Page 127 of Devil's Deal

She’s trapped. I won.

I heave a sigh of relief and sit on her back, licking my dry lips. Agony rolls through my left side, black spots dotting my vision, but I know it’s not over yet.

Dadzbog is high in the sky. The night is hours away.

“And now we wait,” I tell the poludnica, who whimpers softly like a wounded animal, lying, defeated, under my weight.

I wonder where my bottle rolled off to. My throat is parched, my body weak, and my hat is gone. I’m dying for a cool drink. The idea of sitting here for hours to come, without anything to shade myself with or drink, is excruciating.

But I can’t go home or even move away. One nail won’t hold her if I’m gone. I almost died, for Perun’s sake. I’ll see this through.

And yet, it feels so reckless to sit out in the shadeless field without a hat or water. It’s exactly what I’ve warned people against. I know how deadly the heat can be, especially now when I’m wounded.

But I always finish what I started.

I settle in, gritting my teeth harder and harder to keep myself from screaming. I swear, the pain gets worse with every breath. The wounds pulse with scorching heat, and whenever sunlight falls on my arm, it gets even worse. I try to keep it covered without touching the charred skin. I don’t even look at it. I might puke out what little water is still in my stomach if I do.

I think this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.

But despite all that, I laugh under my breath, half-delirious. If the heat of the sun killed me now, it would be the joke of the century. There is a poludnica right here, and she can’t strike me with her powers, but I could still die from the very thing she causes, only slowly. I wonder if Woland would appreciate the irony.

Why didn’t he come?

Time passes, marked by the excruciatingly slow progression of the sun across the sky. I drift somewhere between waking and dream, the bright light burning my eyes, the poludnica’s whimpers burrowing into my ears like worms. The pain pulses in one rhythm with my heartbeat. Weaker, stronger, weaker, stronger…

The certainty of what’s going to happen to me by the end of the day slowly slithers into my mind, and I push it away. Not now. Think of something else.

Time has never moved so slowly before. Maybe that’s the secret of ruling it. Torture, heat, and char.

It’s a pity I won’t get to learn that secret. Or pleasure him in exchange.

Thoughts swirl in my mind, some clear, some so fleeting, I forget them as soon as I think them.

If Woland came to save me now, I’d probably give in. It would be such a relief.

When the day finally crawls into late afternoon, the poludnica stirs, her whimpers growing more desperate. She thrashes weakly, and I manage to stay on top of her despite swaying from exhaustion. It’s hard, but not because she’s struggling. She’s too weak to push me off.

It’s hard because I keep forgetting why I’m sitting on her. What is even the point? I remember for a moment, and then it’s gone, and I have to try so very hard to remember again. I only know it’s important, so I stay.

But I wish I could lie down by her side and ask her why she sang that song. I want to wipe her bloody saliva off her chin and promise her she’ll finally be at peace.

It’s such a strange thing, two beings going off together. Maybe we will hold hands on the way.

I don’t tell her anything. I sit on her, mute and numb, while she weakens further. When the sun nears the horizon, painting the sky in golds and pinks, she grows still, emitting a thin, reedy sound of unquenchable suffering.

I’d sing with you, little one. If only I could.

My throat feels as if someone poured dry sand into it. My arm has grown numb in a way I know is very bad. I wonder who will cut it off now that I’ve chased Czeslawa away? Will Darobor do it for me?

My body grows weightless and detached. I don’t feel much now, not even the pain. My thoughts become more real than my skin, my heart, my flesh. As if I’m getting ready to abandon this mortal shell. My mind gallops toward freedom. I am almost untethered.

The physical sensations come from far away, and it feels like they belong to someone else.

The way my heart beats is so very weird. It’s like it can’t decide on a rhythm. Thu-thump, thump, thu-thu-thump…

Or maybe it’s too late to cut off my arm, I muse, acknowledging the obvious, unstoppable truth that beats out in the slowing pulse of my blood. The necrotic, burned sickness is in my veins, spreading inside my body. Maybe I can’t be saved.

The overwhelming heat finally recedes. A deep cold settles in my stomach, radiating outward. I welcome it. It’s such a relief.

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