I sighed. “I want to get married. And maybe I would like to be there to pick the flowers and choose the dress and select the menu. But war is coming. My future is on fire and I have to put it out if I hope to have any future left . . .”

They weren’t in front of me anymore.

I clamped my mouth shut. The two men had disappeared. I stood alone. Ahead of me the trail nearly vanished too, all but melted into a bog about fifty feet wide. On both sides, black water slicked blacker mud. Massive black trees bordered the bog, their branches braiding high above me like the fingers of two hands interlaced into a single fist.

Apparently, Chernobog wanted privacy for this conversation. Calling for either Roman or Teddy Jo would do no good. This was his forest and he made this happen. I could stand here, at the edge of the bog, or I could move forward and get on with it.

I stepped into the mud. It squelched under my weight with a wet sucking noise. Step, another step, a few more . . .

Something watched me from the depths of the woods. My skin felt too tight from the pressure of its gaze.

When alone in a dark forest waiting for an audience with an evil god, the most prudent course of action is to be quiet and wait. “Prudent” wasn’t one of my favorite words.

“Hello? I’ve come to borrow a cup of sugar. Anybody? Perhaps there is an old woman with a house made of candy who could help me?”

“Marrying for love isn’t wise.”

The voice came from somewhere to the left. Melodious, but not soft, definitely female and charged with a promise of hidden power. Something told me that hearing her scream would end very badly for me.

I stopped and pivoted toward the voice.

“Marry for safety. Marry for power. But only fools marry for love.”

When a strange voice talks to you in the black woods, only idiots answer.

I was that idiot. “Thank you, counselor. How much do I owe you for this session?”

Mud squelched. Small twigs broke with dry snaps. Something moved behind the trees, on the very edge of my vision. Something dark and very large.

“Love fades. Love is beauty, youth, and good health. Love is sharing a moment in time. Bodies fatten, sag, and wrinkle.”

And she kept going with her spiel. That’s the trouble with ancient gods. No sense of humor.

A long sinuous body slithered behind the trees, enormous, taller than me, wide like a dump truck. It didn’t end; more and more of it kept coming, sliding through the bog. The voice was on the left, the slithering darkness on the right.

“Youth passes you by, and before you know it, the two of you are walking two different roads. Then comes pain, disappointment, and often betrayal.”

“Fascinating,” I said. “Is there a point to this, or did you go through the trouble of stealing Thanatos’s sword to discuss my impending marriage?”

Brush rustled. The massive creature slid behind me, circling the rim of the bog. Peachy. Just peachy.

I turned to follow its movement. A large bird sat on a thick tree branch above me and to the left. Her long feathers draped down into a silky plumage that shifted between indigo, blue, and black. Her head was human with a shockingly beautiful face framed by a mane of blue hair. A gold crown sat on her head. Her chest was human too, with perfectly formed breasts.

Sirin.

I stood perfectly still.

Of all the mythological birds in the Slavic legends, Sirin was the most dangerous. Like Veles, the god who was her father, she was born from magic and the very essence of nature and life, the arterial blood of existence, unbridled, uncontrollable, and as unpredictable as the weather. Sirin, burevestnik, the storm bringer. And seeing her always meant one thing: many people would die.

She looked at me with big blue eyes.

“Hello, burevestnik,” I said. “Will there be a natural disaster or a battle in my future?”

She laughed, raising her wings, and peeked at me through the gap. “A battle. A bloody battle.”

The dark thing behind her slithered forward. A huge black beak came into the light, followed by a reptilian face the size of a car, its obsidian scales gleaming slightly. Two tentacles streamed from above its beak, like the mustache of its Chinese counterpart.

Aspid. One of Chernobog’s dragons. His tail was still lost in the woods somewhere behind me. He had to be hundreds of feet long. All of my skill with the sword wouldn’t be able to stop it. This was the old magic. The type of magic that existed when my father was young.

Aspid stared at me with big golden eyes, his head rising. Massive paws with claws as big as me sank into the black mud of the bog. I saw the beginnings of folded wings draped over his shoulders, the array of emerald, sapphire, and diamond scales on their surface catching what little light there was.

Sirin smiled, fluttering her wings. Veles must’ve lent his bird-daughter to Chernobog. They were related by marriage.

“Why did you come?” Sirin asked.

Honesty was usually the best policy. “Because my friend was in trouble.”

“You’re still human enough to have friends,” Sirin said. “Perhaps we will bargain with you after all.”

“What do I have to do to get the flaming sword back and walk out of these woods with Thanatos and Roman unharmed?”

“Roman has nothing to fear here,” Sirin said.

I kept my mouth shut. I had already asked my question. The less I spoke, the better it was for my health.

“Will you bargain with us, Daughter of Nimrod?” Sirin asked.

Bargain with the God of Destruction and Absolute Evil or the giant dragon eats you. No pressure. “I’ll hear you out.”