I prick her ankle and push the poison into her bloodstream with a muttered spell.
“As foretold,” a quiet, melancholy voice murmurs by my side.
I turn, pleased to see Dola. Her sisters don’t like me much, but she and I have an understanding. She knows all my secrets and keeps them faithfully.
Her face is as pale as ever, drawn and thin from the lack of sunlight. Her thick, dark hair is gathered in two braids tied withred ribbons. She wears a white dress, and her eyes are tired and lined with shadows. She hates the job Perun forces her to do. She once told me it’s like branding cattle—mundane and demeaning for everyone involved.
“Foretold?” I ask. “Let me guess: you knew I’d be here.”
She gives me a nod so small, I might have easily overlooked it if I didn’t know her so well. “Dead in three hours, five minutes, and forty-three seconds,” she says, pointing at the matron. “Poisoned by a god.”
I chuckle, shaking my head. My antlers almost scrape the ceiling, even though I’m hunched to prevent that. The mortals don’t see us, of course, their magical senses blunt and useless.
“Did you give her that fate?” I ask. “Were you feeling humorous that day? Because you have to admit it’s funny. I actuallyamthe god of poisons. What are the odds?”
“We never make up fate,” she whispers. “Only when… Ah. Can’t say.”
“Only when heroes are born, and you must give them a quick death,” I finish what she can’t admit out loud, prevented by Perun’s magic. “Some heroes defy their Dola-given fates, though. I have Jaga and the King of Bees in Nawie. Will that be enough to convince your sisters?”
A tiny nod. “We’re ready.”
“Any new spells binding you to Perun?”
Dola shakes her head. “He neglects us.”
“Good. Then we’ll break your shackles once you arrive.”
She looks up with a tight smile. “Thank you, Grandfather.”
I am about to leave when the laboring mother makes the loudest scream yet, one that’s desperate, coming straight from her spasming womb. The midwife does her job without another word of complaint, and a few moments later, the squeal of a newborn child joins the whimpering of the mother.
“A hero?” I ask Dola.
She shakes her head. “Another for the herd.”
I try to muster some sympathy for the wailing, bloodied little creature, but I fail. Perun’s ancestral soul binds his magic and wit, making him nothing more than a dumb servant. He’s only another mortal feeding Perun’s power through blind belief fueled by lies.
“We’ll free the herds and let them roam free,” I whisper to Dola, who doesn’t pay me any mind.
She stands by the bed, pressing her thumb to the baby’s forehead while it squirms, still crying viciously. None of the mortals perceive her as she seals the newborn’s fate.
I go back home, telling Jaga what I did along the way. She doesn’t reply, but I sense her frustration. I think she can’t help but enjoy my company, and she hates it.
Maybe I’ll wear her down someday—and she will finally give me her soul.
It takes a few days for my allies to arrive. Dola and the other two rodzanicas, Niedola and Odola, come together with Rod. We spend a full day in the Hall of Fires together, unweaving the magic binding them to Perun’s will. It’s a lengthy and irreversible process, because once it’s done, Perun will know they left his side.
If he gets them again, they will be punished, maybe buried like Swietowit. I don’t say it out loud, but I am very happy about their circumstances, since they ensure absolute loyalty. Yes, Rod is my son, and his daughters are my granddaughters, but blood relations mean little among gods.
Especially since the blood of Mokosz runs in all of their veins. The rodzanicas are more hers than mine, since she is both their mother and grandmother.
And yet, they are here, ready to risk it all to support me.
Not so Strzybog. When Nyja presses him to join us for good, abandoning Wyraj and his lousy spying, he hedges andcomplains, trying to convince her he will be much more useful in Wyraj.
“I couldn’t listen to him any longer. He had three excuses for every suggestion I made, and after ten minutes, I was ready to rip out his tongue to make him stop,” she complains, throwing a rock into churning black water stretching before us in a beautiful, moonlit landscape.
We sit together by the foot of a waterfall in one of the forested parts of Nawie, a brilliant purple moon of my creation lighting the sky. It’s one of the middle levels that’s currently deserted by souls, and I’ve invited Nyja here to talk after a long, exhausting day of breaking Perun’s spells.
