Chapter 48
Chapter forty-eight
Defeat
Perun fries Jaga’s brain with lightning. It’s a particularly nasty form of torture, because the potent overflow of energy keeps her wide awake and conscious. His magic won’t allow any thoughts to form, it won’t let her compartmentalize the pain or focus on something else to lessen its intensity.
As long as the spell lasts, Jaga is a being of pure agony and torment. Perun can keep this up for hours and barely deplete his magic reserves.
Did I ever think Jaga might defeat him? Oh, stupid Weles. After centuries of avoiding my brother, I forgot just how powerful he is. I forgot what the support of millions of souls filled with belief can do.
I fight with my restraints fruitlessly as Jaga shakes and sizzles, steam rising from her head, her hair turning black at the roots. This curse can kill the sturdiest of bieses, even those almost immortal, like biedas.
The only being that will not succumb to it is a god. A chasm of helplessness opens in my body, and I want to scream from fear, because what if I made a mistake when remaking Jaga? One tiny, little error will be revealed by his torture. She will die, never to return.
Perun lets go and steps away, massaging his hand with a frown. Jaga hangs limp, swaying lightly. I don’t know whether she’s dead or alive. Her chest doesn’t move.
“And I thought she would be a challenge.”
Perun scoffs, turning to me with anger. “You lied to me, you and Mokosz. Immortal? You can’t even save yourself, not to mention anyone else. Pathetic Weles. Always a loser.”
I don’t listen to him. Blood pounds in my ears, my heart going faster and faster as all-encompassing, soul-rending sorrow fills my chest. I don’t breathe, my eyes wide open, watching Jaga.
Open your eyes. Breathe. Please, poppy girl.
Perun laughs and comes closer, crouching in front of me. His linen trousers are tight over his thighs, and the fabric threatens to burst at the seams. I try to look around him at Jaga, but he grabs my chin and spits in my face.
“Ah, I almost regretted not playing with her some more, but the look on your face is priceless. Let me guess. She told you how powerful and strong you are when she sucked your dick? She made you feel like a god again? It couldn’t have taken much for my poor, gullible brother to fall for the bitch.
You were a man with her by your side, eh?
And now she’s gone. Fuck, I can’t believe it. He’s going to cry!”
Perun stands up, booming with laughter. His dragons laugh as if on cue, while Strzybog manages only a pale smile. Jutrzenka stomps her foot.
“He’s never loved her!” she seethes. “Don’t say that, Daddy. He doesn’t care!”
Perun ignores her and kicks my face. It’s a casual kick, not too strong, and it still makes my back bend so abruptly, I’m afraid my spine will snap. Blood pours from my broken nose, and I don’t have enough magic to heal.
There is a small, tired cough behind him. I freeze. Perun slowly turns back.
Jaga moves, though barely. All her limbs twitch with tremors, and I don’t think she’s breathing yet. A brain fried by Perun’s lightning loses its functions, and it takes time for it to remember that it’s supposed to make the heart beat, make the skin sweat, and so many other things.
People in this state are confused and susceptible. I struggle against my bonds as Perun goes to her, his steps deceptively slow, graceful despite his bulk. Nyja cries out in protest. She knows as well as me Jaga will say anything he commands right now.
Unless her ability to speak hasn’t returned yet. But it’s only a matter of time.
I grit my teeth. I must do it now. I must.
“Weles!” Nyja screams, her voice breaking from desperation. “Now!”
I try to take a deep breath to brace myself, but the air keeps shuddering out of me as I shake, torn between hope and duty. Because Jaga is strong. She’s been through so much—I have put her through so much worse than this. And she still told me no.
Nyja screams in anger and frustration. Black, glittery jets of magic splash Jaga, flowing straight from Nyja’s open mouth.
I flinch. It’s death magic from a death goddess, the most powerful in the world save for mine.
Perun stops, tilting his head as he watches, and Jaga shakes and wobbles, bathed in the blackness that glitters like diamonds and starlight.
“Enough,” Perun commands.
A dragon hits the back of Nyja’s head, and she crumples to the ground. The stream of death is extinguished.
Perun goes to my witch, impatient. He grabs her by the hair, revealing a pale, motionless face with blood smeared under her eyes and nostrils, blood coating the sides of her neck where it spilled from her ears.
She looks dead, but I’m more confident now.
If she survived his spell, she must have lived through this, too.
He slaps her hard. Jaga comes to with a loud inhale, her eyes opening wide in agony, her mouth gaping as if to scream, though she’s silent. Perun turns to me, and he looks unhappy.
“She couldn’t have been a mortal before,” he says, jealousy in his voice. “You’re not capable of such magic. No one is.”
“I made the first people, and no one else was capable of that, either,” I say, too agitated to keep my mouth shut.
Perun slaps Jaga again, and this time, she cries out.
“Do you want the pain to end?” he asks furiously. “Say you belong to Perun!”
She chokes on a large breath of air and remains silent, her head pulled back in his grip, her eyes closed. I get ready, knowing I’ll have to snuff out her life the very moment she speaks.
We wait in tense silence. Jaga takes another greedy breath, like a drowning person emerging from water. Her mouth slowly moves, and I groan from effort, holding my curse in check. I can kill her with a thought even if I have no magic. I was stupid in many ways, but this, I did prepare for.
Jaga’s lips twitch and work, and it’s laborious and slow in her condition. Perun huffs with impatience but doesn’t say anything. Sweat beads on my forehead.
As soon as she speaks, I’ll strike. She’ll never be his.
Jaga finally controls her face. Her mouth shapes into a wide, mad smile, and she laughs breathlessly, shaking and wheezing. Perun lets go of her head, and Jaga straightens it with effort until she breathes freely.
A loud, horrible cackle pours out of her throat. I let go of my killing curse, my shoulders dropping from relief. Of course, this is her reaction. My formidable witch.
Perun watches her without comprehension for a good minute before his face tightens in wrath. His eyes glitter like stormy skies, and he grabs Jaga by the throat, tearing into her body with lightning and fire.
It takes a long time. Jaga shakes in his grip, her eyes wide open and shooting sparks, inhuman, horrible sounds pouring out of her throat. I watch it all. My heart is in tatters, and I am wracked by guilt and pain that’s unbearable, because it’s intangible and impossible to soothe.
But her pain is worse. Time and again, I toy with the killing curse in my mind. One thought, and Jaga will be gone, her pain wiped out.
The only thing that holds me back is what she said to Nyja today. Death is not freedom.
As long as there is hope, I will not kill her. I can’t.
When Perun gets bored, he goes away to sit in the grass, motioning Dadzbog toward Jaga. Her torture changes, blinding light burning her eyes out of their sockets, heat worse than the one poludnicas inflict burning her body until she’s but a blackened skeleton, standing only because she cannot die.
Perun heals her every time she’s broken so much, she can’t feel again, and it starts anew.
The day crawls toward evening. Jaga is destroyed and remade in the same, tedious ways, burned with Dadzbog’s sunlight, crushed with Swarog’s hammers, and fried with Perun’s lightning.
My allies are either unconscious or on the edge of it.
Perun sucks magic out of them every few hours to make sure none can fight back.
I don’t regain any power, the plants rooted in my legs taking it all.
It's late afternoon by the time Perun goes to Jaga again. She’s a steaming roast of a woman, her hair all burned off by now, her skin charred.
He heals her with an impatient wave of his hand, and she comes to with a shocked gasp of air, instantly coughing when her newly regrown lungs can’t take the air.
“I get it,” Perun says impatiently. “You are strong enough to withstand torture. You proved your point. But can you do it day after day, through all eternity? The pain will never lessen, because your body will be remade over and over. You won’t get used to it.
Is it really worth it? Give in, and I’ll let you go. ”
She exhales wearily and shakes her head. “I’d rather burn forever than be yours.”
Perun fries her with lightning until her limbs flail helplessly, but he’s not focused on her.
He watches my allies with a frown, and after a moment, I realize his gaze is on Chors.
My son sits on his heels in the grass, his collar no longer burning, though he bears angry red scars all around his neck.
His eyes are feverish, lips parted and swollen as he struggles to take in air.
“I should have woken my wife, after all,” Perun says with a grim smile. “She would have reminded me.”
He motions for the dragons guarding Chors to bring him closer. The remnants of my heart shatter into pieces. So this is how it will be. Both my loves will be tortured side by side, and I will be helpless to stop it.
“You don’t care for Weles or you would have given him your soul,” Perun tells Jaga with quiet satisfaction, even though she probably can’t understand him. Blood and drool drip down her chin, and her eyes twitch uncontrollably as she swings in the chains.
“But I remembered my wife’s stupid ravings just now. You fucked this one, didn’t you? Maybe you care about him.”
“No!” I cry out, struggling. “No! She cares about me! She loves me! Torture me to make her agree! Do it to me!”