I weave between them, stopping and restarting time. It’s a dance. I slap the back of Perun’s head, then I’m gone. I avoid his hit, and kick his knee. Thorns shoot out of my palms, filled with the same poison I used on his tree, and he bellows from pain as they embed in his skin.
“So this is how you’ve felt all along,” I murmur, slicing down his back, his arm, his cheek. His ear disappears in the dark, a bloody flap of skin. “I see it now. But there’s nothing ultimatelybetterabout having this much power. It was never your accomplishment. It was a gift.”
“Fight like a man!” Perun growls, turning wildly, but he cannot see me.
“Who decides how a man is supposed to fight, brother? You? Your time is over. You’ll never decide anything again.”
I take off his other ear as soon as the first one regrows. It’s laughable how easy it is. And all it required was power—the power of belief, not from millions of souls, but from one very powerful, divine soul of a woman.
“Perun, if you could kill me, would you? Instead of keeping me chained up? Tell me.”
He shoots out powerful streams of lightning, targeting the spot where my voice came from, but I’m no longer there. Perun pants, his teeth bared, his skin and hair looking white in the sizzling light.
“I’ll destroy you!” he roars.
“Already done, brother. I was destroyed. Now I am reborn. Here.”
I cut his legs off at the knees. He falls with a scream, and I straddle him, calling forth chains of poison. They wind around his wrists and throat, securing him to the ground. He grunts from pain, a world of fury in his eyes. I press my hand to his mouth and force poison deep into his belly, then gag him.
He writhes in pain, his skin growing black and dark green in patches, rotting off the bone where my restraints touch him. I call my shadows back to me. My allies, though blinded, are fighting Swarog and Dadzbog, whose light and magic aren’t enough to penetrate the dark.
As soon as it’s light, everyone stops to reorient themselves. I send chains to bind my nephews and sigh with satisfaction and relief when they are restrained and forced to their knees. Finally, everything is as it should be, and my people are safe.
The sun dips below the horizon, and a soft summer dusk falls under the Great Oak, which creaks and shivers, slowly dying. The air is golden but muted, and it will be dark soon. I look at my love and beckon her closer with my chin.
“Jaga, would you like to come here? You deserve to see it from up close.”
“Is that an order?” she bites out through clenched teeth, and I grin. My witch is angry.
“Out of us two, you order me around the most,” I say, glancing at her. “And it should stay that way. Now come. I promise you’ll like it.”
She purses her lips and walks closer, her steps stiff, her back rigid as she sits on her heels by my side. I laugh under my breath, because Jaga thinks she’s lost, but her days of glory have just begun. I won’t tell her yet. Let her marinate in her suspicions.
“Look.” I take out the knife. “I brought it just in case.”
She glances at Perun, who screams helplessly into his gag, fighting with the poisonous chains.
“You’re not going to get back at him by torturing him the same way he did you?”
“No.” When she narrows her eyes skeptically, I lean in to touch my nose to hers. “I told you the truth before. I want peace and a happy life with my poppy girl in a world with no war. I won’t let hate and revenge spoil it for me.”
Her face softens, the pain and terror behind her haughty mask peeking through. I shake my head with a small laugh.
“Oh, have some faith. After all, faith has saved us today.”
I don’t wait any longer. Sweeping my arm in a flamboyant arc, I sink the blade in Perun’s neck. He chokes on his blood as it gurgles out of the wound. I pull the knife free and wait. Ten seconds pass. Thirty. A minute.
Perun isn’t dead. He’s healing, and the flow of his blood slows to merely a trickle.
“Maybe it should go in his heart,” I say with an unhappy frown. “Let me try again.”
I press the tip of the knife between his ribs and plunge deep. Perun grows rigid, his blue eyes wide open in pain. He wheezes out a breath and is still. I nod in satisfaction and pull the knife out.
He takes a shuddering breath and keeps struggling.
“Oh, fuck it all.” I groan, throwing my head back. “I just want to be done, take you away, and have my victory fuck. Is that too much to ask? Nyja! Come here and explain.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Jaga mutters stiffly, and I give her a fond look.
