She shakes her head but doesn’t protest. I call for Nyja and explain what we’ve seen, and at first, she’s afraid, then angry, then determined. Unlike me, she doesn’t fall into despair, and I feel a flicker of gratitude for the women in my life. If I were alone, I wouldn’t have tried to fight Perun’s scheme.
“All right,” Nyja says, tying back her hair. “I’ll take one and see if we can remove it. You take another and check what it does.”
I grab that first man, the one who was so proud about his mark. His eyes are filled with tears, and he shakes his head, pleading against the gag of my shadows. I pull him by the brown hair and sit him in a chair, tying him up.
Where to start?
“We already know it doesn’t protect anyone against misfortune, but let’s be thorough and check if it repels bieses. Can I borrow your friend, Jaga?”
She folds her arms. “Rada’s delicate.”
“I won’t spill any blood in her presence, I promise.”
“Oh, fine.”
Rada is brought, and it turns out Perun’s mark does nothing against wilas. No surprise there. I burn the man with fire, infect him with a disease, and forcibly empty his stomach and guts of all food and water to see if it will prevent starvation, but it doesn’t.
Jaga paces, watching my proceedings with unease. Meanwhile, Nyja’s subject screams through her gag as my goddess treats her mark with acid, fire, ice, and finally cuts it off.
“Look at this.”
I go over to see. The raw, bleeding wound on the woman’s forearm is healing, the mark still glimmering on her skin.
“Cutting it off doesn’t work?” I mutter. “Oh, this is something bad. I still don’t know what. Fuck, Nyja. What could this be? If you were him, what would you do to ensure an absolute victory?”
“Against you or everyone?”
I think for a moment. “Me. I definitely made him think I’m a threat again by taking Jaga and forming the alliance. What could he do to thwartmefor good?”
Jaga shakes her head, uncertain, but I look into Nyja’s eyes, and they are grim, just like I know mine are. In unison, each of us goes to our respective subjects. I strangle mine with shadows, and Nyja stops the other’s heart with one well-aimed spell.
They die easily. We wait.
“No,” Nyja whispers after a minute. “He didn’t.”
I lean closer, putting my hand on the man’s chest. I frown. There is something here, a cry of a thing trapped, suffering, trying to leave. It flutters and struggles like a wild bird put in a cage for the first time. My hands grow hot, and my skin tingles, sensing it. A soul. A soul that wants to leave, but can’t.
I stumble back, dry-heaving, and stare at the man’s body. Even a few steps away, I still hear its cries. His soul whimpers andbegs in wordless pleas, and as his body around it cools, it goes utterly frantic with pain and terror. I close my eyes and turn away, tasting bile.
“What happened?” Jaga asks, fear lacing her words. “Please. I can tell it’s something horrid. What did he do?”
I swallow and swallow, and it’s so telling that I’m this nauseous, more than I’ve ever been before. I’ve seen many atrocities, had many done to me, and yet, this is the most horrible thing I’ve witnessed. I can’t even say it. It’s beyond repugnant.
“He’s made it impossible for the souls to leave,” Nyja says in a dull, dead voice. “They are trapped. They can’t go home.”
“Could it be because you killed them in Nawie?” Jaga asks uncertainly. “Since they are already here…”
I stride over to another prisoner without saying a word, a man. I grab him and go up to Devil’s Cauldron, where I slit his throat, giving him a quick, merciful death.
What happens after is a horrendous atrocity. The man falls dead, and his soul clearly hears the call of Nawie, being so close to the Well of Souls. It chitters and squeaks in pain, thrashing against its prison.
Gripped by horror and rage, I make myself a long blade and hack off the man’s arm with the mark. It rolls away, clearly detached from his body, and yet, the soul is still trapped.
Perun’s curse, which was never a blessing, goes deeper than just the body. It’s magic of a kind I’ve never seen before, and it will ruin me. Soul by soul, mark by mark, Perun will starve me, until Nawie has no more souls, and I have no more magic.
He won. And all it took was debasing my creation so completely, it can never be saved. I leave the body there to rot and walk through shadows into one of the forgotten, only half-finished levels of Nawie, where I curl up on the ground and weep.
Nothing can rouse me from this stupor. It’s over. I don’t want to think anymore. I don’t want to be.
