Strength

by Jane Washington

  “Was he a god, even back then? Was he born a god?” I stepped away from the glass, towards Leden.

  I can answer many of your questions, she replied, but the others have forbidden me. It is not for us to choose a side in the battle between mortals and immortals.

  “I didn’t even know we were in a battle.” I glanced from Leden to the glowing eyes behind her. There was a humming sound emanating from them. It sounded like some kind of warning, a resonance of disapproval.

  We have allowed you to speak to the mortal glass. A deep pantera voice skimmed across my mind, seeming to echo all around me. The Abcurses stirred, as though wary of the sudden change in the atmosphere. It is time, now, for you to carry our gift to the Neutral God.

  I was almost surprised that they actually had something for me to bring to Cyrus. I had been more of the opinion that I would have to figure out what Cyrus’s object was, before stealing it and sneaking it back to Minatsol. I had been agonising over how to ask the panteras what the object might be without alerting them to the fact that I was going to ‘borrow’ it. So far, the best I had come up with was: ‘if there was a god with silver-white hair, a drinking problem, and rage issues ... what might he want to steal from you?’ followed by, ‘can I hold it for a click?’

  “What is the gift?” I asked, as the panteras inside the cave began to stir, moving toward the entrance at a slow and languorous pace.

  It will be arriving very soon. Leden had been the one to answer me, her flank brushing against my upper arm as we followed the others.

  We moved out of the cave and I turned to glance behind me to make sure that I hadn’t accidentally lost an Abcurse. Siret’s smile hiked up at the corners and Yael’s eyes flicked down my front, as though taking stock of me the same way I was taking stock of them. Coen nodded at me, his eyes shuttered, his expression guarded—we’re fine, he seemed to be saying. Aros held my gaze a little too long—causing me to stumble sideways into Leden, who paused until I had managed to steady myself again. Rome nudged his chin forward, indicating that I should start watching where I was walking.

  I was about to do just that when the shifting of colour caught my eye. I could have sworn that one of the trees had moved. I stopped walking altogether, squinting at the entrance of the cave—except that it was no longer there. There was a forest there, right where the dark opening should have been. The branches interlocked thickly, time-worn roots threading through the ground, making it look like they had been there for an eternity.

  “Where did the cave go?” I whispered to Leden, my hand on her silky mane.

  Just as the mortal glass does not see the secrets of those unconnected to the land, it does not want to be seen by such people, Leden replied, her voice in my head almost a whisper now. The glass is selective—it will only appear for those who are connected, and the cave’s purpose is to protect the glass. By that logic, the cave will hide itself from any person who is not connected to the land.

  “You mean ... a dweller is here? In Topia? That’s your gift to Cyrus? A dweller?”

  Leden snorted out a gentle sound, possibly amused. There are many ways to be disconnected. For a god, it is the soul that connects to the land, not the body—the body is only a receptacle. If the soul is taken away, the person is no longer connected.

  I opened my mouth to ask exactly how a soul could be disconnected from a person’s body, but the answer came to me before I had managed to voice the question. The imprisonment realm. I had seen it with my own eyes: Sienna tied to the chair, her dark hair falling about her, her wrists and ankles bound in chains. I thought back to Jakan, and how the glass had refused to show him. Maybe he wasn’t dead after all—maybe there really was a reason the glass had chosen to show me Staviti’s brother. Jakan was the key to figuring this out—I wasn’t sure how I knew, but I was somehow sure of it. My intuition is never wrong.

  “Your intuition is wrong all the time,” Siret muttered, suddenly behind me.

  “I can’t recall it ever being right,” Rome agreed.

  “It was right about you five all being assholes,” I shot back, before glancing over at Leden. “Excuse the language.”

  “They can read your thoughts, Rocks,” Coen informed me. “I’m sure they’ve heard worse.”

  I turned and kicked a rock with the toe of my shoe, watching as it sailed toward his face. It had been a small rock, but I still found myself frowning at how he flicked it out of the way so easily. It wasn’t until I caught up to Leden again that I realised I had kicked a rock. With my own foot. As in, I had managed to do something slightly athletic without tripping and falling on my face. Kicking rocks was a very dangerous athletic activity, since it was so easy to misread the position of the rock and allow it to roll beneath your shoe instead of launching from the toe of your shoe—therefore throwing off your momentum and sending you falling backwards. That had been my previous experience with all rock-kicking attempts.

  “Come to think of it,” Aros mused, apparently joining in on my thoughts, “you have been less clumsy since your ... recent change. There has been less falling, tripping, and crowd-toppling.”

  “More fires though,” Siret countered.

  “Less fires actually,” I shot back, liking the idea that I might have left some of my clumsiness behind, in my other life.

  “Well, bigger fires then.” Siret was smiling, raising his brows at me.

  The panteras had stopped moving, coming to rest by the stream that they had made me drink out of before showing me the mortal glass for the first time. I allowed Siret’s smile to draw me over to him, and then I allowed him to draw me to the bank. We all took seats along the side of the bank, claiming large rocks that were nestled into the reeds. Whoever we were waiting for clearly hadn’t arrived yet, because the panteras were just milling around in preparation.

  I dropped my voice, leaning toward Coen, who sat on the boulder beside me.

  “Whoever we’re waiting for doesn’t have a soul,” I whispered.

  His head snapped toward me, his eyes darkening in some kind of warning. “What? How do you know that?”

  “Leden told me.”

  “She told you we’re meeting someone with no soul?” Yael hissed out, jumping from his rock and moving in front of me. Very quickly, I was surrounded by Abcurses.

  “Sort of.” I shrugged a little. “She implied it. That’s why the cave disappeared. It won’t show itself to a person unless they’re connected to this land. Whoever is coming isn’t connected.”

  “Is it a dweller?” Siret asked, his brow furrowing, his green-gold eyes flicking to the nearest grouping of panteras.

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. Maybe, but she seemed to imply that it was a god. A god without a soul.”

  “It’s not possible.” Rome sounded angry, or maybe it was a hint of fear. Neither option was good news for me.

  “It is though!” I paused, working my tone back to a whisper. “The imprisonment realm, remember?”

  “That’s my point.” Coen seemed to be agreeing with Rome. “If they’re locked in the imprisonment realm, they can no longer access their body. They’re locked away, removed from themselves. They can never return and they can never truly die. That’s the whole point of the imprisonment realm—you may never return to your body, and it’s the only way to separate the soul from the body.”

  My mind flashed back to Jakan again, and I briefly entertained the thought that Jakan himself was the person we were waiting for. He was Staviti’s brother, after all. If anyone could escape the imprisonment realm and find a way to access their body again, it would be the brother of Staviti.

  Rome was shaking his head, listening to my thoughts. “Cyrus would have told you if he expected you to smuggle Staviti’s long-lost brother into Minatsol, and you saw the glass when you asked to see him: that man is long gone, or long lost. Cyrus specifically asked you to fetch an item, not a person.”

  “What kind of item could a soulless person possibly have for Cyrus, though
?” I wondered out loud, even as the panteras began to display signs of agitation, knocking their hooved feet into the ground and flexing their giant wings.

  I stood, the others pressing in close about me. Our guest had arrived.

  The man didn’t have to push through the panteras—they got out of his way on their own, practically repelled. The air around him crackled with energy, and whatever inbuilt system I had to warn me of danger was currently going haywire.

  Run!

  “Abcurses don’t run, Soldier,” Siret murmured close to my ear.

  “Are you sure?” I fired back, watching as the tall stranger moved closer. “This no-soul-guy is kind of scaring me.”

  Aros, looking far more relaxed than he should have, casually crossed his arms. “It’s just Crowe, nothing to panic about.”

  Crowe. As in … the freaking God of Death? That sounded like the definition of a great time to panic. No wonder the cave didn’t want to show him the glass. Crowe was the only Original God capable of killing other gods—unless Staviti could un-create gods as easily as he created them. Crowe was still a god, though, so the only explanation for the cave hiding was that Crowe had somehow lost part of his soul.

  He stopped about ten feet from us, his black robes swinging gently in the breeze. I found myself examining him closely, imprinting his face in my mind. Crowe wasn’t at all like I had imagined him … though I really had no idea what I had expected. He was taller than Rome by at least a foot; he towered over almost everything around him. His hair was like burnt gold, brushing across the top of his shoulders, thick and straight. His features were slashed together in angry, hard lines, but this didn’t make him unattractive.

  His eyes met mine and I managed not to gasp, even though I wanted to. His entire pupil and iris were black, swirling mesmerizingly. For a moment I wondered if he was blind.

  “I can see you.”

  His voice was deep, and it felt like it infiltrated into my brain, tendrils digging deeper with each word.

  “You can also read my mind, apparently,” I said.

  At this stage I was on the verge of just assuming that every god could read my mind and that I’d have to adjust my thoughts accordingly from now on.

  “She won’t adjust her thoughts,” Yael warned Crowe.

  “She won’t need to,” Coen added, “because you will remove your presence from her mind. Now. It’s making us unhappy.”

  When he said unhappy, the tree he was leaning against cracked, and I realised that uphappy was a minor understatement. The Abcurses were on edge, their powers starting to bleed out into the world. Crowe inclined his head slightly, and that digging sensation in my brain disappeared. I waited to see if the guys would relax after that, but none of them appeared to.

  “You have something for Cyrus?” Yael brought the conversation back on track.

  Fine lines appeared around Crowe’s eyes. “Cyrus? No. The panteras are the ones I have brought this gift for.” He lifted both of his hands up, palms flat, and closed his eyes for a fraction of a click. There was a pop, and then a set of chains appeared in his hands. The heavy bronze metal looked familiar, the cuffs thick and ornate with symbols carved into every available surface.

  “Normally I would not hand a weapon with this level of power over to any beings—but the panteras are beyond the gods.” His swirling eyes focussed on the chains. “However, now that I’m here, I feel that … they’re meant for you.”

  He took a step forward, ready to place the chains into Aros’s hands.

  I let out a muffled cry. “No, don’t touch them!”

  It was a trap. I had finally remembered where I’d seen that type of chain before. They were almost an exact replica of the chains that had bound Sienna, locking her into the imprisonment realm. Maybe the Abcurses had forgotten? Or maybe they thought they were too strong. But there was one thing I knew: “Those chains can kill a god,” I cried.

  I dove forward then, snatching the chains right out of Crowe’s hands. I stumbled as I landed, but somehow kept my footing. “If you harm any of the Abcurses,” I snarled at the black-robed god, backing away as I tightened my grip on the shackles, “I will kill you.”

  Crowe stared at me for an extended moment before he threw his head back and laughed. The sound rang out into the silence, because apparently everyone else was too shocked to speak.

  “Willa,” Coen finally warned, his voice almost too low to hear over Crowe’s laughter. “You need to give me the chains.”

  “No way,” I said, still furious.

  “He wasn’t trying to kill us,” Siret tried to reason with me. “If Crowe wanted us dead, he wouldn’t attack when the five of us were together. He’d pick us off, one by one.”

  The laughter died off then, and the God of Death was once again staring at the six of us. “He’s right, you know,” he told me conversationally. “I did not lie about bringing these chains to the panteras. I did not know I would meet any others here, but that is the risk you take when you deal with these beasts. You do not always understand the cost until it is upon you. Besides, if I wanted these five banished, I would have brought five chains, because if I only stole one of Abil’s sons, the rest would hunt me down.”

  “Just so you’re aware,” Aros interrupted him. “Willa is included in that now. She is off limits.”

  Crowe hadn’t taken his eyes off me since he stopped laughing. It was very disconcerting, and even though there was no weird sensation in my mind, I sensed he was somehow searching inside of me.

  “No dweller can hold my chains,” he said slowly. “What are you?”

  My hands were starting to ache from clutching the chains so tightly. “That’s the golden question, isn’t it?”

  “Apparently,” he said softly.

  I grew bold then. “Will you tell Staviti?”

  Siret let out a snort of laughter next to me. “My little soldier, so brave.”

  Crowe took an uncomfortable amount of time to answer. “There is nothing to tell him,” he said. “I know nothing.” Then he swished his cloak over his shoulder and spun to leave. “Give the chains to those who require them.”

  Then he was gone, and it almost felt like the world flickered back into perspective. The panteras returned, along with the noises that had somehow been blocked out with Crowe’s presence. The trickling water nearby, the rustling of the leaves, and the chirping of bugs.

  “I think black was a great choice for him,” I said, my chest heaving in and out as the reality of what had just happened hit me. “I mean, pink sparkles would have clashed horribly with his SWIRLING PITS OF DARKNESS EYES.”

  My chest continued to heave as I struggled to pull air into my lungs. I had felt so brave when Crowe was standing before me, but right now fear and panic were crashing in on me. It didn’t make any sense.

  “You’re always brave when it comes to protecting us,” Coen said as he stepped closer, his hands reaching for the chains.

  I snatched them away, holding them close to my chest. “Stop trying to touch them,” I gasped. I would never get the image of Sienna’s lifeless body out of my mind.

  “Willa.” Yael’s Persuasion wrapped around me. “Willa-toy, you don’t have to worry. These chains won’t hurt us, they don’t work until they’re activated, and you can’t accidentally do that.”

  I wanted to be mad at him, because his Persuasion was having some effect, even with my new resistance. Logically though, his words made sense, and with reluctance, I released the chains into Coen’s hands. “I chose to let them go,” I told Yael.

  He ruffled my hair before caressing my cheek. “As long as you keep your defiance out of the bedroom, then we won’t have a problem.”

  “Don’t you mean pool?” I called after him as he walked away.

  He flashed a grin in my direction and I was pretty much a puddle on the rocky ground.

  Take the chains to Cyrus, he will understand what to do. Leden distracted me. I turned to find her close by again.

  “C
rowe said he was bringing the chains to you, not Cyrus. So why did Cyrus send me here if he didn’t know they were coming?”

  The light tickle of her amusement sent a shiver down my spine. Always with the questions. Just follow the path, sacred Willa. You will get to the end eventually.

  “We need to leave now,” Aros announced. “Too much time has already passed—the last thing we need is for Staviti to discover us with Death’s chains.”

  They started to move to their panteras, pausing only when I spoke.

  “Can we stop by Cyrus’s home first? I … I need to see my mum.”

  The vision I’d seen in the glass was haunting me. She had looked so alone. So lost. I’d spent enough time with her since she’d become a Jeffrey to know that the blankness was simply part of whatever Staviti had done to her, but I had to try. Maybe if she was with me, she would be happier. Maybe she would smile without being ordered to.

  Maybe I’d get a small piece of my mother back.

  Coen looked like he was about to protest the proposed change of plans, but Siret got in first. “I think we have time for one quick stop,” he said, eyeing his brother. “It’s Willa’s mum, after all.”

  Coen shifted his gaze to me, and almost in the same instance nodded. “You’re right, we have time for that.”

  I ran at Siret and he caught me deftly.

  “Thank you,” I muttered. He was always on my side.

  He gathered me in tighter and I savoured the familiar feel of his body before he set me down and I turned to Coen. He just managed to hand the chains to Siret before I threw myself into his arms. He wrapped me up tightly, pulling me into his body. I burrowed my face into his neck, closing my eyes as I breathed him in. “Thank you,” I whispered against his skin. “Thank you for caring.”

  His chest rose under me, like he was taking in a deep breath, and I lifted my head to find his eyes. They were blazing—so bright it almost hurt to stare at them. “I love you,” he said simply. “Your happiness is important.”