Page 135 of Devil's Doom

We reach a small square with a covered well in the middle. Wera turns, and it’s indeed her. The baby keeps crying. Good. It means it’s alive.

“Go back to your friends, consort,” she says with clear scorn. “And I’ll go my way. No one will miss one more dragon bastard.”

“Its mother will miss it,” I say, readying my magic until it hums under my skin like a threat. “It’s not yours to take. Give it back now.”

Wera grins. Raises the baby. I throw a spell, my gut twisting, and it sizzles out against her invisible shield. She sinks her teeth in the baby’s arm, biting off a pudgy chunk of meat and skin.

The baby’s wails turn so desperate, it’s blue in the face. If it doesn’t stop, it will suffocate.

I rain stones on Wera, aiming with magic so she’s the only target. Her shield doesn’t cover her from above, and the first stone glances off her temple, leaving behind a bloody gash. She snarls and throws the baby aside. I just manage to catch it with my magic, making sure it lands softly.

But that moment costs me. A dozen cutting spells fly my way, and even though I have a shield up, it’s flimsy. The first few cuts fizzle out, but the rest comes through. My legs and stomach bloom with pain. Blood soaks the snow under my feet.

“I’ll get someone,” I think Lutowa says, but her words fly right over my head. I’m too busy crafting a curse with my fingers, one I don’t mind spending my remaining magic on. Wera will finally get what’s coming.

She sends another swarm of cutting spells my way, and I twist aside, putting up shield after shield for the spells to crush against. When she sends another series, opening herself, I let my curse fly.

It’s a flame. An inextinguishable one. And it lands right where I want it.

Chapter forty-five

Truth

More cuts pierce my skin, one landing worryingly close to my right eye. I cackle, loud and insane, remembering that this is the eye I pretended to have lost. Won’t it be funny if Wera’s spell gouges it out?

The strzyga notices the fire engulfing her shins and screams, dousing herself with water splashing directly from her palms. I cackle as the fire roars higher, water only egging it on. It jumps onto her cloak now, and she shrugs it off with frantic movements, but the fire devouring her trousers keeps climbing up her hips.

She’ll burn like a Marzanna effigy at the end of winter.

I laugh and laugh even as I collapse to my knees, blood turning the snow under me into a red sludge. My eyes land on a dark shape in the snow. Right. The baby. It’s quiet as I float it to me, putting up a shield with the last of my magic. I still laugh, big, fat chortles escaping between my chattering teeth.

As soon as it lands in my arms, I know it’s dead. There is no breath, its body already cooling. I throw my head back, holding the dead, bleeding child, and laugh hysterically, louder and louder, until icicles as long as my legs tear off from the edge of the roof opposite me and shatter on the ground.

How did I not believe in fate before? The symmetry of my life proves it exists. I am a helpless plaything in somebody’s scheme, and they are having heaps of fun with my life. Why can’t I laugh, too?

“Put it down, sweetheart,” comes Woland’s quiet voice behind me.

I look down, still laughing. Tears stream down my face, freezing into a crust of misery. Ahead, Wera rolls on the ground, no longer enveloped in flames, but steaming. Woland must have extinguished her.

“Put it down.”

The baby weighs so much in my hands, so heavy in death. I give it a proper look, noticing the rusty scales around its motionless, open mouth.Bastard scum, I remember. That’s what dragons call their progeny.

It’s well and truly dead, and I can do nothing more for it. I obey Woland, and as soon as I do, his hand falls on top of my head, his shadows swirling around us. He brings me to our chamber, and I keep laughing, though quietly now. It’s not because I’m amused but because if I stop, I won’t be able to breathe.

It happened all over again. When will I learn?

“Jaga. Stop.”

I turn away when he circles me to face me, and Woland growls, grabbing my shoulders. He turns me roughly and folds me into an embrace. His skin is cold, and I laugh into it, snorting. Gods, I choke anyway. What’s the use?

“Jaga. It’s all right. It wasn’t your fault.”

And here I thought I couldn’t laugh any harder, but I was wrong. Ihowl,my mad mirth shaking us both, echoes of my cackles bouncing off the walls. Woland takes a deep, impatient breath and holds me closer. When the skin on his chest underneath my mouth splits, I lap his hot blood between unsteady, chuffing giggles. My wounds heal. The pain ebbs away.

And with the pain, my laughter dies.

“Finally,” he says, a shiver going down his back when I dig my nails into it.

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