“Wow… I can’t believe that worked.” Veles stroked his long beard as he stared at me while hanging from a willow tree.

After leaving the ice castle, I made sure to run towards Veles. I was a little worried I would be followed, but I’m sure he could handle it.

“What do you mean you can’t believe it?! You were the one to put me up to it!” I pointed at him with the three roses as my eyes bulged in confused fear.

“I was, I just didn’t think it would pan out this well. I totally believed she would have turned you into a sculpture and left you to forever freeze in her castle, especially since you asked for a rose.”

“You motherf-You were the one who asked me to ask her for one! What does it even mean? - And remember you can’t lie to me this time!”

Veles sighed before dropping down from the willow tree right in front of me. “Well, what’s a god of mischief if you can’t trust him every once in a while?”

He grabbed his staff and grinned at the roses. “The roses meant that you were asking her for, as you would call it, a date. You were inadvertently courting her.”

My mind froze; everything suddenly made sense. That’s why Andrei and Rodion seemed to be trying to lead me on; it was why Robert kept sighing. Oh, gods, that’s why the entire staff was watching; they were literally watching me try to ask their goddess out on a date.

“Y-You- I.”

She literally called me ‘dear’. That’s why she was so curious. That’s why she killed me as soon as she could. I was flirting with her?! Oh my gods, I was flirting with her.

“B-But why?! What do you gain out of this?”

Veles shrugged and grinned. “I thought it would be funny.”

“Y-You thought it would be funny? I thought it was like some serious quest! Like you know, retrieving golden apples from a dragon or something like that- How was it funny?”

I wanted to strangle him, but I knew that wouldn’t end well. Or maybe he’d allow it, and I’d get away with it. I didn’t want to push my luck, though, as he started to walk deeper into the woods.

“Because I asked you to try and court a goddess who would rather see you dead, of course, and you somehow pulled through. Whether you died or not, well… That didn’t matter to me. I simply wanted to see how well you did, and alas, you did superbly.”

Veles twirled around and tapped me on the head with his staff. “I must admit, you enchanted me with your quick thinking and your sincerity. I would love to teach you more so that I could see it in action.”

I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Now she wants to see more of me, I thought that was just her wanting to like, see what I’m up to, I didn’t expect…” I visibly Jazz handed the air to Veles’s amusement.

“Well, now you have to, unless of course you wish to reject the goddess of death.” He gave me a sleazy grin as I groaned once more.

“No??? I’m not an idiot, I can’t do that- I don’t think anyone can aside from like, you and Perun. What does that even mean now? She’s asking me to spread her influence across the Jawia or- Wait, actually, my first question will be, why don’t you guys call it Galfania?”

Veles petted a small bear cub, which suddenly appeared in his arms. “It’s because that’s not the Name we know it by. That was the Name that the Balthalems called us by.”

Huh, okay, that actually makes sense. Only people like Katya called it Galfania and they were all descended from the Balthalems who came here.. That’s who taught them. Everyone else simply called it the land, or as the gods put it, ‘Jawia.”

We made it up a small hill where chairs made out of vines and branches awaited us around a stone round table. We both sat on opposite ends before I stared up at him, as if waiting for something.

“Do you also want your influence to be spread around?”

“Hah, it already is, but you can go and add more wood to the fire if you would want.”

I narrowed my eyes at that. “So how will you be able to, like, give me strength?”

“Oh, that?” He chuckled softly before grabbing a wolf pup from off the ground and placing it on the table. “All I need to do is tell you more about how your powers work, and then you’ll be able to understand what to do next. Alternatively, I can also actually train you. It’s not simply giving blessings, you need targets, you need practice.” He snapped his fingers, and suddenly the bear cub on the table transformed into a ragged man wearing nothing more than a loincloth, scrounging around at the table like a hungry predator.

He lunged towards me, but before he even moved an inch, he paused mid-air, as if stopped by an invisible force.

“You will need others to practice on. Such as these nice-looking fellows right here.” He patted the deranged-looking man on the head.

“W-Wait, wait, let’s back up for a moment. You want me to practice on people?’

“Yes, horrible people. This one right here sold his child off to Balthalem Priestesses after insisting she was a monster so that he could get enough food and supplies to survive through the harsh winters. He died shortly after, drowned after slipping and falling into a ravine.”

“I-I…Uh, well, I don’t think that’s ethical?” I looked at the ragged man in front of me, staring into his hungry eyes. I mean, he did something awful, but I don’t know if I could really condemn stuff like that. I mean I can say that’s bad but.

“There’s no need for ethics here. I am the Overseer of the Nawia, and these are my citizens. I say you can do whatever you want to them. Even including testing out your powers on them so that you may grow in your ability.”

“I-I know and thanks but it just feels wrong ,you know, like these are people-”

“Peter… The monsters you killed were people once, too.”

The words got stuck in my throat. My body shook as I remembered that. Bartholomew used to be a Bes, and even that giant- and that Vodnik, Reginald. They were all monsters, and I used my powers on them fine, so why couldn’t I do it to the one right in front of me?

“Would it be better if I made them look like a monster?”

I turned to face him, trying not to establish eye contact with the one in front of me. “You can do that?”

“Of course I can, I can make them look like anything, but if you care about ethics, then I’m sure aesthetics shouldn’t matter… Now should it.” He stared back at me, no smile on his face, and somehow that unnerved me even more.

“I guess, in those situations, it was self-defense. I was trying to stop them from attacking me. It’s not about aesthetics- Well, I guess some part of me doesn’t like attacking someone who is like, human.”

“Did you not want to have Koschei pay for his crimes?”

“That was more Andrei than it was me. I wanted to stay out of trouble, really. I only fought because, well, it was his burden, and I wanted to help with that. Where is he actually? Didn’t he fall with me?”

“He did, that’s right, but he, thanks to the grace of the Harbinger, managed to be completely free once you were scattered across the three worlds.”

“Man…” I rolled my eyes so hard it felt like they were gonna pop out of my skull. “Of all the people in the world, of course, he’s the one who gets off free.”

Veles had an airy chuckle that reverberated throughout the hill. Meanwhile, the wolf pup was licking the feet of the man frozen mid-air. “Free is not exactly the word I used. If anything, his soul was mangled, and if he wanted to survive, he would have to take drastic measures or else he would fade into the Ether.

When he said the last word, my mind lit up and remembered Zmey’s breath attacks that fired that strange concentration of energy at me.

“What’s Ether exactly?”

“It’s the substance that manifests souls, and therefore manifests everything. It’s essentially a soul in its simplest form. Some people can control that, and it’s impossible to defend against unless you can do a similar control as well.”

“Huh, so it’s like controlling subatomic structures. That’s insane, no wonder it felt like Zmey was ripping me apart with it.”

“You’re lucky that you could quite literally pull in more souls to fit yourself together. Being hit by that would tear you apart into the Ether as well, and the only way to reform from that is to have a mind like a god’s, but that’s a story for another day. What matters is that Koschei is near that point now, so perhaps there’s no need to worry.”

I scoffed at such a statement. “Someone like him? That’s just going to make him more dangerous, a cornered and wounded animal is the one that strikes back the most… And if he’s still with Jane then.”I rubbed my head in frustration. He’s going to literally and metaphorically inflame her, and it felt like there was nothing I could do.

I stared at the frozen man in front of me. There was nothing I could do until I finally got my powers under control. That’s when I can actually fight back, when I can go and strike against him, trying to manipulate Jane into burning the world down.

“The Smorodina River, when I was fused with it. I felt everyone, their cries for help, those who wanted to reincarnate, those who were sorry and wanted to try again. I felt them… All around me.”

I hugged my chest and stared at the table, and then back at the eyes of the horrible man who was mid-lunge. He was one of them, I remembered now, one of the many who thought he was cheated out of his life. He wanted to come back, to finally prove that he could make it.

He didn’t regret at all doing what he did to his daughter, but maybe he wouldn’t do it again if he had a second chance.

“What was the truth about reincarnation?”

Veles grinned as he gave a playful sigh. “Lucky guess. The truth is anyone can reincarnate, you simply need to ask and then I shall grant them the honor of returning back into the world, but it is completely random, depending on how the wind blows as the old saying goes.”

“Huh… I see, but how about for the people in the Somorodina?”

“They need time to try and separate themselves from the others, to truly find themselves in the midst of darkness.”

“… Then I have a proposal, oh god of mischief and magick. I want to help save those people as well. I was them for a moment, and I think I could save them, bring them out here so that they could be in paradise. I’ll train my powers, but I want to do so for people like him.” I pointed to the frozen man once more.

“And to those in the Smorodina, especially. How does that sound to you?”

Without missing a beat, Veles grinned and answered back with a song in his voice. “How wonderful! Let’s get started then!“