When a group of pilgrims comes closer, two children sitting on top of a donkey led by a man and two women, she goes over with a wide smile.
“Hello! Excuse me, I just wanted to ask when you heard about the blessings? We only found out yesterday!”
The man stops the donkey, wiping his forehead. “Yesterday, too. Perun’s messenger came by our village, and we live nearby. Have you been up already? What’s he like?”
Jaga shakes her head. “Not yet. We’re resting, since it’s a long wait up there. Thank you, and blessings be!”
The man lifts his hand in farewell and clicks his tongue at the donkey, setting out into a slow walk. Jaga asks another group as they approach, then another.
“All of them found out yesterday,” she says, sitting by my side in the grass. “I think Perun must have kept this hidden and only revealed it then. It would explain why you weren’t able to find out anything earlier.”
I stay silent, because the only thing I have to offer is more raving. I’m convinced I’m right, though. This is the end. I can’t face Perun here. I can’t stop him. And I’m not strong enough to make the mortals turn back. This is hopeless, and Jaga is the mad one for trying to learn more. What’s the point?
We’ll both end up chained together, and I’ll watch her be raped day after day for all eternity. I bite back a sob. Oh, there is no end to my humiliation.
“Whatever you’re thinking, please, stop,” Jaga says through clenched teeth. “This is pathetic. Where is the great Woland who thought I’d be his if he only beckoned his fingers?”
“You taught him a lesson,” I say with a wry smile. “Don’t you see, Jaga? We can’t fight this.”
“We don’t even know what‘this’is yet. Have a little faith.”
“In whom?” I ask, laughing. “My only choices are Perun and myself, and love, I haven’t believed in Weles in centuries.”
“Maybe that’s your problem,” she mutters, standing up, because the boisterous group going down the slope is approaching.
“Hello! Oh, what’s that? Is that the blessing? I can’t believe you were so lucky to get it already! I cannot wait to get mine. Can I see it?”
I rise, too, intrigued despite myself. The man shows Jaga his forearm, on which glitters a round, gold mark. As I come closer, I realize it’s one of Perun’s sigils, the solar one. It’s a circle with smoothly interchanging, symmetrical lines within, painting something akin to a flower with even petals.
“Don’t touch it,”I warn her, and she pulls her hand away, giving the man a pleasant smile that transforms her plain face into something friendly and inviting.
“How did it go? Can you tell us? I’m so sorry to bother you, everyone up there has probably asked you already.”
“That’s fine,” the man says, going off the road onto the grass. He sits down with a huff, and his companions, a few men and women, follow. “We stood for a long time waiting for an audience, and then we went all the way down the mountain, so we need a rest. It was magnificent, I tell you. He sat up on an enormous gold throne, basking in divine light, a true god!”
“He was handsome,” one of the women says, a dreamy look on her face. “Stern and powerful, and so masculine.”
A man sitting by her side knocks her playfully with his elbow. “I’d be jealous if you weren’t talking about a god.”
“And what did he say when he gave you the blessing?” Jaga asks, her tone of eager curiosity utterly perfect.
“Nothing,” the man says with a shrug. “He beckoned us closer, and we’d already seen the others get the blessings before us, so we offered him our arms. He gave us the marks, and we went along, because those behind us were impatient for their turn.”
“What does it do?” I ask quietly. “Do you feel any different?”
The man looks at me with a frown. “What should it do? It’s a blessing! I imagine it will protect us from bieses, from hunger, from poverty… Don’t you know how blessings work?”
I smile to myself, because that confirms what I already know. None of those people know what theblessingsdo, and they still went like docile sheep to be marked, and probably wept in gratitude at Perun’s feet.
“All right.”
My shadows explode around us, stopping time. Our group is partly hidden in the tall grass, and no one’s too close on the road to see. Jaga shoots me a questioning look, and I grab her hand, taking us all to Nawie. The mortals are tied and gagged with my shadows.
We land on one of the middle levels that’s built like a dungeon, which is perfect. I quickly add individual cells with heavy doors, and push each of my captives inside, storing them separately. Each door has a small window allowing us to see them.
“Did you have to do that?” Jaga asks, watching the struggling, yet silent, mortals with an unhappy expression.
“How else will we find out what it does?”
