When she looks down, she wobbles, as if her body remembers how much she weighs, and how thin and unsupportive the air around her is.
“Steady. Remember, the air holds you with ease. Can you feel it?”
She looks at my face, her lips parted, cheeks pink from the rush. I nod when she steadies herself, taking deep, calming breaths, even though her hold on my hands is tight enough to hurt.
That’s okay. I want her to crush me even harder.
“Gods. I’m flying,” she murmurs, shaking her head in disbelief.
I grin. “Yes. You are. Do you want to let go?”
She shakes her head, laughing softly, and suddenly, my chest is full to bursting with affection so strong, I want to squeeze her tight and just feel her against my heart. I don’t, because it would spoil this moment. Jaga doesn’t care much about me, anyway.
She’s busy testing out her new power. Her legs move cautiously as she takes a wobbling step away, letting go of my one hand and still clutching the other. She walks back and forth, ungainly and uncertain, laughing now and again with pure delight.
“Could we… Do we justfall?” she asks breathlessly a moment later. “To go lower?”
“We can.” I nod. “But we could also dive. Keep holding my hand.”
I gently begin to descend, turning us slowly until our faces point at the sea below us. Jaga whoops with joy, and my heart tightens painfully, because it’s the first time I hear her make such a sound.
I don’t think she’s ever been happy before. But she is now.
Chapter twenty-nine
Jutrzenka
“Is that Chors?” Jaga asks when we go low enough to see the long, silvery form of my son floating on the water far away from the shore, a few seagulls flanking him. He’s naked, his skin glittering in the light, and he seems to be asleep.
“Yes,” I sigh. “He shouldn’t be out here alone like this.”
I turn toward him, but before we get close enough to speak, Chors disappears under water with a gentle splash. I stop and pivot to Jaga, and we hover five feet over the sea, the tips of the biggest waves almost grazing the soles of our shoes.
“What’s going on with him?” she asks, her joy giving way to worry.
I shake my head, frustrated. “Tomorrow is a new moon, but that’s not the only reason. It’s something to do with Jutrzenka. Whatever it is, it’s serious. I can’t believe he’s never told me.”
“Do they have history together?” Jaga asks after a moment, and her voice grows carefully neutral, her face almost bored. Iresist the urge to listen in on her thoughts and feelings to get under her obvious pretense.
“Not that I know of, but I was away for a few centuries. The worst thing that happened to Chors, Dadzbog’s curse, happened then. He tried to keep it a secret after I came back, but it was impossible to hide since he died every new moon. If anything happened with Jutrzenka, it must have been when I was chained in Wyraj.”
Jaga pulls me toward the shore, and we race with the waves, scattering seagulls. They float sedately, carried by the rhythms of the sea, but jump into flight with outraged squawks at our approach. Jaga chuckles darkly, pulling me faster and faster, right at the face of the cliff.
“You don’t have enough control to pull this off,” I say through gritted teeth, not stopping her, even though my bones already hurt at the prospect of smashing into the wall. “Slow down! We’ll crash!”
“No, we won’t.”
She pulls us sharply up at the last moment, and we shoot higher, our bodies inches away from the face of the cliff. She whoops again, cackling with glee, and I join her, more in relief than in joy.
When we reach the top of the cliff, Jaga jumps a few times, hovering in the air for a second, then two, then flies circles around me, twisting and turning like a rusalka in water. I watch her with an indulgent smile, enchanted.
She was so old just now, and now she’s young again.
When she lands in front of me, her eyes are bright and bold, her mouth flat.
“And what’s your history with her?” she asks, neither bashful nor combative. It’s as neutral a question as she can make it, and I still want to laugh from triumph, because she asked it at all.
“She saved me,” I reply, just as blandly. “From the chains. She was the one who set me free.”
