I really shouldn’t be picking fights with any more gods. I managed to do some serious damage to Loki recently but only because conditions were perfect: He’d been overconfident and attacked me where I had placed wards against his fire. If he had caught me anywhere outside the fire wards, or if he had brought any other weapons—like Fuilteach, the whirling blade he’d stolen from me, or the Lost Arrows of Vayu—he might have ended me. His simple failure to respect me as an adversary made him vulnerable, and he wouldn’t make the same mistake again. It strikes me that the holes in my body and the poison in my blood are a result of the same kind of arrogance: My Druidic powers, while impressive, do not truly put me in the same weight class as gods. And neither do Atticus’s. He finds a weakness, surprises them, and gets help. Going toe-to-toe will not work. Had Weles not been distracted by Perun, I don’t think I ever would have gotten close to harming him, even with invisibility. And had Perun not finished Weles off, I surely would not have this slim opportunity to heal. He would have struck again and maybe even swallowed me whole.

The venom of Weles is a nasty combination of a fasciculin and a cardiotoxin. The latter is easiest to take care of; as the toxin tries to bond to the muscle of my heart tissue, I can break it down before it depolarizes the cells and prevents contraction. The fasciculin is much worse. It’s causing involuntary contractions throughout my entire body, leading to painful spasms and twitching. During my apprenticeship, Atticus gave me extensive training in poisons and their chemistry, including snake venom, so that I would know where to focus my attention when and if I found myself poisoned. The fasciculin attacks a certain kind of neuron that uses acetylcholine as a transmitter of signals. It annihilates acetylcholinesterase, which functionally tells muscles to stop contracting, thereby causing those involuntary contractions. Can’t fight back when your muscles won’t obey you. It also causes more agony than you’d think something like that should. To combat it and restore voluntary function, I have to not only break down the toxin but rebuild acetylcholinesterase. And beyond the venom, there’s the matter of two rather large puncture wounds, with significant tissue damage and bleeding.

In my quiet headspace I work on my body chemistry to save my life, while in the loud, painful arena of my other headspace I notice that Perun, as an eagle, really does eat snakes. His beak plunges repeatedly into the neck of Weles and rips out chunks of flesh and viscera, making sure that his old enemy bleeds out. He spits out some of the chunks but swallows others. The large coil of the snake doesn’t move at all past the point where I broke the spine; only the top third twitches and struggles in vain to win free. It is chilling to watch the death of a god in real time at the hands—or, rather, the talons and beak—of another god.

The eagle is not unscathed, I notice. There are chunks of feathers missing, bare patches in its plumage. It has been bitten, or at least scratched, by those fangs but curiously is not suffering the same effects of the toxin that I am. Perhaps Perun is immune.

The great serpent’s eyes go dull and the twitching ceases, while I continue to struggle on to survive. Perun steps off the snake and watches it for a full minute to make sure that it really is dead. Then he shifts back to his human form, summons his axe to his hand, and hacks away at the neck until it’s severed completely, cementing the death of Weles. Only then does he look up and notice my critical condition.

“Granuaile!” he says, crossing to me and kneeling by my side, taking in my spasms and the hole underneath my ribs. “Oh, no. Is not good. But fight this! Do not die! I am owing you much. You help me defeat Weles.” He stretches out fingers toward the hole in my gut and then shrinks back. “Am not healing god. Cannot help you but am wishing I could.”

I cannot help him either, though he appears not to notice his bleeding puncture wounds, now clearly visible on his human form. I envy his immunity to the venom.

My limbs still shudder with involuntary spasms, but I am slowly turning the tide, and some of the violence, some of the pain, is receding. Knowing that it will at least not get any worse, I spare a few minutes to deal with internal bleeding. Perun adjusts himself so that he’s in a lotus position rather than kneeling and mutters something about healing with me. He closes his eyes and I do the same. It’s helpful, I find: Less incoming stimulus equals more attention that I can devote to righting the ship. And I spare a thought for Orlaith, who’s still very worried.

I am not okay but I am healing, sweet hound. Need all my faculties for that. Please be patient with me.

“Okay! I will guard you. Love Granuaile.”

Love you too.

Time slips by after that and I slowly improve, until my eyes snap open at a thought.

“Loki’s mark!” I croak, and then cough at the effort of speaking aloud. The coughs send spears of lightning through my torso.

“What? Loki?” Perun says, and then, more alarmed, “Where?”

I pause to catch my breath and then say in a soft voice, “Weles probably has Loki’s mark on him somewhere. A circular brand of runes. Hides him from the sight of all but Loki. So Loki probably knows Weles is dead. He might come to investigate.”

Perun’s eyes go wide. “Is very bad news!”

“And I bet the horse of Świętowit will have the same mark on him. When we move him, Loki will know. Can you check?”

“Yes. I can do this.”

Perun unfolds himself from the ground and disappears from my sight for a while. My limbs are not shaking as much anymore and I’m making progress against the toxin. Mecklenburg is helping me quite a bit, giving me his energy, and I thank him for his help.

//Gratitude for your strength// I send to him in my Latin headspace.

//Harmony// Mecklenburg says. //Fierce Druid must be well//

And it’s then that the uncertainty and fear fall away and I know I will be well, eventually. And it’s also at that moment that I appreciate the time it took me to get to this place. Had I not trained in languages and cultivated different headspaces over those twelve long years, I most certainly would have succumbed to the poison. Binding to the earth is useless without the knowledge and training to use it properly. When you’re dealing with years two through ten you think, holy hells, this is a slog—I certainly thought that on more than one occasion—but those ancient Druids knew how to train and discipline a mind. All of that training was saving my life now.

Perun returns to inform me that the horse indeed has a small round brand on his flank. “We should be leaving,” he says.

“I can’t move yet,” I tell him, and then explain that while prudence dictates that we should worry somewhat, we may have no cause. Loki is no more a god of healing than Perun is, and I wounded him severely when we last met not long ago.

“When can you be moving?” Perun asks.

“Soon, I hope. I don’t want to stay here any longer than necessary.”

“What if I carry you out?”

I blink. That possibility had not occurred to me. Perun would certainly have no trouble slinging me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. But I might suffer additional injury if he did so, and I’d be cut off from the earth.

“Maybe let me lean on you and get dragged out upright? I need to keep my right heel in contact with the earth.”