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by Jaymin Eve
Siret must have realised that I wasn’t going to move; he leaned down closer and spoke in fast, clipped tones. “To reach the banishment cave within Topia is fast, which is why we were able to get there so quickly. We are in Minatsol now, so there’s no quick way back to the academy. We could have gone through Topia, but the risk was too great with you having stolen something from the gods. They tend to take those things seriously; they would have been searching for you very quickly. Add on the fact that you stabbed one of them, and, well … It’s much safer on this side.”
Okay, that all made sense. With a sigh, I turned and started walking again.
“Oh, and, Rocks?” Siret added. I swivelled my head around to see him. “We’ll make sure no one at Blesswood punishes you for your absence. We have more than a little pull there, which is something you should remember.”
Whatever. Arrogant sol.
Emmy was going to be out of her freaking mind with worry. She was probably going to start asking a whole bunch of questions, until every damned living thing in the academy had been notified of my absence. There was no way that Yael was going to be able to persuade every single one of them to forget. That would require more power than it was really possible for a sol to possess. That would require the power of a god. I knew that there was nothing I could do right then to change the situation, but that didn’t stop me from losing my mind with worry. Damn those sols!
We walked for the better part of the sun-cycle, picking our way through forests and winding trails that dipped through the mountains. My feet started aching far too soon to complain aloud about it without embarrassing myself, and slowly, the ache began to travel up my legs. Coen was leading us, with Rome two steps behind him, me stuck in the middle, and the triplets bringing up the rear of our procession as they talked quietly amongst themselves.
“So … your mother …” I tossed the words over my shoulder, trying to speak through the ache in my ribs. “Is she still alive?”
“Is it normal for dwellers to ask each other that?” Siret shot back, sounding amused.
“Sorry.” I didn’t sound sorry at all, but that was because of the wheezing. “I just meant … there’s three of you … and two of them.” I paused, notching my hands on my knees and bending over to catch my breath. “And those two are like the size of monsters. How’d she live through all of that? Does she have some kind of fertility gift or something? Do you have another bunch of brothers tucked away? More Abcurses? A few unlucky sisters?”
“Beauty. Her gift is beauty,” Aros answered, ignoring my other questions.
“Oh. Cool.” Made total sense. Those boys had magical genetics. “But that doesn’t really explain the whole twin-triplet thing.”
“The whole twin-triplet thing?” Yael gave me a look that seemed to be part inquisition, part annoyance.
“Well it’s not really normal or common,” I hedged, starting to walk again as he loomed closer. “I mean … to have a set of twins and a set of triplets. That’s pretty rare.”
I could feel him behind me. Hovering. I’d obviously hit a touchy subject. Apparently, the twin-triplet thing wasn’t something they wanted to talk about. I stubbornly focussed my eyes on the ground ahead of me, pumping my little dweller legs as fast as they would go without actually breaking into a run. Because that would be obvious. It was much less obvious to power-walk as fast as possible, even if it made me certain that my legs were about to snap in half from over-exertion.
“We aren’t normal or common,” Yael finally muttered, his hands gripping my hips and lifting me from the ground midway through a power-stride.
He pulled me up and then tossed me behind him. I thought I was going to land on my ass and probably break a few things, but I only landed against a hard chest, arms easily plucking me from the air. Aros. I could actually smell him; that faint combination of something addictive and sweet, and a hint of burning. I realised after a moment that it was the smell of smoking sugar-plants. A very familiar smell to me, since the sugar-plants had been one of our main export goods back at home. I blinked up at him, but he wasn’t even looking at me. He was just striding on, as though I hadn’t been tossed at him, and he hadn’t caught me. As though girls flying through the air at him happened every single sun-cycle.
It probably did.
“So how often do you guys sneak into Topia?” I directed the question to Aros, since he was now much closer to me than the others.
His golden eyes flicked down to me, switching between my eyes before moving over the rest of my face. “Every now and then. How often do you fall on your ass?”
“Every now and then.”
He shook his head, shifting me closer. One of his arms was hooked beneath my knees, the other banded across my back. He was cradling me like a baby. “You should be more careful.”
“Says the guy who sneaks into Topia.”
“You concerned about us, Rocks?” Siret turned his head, his eyebrows lifting, his teeth flashing.
“No.” I crossed my arms.
It was hard to look impassive and intimidating while being cradled like a baby, so I settled on pouting. Aros smirked, taking in my expression before lifting me up. The world around me dropped away as the gold in his eyes became more prominent, almost shifting with energy as his face loomed above mine. Very suddenly, and completely without warning, his lips were pressing against the very corner of my mouth. I was simply too shocked to react. The kiss was barely even a kiss, but my body didn’t seem to know that. The simple brush of his lips had sent spiralling heat all the way through me, locking down the air that should have been flooding in and out of my lungs. He pulled his head up, the smirk back in place, and continued walking.
Meanwhile, I was pretty sure that he had just reached into my chest and pulled out my poor little dweller heart. Now it was laying somewhere behind us. In the dirt. Beating pathetically.
“Seduction is using his talent to change his rank!” Siret shouted, his voice carrying with enough force to make me flinch.
Up ahead, I could see Coen and Rome stopping, the setting sun turning them into huge silhouettes as they spun around, threads of yellow and gold weaving over their bodies and highlighting the fact that I really shouldn’t be encouraging them to compete over an imaginary ranking, because they were far too powerful-looking to mess with, just for the fun of it.
“That’s cheating!” Coen shouted back.
“You cheat, you die!” Rome added, in an equally booming voice. Why the hell was he playing into this when he already seemed to know that it wasn’t a real ranking?
I told myself to come clean; to open up that mouth of mine that was always getting me into trouble and tell them all what Yael and Rome were obviously keeping to themselves. Or maybe they weren’t keeping it to themselves. Maybe they had completely disregarded the fact that the ranking had nothing to do with them and everything to do with their dorm numbers, because they didn’t care. Because it was a competition. Because they were making it a competition. Because they clearly wanted one of their brothers to murder me.
I had to come clean. As soon as possible.
We had reached the others by now, and they all seemed to be staring at Aros, waiting for an explanation. It was annoying me, because they couldn’t just turn it into a competition without me agreeing. The whole thing was my idea. They couldn’t just steal it. Plus, Aros was still cradling me like a baby, and for some reason, it was making my temper bubble. I wanted to be standing on my own feet, preferably towering over all of them.
“My ranks, my rules,” I blurted.
“So we can use our—” Rome began, but I held my hand up, palm facing outward, hoping that it would cut him off. Hell no, Crusher couldn’t use his ‘talent’ on me.
He stared at my extended hand for a moment. He seemed confused. It was possible that nobody had ever tried to cut him off before.
“No, you can’t!” I twisted out of Aros’s arms, landing on my hands and knees in the grass, pain shimmering up my body. I quic
kly pulled to my feet, brushing off my knees. “Nobody is allowed to use their talent on me to change their rank. Because that would be cheating. And like I said: my ranks, my rules.” I realised that I was doing the exact opposite of what I was supposed to be doing, but it seemed like a pretty promising way to prevent the Abcurses from using their talents on me, period.
“We might as well stop here for the night,” Coen muttered, breaking up the stare-off that I had going on with his brothers. “The dweller is getting cranky. She needs to be fed and watered and rested, or whatever dwellers need.”
“You’re getting us confused with bullsen.” I shook my head, insulted at the comparison.
“You don’t need to be fed?” he prompted, his expression blank.
“Food would be nice.”
“And you don’t need to be watered?”
“As in watered-down, like showered? Or given water?”
His blank mask cracked, just barely, but it was enough for me to glimpse the surprise beneath. He didn’t answer me, trading a look with Rome. The others were similarly silent, their faces quickly morphing into the same, locked-down expression.
“You need help showering?” Siret finally asked, evidently the first of them to cave and ask the question that had held them all up. “Dwellers don’t shower on their own?”
“What? No. What? I meant—”
“We’re getting nowhere with this.” Rome cut across me, raising his hand in my face. So, they were competitive and vengeful. I should never have taught him that trick. “The dweller needs to tend to herself. They need regular breaks and sustenance, just like the bullsen.”
“You guys don’t need regular breaks and sustenance?” I asked, folding my arms, and attempting to look down my nose at them.
I knew all too well how much tending they needed. I knew, because I watched people fetch them food, and I collected their laundry.
“We don’t need regular anything,” Rome returned, a laugh in his voice.
“Exactly,” Yael added, his smile matching his brother’s. “Our breaks are never normal, and our food is never normal. That’s how we stand apart from the bullsen and the dwellers. Everything about us is extraordinary.”
“Especially your egos,” I sneered.
“I said ‘everything’, didn’t I?”
Nine
I shook my head, storming right past Yael, hitting him hard in the shoulder as I went. It hurt the way you’d expect bashing your shoulder into a boulder to hurt, but I didn’t just have plenty of experience in feeling pain … I also had a decent amount of experience in stalking away from people angrily. I was in familiar and comfortable territory—or at least I had been, until the sky started to darken, drawing tight and heavy, the clouds swelling as night-time accelerated across the horizon. I stopped walking, my head drawn back, panic building somewhere at the base of my spine.
“What the actual f—” the words were barely even out of my mouth before the Abcurses were suddenly all around me.
They were standing in a circle, their backs to me, and they were completely ignoring the doomsday sky, peering around us at the land instead.
“Which god did you stab, dweller?” Rome growled, his eyes roving over the slope of a nearby hill. He was turned just enough for me to see half of his face.
“I didn’t catch his name,” I replied automatically.
I found myself drawing closer to Rome, even though he appeared to be pissed at me. I couldn’t help it. His was the broadest back. My shoulder bumped against his spine and his arm suddenly twisted around, pulling me fully into him. I pressed my forehead to his shirt, keeping my hands tucked beneath my chin and my eyes closed.
“Please don’t let me die right now,” I started whispering, as the world darkened further, the ground starting to rumble beneath our feet. “I’m not ready to die, yet. I still don’t know how to cook, and I’d like to punch someone in the face not by accident. Just once.”
“Shh,” Aros interrupted. He was standing beside Rome, evidently close enough to hear my panicked prayers. “You stabbed one of them. They aren’t going to do what you say just because you ask nicely.”
“They’re not here for her,” Yael spoke up, his words dark. “Trickery? You would know better than us … is it D.O.D.?”
“No. It’s not a trick.” Siret seemed to be speaking through clenched teeth. “He has no idea we stole the cup.”
“Show yourself!” Coen suddenly shouted, his voice carrying all the way to the cluster of trees we had left behind, almost seeming to shake their leaves.
From the darkness caused by the stormy sky and the shelter of the short forest, a man suddenly materialised, walking toward us. He was cloaked in a blood-red robe which swept over the ground, collecting sticks and dust as he swooped in toward us.
“Rau.” A collective growl announced the name from five different directions. I could even feel the name as it vibrated the entire way through Rome’s body.
“What’s with the nightmare illusion, Rau? What do you want?” Yael demanded, stepping away from the circle.
I craned my head away from Rome, trying to see the man better. It was difficult, because as soon as Yael moved, so did the others. They tightened the circle around me, Aros and Coen spinning around to face the man called Rau, though Coen still had one eye on the rolling hills behind us.
“It’s not an illusion,” Rau answered, his voice oddly high-pitched for his imposing stature. It made him sound more than a little unhinged, as though he would break out into a maniacal laugh at any moment. “It’s just a bit of fun. Who are you hiding back there?”
“Coen’s current plaything. He seems to like this one so we’re trying not to scare her off.”
“I thought fear was a big part of Coen’s playtime.” This time, Rau did laugh manically.
I shivered, huddling back into Rome. I was pretty sure that Rau was a god, since he was wearing one of those flowing, coloured robes, and he would have been considered massive, standing next to a normal sol. He just looked average standing next to Yael. Either way, I didn’t want to look anymore. I didn’t even care that they were making me sound like a dim-witted, dweller toy. I just wanted the sky to go back to normal and for Rau to stop talking because his voice was creepy as hell.
“Let’s get to the point where you tell us why you’re here,” Rome said, probably well aware of the way I was trembling against his back.
“I think you all know why I’m here,” Rau shot back, his laugh fading away. “There hasn’t been another Chaos god in hundreds of life-cycles. Whenever one gets close, Staviti finds a way to kill them. I need someone to help me. Someone who has access to Blesswood. Someone to find the Chaos student and protect them until they finally reach the threshold of power. After that, they are free to die. Staviti can kill them all he likes. It won’t stop them from joining me.”
“Tiny problem with this plan,” Yael replied, a smirk in his voice. “We don’t really want another Chaos. I mean, no offence, Rau, but it’s pretty fucking exhausting.”
The god’s already dark features hit black-out level then. I counted my loud heartbeat as I waited for whatever horrible thing was about to come from his fury.
One … two … three … four …
His next words burst out in a swarm of whispers, trickling through the air and somehow filling the wide spaces around us. “I’m sure you all know that I don’t take kindly to my suggestions being denied. You five have ignored our rules for far too long. Don’t forget that you stand here among the dirt-dwellers, growing weaker by the sun-cycle. You wouldn’t want one of the gods to take advantage of that now, would you? I can make sure that you have no more trouble here, all you have to do is find my Beta.”
Rome’s arm tightened minutely around me. I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t completely aware of every single part of my body pressed against his. Of course, that was far less worrying than the fact that his arm had tightened! Was he worried? Shit, of course he was worried. This was a god,
even if there were five Abcurses, it wouldn’t matter. One god could annihilate them in an instant.
No! That was not okay, I … what the hell was I going to do?
In my panic, I had missed some of the boys’ reply to the veiled threat from Rau. I caught the tail-end of Siret saying, “… would be a mistake to try us. We take orders from no one, not even you.”
Rau grinned then, and somehow that was even more sinister than the previous dark scowl. “We’ll see, boy, we’ll see. Stay safe out here tonight, looks like a storm is coming.”
With that not-at-all-creepy parting line, he turned, and in a flash of red robes, he was striding back into the trees. I felt it, the moment he left Minatsol. The air around us thinned-out somewhat, even though the storm above seemed to be growing in ferocity. Which said nothing for the five sols still surrounding me. Their bodies seemed to swell as their muscles tensed. I struggled against Rome, needing to get down so I could see them all better. So that I could ask them what the hell had just happened.
The strength-gifted sol released me, keeping one hand on me as I stumbled. Somehow, he knew that I was going to stumble. Okay, let’s be real here … everyone knew that I was going to stumble, I just wasn’t used to anyone knowing this fact and preparing for it. Don’t get used to it, I forcefully told myself. The Abcurses weren’t going to be there to pick me up forever, I had to remember that. I had to step back from all the confusing emotions they instilled in me. Sometimes, they almost treated me like an equal; like when they saved me from being sentenced to death-by-sacrifice, just because of a stupid competition. Or just before, when they had formed a circle around me to protect me, as though I was someone worthy of protection. A dweller that actually meant something to them. A dweller that meant something … period. And then there were the other times. The times when they treated me like dirt beneath their feet. The way they were supposed to treat me.
I needed to make sure I never forgot my place—dwellers who did that ended up with a fate worse than death. They became Jeffrey. Or something. I didn’t really know. I was just assuming that becoming a Jeffrey was the worst thing that could happen to our kind.