Jaga stops, and Chors sighs, sinking underwater. I take her hand.
“Come. He’ll rest now.”
The curiosity I awakened telling her about my son’s curse still lingers. She watches me with a faint frown, not pulling her hand away.
“You really love him.”
“I do. I love you both.”
She scoffs, neither offended nor moved, and I sigh. I don’t know what else to do. Unless…
I move us through the shadows into the Hall of Fires. This is where we had our recent breakthroughs. It’s lucky, I suppose, even though I don’t believe in luck. There’s only magic and powerful intent.
“What do you want, Jaga?” I ask, still holding her hand. “And don’t say death. That’s some obstinate bullshit, and you know it. What do you want for real?”
I’m not sure, but maybe seeing Chors has softened her. She gives my question some thought while her gaze slides over the clusters of sapphires and rubies glistening in the nearest pillar.
“Not to be hurt ever again,” she says finally, her voice heavy with despondence. “But I can’t have that if I stay alive. I want to die, Woland. I should have died so many times already. I’m tired.”
“But you aren’t yourself. Before Mokosz took you, there were things you wanted to do. You had important goals. There is something waiting for you in the past, isn’t there? I…”
I stop, warring with myself. Should I give away this, too? Should I strip myself of everything I can still bargain with?
Jaga saves me from making this painful decision by scoffing with anger. “She’ll have to die, as she should have all along. I don’t want it anymore.”
“Who will have to die?”
Jaga shakes her head, her fingers slipping out of my hold. “Wouldn’t you like to know. Take me back to your throne room if you won’t kill me. I like it there.”
She is sincere as far as I can tell, though this strange, new Jaga with darkness in her eyes is difficult to read. I study her, wondering what to do, and finally, shift into Weles. Her mouth twists in distaste, and she looks away.
“It was me all along, poppy girl,” I say, my voice different, less beastly.
I always feel so light after shifting back, because even just standing takes so much less effort as Weles. I take her chin between thumb and finger to force her to look. Her eyes slam shut, so I move closer, our faces separated by a mere inch of air.
“You’ll have to accept it at some point. Back at your Kupala Night, winning your poppy chaplet, dancing with you, lapping between your thighs? That was me. By that river, carving my name into your tongue? Me. In the rebel base, fucking you in public so everyone would see? Me, love. All me. Kissing Mokosz, me. Making you forget—that was also me. I was there from the start, and I did all that. Hateme, for fuck’s sake!”
She flinches away, and I let her, breathing hard. “Tell me what to do!” I demand, my fury rising, because I know it’s futile. “And I’ll do it! Just tell me what you want!”
“I already said.” She sounds so cold, my anger sliding right off her. “Take me to your throne room.”
“You’re sick. There’s something wrong with you,” I grit out through clenched teeth. “You’re not yourself, you’re… Broken. And Iwillfix you. For now… We’ll go out to see Nyja’s nawkas. You’ll be safe if you’re with me.”
“Why ask me if you’re not going to do what I want?”
“Because you’re lying. Death isn’t what you want. It never was, poppy girl. You said it yourself: you should have died so many times, but you didn’t. You brought a child back from the dead, for fuck’s sake, because you wanted him to live. That’s who you are—defiant in the face of the inevitable. Now come, or be taken.”
She shrugs with indifference, and I wrap my arms around her, my shadows swallowing us until we reappear in the central part of Nyja’s academy.
Jaga pushes me away without much force, and I let her. At least she’s interested, her eyes wide as they roam the vast space and the open skies above us.
“We’re still underground,” I explain, taking her hand. It’s so much easier when we’re closer in height. “Nawie is a powerful place, brimming with the magic of all the souls staying here, andso, it can be shaped into anything. This is where Nyja trains her soldiers.”
We stand on the side of a large arena, tall walls rising around it in an oval shape. They aren’t solid, but rather thin and intricate, made of a latticework of dark and light gray stones held together with magic. The sky above us is tumultuous, masses of silver and leaden clouds raging like a potion boiling in a cauldron.
Couples and groups of Nyja’s soldiers practice, wrestling and fighting with weapons. There are shouts, thunks of wood clashing with wood, sharp calls of the instructors. Some fighters are as young as twelve, the oldest in their twenties.
Jaga grips my hand tighter and pulls me into the fray. We walk between the fighting areas, and she shakes her head when she sees a boy of sixteen with red feathers in his hair jump twelve feet up before he dives at his opponent, a small, wiry girl, who turns into a tiny bird at the last moment to evade his attack.
