Chapter 47:

The Strongest

Beyond Prav

“No way… is this… what you had in mind… when you talked about a better world, Jarilo?”

Jarilo’s lifeless body slid off the Golden Egg and hit the ground.

Dragomir clutched his bleeding right hand. Perun’s axe slipped from his grip.

“I have to stop it!”

Despite the injury, Dragomir reached for the axe with his left hand. Without hesitation, he hurled it at the Golden Egg.

The shell cracked.

A webbed hand reached out from within.

Perun gulped.

Beside Veles’ four blazing candles, a new golden one appeared, burning almost as brightly as the others, perhaps even a little brighter.

“Hm. The fact that the others are still burning just as brightly means she was always part of the market. I just couldn’t see her,” Veles mumbled.

Above the battlefield, Zduhach’s warm dusha fired arrows at Dazhbog.

But the halo behind Dazhbog burned hotter, melting the arrowheads before they could reach him.

“Heh! Looks like you’re really no match for me, son!”

Dazhbog’s leg burst into flames. With newfound speed, he launched himself forward and kicked Zduhach off his stallion.

“Zduhach!” Milena yelled.

The moth circled her frantically. Unlike before, it refused to land on her head, or anywhere else.

Veles grinned as he watched the Golden Egg crack open. “I should have said, ‘Go back and stay there.’ Well, whatever.”

Rohd emerged from the shell and levitated above it. Her golden eyes with no whites or pupils darted across the battlefield.

“W-what is that…?” A cold bead of sweat trickled down Milena’s forehead.

“That, my dear… is Rohd. The Only One. The original Goddess,” Veles explained.

Six threads connected to Rohd’s left wrist and six to her right, each disappearing beneath the skin of her chest.

Jarilo’s remaining dusha escaped his body.

A new thread formed between it and Rohd.

The Goddess absorbed it, growing slightly larger.

“Maybe it’s Levoslav’s dusha speaking through me, but… she’s beautiful.”

Dragomir’s knees felt weak in her presence.

“You have no idea what you did, bohatier,” Perun huffed as he stood.

“So this is the Goddess the original nine fought, eh?” Dazhbog pulled the arrows from his thighs. “Hey!” he yelled her way. “My dream is to have lots of strong and obedient children! I tried mating with many different women before, but thirteen babies came out as weak failures!”

Dazhbog waggled his eyebrows at Rohd.

“Well… fourteen of them were failures, if we count this one!”

He pointed at Zduhach’s sleeping body.

“But I believe two gods mating could produce perfect results! Then I could truly be hailed as the Ancestor!”

“Thirteen failures…? Don’t tell me…!” Milena covered her mouth.

“That bastard!” Dragomir realized what it meant as well.

Rohd turned toward Dazhbog. “I know I have been slumbering for several centuries…” Her gaze traveled from his half-scorched boots to his golden headband, one brow raised. “…but I am not that desperate.”

“Ugh!” Dazhbog’s expression soured.

“What will happen to all those dushe?” Dragomir breathed heavily. “I technically murdered Levoslav, but his dusha is still dwelling within me. It didn’t turn into an evil spirit.”

“Perhaps if the dusha is connected to an owner, it can’t transform.” Perun watched Rohd carefully, almost forgetting that his enemy was still standing behind him.

“Let’s put that theory to the test, shall we?” Veles reached into the air.

His hand disappeared as though he had plunged it inside a sack, the air around his wrist bending and twisting.

He pulled out one of his crystal orbs.

“What are you doing?!” Milena pressed the blade harder against his neck. “What are those crystals? And what are those candles? What is anything here?!”

“Calm down. I’m not going to do anything to you.” Dragomir’s battle-axe emerged from the crystal orb in Veles’ right hand. “Stay put. You don’t want me to lose my neck.” He smiled at Milena before slicing through the thread connecting him to Jarilo’s dusha.

Jarilo’s dusha squealed.

Milena stared at it.

“It… made a sound?”

Its skin turned crimson.

Its single eye shifted with a wet, slimy sound toward the center of its face, pushing the empty socket and his nose aside.

A hooded robe grew from its skin, covering almost its entire body. Its teeth fell out one by one until only four fang-like teeth remained at the front.

The eye faded to a cold grey.

The dusha descended to the ground, its body shrinking until it stood shorter than Jarilo had been.

“Hey. Missed me?” Jarilo’s voice came from the newly born spirit’s lips.

Milena stepped back.

The blade of her axe finally left Veles’ neck.

Her hands trembled.

“B-but that was… a warm dusha…!” Her eyes struggled to follow the moth frantically circling her. “Something is happening in Nav. My mother… and my father… they were both murdered. Did they… become evil spirits…?”

Dragomir gritted his teeth. “Jarilo! You bastard! What did you do?!”

“That’s not Jarilo anymore, can’t you see?” Perun corrected him. “That one-eyed spirit is called Likho. And it brings misfortune to everyone around it.”

“Misfortune…?”

“You gods thought spirits could no longer touch you. And that’s true.” Likho spoke in an elderly-sounding voice, though Jarilo’s rasp remained underneath. “But you lost to their numbers before. So what do you think will happen… when funeral rituals can no longer save murdered people?”

“You’re right, my one-eyed friend.” Veles smirked. “You even worded it so that a warm dusha will turn into a vengeful spirit. Emphasis on the word ‘every’ in your Commandment.”

“A new natural law will rule Yav,” Likho continued. “Humans against spirits, just like it was more than seven hundred and forty-one years ago, before your era.” He looked toward the gods. “Thanks to the destroyed Alatyr, gods can no longer reach Yav. And one day, every human will either become a spirit… or be killed by one.” Likho smiled, saliva spreading from one corner of the mouth to the other. “Eventually, there will be no humans left at all. Only spirits like me.” His single grey eye narrowed. “Then there will finally be peace.”

“That’s… wrong on so many levels…!” Milena tightened her grip on the axe. “Because of you, my parents will never know peace again!” She lunged at Likho and swung Radegast’s axe. “Aaagh!” But the weapon slipped from her hands. “W-what…? How could it…?”

Milena rushed to retrieve it… and caught her foot on a rock.

She crashed to the ground.

“Didn’t you listen?” Likho said. “My power is bringing misfortune.”

“Hey!” Rohd’s voice boomed across the battlefield, louder than that of any god before her. “I came back after all these years, and you’re not even paying attention to me?”

“Oh, my apologies. I didn’t want to keep you waiting. Let me entertain you.” Veles grabbed two of the regular white candles. “Look at that, I can finally touch them physically.”

He inspected them up close.

The names Veles and Perun were inscribed on them.

Perun and Dragomir watched him.

Meanwhile, Zduhach’s warm dusha attacked Dazhbog from behind, but the God of Sun dodged the strike.

Father and son immediately resumed their exchange of arrows.

“What’s he up to?” Dragomir asked.

“I don’t know.” Perun turned to face Dragomir. “But you have done many unforgivable things today, young bohatier.”

Lightning formed in his hand.

Thunder rolled across the sky.

Electricity surged through his skin and flashed within his eyes. The sigil on his forehead glowed blue. “This is as far as you go.”

With each step Perun took, Dragomir backed away.

“We wanted the bohatiers to write Commandments for us. But five years ago, we found our answer. We didn’t need them anymore.” Perun raised the lightning in his hand. “The only one who still thinks otherwise is that blue-haired fool.”

Dragomir looked around.

Radegast’s axe was too far away.

Perun’s was even farther, lying beside the cracked Golden Egg.

Blood still poured from Dragomir’s missing finger.

Above him, Milena battled Likho on the cliff.

Dazhbog and Zduhach continued firing at each other, burn marks already spreading across Zduhach’s warm dusha from his father’s fiery arrows.

There was nowhere to run.

Nowhere to hide.

Rohd merely watched.

She clearly had no intention of helping either side.

But then Dragomir noticed something.

Her arms were folded, yet her fingers kept tapping against one arm.