to rip out his tongue to make him stop,” she complains, throwing a rock into churning black water stretching before us in a beautiful, moonlit landscape.
We sit together by the foot of a waterfall in one of the forested parts of Nawie, a brilliant purple moon of my creation lighting the sky. It’s one of the middle levels that’s currently deserted by souls, and I’ve invited Nyja here to talk after a long, exhausting day of breaking Perun’s spells.
I sip Jaga’s wine and do my best to keep myself distracted so I don’t seek her out and do another foolish thing that will only drive her further away.
“I swear, why do you invite him to your bed all the time?” I ask Nyja.
Her being with Strzybog has always baffled me, since she is so much better than him in every way.
“He’s obviously a coward, and much worse than me. Don’t you see? He’s playing it safe, seeing who will win. If we manage to defeat Perun by some miracle, he’ll claim he was on our side all along, but he’ll never take a risk to support us.”
Nyja lights a long, wooden pipe filled with a herb that she claims helps her sleep, numbing the cries of nawkas clamoring for her love and attention at every hour of day and night. Even the Mother of Nawkas has to sleep sometimes.
“He’s the best fuck I’ve ever had,” she says after puffing out a perfect smoke ring. “Including you. I don’t mind him when his mouth is busy with things other than talking.”
I snort. “I can understand that. Have I told you what Perun did to Mokosz? Fuck, you should have seen her.”
We laugh together, and she gives me her pipe to smoke. It’s a pleasant diversion from the terror brewing in my gut, roiling and all-encompassing, and the yearning in my chest that grows more unbearable with every hour spent without Jaga’s company and her voice in my head.
When the made up stars on the illusive sky above us twinkle, and Nyja smiles at me the way she used to centuries ago, I consider kissing her.
But Nyja isn’t the one, and her kisses will never quench my thirst.
The next morning, after a sleepless night I spend haunting the corridors of Nawie, Jutrzenka crosses over Struzina and lands in the fragrant grasses of my island. As soon as I sense her in my domain, pleasant tingles race down my spine. Finally.
I find Jaga in the torture chamber, draining pus out of the utopek’s stomach. I grab her hand and pull her with me into my realm of shadows.
“Come with me. And don’t be too jealous.”