Chapter 32 Miracles
Chapter thirty-two
Miracles
After three hours of exchanging increasingly outlandish ideas, my hope is thoroughly snuffed out, and even Jaga looks miffed. I give her a mocking look.
“You seriously thought having the perspectives of a few newcomers would fix us? I’ve done this for centuries, Your Nuisance. When I say there’s no way it’s because there is no way.”
She glares at me across the table, then sighs, nodding sharply.
“You’re right. I was arrogant to think I’d have ideas you never thought of.”
“…and if enough people believe Perun is a fluffy squirrel, he will have no choice but to become one,” Jutrzenka finishes her inane thought, beaming at everyone with unearned pride.
I sigh, shaking my head, because all I want is to strangle that girl, but that would serve no purpose.
“How do you propose we make millions of mortals believe Perun is a squirrel in a short span of time?” I ask, my voice infinitely patient considering what she said.
“Oh,” she trills with a giggle. “I don’t know. But it was a fun idea!”
“All right,” I mutter through clenched teeth, pushing away from the table. “Thank you everyone, that was a very invigorating discussion, but we’ll have to…”
“No,” Jaga says quietly, standing up. “Wait. Stop. She’s right.”
She wears an expression of tight focus, muttering under her breath and frowning. I sit back down with a wince I don’t even bother to suppress. It hurts less when she sits, I’ve noticed, but now she stands, and I don’t have it in me to hide my pain anymore.
“You want to make people believe Perun is a squirrel,” I say flatly, because that would be a cherry on top of this fucking day.
Jaga shoots me an impatient look. “No, of course not! I want to make them believe you’re powerful again.”
A hush falls over the table. I sigh, closing my eyes in exhaustion. “Jaga, Perun’s ancestral souls…”
“Make people afraid of the dark and magic, yes,” she cuts in. “But do they specifically make them fear you? Is the hate of Weles built into every mortal? Because if it is, you’re right, this won’t work, but…”
“It isn’t,” Rod says with conviction, his eyes alight with sudden excitement. “I’ve handled millions of ancestral souls, and I know every spell woven into them. She’s right, Weles. They lock down magic and make people fear witches and the dark. But that’s it.”
I shake my head impatiently, because this obviously won’t work, and I hate wasting time and energy on something that will only crush me when it fails.
“I am darkness and magic,” I hiss. “It makes no difference whether Perun’s souls spell out my name or not.”
“Reinvent yourself,” Jaga says with a glimmer in her eye.
“Are you only the god of magic and shadows? No, you’re a healer and a teacher.
You said no one replaced you in these roles, so why don’t you simply claim them again?
Healing is a part of every mortal’s life.
No one prays as hard as a mother who has sick children. Do people pray to you, Weles?”
I grimace. “Sometimes. Not many. I ignore them.”
Jaga nods seriously. “Of course you do. They are but broken mortals, and you loathe looking at them. I think you should make all their prayers come true.”
There is a sudden silence, and most people watch Jaga dubiously. Only Wiosna cackles, hitting the table with her glass of mead, making it slosh over.
“Most prayers are idiotic,” I counter, shaking my head. “People ask for cures for warts, for their mother-in-law to fall in the well, or to find a pile of gold in the woods.”
“Perfect,” Jaga says, completely unbothered. “Cure their warts, drown their relatives, give them gold. You have plenty, don’t you?”
“This is preposterous.” I push away from the table, intending to stand up and pace, but a cramp grips me tight, and I settle back with a grimace. “Do you know how few people pray to me these days? And I can’t even show my face. What guarantee do you have that this will work?”
“I know human nature. If people get a windfall by praying to a certain god, they will pray to him again. Honestly. Why aren’t you all answering prayers to make yourselves more powerful?”
“It’s boring,” Strzybog says with scorn. “Besides, most people pray to Mokosz and Perun. Or to Swarog, if they are craftsmen, and the King of Bees, if they live off the forest.”
“I bet so many would pray to Weles if they knew it worked,” Jaga says, putting both hands on the table as she leans closer, as if willing to make me agree with the intensity of her gaze. “Come on. Do it now. Answer one prayer.”
I grit my teeth and close my eyes, listening for the voices I always tune out because of how tedious and irritating they are. I am shocked to discover quite a few mortals clamor for my attention. I thought most of them forgot me.
“Oh, Weles, please, make my mother well. Please, no one else listens.”
“Save me, Weles. They will kill me if they find out I did magic that day. Save my life.”
“We are so hungry. No other god ever listens. Please, Weles, give us food…”
And many, many others. I let the voices trail off, marking the first three for future perusal, and open my eyes. “They ask for healing, protection, and food. I have to be present to deliver those.”
“We should go, then,” Jaga says. “I’ll help. We will do miracles and give you back your power.”
I shake my head with frustration. “No, you don’t understand! Three people is nothing! I should… I should convert hundreds of thousands for this to work. It will take centuries to answer that many prayers.”
She shrugs. “Oh, do you have something more important to do?”
“Perun will find out and stop me,” I say through gritted teeth. “He will never let me do this. Or he’ll change the ancestral souls, adding new spells to make me even weaker.”
Rod clears his throat. “I don’t think he’ll have an easy way of doing that without me.
Ever since I left, mortals get buried with their ancestral souls still inside them.
Until Perun finds someone to replace me, he won’t recover the used ones.
New ones still go out, carried by storks, but they will run out at some point. ”
Jaga thumps her fist on the table in triumph. “See? Everything’s working out for you!”
“Jagusia, remember how Jarota prayed to Mokosz for rain that one time?” Wiosna asks out of the blue. “And it rained the next day, saving all our crops. You can bet he prayed to Mokosz for everything after that and told people to pray to her, too.”
“Oh.” Jaga sighs, nodding in understanding. She turns to me. “If you have zercas, you will have influence. Give them miracles, and they will convert people for you. Just do that, and then you can bide your time until you’re strong enough to face Perun.”
Her enthusiasm is adorable, but Jaga’s only lived a few years over twenty. She has no idea how powerful Perun is and how weak I am in comparison. She wasn’t in that hole with me, learning day after day that it’s impossible to win.
“I can try,” I say without conviction. “But I don’t think…”
“Oh, damn you!” she spits, hitting the table again, and just like Nyja, she makes the obsidian crack with the force of her anger. “You don’t want to win, do you? You want someone else to hand you the victory. That’s why you keep chasing me. Fine. Be a coward then. I’m done.”
Her pain pulses through me, debilitating and awful, and because I anchor it so tightly within me, or maybe because of our bond, I sense more than just the dull throbbing in her pelvis.
A deep ache swallows her heart. It’s disappointment, rejection, abandonment, all things horrible and hurtful. I look up, startled, and she shakes, watching me with fury that hides something so vulnerable and broken, I would never have guessed it was there.
“No,” I whisper. “No, you’re wrong. I will fight. I’ll do it. I’ll give it my all. So please, don’t be done yet. Come with me. Let’s do miracles together.”
She blinks mistrustfully, her body rigid and aching, and I sense it all, the weight of her shoulders dragging her down, a burn in her throat, her eyes stinging, though there is no trace of tears. Jaga hurts all over, and it’s because—I refused her?
She frowns now, looking down at her body, then at me, her gaze questioning. I guess she notices the lack of sensations that usually accompany her emotional turmoil. I took all of her pain, undiscerning and so pathetic in my greed for everything that’s hers.
“Jaga,” I call her attention gently back to me. “I’ll do it. I think it’s brilliant.”
I notice it because I look for it. Her shoulders sag, and the tension around her eyes releases. She nods, and I think it’s because she doesn’t trust her voice. Oh, so mortal still. So very precious.
“You can’t just go into the mortal world,” Nyja says, her lips twisted with disapproval. “Neither you nor her.”
Jaga shrugs. “I’m powerful enough to disguise myself very well.”
Nyja shakes her head. “You won’t fool him by changing the color of your hair or eyes! Weles, you can’t seriously consider letting her go. It’s too dangerous!”
I drum my fingers on the table, considering the risks and potential benefits. In the end, I shake my head. Before, I had very good reasons not to let Jaga come with me to Slawa, and they still stand. I’m not sure she’ll be able to abstain from using her magic.
But we are already bonded, so there is no reason to hold her back this time.
“Sitting here and doing nothing is dangerous, too. I believe Jaga is powerful enough to disguise her signature, and if she can do it, I’ll take her.”
When Nyja hisses like an angry cat, I project my voice to whisper in her ear, shielding the sound so only she will hear me.
“I’m making progress with her, but not fast enough. Having an adventure together will bring us closer.”
Nyja exhales heavily and looks at me with her piercing, silver eyes. “Be careful.”
I nod. Jaga looks at me, clearly excited, and I remember how much she thrived when she fought bieses in her village. She loves being in the thick of things. And this time, I’ll be right with her, not her enemy, but the closest companion in her excitement.
When the meeting’s over, Jaga comes to me, hesitating. I don’t have enough resilience to stand up. All I can do is sit here and feel the pain.
“Weles?” she asks uncertainly. “Are you well?”
I press my hand to my forehead, which is damp with cold sweat. She leans closer, and I look up, shaking my head.
“Give me a day or two, and we’ll go,” I say through gritted teeth. “Or no. Better three.”
She frowns, watching me closely. “You’re in pain.”
I can’t hold back a bitter laugh, though I should. I should get up and put on a pretense of well-being, but I’m utterly spent.
“Just go,” I say. “Please.”
She doesn’t, the obstinate witch. I push my chair away from the table, and Jaga drops to her knees in front of me, taking my hands in her palms. I close my eyes and let my head fall back against the backrest. Damn it all.
In any other condition, I would have loved seeing her like this, but right now, I can’t get it up for anything.
“Why are you in pain?” she asks, her voice tight, like she already knows the answer yet refuses to believe it.
“It’s humiliating. Leave me alone.”
“Tell me.”
Her voice blooms in my mind like a flower, sweet and coaxing, so very intimate. I exhale shakily, but I’m doomed, aren’t I?
At least it’s easier to tell her through the bond. If I say it out loud and Strzybog overhears it, for example, I would never live it down.
“When I make your pain go away, it doesn’t just disappear. I didn’t mean for you to notice. Would you do me the courtesy of forgetting you know this? Please.”
Her warm fingers tighten on my cool palms.
“Do you mean… You feel my pain? That’s how it’s gone? But you… You sat here all those hours. How’s that possible while hurting like that?”
I smile ruefully, my eyes still closed. “It was a challenge. Leave me be. I’ll give it back to you if I can’t handle it.”
“Give it back now!”
“Not yet.”
She huffs impatiently, and I manage a small smile. The front of her body presses to my shins, and she holds my hands so possessively, I know I’ll jerk off to the memory of that later. Finally, it’s worth it.
“Oh, just… Just give it back. I’ll take my potion and go to sleep. I’ll be fine.”
“No. I want to hold on to it. If you’re grateful, you can hold me. Please. Just for a while. It won’t mean anything.”
She doesn’t reply or move. I look down reluctantly, bracing for rejection in her eyes, but if anything, Jaga seems torn. She looks at our joined hands, kneading my knuckles with the pads of her fingers, her jaw working.
I want to coax and beg, but stay silent. She hates pressure, doesn’t she? If she agrees, it must come from her.
When she tilts her face up, I swallow with difficulty, unable to tell what her expression means. It’s open but determined, and we stare at each other. I sense deeply we’re closer than we’ve been since we lost that rebel fight in Slawa. She doesn’t seem to hate me.
“Can we go lie down somewhere?” she asks softly.
I wrap my shadows around her and take us to my throne room, because I don’t want anyone to disturb us, and so few can access this space.
Only belatedly do I remember all the wreckage I’ve left behind, so I dim the lights, hoping she won’t see much, and bring us to a comfortable, wide daybed in front of a fireplace glowing with red embers.
I lie down, swallowing grunts of pain, and Jaga joins me, hesitating and awkward. I pull her close, wrapping my arms around her, and bury my face in her hair. She relaxes with a shaky exhale, and I can finally breathe.
“Was it like this when you helped me before?” she asks after a while, her soft fingers trailing through the hair peeking from the opening of my shirt. “You hurt instead of me?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
I sigh, pulling her closer to reward myself for all this ignominy she makes me suffer. “Yes. Go to sleep.”
When she snuggles in with a soft sigh, I think I actually could do some miracles for others. After all, one has just happened to me.