Page 6 of Devil's Deal

She doesn’t reply, looking away from me. Her eyes grow cold and flinty as they trail from Daga to Miroslaw, finally settling on Jaromir. She bares her teeth at him, snarling like a wild beast, and he flinches.

“I waited a long time for this,” she says in a quiet, ominous voice that carries through the cold air.

She raises her arms high over her head. A powerful gust of wind pours through the trees, ruffling her hair and whipping my face. She grins, her expression twisting into something primal and terrifying, and yet, all I feel is awe.

She is powerful, this woman. More powerful than any mortal I’ve met, or even most gods from the stories. She commands fire and wind, two elements already.

If I live through this, I want to be just like her.

Then she slashes both her arms through the air, fast and cutting, and I realize she commands something else, too.

My tormentors drop to the ground, their bodies bleaching of color and life until they are more akin to white, crumbling sculptures than to human beings.

This woman commands death itself.

The wind dies down. The forest grows eerily quiet around us, only my quick, shallow breaths breaking the silence.

I look away from the bodies as my stomach turns. White and textured, they look like nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s unnatural. No human body disintegrates like this.

But when I look at the woman, she watches them with a wide, triumphant smile.

“They won’t even get to rot and nourish the earth,” she says with vicious satisfaction. “And they won’t go to Nawie. Their souls will crumble to dust.”

She puckers her lips and blows out a long breath as if to extinguish a candle. I glance at the bodies, my gorge rising when they turn to dust and lift, scattering through the forest. As if the woman’s breath is a powerful wind blowing their remains apart.

It’s horrifying if what she said is true. Barring souls from Nawie is an extreme punishment. But despite my horror, my heart thuds with gratitude. She avenged me.

And they deserved it.

When there is no sign of the bodies left, all white dust blown away into the night, the woman’s eyes settle on me.

“My, my. Was I really that small and terrified? Well, rise, little one. Let me see you. You’re certainly different from how I remember myself. Perspective changes so much.”

I don’t move, staring at her with open mouth, because her words make no sense. And yet, that feeling of familiarity grows stronger as she steps closer and crouches in front of me, raising her hand to tuck my hair behind my ear. Her touch is cool and gentle.

And her eyes look just like mine.

“I can’t rise,” I say through chattering teeth, suddenly cold and terrified, my mind still refusing to believe what my gut already knows. “I’m wounded.”

“Are you?” she asks with a playful smile, gesturing at my stomach.

I look down. There is no blade sticking out. No blood. No pain. My hand is pressed to my belly through my dress, and there is no hole in the fabric. As if there never was.

“You healed me,” I say, looking up with wonder. “I won’t die.”

“Of course you won’t,” she says with a scoff. “Or how else would you grow up to be me?”

I stare, finally accepting what she’s saying, what my soul already knows.

This woman is me. Older, wiser, more powerful. And she came back through time to save my life.

“Rise then, little one,” she says with a smile, cupping my cheek. “Rise and live so you can come back to this moment and save yourself one day.”

Chapter three

Poppies

Nine Years Later

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