I want to tease her about it, but this isn’t the right time. I’m about to prove I can win.
Maybe. If I’m not weak. If Perun doesn’t come. If I don’t fuck up. If, if, if.
“Will you kiss me if I do it?” I whisper so quietly, my words are barely more than the movement of my lips. “I might try harder if you do.”
Jaga sighs and presses her bloody knuckles to her temples, grimacing with raw pain. I watch her a moment longer, wondering which sharp edge in her mind cut her this time. My girl is broken, even more thoroughly than I suspected.
“I only wanted to tell you I’m going,” I call out to be heard through the door. “If you want to know what happens, look through my eyes. If you focus hard enough, you’ll hear what I hear, as well.”
She doesn’t move or reply, and I pull out my shadows, hating to lose sight of her. Fear sits in my stomach like a block of ice, and I ignore it carefully. This is a good plan, I tell myself.
Nyja talked to Strzybog, who told her Perun is in the mortal world again. I don’t know how long he’ll be away, which is why I act now.
Darkness sizzles around me, and I become Woland, my tail already swishing behind my thighs as soon as the shadows disperse. Transforming doesn’t remove the fear but changes the sensation. Now it feels like thousands of insects crawling in my gut, fighting and biting.
I let darkness swallow me whole.
When I emerge in the trial square in front of the dragons’ tower, it’s in the middle of a sunny day. Summer is in full swing, and people are out, enjoying the good weather. Most of them sit under awnings in front of taverns, drinking cool beer. A few stalls selling wares are up. This is a popular spot, and it’s crowded.
All of those people, at least a few dozen, stare at me with wide, shocked eyes. I haven’t made such a showy public appearance in the city in years.
The sound of shattering glass breaks the silence, jolting the bieses out of their shock. Someone gasps, a child wails, someone curses. I grin despite myself, unable to refrain from milking my moment.
“Bieses of Slawa, you are heartily invited to a dragon roast!” I announce, raising my arms high.
The dragons guarding the tower’s entrance charge me with their weapons, shouting for backup. I pick them up with my shadows, and they try to wiggle out, their forms changing in my grip, but I’ve played this game before.
When Jaga saw Mokosz in the city in winter, I came and locked up all dragons in their tower, using magic only Perun himself could undo. He was away, though. They had no choice but to stay in while my rebels played.
I’m well-rested and fed, so it’s child’s play to fling both struggling guards in through the front door, right into the arms of reinforcements trying to run outside. As soon as they are in, I shut the doors, then send my shadows up to every window, making sure no way out is left unlocked.
It’s quick, efficient, and not a challenge at all. I almost yawn. Why was I afraid again?
“Roast?”Jaga hisses in my mind.“Do you mean to tell me you’ll burn them alive? What about your allies, Foss and the rapist commander? What about the prisoners?”
I roll my eyes and look up at the sun. Someone will come soon to fight me, and if it’s Perun, I’ll have to run, which will be undignified. I’d rather not waste time on saving the prisoners. And yet…
I remind myself of the goal of this exercise: to please Jaga.
“Since when do you care about Igor? Don’t you want him to burn alive?”I ask as I send my shadows into the dungeons, unlocking the doors and slicing through chains.
When the prisoners come out of their cells, I project my voice to direct them to the staircase Jaga and the team used to free the upir rebels. I’ll make a door for them once they reach the ground level. So tiresome.
“I thought he was your ally,”she says viciously.“Do you leave your allies behind, devil boy? Good to know.”
I growl under my breath, scaring a chochol child who has come close, watching my swinging tail with fascination. It stumbles back and falls on its butt, bursting into the loudest, most horrible wail I’ve heard in the last hundred years.
Its mother comes running, a look of utter terror on her face. Jaga scoffs.
“See? You make children cry without lifting a finger. And you want to be a father?”
Oh, my lovely bitch.
“That was cruel even for you,beloved.”
I drop into a low crouch, extending my hand to the child, who I now see is a boy. His mother freezes, watching me with alarm, and I wiggle my fingers, belatedly realizing they are tipped with claws the child might find scary.
He doesn’t. The cry ends instantly, the boy’s attention thoroughly diverted. I conjure a tiny image of a dragon stretching its wings in flight over my palm.
