The world of Juraj's dream was not a place of abstract symbols or fragmented memories. For a god, a dream was a realm as real as any other, a landscape shaped by will and essence. He stood in a grove of ancient silver birches, their bark like solidified moonlight, their leaves whispering secrets in a language older than words. A spring bubbled up from between their roots, its water so clear it was invisible, but its music filled the air—a constant, joyful plashing that was the heartbeat of the place. This was Vida's domain, a pocket of eternal, burgeoning life tucked away in the folds of the unconscious world.
He knew why he was here. The ecstasy of his union with Ina still thrummed in his veins, a radiant energy so potent it had followed him even into sleep. It was a beacon, and it had drawn attention.
She emerged from the pool not as a body breaking the surface, but as the water itself coalescing into form. Vida. Her hair was the rich, dark brown of wet soil after a spring rain, tumbling in loose, damp curls over her shoulders. Her eyes were the deep, clear green of sun-dappled forest pools, and her skin had the warm, golden glow of honey. She wore a simple gown that seemed woven from liquid light and the reflections of submerged stones. Where her bare feet touched the mossy bank, tiny, perfect flowers—forget-me-nots and wood violets—sprang into being, bloomed, and faded in the space of a single breath.
"Brother," she said, her voice the soothing murmur of a gentle stream over smooth pebbles. "Your joy echoes through the deep places. It has been long since I felt such a vibration from you."
Juraj smiled, a genuine, unguarded expression that softened the usual wildness in his earth-dark eyes. "Vida. It is good to see you." He gestured around them. "Your grove is as beautiful as ever."
"It is a reflection," she said, gliding towards him, her movements fluid and serene. "It flourishes when the world above flourishes. And lately, a particular patch of soil on Korčula has been singing a very… passionate song."
Her tone was not accusatory, but there was a weight to it, a caution that made the leaves on the birch trees shiver.
Juraj's smile did not fade, but it became more complex, touched with a defensive pride. "Her name is Ina."
"I know," Vida replied softly. She reached out and touched a silver birch leaf. Instantly, an image formed on its surface, like a reflection in a perfect dewdrop. It was Ina, laughing, her head thrown back, the sun catching the honey-gold strands in her light brown hair. "She tends the earth with a pure heart. I can feel it. The lavender she grows is imbued with a kindness I have not felt from mortals in many ages."
"She is more than that," Juraj said, his voice deepening with fervor. "She is… a rediscovery. A reminder. When I am with her, the centuries of sleep fall away. I feel not like a relic, but like the god I was meant to be. The sap rises, the soil quickens… it is all for her. She is the embodiment of my domain."
Vida watched him, her green eyes filled with a profound and ancient sadness. "That is what frightens me, Juraj."
She waved her hand, and the image on the leaf changed. It showed a different couple, their forms hazy with the distance of time. A powerful, broad-shouldered god with the scent of the flock about him, and a mortal shepherdess with bright, adoring eyes. They were wrapped in each other's arms, their love a visible, golden aura around them.
"Do you remember the Shepherd?" Vida asked, her voice barely a whisper. "He loved his shepherdess with a devotion that made the rams bow their heads and the lambs sleep soundly. He believed, as you do, that her mortal heart was strong enough to hold his divine love."
The image on the leaf swirled, turning dark. The shepherdess lay pale and still on a simple cot, a fever having stolen the life from her eyes. The Shepherd god was on his knees, his form flickering, his agony a physical force. A bestial roar of grief tore from him, a sound that drove the flocks mad with a sympathetic sorrow. The image showed wolves turning on their own young, rams battering themselves against rocks, a whole ecosystem of peace shattered by one broken, immortal heart.
"His despair poisoned the land for a generation," Vida said softly, the leaf crumbling to dust in her hand. "The balance was broken."
She gestured again, and another leaf showed a river nymph, her form half-water, half-woman, weeping over the body of an aged fisherman, his net still tangled in his gnarled hands.
"And the Weaver of the Neretva," Vida continued, her voice heavy with the memory. "Her grief was so great her tears swelled the river until it overflowed its banks, washing away villages, drowning fields… all for a love that was, by its very nature, doomed. Their lives are a flicker, Juraj. A single, beautiful, heartbreaking flash of light in our eternal night. Their hearts are fragile. They were not made to bear the weight of our love."
Juraj stood rigid, his hands clenched at his sides. The joyful energy that had filled him was now a cold, hard knot in his stomach. "Ina is different."
"Is she?" Vida asked, not with challenge, but with deep compassion. She moved closer to him, placing a cool, damp hand on his arm. "Will her body not age? Will her skin not wrinkle? Will her brilliant, sea-blue eyes not dim? You are the god of rebirth, Juraj, but even you cannot rebirth the same mortal soul in the same mortal shell. She will change. She will fade. And you… you will remain. As vibrant, as powerful, as eternal as this spring. You will have to watch it happen."
Her words painted a brutal, inescapable picture in his mind. He saw Ina, not as she was now—vibrant and soft in his arms—but as an old woman, her body frail, her hands, now so clever and strong, gnarled with arthritis. He saw himself, unchanged, holding her, his love as fierce as ever, while hers was trapped in a failing vessel. The pain of the vision was so acute it was a physical wound.
"I can protect her," he argued, a desperate edge to his voice. "I can fill her with my power, keep her healthy, keep her strong."
"For how long?" Vida pressed gently. "You would be fighting her very nature. You would be holding back the tide. And when you inevitably fail, as the Shepherd and the Weaver failed, what then? Your grief, brother… your grief would not be a quiet thing. The passion that now makes flowers bloom could twist into a force that makes the roots of the mountains rot. An eternal spring is as much a blight as an eternal winter. The world needs its cycle. It needs death to make room for rebirth. You, of all of us, know this."
Juraj turned away from her, staring into the bubbling spring. The joyful music of the water now sounded like a mockery. He saw Ina's face, her smile, the way she looked at him as if he had hung the moon and stars. He felt the ghost of her body against his, the trust in her surrender. The thought of that light extinguishing was a desolation worse than any centuries-long sleep.
"What would you have me do?" he growled, his voice rough with anguish. "Abandon her? Now? After I have shown her… after she has given me…" He could not finish. The memory of her climax, of her whispered trust, was a sacred thing he could not defile with words.
"I would have you think," Vida said, coming to stand beside him. "I am not Perun. I do not thunder judgments. I am life, Juraj. I understand the pull, the beauty, the irresistible draw of a pure heart. But I also understand the cost. I am asking you to consider it. To truly consider it. Not with the passion of the god, but with the wisdom of the elder."
She placed her hand over his heart. "You have awoken her body. But are you prepared to shatter her soul? For that is what will happen when she truly understands the chasm between you. When she looks in a mirror fifty years from now and sees an old woman, while her lover remains the same dark-haired, powerful god who first walked into her shop. The realization will not come all at once. It will be a slow, creeping poison. A thousand tiny deaths before the final one."
Juraj closed his eyes, Vida's words searing into him. He had been so consumed by the joy of his own awakening, by the ferocity of his desire, that he had blinded himself to the inevitable horizon of pain.
"The council has spoken," Vida added softly. "Perun demands action. Morana whispers of a… reminder. A taste of the winter that comes for all mortal things. I have held them back, for now. I asked for a chance to reason with you. But their patience is thin."
A cold dread, colder than any mountain stream, trickled down Juraj's spine. The idea of Morana's icy touch anywhere near Ina, of Perun's thunderous disapproval being turned against her, filled him with a protective rage so vast it shook the dream-grove. The birches trembled, and the spring's music faltered.
"They will not touch her," he vowed, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous rumble that was the sound of boulders grinding deep beneath the earth.
"Your protection is a storm around a candle flame, brother," Vida said sadly. "It may shield her from others, but it cannot shield her from the truth. And it cannot shield you from the pain."
She began to fade, her form dissolving back into the light and water from which it came. "Think on what I have said, Juraj. Your heart is fertile ground. Be careful what seeds you allow to take root there. For the harvest will come, whether you wish it or not."
With her final words, the dream dissolved.
Juraj awoke with a start, the first light of dawn filtering through the window of Ina's cottage. He was lying on his side, and Ina was curled against him, her back to his chest, one of his arms draped possessively over her waist. Her breathing was deep and even, her body soft and warm in the circle of his embrace.
He looked at her. In the pale, grey light, she seemed even more fragile. He could see the delicate blue veins at her temple, the fine texture of her skin, the absolute, trusting vulnerability of her in sleep. Vida's words echoed in his mind, each one a shard of ice. A flicker. Fragile. A thousand tiny deaths.
A love that felt like the beginning of everything was, according to the immutable laws of the universe, already tinged with the shadow of its end.
He tightened his arm around her, pulling her closer, as if he could physically hold back the dawn, time, and destiny itself. He buried his face in her hair, inhaling the scent of lavender and sleep-warmed skin—the scent of his paradise.
But for the first time, standing at the gates of that paradise, Juraj, the god of spring and rebirth, felt the cold, desolate wind of a future winter blowing through his soul. The path ahead was indeed dangerous, not just for him, but for the mortal woman sleeping in his arms, whose only crime was having a heart kind enough to wake a god from his slumber.