Marketplace

“What are you scheming… Veles?!” Perun shouted.

His knees gave out beneath him. He fell to the ground, tears rolling down his cheeks.

“Look at you. How low the highest god can fall.” Dragomir almost pitied him.

Zduhach and Dazhbog kept firing arrows at each other. They seemed almost evenly matched.

Veles let go of the two candles and picked up the golden one along with another white candle. He tilted the golden candle over the other and poured some of its wax into it.

Dazhbog’s arrows suddenly burned brighter.

One blazing arrow punched through two of Zduhach’s and shot straight for the half-god’s neck.

He deflected it at the last second.

Rohd continued to observe.

“Centuries ago, you seemed like the odd one out, scar-face. You were the only one who did not ask for power. Instead, you got rid of an obstacle. And your domain… Trade.” Her golden eyes shifted toward the candles. “You must have had a plan right from the beginning.”

“You overestimate me, duck.” Veles grinned.

He tilted the golden candle again, trying to pour more wax into Dazhbog’s.

Nothing came out.

“Hmm…” Veles exchanged the golden candle for Morena’s. Then he replaced Dazhbog’s with his own and tilted Morena’s candle over it. This time, the wax flowed.

Veles’ flame burned hotter and grew larger.

“So it seems I cannot make somebody stronger twice in a row. Interesting.”

“I do not like this one bit,” Rohd interrupted his monologue. “You have been… mimicking my own power.”

“Not quite. I’m expanding on it.”

“My entire existence is based on humanity’s faith. Yet you are able to control it so effortlessly.”

“That I can take credit for, duckie.” Veles spread his arms. “I own the market now!”

His voice echoed through the desolate land.

Milena, still trying to strike Likho, glanced over her shoulder. “What’s going on over there?” Likho leapt onto her back.

Milena staggered forward and tried to shake him off, but the spirit clung tightly to her.

“Why do we have to fight?” Likho whispered into her ear. “Isn’t he your enemy?”

He pointed at Veles, who seemed far too fascinated by the candles to notice anything else.

Meanwhile, burn scars covered Zduhach’s warm dusha from head to toe.

“Veles, I’m not sure what you did, but I feel… incredible!” Dazhbog laughed. “No! Invincible!” A ball of fire formed in his hand. “What do you think, my stupid son? Do you want to meet your siblings?”

Zduhach’s warm dusha braced itself for the attack. But Dazhbog suddenly turned away. His eyes fell upon Zduhach’s sleeping body.

The fireball stretched in his hand, reshaping itself into a blazing arrow.

Zduhach’s dusha’s head snapped toward its body.

Dazhbog threw it.

The stallion lunged forward.

At the very last second…

…

…the fiery arrow pierced the warm dusha.

“Zduhach!” Dragomir shouted.

“No!” Milena finally managed to throw Likho off her back. “This is your doing, Veles!”

But the moment she stepped toward the God of Trade, her foot slipped and she crashed to the ground.

Cracks of light spread across Zduhach’s warm dusha.

The stallion beneath it began to crumble first.

Then the warm dusha shattered with it.

The thread connecting it to Zduhach snapped.

His eyes shot open. Zduhach gasped and grabbed his chest.

He snapped his head toward Dazhbog. “What did you do?!”

“You’re too imperfect to be called my descendant.” Dazhbog spread his arms. “Do you see how strong I am? I am your ceiling!”

Zduhach grabbed his bow and aimed an arrow at him.

Dazhbog laughed. “You’re not strong enough to pierce me with that! Not now that your trump card is gone!”

Zduhach released the string.

The arrow tore through Dazhbog’s ear, spraying blood through the air.

“H-huh?” Dazhbog stumbled sideways and looked up at Veles.

The Negotiator was pouring the wax from Dazhbog’s candle back into Rohd’s.

“Veles, you jerk!” Dazhbog screamed, clutching what remained of his ear.

His hands trembled. Then he ran.

“Hey! Just how cowardly can you be, Father?!”

Zduhach sprinted after him.

Dazhbog glanced back and created a small fireball in his palm. He hurled it toward his son.

Zduhach fired another arrow.

It pierced straight through the fireball, extinguishing it in midair.

“Damn it!” Dazhbog stumbled backward. “You took even more power from me than I had, you blue-haired bastard!”

Milena was still lying on the ground, huffing. Every time she tried to push herself up, something went wrong. Her palm slipped. Her knee buckled. The ground beneath her gave way.

Dragomir glanced at Perun. The former highest god was still on his knees.

“I need it…” Perun muttered. “I need it back…”

Dragomir turned away from him and rushed toward the broken eggshell, where Perun’s axe lay.

Perun weakly reached out after him.

“T-that’s… my trusted axe… Don’t take it from me…!”

Dragomir picked it up and sprinted toward the hill.

But someone reached the cliff before him.

Rohd floated down in front of the God of Trade.

“Milena, my dear.” Veles finally turned his attention away from the candles. “I want to show you something.”

He reached into the air again.

Another crystal orb appeared in his hand.

As Dragomir hurried up the hill, the edge of the cliff blocked Milena from his sight.

He could only see Rohd’s red-and-green feathered robe fluttering in the wind above him.

Then Milena’s voice echoed across Prav.

“Dragomir, please help me! She’s gonna kill me!”

Dragomir’s blood froze.

Milena.

Rohd was right there.

Too close.

His grip tightened around Perun’s axe.

He didn’t think.

His arm bent backward… and snapped forward.

The axe flew.

Rohd’s left ear twitched. Something was cutting through the air. She glanced over her shoulder. The axe was coming straight for her.

Rohd twisted aside. Or tried to.

Her feathered robe suddenly jerked her backward. “What?” A handful of its long feathers had become wedged between two rocks.

Rohd pulled but they wouldn’t come free.

Her gold eyes shifted toward Likho as the one-eyed spirit stood nearby.

“No…”

“Goodbye, the Only One.” Veles grabbed Rohd’s golden candle and tilted it over Morena’s.

Almost all of its golden wax poured out at once.

Rohd’s flame shrank to a flicker. Her body weakened. The axe struck. Perun’s blade buried itself deep in Rohd’s chest.

Blood ran down its edge, mixing with the stains left by everyone it had already slain.

Milena barely drew a breath. “T-that… was my voice…”

Dragomir finally reached the top of the cliff.

He stopped.

His eyes darted from Rohd, the axe buried in her chest, to the grinning Veles and the crystal orb floating above his hand, then to Likho and Milena, around whom the moth still fluttered.

Milena was alive. Down on her knees. Nowhere near Rohd.

Rohd looked down at Perun’s axe. Then at Veles. Her gold eyes slowly closed.

The threads beneath the skin of her chest began to snap one by one. Her body crumbled around the axe and feathers scattered through the air.

And then… thirteen dushe floated above what was left of her.

The nine gods’… Dazhbog’s… Jarilo’s… And both of Dragomir’s.

They drifted aimlessly until they simply disappeared.

The bohatiers stared upward, unable to process what they had just witnessed.

Clank.

Something small struck the rock beneath a pile of feathers.

“What the hell… is going on?” Dragomir whispered.

“That wasn’t me, Dragomir!” Milena said. “My voice… it came out of that ball!”

“I knew that just a tiny bit of your weakness could come in handy one day,” said Veles who approached Rohd’s remains.

He stopped beside Perun’s axe. His eyes moved toward its bloodied blade. Then toward his spotless white glove. He carefully stepped around the weapon without touching it.

Veles crouched and stuck one hand into the pile of feathers. “There it is!” He pulled something out.

A small golden egg.

No bigger than an ordinary duck egg. Veles looked at it. Then at Rohd’s golden candle. Its tiny flame still burned.

“Hah.” He lifted the egg to eye level. “What an annoying bird.”

Dragomir’s eyes widened as Veles opened his mouth.

Veles shoved the entire egg inside… and swallowed.

He gagged. “Ugh…” He stuck out his tongue. “Grilled duck breasts would have been better.”

The entire golden candle began to melt. Its wax flowed directly into Veles’ candle.

His flame erupted.

The last trace of Rohd’s candle disappeared, leaving behind nothing but a blackened stain in the air.

Veles’ naturally golden eyes changed first. The whites disappeared. Then his pupils. Nothing remained but pure, molten gold.

A sickening crack echoed across the cliff. Two wings burst from his back. Red-and-green feathers unfolded into the air.

Veles stared over his shoulder. He moved one wing.

Then he flapped both. His boots lifted off the rock.

Rising higher, his grin slowly returned.

“Now this…”

Veles spread his new wings wide. His white gloves remained perfectly spotless.

“…this is something!”

Chapter 48: END