Persuasion (Curse of the Gods Book 2)

by Jane Washington

  “It’s not fair,” I cried. “Atti was a good dweller, and he didn’t deserve to die.” My wailing increased slightly as I added, “His server name will probably be Dolly now, and he’s going to hate that.”

  After I gave myself a few clicks to mourn, I somehow pulled myself together enough to observe what was happening around us. The other four Abcurses were spread out across the landscape, all of them using their power to reel in the fighting. Before my eyes, I could see the world calming again, and this time there was no divide between sols and dwellers. All of them stood intermingled.

  Yael tilted his head back and I wondered what he was about to do. He opened his mouth and a series of lilting words emerged, words I could not understand, long and flowing, moving from one word to the next. “What is he doing?” I whispered to Coen, somehow drawn to the beauty of this language. I felt like I could listen to him speak like that all sun-cycle.

  “That is the language of the gods,” Coen told me. “Our gifts are more potent when we use the ancient prose, and Persuasion is working right now to calm this fire. He’ll convince the Vice-Chancellor and a few dweller representatives to have a real discussion about the dissatisfaction of the dwellers. He’ll use the death of the Chancellor to demand change. It might not be good change, but at least the discussion will be open.”

  My heart burst again, some of the sadness over Atti suddenly surrounded by a flare of hope. “Yael doesn’t care about sols or dwellers,” I said, my voice cracking. “So he’s doing this … for me?”

  I found myself passed from Coen to Aros, and then I was being hugged so tightly that I wasn’t even holding up my own weight anymore, which was good because I was starting to feel a little light-headed from all the blood running down my arm and leg.

  “He’s doing it for you,” Aros whispered. “And now we need to leave and get you patched up.”

  I snorted then, my light-headedness increasing. “If I had a token for every time I’d heard that phrase, I would be the richest dweller in Minatsol.”

  “Doesn’t seem like a lofty goal, considering the average dweller has what … a single token to their name at any given time?”

  I was going to answer, but darkness pressed in on the edges of my vision, and I suddenly felt nauseous. “Gonna vomit.” I lurched to the side and coughed a few times, my throat burning from the bile.

  “I got you, Willa. We’ll be back in the room soon.”

  Aros’s words were reassuring and as I tilted my head back to rest it on his chest, I must have blacked out for a bit. His movements were lulling, and with escape from pain drawing near, I let that darkness overtake me.

  By the time my head was clear again, I realised I was in Aros’s room, tucked in under his thick and fluffy blankets. I stretched out my aching limbs, and a patch of white gauze across my forearm caught my eye. I’d been fixed up and hadn’t even woken for it.

  My chest wasn’t hurting too badly, which meant there was at least one Abcurse close by, but none appeared to be in Aros’s room with me. Leveraging myself up, a dizzying surge of pain almost knocked me right back down, but I pushed through it. Pain and I were old friends … though admittedly I’d never been stabbed with a god-blade before. That seemed like an important new development in our relationship, but I was determined to overcome it. There was no time to lay around; we’d just been in a Chaos war and Atti was … dead. That hurt far worse than the cuts, especially since I knew it would kill Emmy when she finally got out of the healing wing. She would sleep while being healed, but after that she wouldn’t be able to escape the truth. There was nothing I could do to shield her from the pain of losing Atti.

  I had an idea of how she felt. When Siret had been stabbed. It was … I would not wish that pain on my worst enemy, and now my very best friend would have to go through it, and worse. It wasn’t fair. That evil Chancellor—I was so glad he was dead, except I wished I had been the one to kill him. Coen got that honour.

  As though I had conjured him from thought alone, the door opened, and Coen stepped inside. He wasn’t alone though; Aros followed close by, before shutting the door behind him.

  “You’re awake.” Aros hurried to my side. I was halfway out of the bed, but he helped me the rest of the way. “How are you feeling?”

  I shrugged, before testing my weight on the injured calf. It smarted a little, but didn’t feel too bad. “Pretty good, actually. Maybe the injuries weren’t that bad.”

  The guys exchanged a look, before Coen said, “They were deep, and you lost a lot of blood. It would have taken a normal dweller weeks to heal from it. You’re healing at the rate of a god.”

  I had expected him to say ‘you’re healing at the rate of a sol,’ since everyone seemed to suspect me of being some kind of secret sol … so I was surprised by the other word that emerged.

  “How is that possible?” I held my hands out to the pair, and they stepped into me. One on either side, allowing me to rest my palms on their chests. “How could I be healing like a god, when I’m not even a sol?”

  Aros’s eyes were a brilliant gilded colour, shinier than usual. His time on Topia still had his god powers strong. “It’s not just the healing,” he said, watching me carefully. “Back in the clearing, when Emmy was wrestling with that sol, you moved at super-speed. Faster than most gods could, except those with speed as part of their branch of powers.”

  That must have been why it took the Abcurses a few clicks to catch up with me. I knew though, if I tried to do it now, I wouldn’t be able to. I hated the unpredictability of those weird bursts of power.

  “Did the Persuasion and Trickery work on everyone?” It was very quiet now, because they seemed to be examining me, their stares weighted and intense.

  Coen nodded, and I felt a few sparks of his power beneath my palm, which was still pressed to his shirt. I could feel the hard muscles beneath, and it made me want to spread my fingers out, to feel more of him.

  “Everything is calm right now,” he rumbled. “Yael will make sure that Emmy is included in the peace talks, but they won’t happen for a few sun-cycles. This academy can only be as strong as its leader, so all the focus will be on the Vice-Chancellor filling that role and picking a new backup.”

  My gut clenched as another surge of Coen’s power spiked hot across my palm, pricking down to my wrist. At almost the same time, I felt a flash of heat travelling over my other palm, and both of my arms began to ache.

  “What …” My voice croaked, so I had to stop and clear it. “What are you both doing?”

  “Your emotions were running high tonight.” Aros was moving closer, his hand wrapping around my wrist. “Every other time you’ve acted like so much more than a dweller …”

  “Your emotions were running high,” Coen finished.

  And then Aros’s grip of my wrist tightened, and he was moving my hand. My throat dried up and my ever-present gift for chatter fizzled out. He dragged my hand down over his muscled torso, and I visibly gulped. Only a few rotations ago, I would have been all over Aros in an attempt to soothe the soul-link, and he would have been gently setting me aside, but now he was encouraging me, and I didn’t know what to do. He seemed to realise this, because a chuckle rumbled out of him and then he was slipping my hand beneath his shirt. Hard, warm skin flattened out beneath my fingertips, and his eyes flashed at me, another burst of heat rushing up my arm. It was heavy and hot, and it made my head spin—but almost as soon as it happened, a similar burst of pain prickled through me, turning the slow drag of feeling into a sharp rush. It was as though Coen had used his Pain to keep me present. To keep me from floating away in Aros’s Seduction.

  “What are we talking about here?” I asked, my voice scratchy. I curled my hand up into a fist against Aros’s stomach, because I was confused, and they were overwhelming me with sensation.

  “We’re going to keep going until you break.” That had been from Coen, whispered against the top of my head. “And then we’re going to push a little harder. We’re go
ing to keep pushing until that locked-down power comes flooding out—”

  “That seems like a really bad idea—” I began shakily, but he cut me off.

  “Until you break.” This time, his voice was rough, and his hand was in my hair, pulling my head back. “Don’t you want that?” There was a smile in his voice, but it wasn’t the kind of smile that I was used to. Or the kind of voice that I was used to.

  This felt like a secret. As though he knew something about me that not even I knew.

  “She definitely wants that,” Aros muttered, his hand slipping from my wrist, further up my arm.

  “Well then she should tell me she wants it.” Coen was leaning over me now, his face looming down on mine, his focus flicking between my eyes before settling on my lips. “Tell me, Willa.” A quick tug on my hair.

  “Um, fuck,” I muttered. Probably not the answer he was looking for.

  He laughed, but it was a strained sound. “That’ll do.”

  And then, suddenly, he was kissing me. It wasn’t a soft kiss. It wasn’t hesitant. It was a hard crush of lips and it sucked the breath right out of my chest. His hand tightened in my hair again, and a fissure of his Pain spread out over my scalp, trickling down the back of my neck. Immediately, a shot of pleasure followed. Stronger. Headier.

  It tore my mouth away from Coen’s powerful kiss, and I felt myself falling into a molten gold gaze.

  “Are you going to ask, this time?” Aros’s voice was only a velvet murmur.

  “I have no freaking idea what you’re—”

  He didn’t even wait for the rest of my answer. His lips took mine in a rush, and then suddenly I was being backed against the bed. I had no idea how it happened, but my tattered dress was ripped off, my back was against the mattress, and two very different hands were on my breasts. My back was arching with a combination of drugging sensuality and biting pain, and whoever was currently in control of my mouth was forcing me to moan into their kiss.

  I really had no idea how it happened, and I didn’t even realise that there was something wrong until the heat began to make me dizzy. It was too strong. Too much. Less like the burn of magic and more like an actual …

  “What the hell,” one of the guys muttered, pulling back from me. “She set the room on fire.”

  Suddenly I was being bundled into blankets from Aros’s bed: they wrapped them so tightly around me that I felt absurd. And far too warm. Aros was still with me, his hand fisted in the blanket wrapped around me, keeping me there. Keeping me prisoner while Coen dashed out of the room.

  “Where’s he going?” I asked, my voice sounding alien to my own ears.

  “He’s fetching someone who can put out this fire.” Aros’s voice was careful. Neutral. To-the-point. Completely unlike him.

  He turned to face me fully, blocking out my view of the doorway just as it swung open. I heard footsteps pounding in, and the voices of the others. They were trying to approach me but Aros kept glancing over his shoulder and making a strange noise in his throat. Half a grunt, half a growl. It wasn’t a noise I had heard from him before, and apparently it was enough to keep the others at bay. That surprised me. When the door opened again, it was to admit a harried voice that I didn’t recognise.

  “Just fix it,” Coen snapped. “We can talk about your issues with the dwellers later, right now—in case you haven’t noticed—the walls are burning down.”

  There was another murmured reply, and then gradually, the heat began to lesson, and the orange glow of fire finally spluttered out. I didn’t even get a chance to see who Coen had dragged in to deal with the fire before the guys were ushering him out again.

  “What the hell happened?” Yael demanded, attempting to get close to me again.

  This time, Aros allowed it, though he didn’t release his grip on the blankets wrapped around me and he turned to the side stiffly, watching Yael with narrowed eyes.

  “She’s a Beta,” Aros growled.

  For just a split moment, I was more shocked at his tone than I was at his actual words … but then the reality began to sink in.

  “A BETA GOD?” I shrieked, scrambling away from him. The blankets started to unravel, since he hadn’t loosened his grip on the fabric, and five sets of eyes were locked on my bare leg, which was now on display all the way up to the hip.

  “Why the hell is she naked?” Rome demanded. “You were supposed to rile her up, not …”

  “We riled her up,” Coen interjected.

  For a moment, nobody spoke, but then Coen’s smile cracked, taking over his whole face, and Aros started to laugh. And then Siret was trying to punch Aros, and Rome was tackling Coen to the ground. Yael was staring at me. I stared back at him, and then at the others as they crashed into walls and tables and grunted at each other. I was completely dumbfounded. They had just dropped the whole beta bomb on me, and then immediately jumped into a wrestling match because I was naked.

  They were all insane.

  “We heard that!” Siret yelled, ducking to the side to avoid Aros’s fist.

  “STOP FIGHTING!” I yelled back, jumping to my feet on the bed. My voice was a little bit shrill, but that was probably because only half a click ago Aros had casually mentioned that I might be a god.

  Whatever the cause of the shrillness, it apparently worked, because the guys all stopped wrestling each other and returned to the bed. Rome reached up, hooked his arm around my waist, and tugged me down to the floor with the blankets still wrapped around me.

  “Get down,” he muttered, setting me on my feet. “Before you fall off and break your face.”

  “Wow.” I wrinkled my nose at him. “So charming.”

  “You shouted,” Siret said. “We’re listening.”

  “No.” I shook my head so violently I was surprised it didn’t come unhinged. “I’m listening! You—” I jammed a finger in Aros’s direction— “start talking!”

  He captured my finger and used it to pull me forward, but Rome’s arm tightened, so I ended up bent at the waist, pulled between the two of them. Aros rolled his eyes and stepped forward so that I could straighten again.

  “You’re not a god, Willa, so stop freaking out.”

  “You said I was a Beta,” I accused.

  “You are,” Coen replied, causing my head to swing in his direction. “But you won’t become a god until you die.”

  “Until I die?” I squeaked, fixating on the dying part rather than the god part—because I’d been preparing to die my whole life but I hadn’t done any preparing to become a god. “What are you trying to say? I need to go and die now?”

  “Actually …” Coen paused, looking as though he was trying not to smile again. Siret wasn’t so subtle. He was outright laughing. “Actually,” Coen tried again, “we’d rather you didn’t do any of that. The dying, or the becoming a god … because we’re pretty sure you’re Rau’s Beta, which would make you a god of Chaos, if you died.”

  “Come again?” I managed, my expression completely deadpan. “You think Rau’s curse was some kind of …”

  “We haven’t figured out how yet, but yes … it seems as though his curse was meant to create a Beta—out of one of us, though, not you. Because his sol Betas down here in Minatsol …”

  “They never survive.” I nodded. “I remember. So he was going to turn a god instead. But I got in the way. And I should have died, but somehow … we formed a soul-link, and it kept me alive.”

  “Another ‘why’ that we haven’t figured out yet,” Yael admitted.

  “But we will.” Rome spoke from beside me, his arm tightening around me momentarily. “We will figure out exactly how all of this happened. In the meantime, keeping you alive just became a hell of a lot harder.”

  I was a Chaos Beta.

  I couldn’t believe it.

  I had been shocked into silence for the better part of several rotations, as the guys all spoke quietly in the sitting area of Aros’s room. Eventually, though, I had to shake it off. I needed to see Emmy. I pul
led myself off the bed, still wrapped in blankets, and asked Siret for new clothes before we all left to go to the healing wing.

  Chaos, I thought.

  Willa Knight. Dweller of Chaos.

  Sol of Chaos?

  Dweller-Sol of Chaos—

  “Just stop,” Siret begged, walking beside me. “Just because you have some Chaos in you, that doesn’t mean you need to adopt a new title, Soldier.”

  Soldier of Chaos—

  “Seriously?” He cut me a sideways look and shook his head. “Oh, it’s here.”

  He had motioned to the door that Yael was already pulling open. The others were behind us, because in typical Abcurse fashion, they were refusing to split up. We walked into the long room full of beds, and I caught sight of Emmy immediately. My steps faltered, my throat clogging up.

  “Can I have a click?” I rasped.

  “We’ll be here.” Yael pressed against my spine, urging me forward, and then suddenly I was running.

  I sprinted to her bedside, tears flying down my face, and gathered her up before she had even managed to pull herself into a sitting position.

  “Will …” She stroked my hair, her shoulders hunching forward. “I’ve been so worried about you.”

  “You’ve been worried about me?” I pulled back, my voice shaking. Every part of me was shaking. I couldn’t stop crying. “I’m so sorry.” Somehow, I found her hands, and our fingers tangled together. “I’m so sorry about A—”

  She cringed, and shook her head.

  Don’t say his name. She didn’t ask, but the request was clear. It made me cry even harder, but I didn’t want to be the one breaking down. I wanted to be holding her while she broke down. Maybe she had already broken down and was all done for the sun-cycle. That thought made me sick to my stomach, because I wanted—no, I needed to be there for her. She was my sister.

  We stared at each other, me at the faint red marks on her skin, and her at the tears that were still tracking down my face, and then … as though the walls had crumpled, she simply slumped into me and began to sob. I hugged her to my chest, absorbing the horrible sounds as they rocked through her. I had known that Atti meant something special to her, but I hadn’t realised just how serious it had gotten. I felt as though I was holding the shattered pieces of her in my hands, and I simply didn’t know how to put her back together again.