Perun ignores her and kicks my face. It’s a casual kick, not too strong, and it still makes my back bend so abruptly, I’m afraid my spine will snap. Blood pours from my broken nose, and I don’t have enough magic to heal.
There is a small, tired cough behind him. I freeze. Perun slowly turns back.
Jaga moves, though barely. All her limbs twitch with tremors, and I don’t think she’s breathing yet. A brain fried by Perun’s lightning loses its functions, and it takes time for it to remember that it’s supposed to make the heart beat, make the skin sweat, and so many other things.
People in this state are confused and susceptible. I struggle against my bonds as Perun goes to her, his steps deceptively slow, graceful despite his bulk. Nyja cries out in protest. She knows as well as me Jaga will say anything he commands right now.
Unless her ability to speak hasn’t returned yet. But it’s only a matter of time.
I grit my teeth. I must do it now. I must.
“Weles!” Nyja screams, her voice breaking from desperation. “Now!”
I try to take a deep breath to brace myself, but the air keeps shuddering out of me as I shake, torn between hope and duty. Because Jaga is strong. She’s been through so much—Ihave put her through so much worse than this. And she still told me no.
Nyja screams in anger and frustration. Black, glittery jets of magic splash Jaga, flowing straight from Nyja’s open mouth. I flinch. It’s death magic from a death goddess, the most powerful in the world save for mine. Perun stops, tilting his head as he watches, and Jaga shakes and wobbles, bathed in the blackness that glitters like diamonds and starlight.
“Enough,” Perun commands.
A dragon hits the back of Nyja’s head, and she crumples to the ground. The stream of death is extinguished.
Perun goes to my witch, impatient. He grabs her by the hair, revealing a pale, motionless face with blood smeared under her eyes and nostrils, blood coating the sides of her neck where it spilled from her ears. She looks dead, but I’m more confident now. If she survived his spell, she must have lived through this, too.
He slaps her hard. Jaga comes to with a loud inhale, her eyes opening wide in agony, her mouth gaping as if to scream, though she’s silent. Perun turns to me, and he looks unhappy.
“She couldn’t have been a mortal before,” he says, jealousy in his voice. “You’re not capable of such magic. No one is.”
“I made the first people, and no one else was capable of that, either,” I say, too agitated to keep my mouth shut.
Perun slaps Jaga again, and this time, she cries out.
“Do you want the pain to end?” he asks furiously. “Say you belong to Perun!”
She chokes on a large breath of air and remains silent, her head pulled back in his grip, her eyes closed. I get ready, knowing I’ll have to snuff out her life the very moment she speaks.
We wait in tense silence. Jaga takes another greedy breath, like a drowning person emerging from water. Her mouth slowly moves, and I groan from effort, holding my curse in check. I can kill her with a thought even if I have no magic. I was stupid in many ways, but this, I did prepare for.
Jaga’s lips twitch and work, and it’s laborious and slow in her condition. Perun huffs with impatience but doesn’t say anything. Sweat beads on my forehead.
As soon as she speaks, I’ll strike. She’ll never be his.
Jaga finally controls her face. Her mouth shapes into a wide, mad smile, and she laughs breathlessly, shaking and wheezing.Perun lets go of her head, and Jaga straightens it with effort until she breathes freely.
A loud, horrible cackle pours out of her throat. I let go of my killing curse, my shoulders dropping from relief. Of course, this is her reaction. My formidable witch.
Perun watches her without comprehension for a good minute before his face tightens in wrath. His eyes glitter like stormy skies, and he grabs Jaga by the throat, tearing into her body with lightning and fire.
It takes a long time. Jaga shakes in his grip, her eyes wide open and shooting sparks, inhuman, horrible sounds pouring out of her throat. I watch it all. My heart is in tatters, and I am wracked by guilt and pain that’s unbearable, because it’s intangible and impossible to soothe.
But her pain is worse. Time and again, I toy with the killing curse in my mind. One thought, and Jaga will be gone, her pain wiped out.
The only thing that holds me back is what she said to Nyja today.Death is not freedom.
As long as there is hope, I will not kill her. I can’t.
When Perun gets bored, he goes away to sit in the grass, motioning Dadzbog toward Jaga. Her torture changes, blinding light burning her eyes out of their sockets, heat worse than the one poludnicas inflict burning her body until she’s but a blackened skeleton, standing only because she cannot die.
Perun heals her every time she’s broken so much, she can’t feel again, and it starts anew.
