Chapter one
Fractured
Jaga sits on my throne, staring at nothing with vacant, lifeless eyes. She’s been like this for a month, only moving from her spot to go through the motions of eating or bathing once every few days. Her body is skeletal, barely alive. The skin under her eyes is bruised purple. Her cheeks are hollow.
She seems so small, lost and fragile within the enormous confines of my bejeweled stone seat. Her feet don’t reach the ground. They hang limp, soft from disuse.
Her face is impassive. The only time she speaks is to ask for death. Every morning when I bring her a breakfast she ignores, she asks. Every night when I draw her a bath she refuses, she does it again.
She’s more dead than alive, as if to spite the gift of immortality I bestowed upon her. Except, there is no spite left in Jaga. She’s a wraith.
I grimace, turning my gaze away with disgust. I don’t know whom I hate more today: her or myself. It changes regularly, like a pendulum.
Shedoesn’t hate me anymore. I wish she would.
Already knowing I will be defeated yet again, I rise from my daybed and cross the vast throne room to stop at the foot of the dais. My steps echo against the far walls, and the prisms from the gemstones adorning every inch of this space reflect in the polished floor and slide down my skin, red, violet, and green.
My throne room is exquisite, a work of art and a labor of love. I built it centuries ago, bedecking the cold cavern walls with flaming jewels I tore from the bowels of the earth myself.
Sapphires, rubies, emeralds, ambers, and others glitter and preen in the light of a dozen fires filling enormous, crystal cauldrons. The fires never go out. My throne room, though buried deep underground, glitters far more brightly than the sunlit world above. It’s more luxurious than Perun’s groves and shrines, many as they are.
“And how are you today, my love?” I ask, stopping in front of Jaga. Five tall steps lead up to the dais, and my eyes are level with her shins.
I’d be looking at her belly in my other form. For a moment, I consider shifting, just to be closer to her… but no. Better not risk it.
As always, Jaga ignores me. She remains as still as a statue, straight-backed, indifferent. I consider touching her, but she never reacts to that, either. I tried to kiss her at the start of her apathy just to stoke some fire back into her, and she was like a doll in my arms, unresponsive and cold. It was disgusting.
I’d rather she cursed me out. Anything would be better than this.
“Would you like some music today, dearest? I have an excellent fiddle player just waiting outside. Give me a nod, and I’ll tell him to come.”
Jaga doesn’t even sneer at my obvious attempt to get a reaction. She knows as well as I that I could have all the fiddlers, artists, jesters, and bards of Nawie right here in front of her if I wanted. But she must earn her entertainment, if only with a nod.
A nod is a thing so small, so pitiful, and she won’t give me even that.
“No music then.” I strain to keep a cool, polite smile on my face.
I used to rage, scream, even beg and weep. I tore my heart open for her to flay, and she ignored it as if it were a worm, unworthy of her attention.
“What about a special meal today?” I ask again after a minute of silence. Jaga doesn’t blink. She looks dead. “I spoke to someone you hold very dear. She’s agreed to cook for you.”
It was a bloody chore, too. Wiosna didn’t want to speak with me, just like Jaga. She holds me in great contempt. I had to coax, charm, beg, and tempt her to my best ability to finally get her to listen.
For a moment, I think it works.There.The faintest creasing of skin in the corner of Jaga’s eye. A sign of life. She is intrigued, if only barely.
“Come on, poppy girl,” I coax her, a giddy hope filling my chest. “A meal just like dear Wiosna used to make. The taste and smell of home. Imagine all the wonderful, hateful things it will make you feel. All the memories it will unlock. You know you want to.”
She struggles, I can tell. Her jaw tenses, her eyes growing fixed, an echo of her old fire sparking to life. We wait, frozen in the limbo of indecision. Will she cave at last?
Jaga exhales slowly, tension draining out of her. The emotion in her eyes goes out. I swallow the violent curse bursting on the tip of my tongue.
“She will be disappointed. You know, she was so happy when I told her you’re here. She cried. Begged to see you. That, of course, can’t happen until you give me something. That’s the deal, remember? A song or a meal from home for a nod. A tour of Nawie for a few words. And I’ll give you Wiosna or Bogna, your pick, if you finally tell me what the fuck is wrong with you.”
The final words fall out as a snarl, and for a moment, I sound like my uglier half. Jaga flinches, just barely, but her eyes remain fixed. I stare at her, waiting, hoping, only to be crushed again.
She doesn’t respond.
“I see you haven’t learned anything, Father.”
