Page 133 of Devil's Doom

Yet, the sense of duty keeps me walking behind my friends. I shouldn’t be swayed by stupid emotions. I need to make a rational, unbiased choice, and so, I bury my heart and ignore its wounded weeping.

I’ll get the truth out of Woland, one way or another, and then I’ll finally make my choice.

“Lutowa was right,” Rada says with a small frown when we get closer to the milk bar, sounds of revelry coming through. “It looks very busy.”

As we get closer, the doors blast open. Two kobolds drag a screaming mamuna out of the bar. It’s Kata, the young, blue-eyed one I met yesterday. Her breast is bleeding, and her dress is torn. She holds it around her hips, tears rolling down her face.

“What the fuck?” I mutter, launching into a run.

My cold, fierce anger won’t be suppressed anymore. It’s ready to cut like a blade.

One kobold presses his muzzle to Kata’s breast, drinking with a lusty grunt, while the other tries to get between her legs. She kicks and struggles, screaming for help. I send a sharp, cutting spell into the kobold trying to rape her, and he jumps away with a curse, whirling toward me.

Sleep, I think, sending the other kobold into a deep slumber. He topples to the ground, his teeth sliding away from Kata’s breast. I realize why she’s bleeding. Kobold muzzles aren’t built for suckling mamuna breasts.

The kobold I wounded charges at me with a low growl.

“Don’t attack the consort!” Lech screams out a warning, but I don’t need his help. I gather the cold from the air around me and send it flying to the kobold’s joints, freezing them. He bellows in pain, his paws sliding from under him until he sprawls on the ground, unable to move.

“Help me up,” he demands, his voice filled with pain.

“Help yourself,” I spit, turning to Kata. “Are you all right?”

She shakes her head, cradling her bleeding breast. But when I lean in to heal her, she turns away.

“Go inside! Help the others!”

Indeed, the bar is loud with screams and laughter, but it’s not the normal noise of a drunk company. I growl with understanding when I realize the scene we just saw isn’t an isolated incident. The same thing must be happening inside.

“So I was right,” Lutowa says around a bite of honeyed bun. “It’s busy.”

I turn to her, watching my friend with utter disbelief. She seems amused, not a flicker of worry crossing her emaciated face.

“Did you know this would happen?” I ask, my voice low with fury. “How can you be so calm? This is outrageous!”

She gives me a mean little smile, one I saw many times on her face before, yet never in response to my friends’ suffering.

“Well, rebels spend most of their lives fighting for these stupid people’s freedom, and what do we get in return? Banishment and scorn! It’s time they sacrificed something, too, don’t you think? At the very least, we deserve payment for risking our lives.”

She takes another bite, completely unconcerned. I look at the enormous bag of baked goods she sports. Somehow, I know with complete certainty she didn’t pay for them.

And just like this, it’s as if a veil lifts from my eyes. I understand what Woland’s rebellion is. It’s not a company of noble outcasts, fighting for freedom in the land, like I believed. They are mean, hardened little people who follow the god who offers them ways to hurt, rape, and take what they want without laws or consequences.

Gods. Ifthisis the way Woland soothes them after a defeat, I tremble to think what a victory feast would look like. His rebellion is rotten from the inside out, and how could it not?

He is at the heart of it.

It’s revolting to think I was about to give away my life, my freedom, and future for this corrupt cause. I was so blind and stupid.

“I don’t know you,” I hiss at Lutowa, the hurt of this betrayal rivaling what I felt when Woland kissed Mokosz.

I turn to go in, my heart calming with the certainty of my path. I am going to stop the rebels and protect this place, my only home in Slawa. Even if that means killing Woland’s people.

“Jaga, stop! You’ll get hurt,” Rada calls out, but I ignore her.

Nothing in there can hurt me more than the pain I was already dealt today.

Inside the milk bar, it’s chaos. Around a dozen rebels accost mamunas. Some of them let the rebels drink their milk, resigned, but some fight. I see an old mamuna, who has almost no teeth, bashing a strzyga on the head. Despite the numerous blows, the strzyga doesn’t unlatch from a crying mamuna with thick, gold braids. An upir woman jumps at the old mamuna, sinking her fangs in her neck.

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