Chapter fifty-one
Curses
Jaga
The world has burst into spring.
We’ve been alone in our home, making love and sleeping for the first few days, then arranging this new space to fit us both. Weles can’t help but create. He’s already rebuilt the house into something between a castle and a cottage, with many beautiful rooms glittering with jewels and a gorgeous garden where vegetables and herbs grow. He’s remade the land surrounding our home, and it’s now littered with sparkling ponds and overgrown with rare plants, many of them poisonous. Poppies grow everywhere, no matter the weather and season.
I fly every day. Over our domain, over Slawa, over Nawie and Wyraj. Some days, I go to the mortal world and fly over lands warm and cold, familiar and strange. I always come back to him, and he always asks me if I enjoy his creations.
No one rules Slawa nor Wyraj. It’s the strangest development. Perun’s fence is gone, the tolls done with. The bieses of Slawa don’t trust this new change yet. They stay in the cramped city that used to be taxed with the lowest toll, though today, I saw two adventurous families setting out into the plains. They will build better lives for themselves on fertile land. Others will follow.
Nyja rules Nawie and seems happy. She visited once to give us her warm congratulations, then went away to turn the land of the dead into a formidable queendom. Weles is confident she will rule it well.
Rod and his daughters spend their days basking in the sun. They avoid deathbeds and cribs, the marks of their slavery to Perun, and enjoy life.
Dadzbog is in a cell under our house, where Weles tortures him in his free time to get him to break Chors’ curse. So far, he’s had no luck, but we’re hopeful.
Swarog attacked us three times. The first two, we sent him back to lick his wounds in Wyraj. The third time, he flew in while we were making love. Woland came out, naked and furious, and buried him right in the garden patch outside our bedroom’s window, then came back inside and fucked me hard, drawing screams of pleasure out of me for him to hear.
He let him go after a few days. Swarog hasn’t been back.
Rada has moved in nearby, within the bounds of our domain, where she’s protected by our magic. Dar isn’t strong enough to fly as far as I do, but we play together most days. He’s a happy, beautiful child, growing up to be a hero.
There will be many heroes and powerful witches in our world.
Chors came by once to give us his good wishes. He stays in Slawa, in one of the rooms over the milk bar. Weles says he’s looking for love in the wrong place, but I’m not sure. Maybe hemust drink a lot of milk to make up for the lack of a mother. All that matters is that he’s comfortable and hopeful.
Jutrzenka is gone. She’s neither in Wyraj nor in Slawa, and we suspect she went off to hide in the mortal world. I’m not worried. We’ll deal with her when she comes back.
The King of Bees went back to his woods and refuses to speak with us. I suppose he was burned one too many times. Or maybe he just needs a rest from people. It’s only fair.
Wiosna can’t visit me in my new home, but I see her in Nawie from time to time. She cooks for me, and we talk for long hours. She tells me Nawie’s soul gossip, and I listen and smile, enjoying myself.
It’s become so easy. To—just live.
“We’ve put this off long enough, but I suppose it can’t wait anymore. I got started on curing the rot,” Weles says with mild annoyance when I return from my flying trip. “My rebels are gathering everyone who’s sick, and I’ll take them to the magic springs in Wyraj later today. Do you want to come?”
I smile and put my arms around him. “Why are you so grumpy? Can’t wait to smell all that pus? Have you forgotten it’s your own creation?”
He sighs and gives me a kiss. “I don’t mind blood or entrails, you know. But pus—just no. Yet I’ll do it, all for you. Praise me for being a good husband and fuck me later as a reward. Please.”
“Husband?” I ask with amusement. “Since when are we married?”
He scoffs, a bit offended. “Since we claimed each other, of course! What—are you planning to leave me for someone else? Of course, we’re married. It’s forever.”
I watch him, glimpsing a flicker of uncertainty, a bit of fear under his amusement. I grab his hair and pull him in for a kiss so hard, he hisses from the abruptness of it.
“Fine. I guess we’re married. My, I should go back to my village and boast that I’m wed to a god.”
No sooner than the words leave my mouth, my smile freezes on my face, and I look away, swallowing with effort. I won’t visit my village any time soon, because if those people see me, they will chase me away with pitchforks. Weles cups the back of my head and tilts it up, kissing my nose, then my brow.
“Do you want me to change their memories? Make it like it never happened?”
I think for a moment, then shake my head. “No. I don’t want to go there, anyway. I was never happy in that village.”
“And now?”
