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by Jaymin Eve
Someone screamed—a woman. It didn’t exactly sound like Elowin, but it was hard to tell. Things started crashing around, and I could see that Elowin’s fire was starting to catch onto things. The flames were licking up the fabric that covered her windows, adding to the smoke that already choked the room.
“I need to get Willa out of here,” Aros muttered, as one of the guys grunted, and a body flew into the wall right beside us, collapsing the plaster.
“Rau is blocking the exit,” Rome spat back. “Turns out Elowin wasn’t smart enough to come up with this plan all on her own.”
Rau! AGAIN?
“So we’ll knock him the fuck out of the way,” Aros countered, grabbing my arm and dragging me across the room.
I tripped over a lank leg—which had been dangling half across the floor, courtesy of the body sticking out of the wall—but Rome caught my other arm, and they carried me between them the rest of the way to the door. I caught sight of the dark-haired sol who had impersonated me back at the academy. She and three other sols were fighting against Coen, who seemed to be playing with them more than actually fighting them. But Fakey was holding a candlestick and it looked like she might actually manage to hit him, so I untangled myself from Aros and Rome, running over to her and yanking the thing out of her hand before she could use it.
She spun, her eyes narrowing, and I knew that she was about to get her revenge for all the times I had punched her. Or … she would have, if Rome hadn’t grabbed me again, dragging me back to the front door. He pushed me through in front of him, and Aros kept an arm outstretched in front of me, like I might attempt to run off and attack Rau all on my own.
Which actually wasn’t a bad idea. I mean … I had a candlestick, and Fakey made it look super easy to use as a weapon. I could totally take Point on this. And, let’s not forget that I had stabbed a god before. That practically made me an expert in god-fighting.
Rau manifested before us, standing against the opposite hallway, his oily black hair stuck to his square-shaped skull, his muddy, red-brown eyes trained on me. He looked happy to see me. He even released that horrible, high-pitched laugh that I was starting to think was actually the worst sound in the world. It was more like a giggle. The giggle of a maniac.
I dropped the candlestick. I was so retired from god-fighting.
“Hello again, dweller.” He pushed back his scarlet cloak, revealing the red robe beneath. He was probably even wearing red underwear. Not that I really needed to picture his underwear.
“What? You’re ignoring us now?” Aros drawled, managing to sound offended, even though I knew he wasn’t.
Rome slammed the door behind him, closing out the smoke and the fire and the battle within. It made me nervous, because I was almost certain that the boys weren’t fireproof. I mean, they were gifted, but they weren’t invincible.
“Your father forbade me from speaking to you,” Rau replied, his eyes still focussed on me. “This little girl, however. Nobody gives a shit about you, do they? It’s beautiful, really. It wasn’t what I had planned. I left as soon as the curse hit you, so I didn’t realise that you had lived through it. I’m so sorry, little dweller. If I had known that you would survive it, I would have stayed.”
“Say what now?” I stuttered, as the door burst open behind us.
Coen and Yael stood there, covered in soot and blood, chests heaving.
“We’ve got a situation,” Coen announced, completely ignoring Rau.
Or … not completely ignoring Rau, because Rau wasn’t standing there anymore. He had disappeared, and the red smoke had disappeared with him. Elowin’s home was now utterly silent. Rau had taken away the chaos with him.
“What is it?” Rome asked, looking over Coen’s shoulder.
I actually had the better vantage point, because I could peer through the small gap between Coen’s and Yael’s torsos. It was a gap just barely big enough for me to glimpse Siret, crumpled up on the ground.
“Five!” I pushed Coen out of the way, stumbling back into the room.
The floor was blackened and grimy, and there were bodies strewn everywhere. I only made it a few steps before my feet were flying out from under me, but this time, I was flying forward and none of the guys could catch me in time, so I landed on my face. I crawled the rest of the way to Siret, reaching him by the time the others had already surrounded him.
There were tears streaming down my face, and I didn’t even know what was wrong yet. I pushed between two of the big legs standing around Siret, until I was crouched over him.
There was a knife sticking out of his chest, right on the left side.
Some mothereffing effer stabbed him in the heart.
I was caught between an intense wave of fury, and an equally intense pull of terror. Would he survive this? He was a sol! He had to survive this!
“Five?” I grabbed his face, trying to get him to open his eyes. His skin was still warm, but there was so much blood. I could feel it now, warm against my knees, soaking up into my pants. “Please … please open your eyes …”
He grimaced, his eyelids flickering, and his hand rose, catching mine. “Calm down, Soldier, I’m going to be fine.” He choked as he spoke, and a spot of blood landed right on the side of his mouth.
The terror fighting my rage won, and I started shuddering, my bones veritably knocking together with the thought that I could lose him.
“There’s a knife in your chest, you idiot!” I realised that screaming at him probably wasn’t going to help the situation, but I couldn’t seem to control myself.
He laughed—he actually laughed—and someone grabbed me off the floor, raising me up. I fought against them, but Yael stepped in front of me, his hands cupping my face.
“Calm,” he muttered, his moss green eyes flinching, as though he didn’t like using his power on me.
It swept through me with the force of a gentle breeze, wiping out my emotion and leaving me hollow. The sol holding me—Aros—bundled me tighter into his arms, and I only watched as Coen bent over Siret, blocking his chest from view. Siret groaned in pain, and a moment later, Coen flicked the blood-covered knife aside.
“We need to get him back to Topia,” Coen declared, hooking his hand beneath Siret’s arms, while Rome picked up his legs.
“You need to get him to a healer,” I countered calmly.
It felt strange, seeing this sol bleeding and limp in his brothers’ arms. As though I should have been doing something about it. As though it should have been tearing me up inside, or driving me halfway to insane with fear. I could feel the pings of emotion, barely sparking up inside me before hitting a barrier and fizzling into nothing.
“He’s going to be fine, Willa.” Aros spoke while carrying me out of the room, away from the mess that we’d all left inside.
I caught a glimpse of Elowin’s face before we made it clear of the doorway. Her head was bent at an awkward angle, her legs twisted beneath her. It looked almost accidental, as though she had tripped while falling backwards, and hit her head on something.
But maybe I was just fooling myself.
Maybe I was trying to convince myself that all of this had been an accident. Another product of my clumsy curse.
Nineteen
The trip back to the train was a dizzy dream. My emotions were still frozen, courtesy of Yael. He had to top up the Persuasion every so often, because occasionally the panic would burst through and I would start bawling like a baby. Something which seemed to cause a lot of brow-creasing in the Abcurse brothers.
The train was apparently the quickest way back. We had piled into the empty carriage—there was no one on it, courtesy of Rome, who tossed them out without an ounce of remorse. As it started to move, I remained glued to Siret’s side; I might have been numb, but my brain still knew it was bad. Really bad. He was no longer conscious, despite my constant yelling at him to wake up. There wasn’t even a flutter of his eyelashes. No glimpse of beautiful, mischievous eyes.
The tears j
ust wouldn’t stop flowing. I had been batting them away, but that got tiring so I just let them fall, soaking his already blood-soaked clothing.
“I can’t take this any longer.” Coen’s mutters had my head lifting up from Siret’s chest.
The massive sol was up front, where he had been standing guard. He strode down the aisle and with hands far more gentle than I was used to from him, lifted me from his brother and hugged his big body right around me.
“It’s going to be okay, dweller-baby. Siret is tougher than you think, and this isn’t his first knife in the chest.” I pulled myself as hard as I could into him, burying my head into his warmth. His words got a little strangled then. “Please, for the love of my sanity, and the safety of this train’s walls, stop crying.”
“Stop getting stabbed,” I shot back, a flicker of emotion surging through me again.
Coen held me like that for the rest of the journey. I only lifted my head to check on Siret, but otherwise I remained in his comforting embrace.
Finally, the train crossed the water and pulled into the station atop the massive mountain.
Rome carried Siret, moving with ease, and I was set on my feet to walk between Coen and Aros. The golden sol brushed his hands across my face, and as he pulled them away, I realised that not only were my cheeks covered in tears, but they were also streaked with Siret’s blood.
There was no time for me to fall apart again, though. It was just a little blood. Or a lot of blood, which was leaking out of one my Abcurses.
They were so mine.
No point in denying it any longer.
I was thankful that Aros kept a tight hand on my shirt, because his grip stopped me from plummeting down at least eight times. Once we hit flat ground, Rome took off at a run, and that was when Yael’s persuasion wore off completely. Those assholes! How dare they mute my fear and pain! How dare they lessen my worry about Siret! It was serious … it had to be. Rome would never run like that unless it was serious.
I took off then too, as fast as my clumsy legs could move. Running was not my thing, I’d said that more than once, but right then I was a freaking athlete. Ignoring the burn, I was actually keeping pace with the brothers. Probably they were keeping pace with me, but it was much better for my sanity to think the pace was theirs.
We circled around the outer areas of Blesswood; it was later in the sun-cycle now, the sun was lowering itself to make way for night. When we reached the dingy back entrance to Topia, Aros reached out and threaded our fingers together. I glanced down, my eyes widening slightly.
He caught my look. “You have to touch one of us, remember?”
Oh, right. Of course, this was nothing more than necessity. They had a pact, I couldn’t forget that. A pact to keep our pack together.
We crossed over with ease and then we were back in the land of pretty and weird. Rome, who had gone through first, was waiting for us. Siret was still in his arms, and I rushed across so that I could make sure that he was still alive. I placed my fingers on his face, sliding them along his cheeks and down to his throat to feel for a pulse.
His skin was hot, almost burning, but there was a steady beat in his throat.
“He’s feverish,” I said, lifting my head to the others. “Why did you bring him here? Who will help him in Topia? We should have gone to Blesswood healers.”
Rome shifted his brother higher in his arms, before shaking his head. “Trickery is going to need a little more help than a sol healer.” Then he tilted his head back and roared into the sky above. “Abil!”
I didn’t understand … what was more than a sol healer and who the hell was Abil? The name sounded familiar. Wait … wasn’t Abil the god I had stolen from? Just as I thought it, purple robes burst into view as a god stepped out of thin air. Nifty trick that one. I ducked my head down and tried not to stare at him.
“Uh, Rome,” I whispered. “That’s the god I stole the cup from. Is it a good idea to call him down here?”
His mouth twiched, before he strode around and walked straight up to the massive god. Abil—or D.O.D.—had a face like beauty and perfection smashed together, and then some shiny sprinkled on top of it. I hadn’t paid much attention last time, all I had seen was purple robes and the cup, but now I could see him so clearly.
His hair was fiery red, but with a darkness to it, almost like a ruby had been spun out and made into hair. His eyes were green, though it wasn’t the usual green; his were whatever colour green would have been if it had been touched by magic. His skin was bronze, dark enough to be thought of as copper in the right lights.
I was distracted from my god-gawking by Rome’s words. “Hit by a blade forged in Crowe’s workshop.”
Abil’s beautiful face darkened then, and actual clouds washed across the previously perfectly-clear sky. “How is a blade from Death on Minatsol?”
“Rau and his dammed chaos.” Those words came from Siret, and my heart leapt for joy as I dashed closer.
He was awake!
I had forgotten that a scary-ass god was standing there, and I pretty much barrelled him over trying to get to Siret. Before Abil could react though, Coen and Yael were stepping in front of me.
I pushed at their backs. “Let me through, I need to see him.”
Abil’s low, eerily powerful voice washed through me. “Yes, let her through. I am very curious to meet the dweller my sons guard so diligently.”
The world around me went a little pear shaped, and it took my brain a few moments to register what he had just said.
Sons.
Had I misheard him? How could the Abcurses be his sons? The gods have no children, the Originals were created by the Staviti guy, and then the others were born of sols with enough power to be accepted in Topia. Right?
Right?
Where the hell was Emmy when I needed a history lesson?
“Ignore Willa. She isn’t your concern.” Rome’s voice was bite of command; I’d never heard him so angry before. I heard a thump then, and I tried to wedge my head through a small gap to see what was going on.
The thump had been Siret. He was back on his feet, although he looked very pale as he fought to remain upright.
Abil forgot about me then, reaching out and placing a hand on Siret’s chest. At first I thought he was just touching him, but then I realised there was something in his hand. A jar, or a small glass object. It shattered as it came into contact with Siret, and something misty emerged. The huge gash, which was still visible across Siret’s chest, slowly closed, and my knees almost buckled when he let out a relieved sigh.
“I’m going to kill Rau,” he said to Abil as he straightened. Finally looking like the sol—uh god-spawn, or whatever he actually was—that he usually did. “You let him know that if he tries to send his chaos down again, we will end him. If he messes with our dweller again, I will make sure his ending is long and drawn out.”
Abil’s expression grew even more serious. He looked between the five of them. “I will deliver the message, but you five need to get out of Topia. You know the rules; your punishment is for one life-cycle, no less. I will forgive this infraction, and not extend your time.”
His eyes flicked across to me then, where I was still wedged between two of his sons. “I have a feeling I’ll be seeing you soon, dweller.” His promise rang across the land, and then he was gone.
I couldn’t even bring myself to care right then—I was more interested in getting to Siret so that I could double-check he was okay. No one stopped me as I flung myself at the Abcurse, who now looked like he was in perfect health. He lifted me up and against his body, holding me tightly.
“You didn’t need to worry, Rocks. It takes more than a blade to bring me down.”
I pulled back, my eyes narrowing on him. “Apparently.” My angry eyes flicked between the other four as well. “I think you sols have a little explaining to do.”
The explaining didn’t happen until we left Topia—which was much faster and easier through the dingy entranc
e than the banishment cave—and were back in Siret’s room at Blesswood. Before anyone could change out of their bloody clothes, or even sit down, I had my hands on my hips as I stood at the centre of them all.
“Start talking.” My voice was a snap of command.
I actually didn’t expect them to say anything, since they never obeyed any of my other commands, but surprisingly enough, Siret spoke.
“What Abil said is true. He is our father and Adeline is our mother. Both gods of Topia.”
“So … you’re actually gods. Like real gods. A hundred percent, special cupcake, god-gods.”
Aros snorted. “Yes.”
“What the hell are you doing on Minatsol then?” None of this made sense. My head was spinning as I tried to wrap my tiny mind around the fact that my soul was merged with the souls of five gods. “You guys have seen my ass!”
This was bad. So, so, so freaking bad.
Siret smirked. “Your ass has almost been the best part of this entire series of events.”
“Pact,” Rome grunted, nudging Siret’s shoulder. The gesture was almost gentle. I guess he felt bad about Siret getting stabbed.
Fatigue from the fight and stress washed over me and I basically collapsed onto the floor. I needed to sit. “I still don’t understand,” I said. “Explain everything to me.”
“There’s only so much we can tell you without you becoming an even larger target for the Original Gods,” Coen said. “You’ve already made yourself known to Rau and Abil. That’s bad enough.”
I was about to start losing it, Willa style, when Aros at least gave me a little more information.
“All you need to know for now is that we are gods, that we are stuck on Minatsol for the rest of this life-cycle, and that Minatsol weakens us—which was why we had to get Siret to Topia.”
Somehow, I was on my feet; and then somehow, I was out the front door. I couldn’t even remember moving, but running was happening and then the chest-shredding was happening and I found myself collapsing near the supply closet that had once been my temporary sanctuary.