Chapter 49
Chapter forty-nine
Fate
“Woland.”
Silence falls, heavy and confused, broken only by the murmuring of wind in the oak leaves. I stare at Jaga, frowning without understanding. What did she say? Does my mind play tricks on me?
I thought she said my name, but Perun’s magic makes that impossible.
Perun watches her, too, frowning with confusion. “What did you say, mad woman?”
“I give my soul to Woland!”
This time, I understand. When something presses at my heart, eager to be let in, I open wide and receive it.
A light surges in my chest, something red and potent, magic so powerful, even the oak roots can’t keep up sucking it out.
I poison them with the full force of it, and they wither and die, the poison shooting up and up the roots to the tree.
More magic floods me, so much more than I can handle, and I break up my chains, though I don’t move yet.
The soil around me loosens, and I can come out of my hole, but I don’t.
More poison flows to the tree underground, unbeknownst to anyone but me. I have enough to fall ten Great Oaks. A hundred of them.
“He is not here,” Perun says with a frown.
“Besides, Woland is not a proper god. He can’t claim you, or he would have already.
How did you think this would work? I swear, you lot are so dense, it’s insufferable.
But fine. Dragons, go and seize him. He’s probably somewhere in Slawa, hiding in the gutters below the mountain like the worm he is.
Burn the city to lure him out and bring him to me. ”
I reach with my new power, so easy, so limitless, and crush each dragon’s heart before they take a single step. They remain standing for a moment, their eyes glazed and empty, then topple to the ground one by one.
Perun flinches. His eyes flash with fear.
“What…” He turns in a circle, looking for Woland, but Woland’s not here. Weles is, and he has Jaga’s soul at last.
“What… Where is he? Dadzbog, Swarog, find him now!”
I stay in my hole, barely able to contain the magnificent flood of magic that fills my every cell.
I am like Jaga, my power bursting out of me, wanting to be a cloak, a tent, a massive city of light.
I send my shadows underground to my allies, undoing their chains, healing their wounds, and replenishing their wells of power.
I have more than enough for everyone here. Even Perun with all his stolen magic is not as powerful as me now.
The King of Bees slowly stands, the burned insects coming alive as they form a robust, angry body. Chors shakes on his hands and knees, his collar gone. Nyja’s eyes burn with a lethal promise.
And then, there is Jaga. Best for last. She watches me with pain and defeat, my girl conquered, finally mine. Bloody tears stream down her cheeks, just like the first time she looked at me, back in the mortal world.
Perun shoots up into the branches after his sons, Jutrzenka following on his heels. They don’t see what happens, too busy looking for Woland. Only Strzybog stays where he is, watching me with a grim smile. I realize he must have known.
And he never told Perun.
“I will kill your father,” I tell him softly, rising out of the ground, my hand on the handle of the knife. “And you will be free.”
He nods sharply. I take a deep breath and shoot to Jaga’s side, sealing my mouth to hers.
She is still bound, and she takes the air from my lips with a helpless moan.
I feed her quickly, forcing magic into her soul until she brims with it, and then I kiss her.
It’s fast, punishing. I cut her chains and step away.
Perun’s back. He looks at me with rage, uncomprehending and lost. Not knowing what’s going on enrages him further.
I laugh, letting out my shadows until the entire Great Oak is swathed in primal darkness.
I’ve never been able to darken such an enormous area before, and now, it’s as effortless as breathing.
Oh, Jaga. So much power in that mutilated soul.
“You!” Perun roars, his lightning cutting through my all-encompassing darkness. It flares white and goes out, snuffed out at once.
“Me. You never knew, but it was you who made me so. I am Weles and Woland, brother. You did it to me, weaving your own defeat without knowing.”
Another bolt of lightning cuts the dark, revealing him right in front of me, his clawed fists flying at my face. I step away, into a space without time, and reappear behind him. Perun turns with a sharp growl. I duck, and he swings his fists at shadows, screaming from rage.
My power brims. I was never able to shadow walk so fast, scattering spells in my wake without a shred of worry about my magic running out. Perun roars, and a rain of lightning falls in the dark, dozens of sizzling, white hot bolts pummeling the earth.
I weave between them, stopping and restarting time. It’s a dance. I slap the back of Perun’s head, then I’m gone. I avoid his hit, and kick his knee. Thorns shoot out of my palms, filled with the same poison I used on his tree, and he bellows from pain as they embed in his skin.
“So this is how you’ve felt all along,” I murmur, slicing down his back, his arm, his cheek. His ear disappears in the dark, a bloody flap of skin. “I see it now. But there’s nothing ultimately better about having this much power. It was never your accomplishment. It was a gift.”
“Fight like a man!” Perun growls, turning wildly, but he cannot see me.
“Who decides how a man is supposed to fight, brother? You? Your time is over. You’ll never decide anything again.”
I take off his other ear as soon as the first one regrows. It’s laughable how easy it is. And all it required was power—the power of belief, not from millions of souls, but from one very powerful, divine soul of a woman.
“Perun, if you could kill me, would you? Instead of keeping me chained up? Tell me.”
He shoots out powerful streams of lightning, targeting the spot where my voice came from, but I’m no longer there. Perun pants, his teeth bared, his skin and hair looking white in the sizzling light.
“I’ll destroy you!” he roars.
“Already done, brother. I was destroyed. Now I am reborn. Here.”
I cut his legs off at the knees. He falls with a scream, and I straddle him, calling forth chains of poison.
They wind around his wrists and throat, securing him to the ground.
He grunts from pain, a world of fury in his eyes.
I press my hand to his mouth and force poison deep into his belly, then gag him.
He writhes in pain, his skin growing black and dark green in patches, rotting off the bone where my restraints touch him. I call my shadows back to me. My allies, though blinded, are fighting Swarog and Dadzbog, whose light and magic aren’t enough to penetrate the dark.
As soon as it’s light, everyone stops to reorient themselves. I send chains to bind my nephews and sigh with satisfaction and relief when they are restrained and forced to their knees. Finally, everything is as it should be, and my people are safe.
The sun dips below the horizon, and a soft summer dusk falls under the Great Oak, which creaks and shivers, slowly dying. The air is golden but muted, and it will be dark soon. I look at my love and beckon her closer with my chin.
“Jaga, would you like to come here? You deserve to see it from up close.”
“Is that an order?” she bites out through clenched teeth, and I grin. My witch is angry.
“Out of us two, you order me around the most,” I say, glancing at her. “And it should stay that way. Now come. I promise you’ll like it.”
She purses her lips and walks closer, her steps stiff, her back rigid as she sits on her heels by my side. I laugh under my breath, because Jaga thinks she’s lost, but her days of glory have just begun. I won’t tell her yet. Let her marinate in her suspicions.
“Look.” I take out the knife. “I brought it just in case.”
She glances at Perun, who screams helplessly into his gag, fighting with the poisonous chains.
“You’re not going to get back at him by torturing him the same way he did you?”
“No.” When she narrows her eyes skeptically, I lean in to touch my nose to hers. “I told you the truth before. I want peace and a happy life with my poppy girl in a world with no war. I won’t let hate and revenge spoil it for me.”
Her face softens, the pain and terror behind her haughty mask peeking through. I shake my head with a small laugh.
“Oh, have some faith. After all, faith has saved us today.”
I don’t wait any longer. Sweeping my arm in a flamboyant arc, I sink the blade in Perun’s neck. He chokes on his blood as it gurgles out of the wound. I pull the knife free and wait. Ten seconds pass. Thirty. A minute.
Perun isn’t dead. He’s healing, and the flow of his blood slows to merely a trickle.
“Maybe it should go in his heart,” I say with an unhappy frown. “Let me try again.”
I press the tip of the knife between his ribs and plunge deep. Perun grows rigid, his blue eyes wide open in pain. He wheezes out a breath and is still. I nod in satisfaction and pull the knife out.
He takes a shuddering breath and keeps struggling.
“Oh, fuck it all.” I groan, throwing my head back. “I just want to be done, take you away, and have my victory fuck. Is that too much to ask? Nyja! Come here and explain.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Jaga mutters stiffly, and I give her a fond look.
Nyja comes over and kneels on Perun’s other side, facing Jaga. She takes him in with a vicious, angry expression, then looks pointedly at the bloody knife in my hand.
“I take it that’s the blade I prophesied. You owe me for all those late nights I spent trying to understand what exactly that prophecy meant when you knew all along.”
“Fine, I owe you. Take Nawie,” I say with a laugh. “It’s yours to rule. Now tell me why this knife isn’t working. It’s the one, I’m sure of it. We retrieved it from the past. Jaga was supposed to die from it.”
Nyja listens to my detailed explanation, while Jaga remains silent, watching Perun with a frown. When I’m done telling Nyja everything I know about the knife, Jaga suddenly looks up.
“Dola. Come here.”
I glance at Nyja, who shrugs. Dola drops to her knees by Perun’s head.
He’s truly surrounded now, and it’s getting crowded in here, but I perversely love this.
That’s how it should be, us plotting his death while he lies under his tree, helpless and surrounded by his enemies, those he tortured, enslaved, or hurt.
It’s only right.
“Do gods have fates on their foreheads?” Jaga asks Dola.
“No.”
Jaga nods. “And on my forehead—what’s the fate written there?”
Dola doesn’t have to look up to see. Her gaze is firmly on the blade in my hand.
“Your fate was to die from this knife. But you evaded it, so it’s void.”
Jaga nods. “It’s not the knife that has magical power, Woland. At least, I don’t think it is. It’s the fate it’s tied to. Dola, can you take that fate off my forehead and put it on Perun’s?”
I exhale in understanding. “That sounds like perfect justice. I love it.”
Dola shakes her head. “I’ve never put a fate on a god’s forehead. I don’t think it’s possible.”
I can’t keep the smile off my face. Oh, everything is possible tonight.
“Jaga, do you believe Dola is powerful enough to do it?” I ask with a wide grin, wording it exactly right.
She frowns, watching me for a moment, then shrugs. “Yes. I believe she can do it.”
Dola’s breath catches in her throat, and she looks at Jaga with wide, shocked eyes. “You believe… And so it shall be.”
She presses the tip of her finger to Jaga’s forehead, and Dola’s lips part in awe. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her be so expressive. She pulls the finger away carefully and presses it right between Perun’s eyebrows.
He grunts, but he’s weak now, his magic eaten away by my poisons. He doesn’t even struggle anymore. Dola snatches her hand away, gasping.
“Can I… Can I show my sisters? Before you kill him?”
I nod benevolently, and she motions the other rodzanicas closer. They stare at Jaga and Perun in turns, wide eyed and disbelieving.
“Is she truly a goddess now?” I ask, looking at Jaga. “One not bound by any fate?”
“She has no fate on her forehead,” Dola confirms.
“Good.”
I plunge the knife into Perun’s heart. He wheezes in a breath, then spasms once, a full body tremor from his dying heart. I leave the knife in this time, this flimsy vehicle for fate.
Perun gives his last breath and stills, his glassy eyes turned up, the evening sky reflecting in them, purple and gray, and navy blue. I breathe deeply, my chest full, expanding wider, freedom taking root in my heart and body.
“All right.”
I stand up and offer my hand to Jaga. She hesitates, then takes it, rising to her feet with a wary expression. I wrap her in soft, cozy darkness, and whisk her away to the home I prepared for us so long ago.