The storm's passing left behind more than just physical wreckage; it left a new and potent silence in the divine realms. Perun's direct assault had failed. Worse, it had backfired spectacularly, forging the bond between the god and the mortal into something harder, more resilient, and defiantly public. The echo of Ina's shout—"He is mine, and I am his!"—had rippled through the higher planes, a baffling and irritating anomaly. A mortal had not just endured their wrath; she had answered it with a command.
On the slopes of Biokovo, the mood was grim. Perun paced, the air around him crackling with thwarted energy. The very stones seemed to flinch from his steps.
"She defied me," he growled, the words a low rumble of thunder. "The mortal shouted at the sky, and the sky… hesitated." The admission was galling.
Morana, a sculpture of ice in the sunlight, offered a thin, cold smile. "I told you brute force would only make them cling tighter. You have made their love a saga. A rebellion. You have given them a common enemy."
"The girl has spine, I will grant her that," Svetovid's four voices mused, a rare note of clinical admiration in the chorus. "It is not mere infatuation. It is a choice, fiercely made. A warrior's spirit in a gardener's body." The face of the warrior looked thoughtful, while the face of the fertility god seemed amused.
"Then we must attack the choice itself," Svetovid concluded, the voices harmonizing into a single, cunning purpose. "Not with lightning, but with doubt. Not with storms, but with… alternatives. If her love is a choice, let us present her with better ones."
And so, the strategy shifted. The overt, world-shattering power was set aside. The next assault would be one of subtle corruption, a campaign of whispers and temptations masterminded by the god of war and fertility, a being who understood both the strategies of battle and the fickleness of the heart.
On Korčula, the cleanup was a shared, therapeutic labor. Juraj's power, replenished by Ina's defiant act and the simple joy of being with her, flowed back into the land. The broken lavender stalks he could not mend, but he encouraged new, vigorous shoots from the roots. The mud was washed away, and the field, while scarred, began to pulse with a renewed, almost aggressive vitality. It was a field that had survived a god's wrath, and it stood prouder for it.
It was in this atmosphere of hard-won peace that the first "divine plant" arrived.
His name was Luka, or so he claimed. He was a photographer from Zagreb, impossibly handsome with sun-streaked blond hair, a perfectly sculpted jaw, and eyes the color of the summer sky. He found Ina in her shop, "Lavanda," and his charm was as polished as his camera lens.
"This place is… enchanting," he said, his voice a smooth, cultured baritone. "Just like its owner."
Ina, who was used to the friendly, sometimes awkward, compliments of tourists, felt an immediate and profound sense of unease. His gaze was too intense, too calculated. It wasn't the raw, consuming appreciation in Juraj's eyes; it was the appraisal of a collector.
"Thank you," she said, her tone polite but guarded.
Luka spent an hour in the shop, asking detailed, flattering questions about her process, her life on the island, her dreams. He spoke of exotic places he'd visited, of galleries in Paris and parties in Milan, painting a picture of a world of glamour and sophistication that was the polar opposite of her quiet life of soil and scent. He was the perfect, handsome escape from the terrifying complexities of loving a god.
When he finally left, buying an absurdly large quantity of lavender oil, Ina felt as though she needed to open all the windows to clear the air of his cloying, artificial perfume.
That evening, over a simple dinner of grilled fish and vegetables from the recovering garden, she told Juraj about him. "It was the strangest thing," she said, frowning. "He was so… perfect. It felt like he was reciting lines from a play."
Juraj, who had been listening with a neutral expression, suddenly grinned, a flash of white in his darkly handsome face. "Describe him."
"Tall. Blond. Blue eyes. A photographer. Said his name was Luka."
Juraj's grin widened. He leaned back in his chair, a low chuckle rumbling in his chest. "Luka. Of course. Svetovid's doing. The God of Fair Skies and Superficial Charm. A classic opening gambit."
Ina stared at him, then burst out laughing. "You're joking."
"I am not," he said, his eyes twinkling with amusement. "They have abandoned the hammer for the scalpel. They are testing your fidelity by sending you what they believe is a 'better' option. A safe, handsome, mortal option."
The absurdity of it was so profound that any lingering unease vanished, replaced by a sense of sheer, theatrical comedy. The gods of the ancient world were trying to seduce her away with a pretty face and stories of Paris.
"Well," Ina said, wiping a tear of laughter from her eye, "he's not my type."
"And what, pray tell, is your type?" Juraj asked, leaning forward, his voice dropping to that intimate, gravelly register that never failed to make her shiver.
"Oh, you know," she said, playing along, a coy smile on her lips. "Brooding. Prone to making flowers explode. Terrible with modern money. That sort of thing."
He laughed, a rich, full-bodied sound that filled the cottage. The game was afoot.
The next "plant" appeared two days later. This one was a dark-haired, brooding sculptor from Italy named Mateo. He was all intense silences and smoldering glances, claiming to be seeking inspiration from Korčula's raw, natural beauty. He found Ina in her field and tried to convince her to model for him, speaking of capturing her "eternal essence" in marble.
"He's trying the 'tormented artist' approach," Juraj diagnosed that evening as they sat on the sofa, Ina's feet tucked under his leg. "Svetovid is nothing if not thorough. He's covering all the mortal archetypes of desire."
"He told me my spirit was like 'wild honey and moonlight,'" Ina reported, giggling.
Juraj snorted. "My compliments are better."
"Are they?" she teased. "Remind me."
He leaned close, his breath warm on her ear. "I told you you were the reason the soil remembers how to be fertile. That you are a temple. That your courage is a power greater than any I possess." He pulled back, his dark eyes gleaming. "Which do you prefer? Honey and moonlight, or that?"
Ina pretended to consider it, tapping her chin. "Hmm, the honey line is quite good…"
He growled playfully and pulled her into a kiss that was decidedly more potent than any sculptor's flattery.
The third attempt was a dashing American entrepreneur, a man named Brad who was all blindingly white teeth and confident swagger. He talked about venture capital, scaling her "quaint little business" into a global brand, and private jets. He represented a future of power, wealth, and security.
"Ah, the King," Juraj declared, thoroughly enjoying himself. "Svetovid offers you a crown. A mortal one, of course."
"He said my lavender had 'disruptive market potential,'" Ina said, shaking her head in bewilderment.
"And does it?" Juraj asked, amused.
"It disrupts my peace when people like him talk about it," she retorted, making him laugh again.
They began to look forward to the appearances, turning the divine interference into their own private comedy. They would place bets on what the next archetype would be.
"I'm guessing a rugged, silent fisherman," Ina proposed one morning as they harvested lavender.
"Too obvious," Juraj countered. "Svetovid is more clever than that. I'm predicting a humble, kind-hearted schoolteacher. The 'safe choice.'"
They were both wrong. The next candidate was a charismatic Danish anthropologist, fascinated by local folklore. He engaged Ina in long, intellectual conversations about the very Old Gods Juraj represented, trying to connect with her on a cerebral level.
"Intellectual stimulation!" Juraj crowed when she told him. "A brilliant tactic! Appeal to the mind to sway the heart!"
"It was interesting," Ina admitted. "Until he started explaining the 'likely psychological origins' of the god Juraj, reducing you to a metaphor for seasonal anxiety."
Juraj's mirth faded into a look of mild offense. "A metaphor for seasonal anxiety? I am a fundamental force of the universe!"
"I know," Ina said, patting his arm consolingly. "I told him his theories were… reductive."
The game reached its peak with the arrival of the fifth and final suitor. His name was Petar, and he was, by any mortal standard, perfect. He was a local from a nearby village, a man who understood the land, who spoke her language, who shared her history. He was handsome, kind, stable, and human. He didn't speak of Paris or venture capital; he spoke of the best soil for olives and the coming grape harvest. He was the life she could have had, the safe, normal, understandable future she had sacrificed for a god.
He came to the field, and his admiration for her work was genuine. He didn't flatter her; he appreciated her skill. He was the one temptation that was not a caricature. He was real.
Ina felt a pang of something that was not temptation, but a profound sadness. For a moment, she saw the ghost of that other, simpler life—a life of quiet contentment with a good man, growing old together, surrounded by children and grandchildren, untouched by the terrifying, glorious world of divine passion and celestial storms.
She was polite but distant with Petar, and he, being a good man, sensed the unbreachable distance and left with a respectful nod.
That evening, she was quiet. The game didn't feel funny anymore.
Juraj sensed the shift in her mood. He came up behind her as she stood at the cottage window, wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his chin on her shoulder.
"The final test," he said softly, no laughter in his voice now. "The one that is not a test at all, but a mirror. He showed you the path not taken."
Ina leaned back against him, drawing strength from his solid presence. "It would have been an easier life," she whispered.
"It would have been a life of shadows," he replied, his voice a low hum against her ear. "You would have spent it always feeling that you were waiting for the sun to rise, not knowing that you were meant to be the sun for someone else."
She turned in his arms, looking up at him, her sea-blue eyes clear and certain. "I don't want easier. I want you."
The tension broke. The brief, haunting vision of the normal life vanished, burned away by the reality of the love that filled her, a love that was as deep and complex and fertile as the god who held her.
The parade of pretty fools was over. Svetovid's campaign had failed utterly. It had not sown doubt; it had reinforced her choice. By showing her every conceivable alternative—the charmer, the artist, the king, the intellectual, and the good man—the gods had only succeeded in highlighting the one, immutable truth: none of them were Juraj.
They possessed fragments of what he was—beauty, passion, power, intellect, stability. But he contained them all, fused with a raw, ancient, eternal power that made their mortal charms seem like child's play. Compared to the god who could make the earth sing, who looked at her as if she held the secrets of the universe in her hands, who fought storms for her and whispered love in a language as old as the hills, the handsome photographer, the brooding sculptor, the confident entrepreneur, the clever academic, and the kind farmer were just that—boys playing dress-up.
That night, their lovemaking was different. It was not just an expression of passion, but a celebration, a reaffirmation. It was a silent, powerful vow made with their bodies. As she lay in his arms afterwards, the scent of their love and the night-blooming jasmine filling the room, Ina knew with absolute certainty that she had not chosen a man over other men. She had chosen a universe. And she would defend her place in it against all comers, whether they came with thunderbolts or charming smiles. The game was over. They had won.