The darkness binding the trees parted. Magic swelled, like a cold black wave about to drown me. Roman emerged from the bog and moved toward me. The staff in his hand turned into a huge black sword. His eyes glowed with white, so bright his irises were invisible in the whiteness. A dark crown rested on his brow; its tall spikes, shaped like razor-sharp blades, stretched a foot above Roman’s head.

The volhv stopped before me.

Whatever made Roman himself was no longer there. The creature that stood in front of me wasn’t Roman. It wasn’t even human.

Chernobog didn’t manifest. He possessed and his priest was his willing vessel.

Someone had to speak first. Clearly, he wasn’t going to.

“Why am I here?”

Aspid slithered forward and coiled around me.

“You will fight a battle,” Roman-Chernobog said in a voice that was at once deep and sibilant, the kind of voice that should’ve belonged to Aspid, who was twisting his enormous body around me. The magic in that voice chilled me to the bone. “Let the slaughter be in my name and I will return the sword and the Greek to you.”

Careful. That way lay dragons. Literally. “What benefit would you derive from this?”

“Power.”

Okay. “Could you be more specific?”

Aspid’s coils drew tighter, bumping my back. I pushed at the massive scales with my hand. “Stop. I’m trying to speak to your father. I’m not going to agree to anything until I understand the nature of the bargain.”

“People worship lighter gods because of the gifts they hope to receive,” Sirin said from her perch. “They worship darker gods because of fear. For that fear to stay alive there must be punishment when respect is lacking. But one cannot punish when one’s followers are few. There is an imbalance.”

Now it made sense. Roman had complained before that he wasn’t invited to any namings, births, or weddings, but the volhvs of Belobog and other lighter gods were. Gods like Chernobog and Veles were getting the shorter end of the stick. That created an imbalance, one that Chernobog felt pressure to correct.

In ancient times Chernobog wasn’t so much worshipped as appeased, because if the ancient Slavs forgot the appeasement, he would remind them. Atlanta was a hub and it drew people from all over the South, but even so, the population of Slavic pagans was too small for any effective punishment. If he decimated them, it would take even longer for the balance of power to be restored. He’d be shooting himself in the foot.

But if the battle was dedicated to him, each death would boost his power. That was a hell of a thing to promise.

“Do you understand, human?” Sirin asked.

“Yes. I’m thinking. Do the souls of the dead killed in Chernobog’s name belong to him?”

“I lay no claim to the souls,” Roman-Chernobog said.

“How would this dedication take place?”

“My volhv will consecrate the field to me.”

I looked at Sirin. “What is Veles’s role in this?”

“Veles lays no claim to the field or lives lost on it. For now.”

I faced Roman-Chernobog. “If we consecrate the field to you, every death upon it becomes a human sacrifice.”

Sirin snapped her wings. Aspid opened his beak, his golden eyes staring at me. Apparently, the fact that I wasn’t a complete idiot was really surprising.

There was no way out. If I declined the bargain, neither I nor Teddy Jo would get out of this swamp. If I died, my father would take the city and crush it.

If I took the bargain, I’d be making a business arrangement with the God of Evil. No good ever came from making deals like that. No good ever came from making deals with gods, period. Especially when what he was asking for wasn’t mine to grant.

What should I do? How do I make the best of this mess? I wished I could’ve asked Roman for advice, but I highly doubted Chernobog would let me do that and even if he did, there was a pretty obvious conflict of interest.

“What if there is no battle?”

“There will be a battle,” Sirin said. “First, you will fight for your lover. If you win, you will fight for your heir. You will not survive. One of these battles will end you.”

“Maybe I’ll patch things up with my father.”

“You will not,” Sirin said. “Beware, Daughter of Nimrod. I have seen your death and it is a horror you cannot imagine.”

Awesome.

“Decide,” Roman-Chernobog said.

I would need ammunition against my father. The Witch Oracle had foreseen the battle, Sirin had foreseen the battle, so the battle would be happening. Curran would die. Atlanta would burn.

Consecrating the ground to Chernobog and feeding him the power of all those deaths . . . There was no darker darkness than this dragon winding around me. This would have far-reaching consequences. There hadn’t been a large-scale human sacrifice in the world for years. I would be opening a door that so many good people had fought to keep closed. I would be giving Chernobog a foothold in Atlanta.

But I’d be an idiot to turn down his offer. I wouldn’t even make it out of the swamp. It was my responsibility to defend the people in my land. It was my burden. I had to do whatever I could to make them safe. My father was an immediate danger. Chernobog was a distant, vague future threat. I didn’t need anyone’s permission. I could do it.

“Decide,” Roman-Chernobog repeated.

I raised my head and looked the god in the eye. “No.”