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by Jaymin Eve
“You don’t happen to have a real happy-sunshine gift, do you?” I stammered, falling back yet another step. “Like flowers or butterflies?”
I was forced to let go of the cart—the cart was on its own now.
“You mean like Nature or Bestiary?” he corrected. “Because flowers and butterflies aren’t a real gift.”
“Yeah, right. Nature or Bestiary—except Bestiary still sounds scary, so scrap that one. Just nature. Is your gift nature-related?”
“No.” He grinned, his teeth flashing, his cheeks dimpling.
Mind momentarily blown.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at the arena?” I was mostly just keeping him talking now, so that he wouldn’t notice me backing toward the door.
“They don’t let me train with the others. I keep crushing them.”
“So that’s your gift, then?” I squeaked. “Crushing?” I couldn’t really believe I was having this conversation with a sol alone in his bedroom, let alone having this conversation at all without a whip cutting across my back.
His smile disappeared and he jumped into motion, backing me into the door much faster than I had been backing myself into the door.
“Strength,” he whispered, pressing a body against me that kind of felt like a giant boulder. Or a brick house. Or maybe a stone mountain. “Strength is my gift, dweller, and I’m not going to reassign you, so start cleaning.”
He was off me instantly, pulling open the door hard enough to send me sprawling on the ground. He then slammed it shut hard enough to knock the broom off my cart. It hit me in the back, of course.
“Strength,” I mocked, picking myself up off the floor and kicking the broom away. “Clean my room, slave! Or I’ll crush you like a bug because I’m a big strong sol!”
I was working myself up a bit. I realised that … I just couldn’t seem to prevent it. Yanking the door open, I leaned out and peered down the corridor. I was pretty happy to see that Number Two was nowhere in sight, because I definitely would have tried to kick his ass, and definitely would have ended up in someone’s soup come morning. I glanced to the top of the door, on the outside, reading his name.
Room 2: Rome Abcurse.
I pulled the rest of the way out of the room and moved to Room Number 3.
Aros Abcurse.
With a feral-sounding growl catching in the back of my throat, I glanced at the other two rooms that I had already cleaned.
Yael Abcurse and Siret Abcurse.
I didn’t even bother looking at Room Number 1. I knew what it would say. My luck was just that bad.
Coen Abcurse. A.k.a., Pain Master of Blesswood. The guy with the crossbow.
“Motherf—” I paused, my tantrum on the verge of spilling out, when a dweller pushed out of Room Number 8, his cart pulled behind him.
He blinked at me, his mouth falling open, and I recognised Atti.
“You’re a recruit!” he accused, his voice a hiss as he moved closer.
“You’re a boy!” I returned, a dose of horror shot into my tone, my finger raised in a point. “What are you doing in the girl’s area?”
He had a moment. He totally had a moment. I could see it all over his face—before he realised that he’d just finished cleaning the rooms that he always cleaned, and then confusion descended.
“What are you doing in the male dorm?”
“Exploring my sexuality.” I leaned against the cart, propping my elbow, wiping my expression into something neutral. “How am I doing?”
“I can see your nipples. Your shirt’s wet.”
My elbow slipped, and I almost toppled over, but my chin caught me against the edge of the cart. “I knew the boobs would be a problem,” I groused, rubbing the pain out of my jaw. “I knew it. I tried to tell her, but she wouldn’t listen to me.”
“Who?”
“Emmy. Remember? Grumpy Emmy?”
“Oh yeah, she looked kinda uptight.”
“She’s not.”
“Really?”
“Okay, maybe a little. Do you have a shirt I can borrow? Maybe a cap? Maybe some pants? And a fake moustache?”
He laughed, glancing down the hall before looking back to me. “You seriously got assigned to their dorms?”
“Yeah, the leader of our village gave me a boy’s name on the form. Think they’ll reassign me?”
“Probably.” He stroked his chin, trying to hide his growing smile. “With those five, you can expect a reassignment at some stage.”
“Like when, exactly?”
“When they’re done playing with you, given that you’re still alive. I’m in room 17, in the dweller residence. Come and find me once you’re done. I’ll lend you some clothes.”
“Thanks, Atti. I’ll put in a good word for you with the big boys,” I promised, jerking a finger over my shoulder to the doors behind me.
His smile stretched, taking over his whole face. “Try not to get yourself sacrificed,” he warned, pushing his cart away.
Five
After I finished the Abcurse rooms, rushing through the last two like my life depended on it—which it almost definitely did—I found myself sneaking into the dweller residence with Atti. He’d finished his dorms at the same time as me and decided it was safer to show me where to go, rather than leave me to my own devices.
How did he know me so well already? Maybe he was just smart like that. Smart like Emmy. Smart like every other damned dweller in Blesswood.
Maybe I was the only stupid person there.
Their permanent dweller residence was set out much the same as the recruit side, but they had one window, and a few squishy-looking day beds. I paused at a small structure filled with games and books.
“Books?” I laughed. “For all your free time, I guess?”
Atti gave me a sympathetic smile. “Once you’re promoted to resident you’ll get one sun-cycle off per moon-cycle. We’re expected to spend that time learning of the gods, and the gifts of the sols, so that we may increase their chances of success.”
“Wouldn’t it just be easier for us to plot all of their deaths? Since they have to die to get to Topia. They’ll know their exact chances …” I trailed off as his face went a sickly white colour. “What?” I looked around, afraid that someone had busted me in their residence.
Atti shook his head in this manic back and forth motion. “Don’t even joke about that, Willa. The gods are always listening here in Blesswood, and the sols would take any threat against their person seriously. You never know when a dweller might be acting under the influence of a powerful sol. Sometimes they’re happy to act as spies and saboteurs—even if it will get them killed—because they think they’re serving a future god.”
I forced my face into sober lines. “No worries. I’ll keep all plans for mass execution to myself from now on.”
He swallowed hard, seeming unsure if I was kidding or not. That made two of us. With a shake of his head, he hurried off toward dorm 17, rushing inside and throwing things around to find me some clothes. I waited in the doorway with my arms out as he piled things into them. He was a lot taller than me, and really skinny, so Emmy was going to have to work her needle magic and fix a lot of these up. But at least I was going to attempt to look male.
“And finally this cap will work to cover all your hair. You have a lot of hair.”
Well, thank you. I was taking that as a compliment. Not very much hair seemed like an insult. My arms closed around the pile of dark clothing and I hugged it closer to my body.
“Run now, Willa,” he said, giving me a shove out of his door. “You have to be at breakfast shift in five clicks.”
Did they ever stop rushing? We barely ever used our timepieces in the village. Our schedule ran on shouts from Leader Graham’s advisors out into the centre, where our old statue and well were located. But here it was all bells this, and clicks that. The sun was a pain in my ass. It never stopped moving; always making me late.
I took off, clipped my elbow on the side of his
door, and shot-putted all of the clothes and my own body across the room and into the wall of the dorm next to Atti’s. My head hit with a decent thud and my vision was a wash of colour and then darkness, all at the same time.
“Willa! Holy hell. You … can’t even walk? How in the gods did you get chosen for Blesswood?”
Rolling over with a groan, I ran my hand across my forehead. Pain sprang back at me, sending another burst of light and darkness through my mind.
“Long story,” I managed, releasing another groan. “I’m totally a secret genius … just shove me in the corner and throw a sheet over me.”
Atti, who was going to end up on the same shit-list as the Abcurse brothers if he didn’t stop chuckling, ignored my words and hauled me to my feet. “There are no sick days here, no matter the size of the lump on your head, so you’d better get moving.”
By the time I’d prodded the already-raised side of my head, Atti was back with all his clothes, and I was again stumbling out of the room.
“Remember, dining hall in … now four clicks.”
I compartmentalised his words, placing them away for when I could think around the splitting pain in my brain. My natural healing would kick in soon—my body was good with injury—but until that time, I was in half-dead mode.
I somehow found my way back to the hall that lead to the domed room, with double points for not falling again on my way, and then I was down the stairs and back in the dungeon.
“Holy crap, Will, you look like, well … crap.” Emmy was tugging on my foot. I was on my back, spread eagle across my bed. I’d made spread-eagling on the bed a priority, so I hadn’t even bothered to look at her after barging into the room.
“You weren’t at the dining hall,” she continued. “I was worried you’d forgotten. Some teachers were there this morning, and Jerath. They’re observing the recruits. You need to get up.”
I propped one eye open in a tiny slit, sending forth all of my dark thoughts. “This is all your fault, Emmy. You made me come here.”
She snorted before grasping my leg and hauling me off the bed. I landed hard on the rocks below and now I had a bump to my butt which would match the one on my head.
“Get up now before I make you get up,” she ordered. Damn, she was mean. “Willa …”
I glanced up, curious at the adjusted tone of her voice. She was clasping her hands in front of her, lines deepening between her brows. She was about to give me some shitty news.
“What?” I moaned.
“If they kick you out of here, you don’t get to go back to the village. I don’t know what happens to those dwellers, but trust me, it isn’t anything great.”
And there it was.
I was suddenly up, on my feet, and out the door, Emmy right behind me.
I had no idea what happened to those dwellers either, but I wasn’t planning on participating in crushing practise with Rome, while Coen tried to pin me up against the main gate with a few crossbow bolts. Not getting kicked out was looking like my best option, even though it wasn’t such a great option all on its own.
I only had to clean and serve one table at breakfast, while Emmy took the table next to mine. Both tables had been—thankfully—filled with perfectly normal, sacred, spoiled, and slightly sadistic sols. Not the special demon-sols whose rooms I had cleaned. It felt like the five of them—who were all the way across the other side of the room—spent a lot of the morning locking their bright gem-like eyes on me, but I could have been wrong. I hoped I was wrong, because the only reason they were all paying attention to me, was because Rome had told them that I was their new dorm bitch. I’d be the first female they’d have had to deal with, and probably they were thinking up new tortures to suit me. Specialised torture.
“Where are you going now?” Emmy murmured to me as she dashed into the kitchen with an armful of plates. I was on my way out, heading toward the classroom.
“Classroom 346. We need to stand in attendance in case any of the sols need us to blow their noses or wipe their butts.”
I was almost out the door when I said that, which meant my voice carried further than I intended. As I turned toward the dining hall, I froze. Every single sol within hearing distance was looking at me—no, glaring at me. Holy baby gods.
This was it. The moment I was kicked out of Blesswood to be churned into bullsen feed. As I slowly started backing up, toward the kitchen doors, one of the Abcurse brothers got to his feet. It took me a few beats to recognise which one, because terror had my eyes functioning at about half-sight.
Yael.
Maybe he was about to persuade me to take my clothes off and parade around as punishment.
He was the first to stand, but his brothers soon followed. One by one they stood, and somehow all the eyes in the room shifted to them. I was just about to make a run for it, since this was a golden opportunity, when Yael spoke.
“Nothing happened … nothing to see here …” His voice was low, hypnotic. It rolled out of his mouth and avalanched across the room and I found my mind fuzzing over as I tried to follow his words. “You have not heard or seen anything out of the ordinary, go back to your food.”
Just like that, the room resumed its previous level of activity. A group of female sols to my right were squealing over their hair or something. Oh no wait, one of them just had a spider on her head. Those weren’t squeals of excitement. A group of males to my left resumed bicep-curling one of the recruits.
Blinking rapidly, trying to clear my mind, I tentatively stepped into the room. I waited for the jeers. For the teachers to pounce on me. But no one noticed me. No one was paying attention at all.
I swivelled back to face the Abcurse table. It was the centre of everything, the entire hall, the entire academy populous. And it was empty. Empty?
Why had Yael used his persuasion to help me? Had they saved me just so that they could take me down themselves? I wasn’t sure what was worse: knowing that I owed them one now, or that things were about to escalate like that one time I told a little lie to explain why I hadn’t done the home-reading Teacher Harris had given me, only to accidently put the entire village into a state of lock-down. Turns out, ‘my mother caught a plague’ has a few holes in it, as far as excuses go. I stumbled out of the dining hall toward the classrooms and just as I crossed into the first hall, I could have sworn there was a whisper on the wind.
We’re not done with you yet.
So now I was hallucinating. Like actually hallucinating. Hearing voices and crap. Hearing the voices from hell. Maybe they were calling me because the Abcurse brothers were about to end me. It was a given that I was going to go to hell—all dwellers did. The sols got to go to heaven, unless they were chosen to become a god, in which case, they went to Topia. They got more than a second-chance at life. They got a first chance at immortality, at a living heaven. Or actually … still a dead heaven, but a dead heaven that was still connected to the living world, somehow.
And here I was philosophising about a whole bunch of realms that had nothing to do with me. Because I was crazy now. I heard voices and everything.
I was screwed. So very screwed.
Well, no time to dwell on my fate. This dweller had work to do. My next shift was classroom duty and I actually arrived there early. For once. The teacher in room 346 was a woman. She was a sol, her gift was song, and she would randomly burst into a musical serenade whenever she felt like it. I’d already heard three different tunes and considering the class hadn’t even started yet, I knew it was going to be a long lesson.
I stood against the side of the wall with six other dwellers. Three were recruits like me. I recognised the wide-eyed look of fatigue and despair. The other two were residents, wearing stoic, and mostly expressionless masks. They never even cracked a smile when the teacher’s high notes rattled the windows, which told me that they were probably dead inside. They had to be; she was possibly the funniest, most annoying sol I’d met to date, and that was saying something.
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�Hurry along, my lovelies,” she sang, as a few more sols passed into the room.
Most of them looked to be my age, or even a little younger. All shiny and full of confidence. Must have been nice to be born all blessed and sacred and destined for great things. To know that you had all the rights. That no one would treat you like dirt, or make you scrub windows with your nipples showing. That you might someday become a god. Even if it didn’t happen, the thought alone was worth something. Was worth more. A dweller’s greatest hope was to make it to Blesswood, or one of the secondary academies.
And I mean … what a life goal, right? What with all the cleaning and not-being-seen-or-smelt thing. And I mentioned the nipples, didn’t I? Life goals.
The final bell rang and Teacher Sing-Song walked across to close the door of the room. She paused with her hand on it, before a beaming smile crossed her face. “I was worried you three wouldn’t be joining us this sun-cycle. Come on in, boys.”
Somehow I knew it would be them before they even stepped through the threshold. Something about the energy of the Abcurse brothers was distinct. Annoying. Frustrating. Arrogant. Superior. Soul-sucking.
Yael, Aros, and Siret dropped into seats at the back of the room, long legs sprawled out in front of them, not a book or writing device between them. Teacher Sing-Song made no comment on the fact that they looked like they were only there to darken the classroom a little, instead taking her place at the head of the room.
“Good morning, sols, and welcome to a brand-new life-cycle at Blesswood. I am Teacher Crest, and I will be in charge of this class: Original Gods, and The Beginning. I have been teaching at Blesswood for twenty life-cycles, and I have met two Original Gods in person, so I have as much hands-on experience to share with you as the best teachers in this academy. My gift is song; I’m aiming to become part of the entertainment branch of Topia, if I’m chosen by our wonderful deities.”
A few sols looked impressed, some even clapped their hands. Siret yawned and … what the hell was I doing? I needed to stop looking at those three, and focus on my duties. But I couldn’t, because it was kind of like a solid kick to the gut, seeing the three younger brothers together. I’d clearly been wrong earlier about Siret and Yael being twins. Nope, not twins … triplets. It made the most sense since they all looked to be the same age, were in the same class, and shared the same features. Coen and Rome were the twins. Which would mean that their poor, poor mother had given birth to one set of monster twins, and then—as if that wasn’t bad enough—a set of monster triplets.