“The shields around his new temple are nigh on impenetrable. He really might be blind to everything happening outside it,” Rod says behind me, his voice hushed, just like hers. It’s like they are afraid of provoking the licho with a louder sound, and I understand them.
It’s fucking eerie that no one is here to fight us. My nape itches, and I clench my fists at my sides, not knowing what to do. This might be a trap or the luckiest break ever. No, it’s a trap. We should go.
“What are you doing here?”
Mokosz appears in front of me, a frown marring her perfect visage. She gapes for a second with wide eyes before her face flattens as she realizes what’s happening. She raises her arm, ready to command nature to attack us.
The red, glowing tendrils of Jaga’s soul wrap around the goddess. Fear flashes in her blue eyes, and she opens her mouth to scream. A thin, red soul tentacle dives down her throat, burrowing deep inside Mokosz.
She is lifted from the ground, struggling in silence. Jaga breathes hard, enraged, as she takes her higher, as high as her soul tendrils can reach.
She slams Mokosz hard into the ground, making it vibrate. Her soul pulses, brighter and redder, light traveling up those tendrils from Mokosz into Jaga.
I realize with a sick kind of awe that Jaga sucks magic out of her. When did she learn this? It doesn’t matter. Mokosz flails, weak and gripped by panic, and Jaga slams her again. Then again. Mokosz heals her broken bones instantly at first, but her strength flags quickly.
“See? Told you,” Nyja says, taking out her pipe. “Oh, this is so pleasant to watch. I’ll treasure it until I die. Do you see? She can’t heal herself anymore. She’s sucked dry. Your Jaga is a monster.”
“A goddess,” I correct her absentmindedly.
Mokosz is a crumpled bag of malformed body parts, each slam breaking more and more of her bones until some of them protrude through bleeding wounds, jagged edges gleaming white and red in the glorious sunlight. Her nose is broken, skull bent inward. She can no longer heal herself, and so stays this way, unable to breathe or cry.
“She said she would make her ugly,” I whisper with awe, wicked satisfaction burning in my chest. “Fuck, Nyja. She’s formidable. She could fight Perun. Maybe.”
“And that’s for Weles!” Jaga roars.
Her soul-tentacle bursts out of Mokosz’s stomach, splattering blood and entrails. The goddess hangs limp, unconscious, and Jaga lets her fall to the ground. She slaps the bruised, swollen, mutilated face of Mokosz, until the goddess wakes with a faint moan.
“Don’t you sleep on me now,” Jaga says, baring her teeth. “How does this feel? Tell me.”
She reaches inside Mokosz through the bloody, gaping cavity of her stomach and rummages in there. Mokosz lets out small, pitiful cries of pain, and Jaga pulls out a moment later, holding her beating heart. She looks at it with a smile, then stands up and turns to me.
“Catch.”
She throws me the heart, and I let it land in my hand with a wet splat, the organ still beating and alive. Jaga kicks the bloody remains of Mokosz and goes to me, breathing hard.
“What do I do with her so she never comes out again? Where do I bury her?”
I stare into her dear face. My heart beats with awe. No one has ever avenged me like this. I always destroyed my own foes and crushed whoever dared to wrong me—until my captivity. Ever since then, I learned to use less satisfying, more underhanded ways of getting back at people, since I could hardly confront them as Weles.
My rebellion was a way of getting back at Perun, but it was never enough. Fucking around with Mokosz helped me repay her for some things she had done. But never did I get the bloody, straightforward revenge I wanted.
Until Jaga gave it to me.
My powerful, just, evil poppy girl. She did this for me—after everything. My chest feels constricted, and I mourn us even as I get drunk on triumph.
“I say we strap her to the Great Oak before we set it on fire,” I murmur, squeezing the heart of Mokosz with sick satisfaction. I like the indecency of handling a living heart much better when I am not on the receiving end of it.
Jaga shakes her head. “You can’t burn it with all the souls still up there. They won’t be able to flee if the fire spreads too fast.”
Nyja and I scoff in unison. I tend to forget Jaga doesn’t know these things. I keep treating her like one of us, a goddess who was born to rule, but she is still so mortal in the way she thinks.
“Those souls are tied to the Great Oak and unable to leave,” I explain. “We don’t have time or resources to unweave Perun’s spells keeping them here. The Oak must burn, Jaga. It’s the only way to weaken him in a meaningful way.”
She clenches her jaw, looking up at the multitude of birds. There are thousands on the lower branches, and many more higher up.
“This is a small sacrifice,” Nyja says gently. “They are slaves, anyway. I bet many of them would prefer the freedom of death.”
Jaga looks at her with deep contempt. “Death is not freedom.” She turns to me, her eyes lit with urgency. “Let me try to get them to leave. Please. You owe me for what you did, remember?”
