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by Jaymin Eve
The persuasive sol gracefully twisted in my direction, and part of me instantly regretted snapping my fingers at him. I’d seen some of the villagers do that to call the bullsen up and always thought it looked like a nifty trick. Possibly, Yael wasn’t fond of being called up like a wild beast.
He stepped into me, and my eyes fell to his lips. Lips which were kissing me only last night. No, Willa. No more kissing sols.
That was probably a mantra I would have to repeat a few times; couldn’t quite get it to sink in.
“Rau hit you with a curse that was designed for one of us. A powerful curse which was most likely intended to cause chaos. He wanted to shake up the natural order even more, giving himself more power, and thereby gathering enough power to find his Beta.” Yael spoke matter-of-factly, but his eyes were ice-cold.
“The more powerful you are, the more you can sense the sols with the gifts strong enough to ascend to Topia,” Rome added.
“Or steal your godhood,” Siret chimed in.
Yael growled low before picking up the conversation again. “Yes, as I said, it’s important that gods can sense these sols, and Rau has had that power stripped from him by Staviti. He wants it back.”
I tried to breathe around my confusion and panic. “So it was a curse meant for one of you guys and it hit me … it splintered my soul and now you all carry it inside. Like in your heart pocket or some crap.”
Heart pocket? Really, Willa?
Siret took pity on me. “Souls aren’t like a bag of tokens. It’s not like some got slipped into our pockets when we weren’t looking. Your energy, the essence of what makes you Willa, is now woven with the energy of each of us.”
So he was saying …
“I’m never getting those parts of my soul back, am I?” I was not going to be able to demand that they simply empty their pockets and hand me my soul back. It was all mixed up with their messy-ass souls, getting tainted by the sol-ness of their stupid, superior selves.
A disembodied voice rang through Siret’s room then, sounding entirely robotic and sexless. “Gods have arrived to the arena, all sols have one click to make it inside. This is mandatory.”
The Abcurses started moving. I noticed that Siret was now dressed in his own pretty set of armour plates, black and gold to reflect his hair. “Come on, Rocks. We’re going to the arena, you better haul ass to keep up.”
I flapped around for a fraction of a click before ringing my hands. “Dwellers aren’t allowed in the Sacred Sand arena like this. I haven’t even done my first cleaning shift there because you have to be trained and cleansed before you step into the halls of the gods.”
Siret fitted his hands under my arms and hauled me out of the room. The Abcurses were moving rapidly, ignoring my freak out.
“Guys!” I tried to drag my feet, especially when I realised that I was still dressed in Coen’s huge clothes. “Stop right now. Now! I’m not wearing my own clothes and my ass is literally hanging out. I can’t go before the gods like this.”
“Close your eyes,” Siret whispered in my ear and for some reason, I obeyed him. I almost suspected that he was channelling some of Yael’s persuasion.
Thankfully, he was still half carrying me down the hall because walking with eyes closed for someone like me was not advisable. I felt the warmth of something caress my body, and figured it was the sunshine as we stepped out the front door, but when I found my eyes flying open, we weren’t quite there yet. Which meant …
I glanced down to find that my clothes had completely changed. The dress was a deep purple, moulding perfectly to my body, as though it had been made specifically for me. It even felt like I had underwear on and everything. I could even see that my hair had somehow been tamed, curling obediently over my shoulders, the strands looking silky and shiny. Well wasn’t I a bit fancy right now? But how the heck had Siret done that to me? Was it a trick or an illusion?
“You shouldn’t be wasting your energy like that, Trickery.” Yael’s face was expressionless, his voice flat. His brother didn’t bother to answer; he was focused on getting to the arena.
A few more steps and we were outside. The massive arena rose up into the distance, the last straggling sols disappearing through the huge entrance. I’d only ever seen it from the outside, so I was looking forward to checking out the rest of it. This was the place where sols gathered every moon-cycle to perform for the gods. This was where they wanted to be noticed. This was the place where future gods were discovered.
The inside was as impressive as I had expected. A wide open circular space with a multitude of obstacles and different flooring was the centre and focal-point of the entire building. Around it, on all sides, were staggered rows of chairs, which were right now filled with sols. All five Abcurses paused to stare at the end furthest from us, where there was a raised and glassed-off platform. The reflecting sun through the open panes of the rooftop made it hard to see into that boxed area, but it had to be where the gods were.
“Come on, we need to take our seats,” Coen muttered, leading us toward the empty seats that were very far away from the glassed box. Away from the gods. Which was totally not normal sol behaviour. From what I could see, the seats closest to the gods were packed with the students of Blesswood. Dwellers stood around the perimeter waiting to be called on for service, probably hoping that the gods would notice them too. They were all dressed in their absolute best: the females in dresses and the males in trousers and long shirts. I wondered if they’d still want the gods to notice them if they knew the uniform for the Jeffreys.
The end we were heading toward was practically empty, even though it was the row closest to the actual arena. Those sols who hadn’t managed to get a place close to the glass box all seemed to prefer the middle ring of seats. I had only a moment to wonder why, before the first sols were called into the sands, and then I realised several things at once.
Firstly, sols were dangerous.
Secondly, a sand floor easily absorbed blood, and negated the need for a post-arena-demonstration cleaning crew.
And finally, the front row of seats was absolutely the worst row of seats.
More than once, a sol was tossed right up against the flimsy wooden barrier that I sat behind. I hadn’t actually been paying much attention to the other sols of Blesswood until then. I hadn’t bothered to even admire their slightly-better-than-dweller appearances, or their slightly-bigger-than-dweller statures, but now I was noticing it all, and my slightly-less-than-stellar coping mechanisms were kicking into gear, forcing my palms to sweat. In front of me, a male sol had a female sol pinned right up against the barrier. I could almost feel his snarling breath. I could almost feel the sharpness of the knife that he held up against her throat, and then I could definitely feel the blood that splattered right over my face.
“What the fuck?” I cried out, clamouring right over the back of my seat as the female sol’s head lolled a little to the side, teetering as though it would fall right where my shoes had been tapping nervously against the ground.
The male sol … the one with the knife … the one who just almost beheaded his opponent right there in front of me—was now staring at me. I noted that he was still holding the bloody knife. That seemed important, but my frazzled brain couldn’t seem to figure out why it was important.
“Dweller?” he sounded surprised. “Are you lost?”
“N-nope,” I stammered. “Meant to be here.” I looked down, at the boy whose lap I had basically scrambled into. He had been sitting right behind me. In the row of seats reserved for intelligent sols who didn’t want to get covered in blood. “Totally did that deliberately,” I told him—and Stabby, who was still staring at me.
A single gong sounded, signalling the end of the match, and Stabby shrugged, though there was a frown on his face as he spun around and walked to the other end of the arena. He bowed before the glass box, as the other victors had, and then disappeared through a door leading down below the arena.
“Dweller?�
�� a male voice sounded, about a few inches away from my ear. “You’re still sitting on me.”
I glanced down at the guy. Now that I paid attention, I noticed that he was actually taking up two of the seats, he was that big. I couldn’t even tell if it was fat, or muscle. He was just … huge. Oh, and he was giving me a look. A ‘what the hell are you sitting on me for?’ look.
“I can explain,” I managed, slowly standing up, my hands raised before me.
“We’re waiting.” This had come from Siret, who had been sitting to my left in the blood row. He was now twisted around, as were the others.
He was smirking, clearly finding my awkward predicament funny. Even Aros was grinning, but the others weren’t. A stormy expression had dropped over Rome’s face. Maybe he didn’t like other people being bigger than him.
“Stabby got blood on me.” I frowned. “And he killed that girl.” I pointed to said girl, who was now being carried away by two of the dweller attendants.
“That’s what happens,” Yael muttered, reaching over the seat and hauling me back to the front row, forcing me down between him and Siret. “In these games, you either surrender, or you die.”
“So why didn’t she surrender?” I crossed my arms over my chest, casting a quick look over my shoulder at Mountain Man. He was still frowning at me. I could feel it burning into the back of my head as I tried to ignore him.
He was probably waiting for a formal dweller-style apology, or for me to drop and kiss his feet. Problem was, Yael still had a hand on my shoulder, forcing me to stay in my seat, so kissing Mountain Man’s feet was going to be a problem.
“Maybe she thought she was strong enough,” Coen returned, from Yael’s other side. “Maybe she thought that she would become a god.” His voice was soft, but it had an edge of something malicious. It was almost like he knew that she wasn’t strong enough. That she had died for nothing. And he liked that fact.
Coen was a little bit frightening.
“I’m next,” Aros announced, jumping to his feet and launching himself over the wooden barrier without a backward glance.
I looked up at the Gamemaster—a sol male standing beside the gong that sounded the beginning and ending of each match. He was set right beneath the glass box, probably so that the gods could whisper down to him whenever they wanted to see a particular sol perform. Sure enough, Aros’s name was now glittering in flame above the Gamemaster’s head, along with Tabatha, whoever that was. I watched with increasing trepidation as Aros sauntered out into the center of the arena, standing there patiently. Pretending that poor sols didn’t get beheaded there on a regular basis.
Speaking of … “Uh, if you guys die, does that mean I’ll die too?” I spoke rapidly, uncaring which one of my soul-stealers answered.
Siret laughed—loudly, as though he had just heard the funniest joke ever. This sort of weird red haze descended across my vision and I was about to launch myself head first into his face. I knew my head was hard, and it would hurt if I hit him with it.
Yael must have seen my intentions, because he wrapped an arm around my waist just as I launched. “Calm down, Rocks. Trickery is amused because there’s no possible way a sol will ever take one of us down. None. So don’t worry yourself about it.”
Yeah, sure, don’t worry your pretty head about it, Willa, it’s just your life we are holding in our hands. My scowl swung to face Yael. “Don’t think I didn’t notice the deflection toward my actual question there, so either you know your death would kill me, or you have no idea. Neither of which are comforting.”
Siret’s laughter was dying off; lucky for him, because I was still calculating the best angle to head-charge him. Would totally be worth the headache. He spoke through the dying chuckles. “We aren’t easily killed, don’t you worry. And the simple fact is … we don’t know what this means for any of us. Maybe you can’t be killed now either—as in until all six of us die, none of us can die. Or maybe there’s still a piece of your soul inside you. It would make sense, seeing as you’re able to feel emotions that are entirely your own, and you can easily make decisions for yourself.”
Well, that would be a bonus, but knowing my luck, doubtful. If there was only a little piece of me left, I’d almost definitely turn into a Jeffrey when I died. My attention was distracted then when Tabatha entered the arena.
She was just a girl in simple fighting-gear striding out from the door leading below the arena. There was probably a dweller running down there to fetch sols when they were called. I couldn’t see her properly from where I sat, but she looked beautiful and badass, her hair braided down her back, her scowl in place. She walked over to Aros, and then attacked, right when I thought that she was going to say hi, how’s it going? or some other kind of casual greeting.
He flung out an arm as she pounced at him, so quickly that I would have missed it if the girl hadn’t run right into it. He caught her right at her neck, sending her feet flying out from beneath her, sand spraying, and flipping her up. His other hand seemed to push against her face as she was falling, sending her toward the ground much faster than she would have fallen on her own. She collided with the sand so roughly that her body actually seemed to bounce, and then she wasn’t moving at all.
Aros started walking back to us as the gong sounded. I supposed that an opponent falling unconscious would be considered a surrender, which was a good thing. I wasn’t exactly spokesperson for the sols, but I was happy that there were alternatives to beheading. I knew both Yael and Siret had smug grins on their faces, like they were saying mentally I told you so.
Aros climbed over the barrier and sat down beside Siret, looking completely bored. I leaned over Siret, peering at him. “Why’d they pair you with a girl?”
He turned away from the sand, his eyes finding mine, his unease creasing fine lines between his brows. “The gods are always hoping that I’ll use my gift to win a fight.”
“How would that even work?” I was thoroughly confused, and a little too aware of the hand that Siret had dropped over my back.
Aros leaned forward, bringing his face close to mine. “I could have distracted her with desire,” he muttered, his eyes flicking between mine. “And then she would have let me close to her.” He reached out, his fingers winding around the back of my neck. “She would beg me to kiss her, because I would make her. I would make it all that she could think about.” His power trickled through to me, nothing like the debilitating need that he was describing, but enough to convince me that he was telling the truth. I bit down on my lip, trying not to do something stupid, like moan.
“And then?” I couldn’t help that my voice rasped a little bit.
“And then I would snap her neck,” he said silkily, his fingers tightening on me.
I drew back, wrenching myself from his spell, and he allowed me. Siret’s hand fell away from my back, and I turned to the arena numbly, my emotions running rampant.
Holy shit.
“Language,” Siret chastised.
Fuck you. I narrowed my eyes at him.
He grinned. “You have a dirty mind, Soldier.”
“I’m up.” Yael’s deep voice cut through the moment, drawing all of our eyes back to the Gamemaster as the persuasive Abcurse launched himself over the barrier.
His name was there, in flame. I didn’t even bother looking at the other name. What did it matter? They wouldn’t last. Not against Yael. Not against any of the Abcurses. Part of me understood why Siret had laughed at me before. My guys weren’t normal. They were something else.
Not my guys. Just guys. Some random guys. Some random, weird, annoying guys.
“Are you insulting us inside your head again, Rocks?” Rome asked through a yawn, standing and plonking himself into Yael’s vacated seat, his massive hand falling to my knee.
I stared at his hand, and then at his face. He didn’t even seem to be needing a response. He was watching his brother, who was standing out in the middle of the arena as Aros had.
“Nope,�
� I lied. “I have other friends that I insult inside my head, you know.”
He turned, finally focussing his full attention on me. The glittering, gem-like green of his irises darkened with his focus, making my seat a pretty frightening seat to be sitting in right then.
“We’re not your friends,” he told me blatantly.
“Your hand is on my leg,” I shot back, not even missing a beat.
They were so my friends.
On my other side, Siret snorted on a laugh.
Rome didn’t look at his hand—which apparently had a mind of its own—but I could feel his fingers tightening. They could reach all the way around my leg, his fingers brushing on the other side. If he squeezed, everything from the knee down would probably pop right off.
“Enemies don’t put their hands on their enemies’ legs,” I pushed, holding his stare.
His jaw shifted, like he was grinding his teeth. I tried to edge my leg out from beneath his death-grip, but it only tightened further, pulling until I was dragged across the seat and pressed right up against his body.
“I never said that we were enemies,” he finally answered. “We’re just not friends.”
Okay, so he was annoyed about the fact that my sneaky little soul had kind of chained itself to his. I could understand that. I mean, friends were supposed to have boundaries. That definitely crossed a line.
“Kay.” I nodded, leaning my head against his arm—which was about as comfortable as a rock. If he was going to force me to sit on the edge of my seat, he might as well give me something to lean against.
He grumbled as I turned back to watch the other contestant finally emerge from the room below the arena. He was a big guy, dragging an even bigger sword behind him. When he drew near Yael, he looked pissed. Probably because they were forcing him to fight Yael. I’d be pissed too. He raised his sword as the gong sounded, and then tried to strike before Yael could speak, but it was no use. In half a click, he was laying the sword back down and stripping off his clothes. He ran toward the barrier, climbed over, and started running naked through the rows of laughing sols. Eventually, he ran right into a wooden post, and then fell down, unconscious. Apparently, Yael had grown tired of humiliating him.