“We quarrel about it from time to time,” I say with a smile, affection for my beautiful son sweeping through me. “There is a way, and I firmly believe that. One day, we’ll take the tattoosoff, grab Dadzbog, and put them on him. Or maybe something worse. I’ve got ideas.”
“The silver tattoos. You showed me,” Jaga murmurs, her fingers stroking water. “I didn’t know it was your curse.”
Chors says nothing, and my affection is gone, jealousy, always jealousy, pounding through me. Whenhaven’tI been jealous? Maybe at the beginning of creation, but after that, it was always something. When Mokosz left my bed to go to her husband. When Perun mademymortals worship him more. And then, when he chained me at his feet and took away my dignity while he reigned.
And now, I am jealous of my own son.
“What does the curse do, exactly?” Jaga asks.
I clear my throat and grip the armrests of my chair. “It binds him to his emanation beyond what’s normal. Chors is doomed to an endless cycle of waxing and waning, growing stronger with his power peaking at full moon, and then growing weaker, starving, because no food can feed him, until finally, he dies for three days during the new moon.
“I’ve seen the moon up close, and I know it doesn’t change its shape over the course of the month, but that’s not what matters. Human beliefs mold the magic of the curse, and mortals believe the moon grows thin and disappears. Chors is dead right now. His heart is still. Of course, as a god, he cannot die. You know how it feels, I assume. You’ve had a few months of it. He’s had centuries of dreading it, and then going through it, every month.”
Jaga blinks heavily, hesitant, but I see the moment when her curiosity wins. She levels me with a cool stare.
“You’ve seen the moon up close?”
I shrug. “Of course. After I got free, I spent years looking for a cure for my son. One night, I just traveled up into the night sky to see it. I made the moon, like I made most of what’s beautifulin the world, but I thought it might have changed since its creation. Mortal beliefs shape so much—why not the night sky, too?
“It was very far, very cold, and there was no air. The moon is just a large piece of rock, certainly underwhelming when you know how much meaning mortals imbue it with. I can take you to see it one day.”
She swallows, giving me no answer, and turns back to Chors. “Can anything be done to ease your suffering?”
“Distraction works,” he murmurs. “Sing me something.”
“Sing?” Jaga is surprised, but I’m not. Chors loves music, and he’s a talented singer himself. Jaga isn’t the type to burst into song, though. She hums when she works, but I’ve never heard her perform for others.
She gets up slowly, brushing sand from her clothes, though little sticks to the leather. She thinks a moment, watching the floating, emaciated body of my son, and then straightens. Softly, she sings a lullaby, and I struggle a moment to remember where I heard it last.
“Sleep, my darling, and I shall
Brush all nightmares from your brow.
Sleep, beloved, on my breast,
Let me give you peaceful rest.”
Cold currents shoot up my spine when I remember. The poludnica I sent into Jaga’s village sang that song. She was a bies made from a jealous woman who killed her pregnant sister and snuck into her husband’s bed to steal him away. The husband killed her in despair when he saw his pregnant wife’s body—but only after fucking the sister.
“Oh, jealousy,” I sigh, closing my eyes.
Jaga keeps singing, and the water laps at the shore to the rhythm of the lullaby. Her voice is soft, the melody even, but I can tell singing is not her forte.
“When the moon silvers the sky,
When beasts walk lands low and high,
I’ll be here, lover mine,
I will save you from the night.”
It’s strange. I expected to have a hard time controlling myself in this cave, but the longer Jaga sings, the easier it gets, until I accept what happened. I brought her to that decision, I know. She was already mine, loving me, yet I couldn’t help but hate her when she refused me the one thing I wanted the most.
I was never a gracious loser, and after we lost that battle by the fence, there was no quenching the hate.
I hurt her, and she hurt me back. Isn’t that our tune, repeating over and over like the melody of this folk lullaby? Love and hurt, and hate, and yearning on an endless loop. Betrayal was inevitable, wasn’t it?
Maybe it’s perverse, but I’m relieved she picked him of all men. If I have to share—he’s the one. The only.
