by Jaymin Eve
The recruits were supposed to observe this first dinner, learning everything it was possible to learn before being expected to dive right in for the next dinner. Thankfully, there were plenty of other resident dwellers who stood with me and Emmy, waiting for a summons. Not all of them had active duties in here, so we didn’t stand out.
Right up until I heard a shout.
“Hey, Rocks, we’re going to need some help over here!”
I froze, before slowly defrosting enough to face Emmy.
“What should I do? If I ignore them will they come over here and kill me?” I was whispering frantically under my breath, trying to make myself as small as possible against the wall.
“Are they talking to you?” Atti asked, his voice going a bit high-pitched at the end. “What is ‘rocks?’ Why are they singling you out?”
Great freaking question. What the hell did they want with me? Come on, gods, this just isn’t funny anymore.
“Are you deaf, Rocks?”
I let out a little shriek, before plunging forward and head-butting the hard chest of a sol that had appeared to stand before me.
I hit him with a solid thud, but his body didn’t even shift an inch. I, on the other hand, was shot back against the wall where I crumbled like a bag of … you guessed it … rocks. Looking up through messy hair, I knew I was staring at one of the Abcurse brothers, but not one I had seen before. He was golden. There was no other way to describe him. Rich, golden hair, the colour of the sun as it crests the sky in the early morning. His skin was also sun-kissed, his eyes like newly-cut topazes, the yellow jewel which was mined in the fourth ring. He was prettier than his brothers. Like really freaking gorgeous. No shiny sol would ever compare to this one; and that made me very wary.
He grinned at me, displaying his perfect white teeth, and there were suddenly all these warm feelings around my heart. Like happiness had sprouted throughout my body and was spreading like a weed.
He offered me his hand, and I knew from the gasps along the line of resident-dwellers that he was paying far more attention to me than a sol normally did to a dweller. Ignoring it—sure it was a trap—I pulled myself up and pressed back against the wall. The sol reached out then, dropping one of his hands against the wall. “No need to throw yourself at me, sweetheart.” His low, lilting words drifted into my ear. “If you ask nicely, I’m sure we could sort something out … Why don’t you give it a try? My name is Aros … go ahead, say please, Aros—”
Before I could stutter out some asinine reply, a voice cut across the room. “Hey, Seduction, get your ass back over here! We don’t need Rocks anymore.”
Siret dismissed me as the rest of the sols laughed like it was the funniest thing any Minatsol inhabitant had ever said. Aros drew back, his smile dimming to a half-smirk. “Guess I’ll see you around, dweller.”
Then he was gone, taking all his warmth and energy with him. I sagged against the wall, chest heaving in and out as I fought for air. Atti turned sympathetic eyes on me, his brow creased as he dropped a hand briefly on my shoulder. “I’m really sorry, Willa. Those five are trouble and any dweller who catches their eye hasn’t lasted very long in Blesswood. As soon as they turn their attention to one of us, they make it their mission to destroy …” He trailed off, seeing the look of horror on my face, and then tried for something a little more supportive. “If you can manage it, stay as far from them as you can. Don’t let them see you, and they’ll eventually get bored and turn their attention to someone else.”
I didn’t reply. I was still trying to catch my breath. His advice was great, someone just needed to tell my clumsy curse and the gods, because they clearly weren’t done amusing themselves with my misfortunes yet. Emmy remained quiet, choosing not to mention the encounter as we dragged ourselves back to our dingy little dweller cave. She was trying to be considerate, because she knew me well enough to know that I definitely didn’t want to analyse what had happened. She asked me once if I was okay, and I grunted out a reply. That was the extent of our conversation for the night, and I quickly fell onto the second bed in her room, even though I was pretty sure there was a room in the male dweller section with Will Knight written above the door. I pulled the blankets over my head, screwed my eyes closed, and forbade the Abcurse brothers from haunting me until sunrise.
The next morning, all dweller recruits were up with the sound of bells, indicating first light—which of course we couldn’t see from our concrete tomb.
“When do we pull night duty?” I asked Emmy as we quickly dressed. We didn’t exactly have uniforms, but the requirement was plain colours, and a modest amount of coverage, so as not to offend the sols with our dirt-dweller-ness.
“You’re on call for your dorm rooms at all times,” she said, pulling on her black top, which had long sleeves, and hung almost to mid-thigh.
She took off before I could demand to know how they planned on finding me at ‘all times,’ and I tried not to take it personally. Emmy didn’t deal with stress very well, and whenever I got into too much trouble, she always went silent, drawn into a private little crisis on my behalf.
Wait … at all times? Were there restrictions? What if they needed me when I was in the bathroom? What if more than one of the rooms needed me at the same time?
“Deal with it later,” I murmured to myself, slipping on my flat boots.
They were the only pair I owned, but they were of the highest quality. They had been handcrafted by my mother, before she decided that leather work was a waste of her time, and that it’d be more productive for her to spend her sun-cycles exploring the tavern instead. I had expected Leader Graham to pull her up many life-cycles ago, since there was no room for those who were without skills to exist in the village. Everyone must pay their way. Everyone must provide. She managed to get away with it though, and I hated to think about what she might have exchanged for her special privileges.
Still, I wondered how she was doing without Emmy and me. I wondered if she’d even noticed yet. A yearning for home sank into my body, filtering through my blood and into my bones. Settling in with permanence. I had to accept that I’d never go back. I knew that, logically; but emotionally, being at Blesswood still didn’t feel real. If Emmy hadn’t been there, I’d have probably started thinking about escape by now. I’d have taken my chances on the road through the nine rings, and made my way back to the village.
“Will! Hurry up! The next bell is about to ring and you haven’t eaten yet!”
Emmy’s voice cut through my moment of sadness, indicating that she was actually waiting for me at the end of the hallway. I sprang into action, my feet tangling in the bedsheets I hadn’t bothered to put back up on my rock-hard bed. It had been so narrow and uncomfortable that early this morning I’d ended up on the floor. Which was why I was now tripping over the sheets and flying through the air.
I tumbled out of the open doorway, the stone floor biting into my skin. I heard a deep sigh above me, and by the time I stared up, a bandage had appeared in Emmy’s hand. It took her a click to patch up my elbows, and quickly stitch the hole in the knee of my black pants. A new record, for her.
The bells tolled again then, and we started running. I managed to snatch up two pieces of hard bread from the almost empty tray of food which sat on the table in the main recruits’ room, shovelling the tasteless cardboard into my mouth as I hurried after my friend.
“You need to attend to your dorms first,” Emmy breathlessly informed me, as we ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
It was a miracle that I didn’t crack my skull open at any point.
Which reminded me … “I forgot the cap to hide my hair,” I mumbled around my breakfast.
Swallowing it, I took a moment to run my hands over my head. Shit. My hair wasn’t even pulled back, instead hanging in a mass of scruffy, white-blond curls. “My hair is out, and the boobs, Emmy. I didn’t wear a top to hide the boobs!” My top was white for freak’s sake. White and fitted. It was actually my usual
sleep-shirt—I’d been too busy agonising to change properly. I might as well have just stepped out naked.
Emmy grabbed my hands, pulling them from my hair, before she started dragging me in her now-familiar way. “Don’t worry about it. The sols have early training in the arena, so none of them will be in their rooms. If you pass any, just keep your head down and hopefully they won’t notice you.”
Before I could protest again, she was gone. Dashing across the domed room, heading east toward the female dorms. We knew the layout from our basic tour the previous sun-cycle, but it was easy to lose direction—everything looked so similar. I did at least remember where the male dorms were. The path lay to the west, on the opposite side to where I was supposed to be cleaning. Supply carts were located at the beginning of the sleeping quarters, which meant that I had nothing to hide behind until I got there. Wrapping my hair up in my hands, I quickly swirled it around, and then tucked it into the back of my shirt. This was the best I had. I took off with my head lowered, my eyes constantly moving to make sure no sol crossed my path.
The long hallway I traversed had massive floor-to-ceiling windows on one side, which gave me an uninterrupted view of Blesswood. It was a huge estate with multiple buildings. There were also all the trees, plants, and water features—which, to be honest, still kind of freaked me out. So much water everywhere. What did they do with it all? Why couldn’t they share with the villages who were desperate for more? A male dweller pushed a cart past me, and I could see his double take at a female on this side of the building, but he didn’t stop to ask me what I was doing. Luck was on my side, for once. The sols in my assigned dorms better request a dweller change. The tension would kill me otherwise.
The long hallway opened to a room that jutted out over the grounds, giving an uninterrupted view of the Sacred Sand arena—a massive, circular, open-topped stadium. I paused for a beat, taking in the grandeur of it all. I knew a lot about that building now. I knew that sols with gifts for barricades would put a roof over it in inclement weather, I knew that it could seat twenty thousand and that there was a special boxed area up high for the gods, I even knew that on occasion, Original Gods would grace the sols with their presence and watch the battles. There were always some secondary and minor gods there, of course, but the Originals were the big draw card. So yeah, I now knew more than I’d ever expected to know about the training stadium, courtesy of the over-achiever who always slept next to me. What I didn’t know was the point. How did battling—sometimes to the death—show the gods anything of real worth?
Why would the Original Gods want to recruit the strongest sols in Topia?
It always struck me as odd, that they would invite in the very beings who might be strong enough to overthrow their positions. The very beings who might end up more powerful than they were themselves. What evidence did the sols even have that they would go to Topia when they died? There was so much faith going on in that scenario, and frankly, the gods didn’t seem the type to throw all your hopes at.
Footsteps shook me from my thoughts, and I turned from the view and continued toward my dorms. There was a cart sitting outside the storage facility, and it looked to be well stocked, so I grabbed it. It would save me having to waste more time when I was already late. Eventually, the dorms came into view: a door on either side of the wide and well-lit hall.
The numbers started at 500, and started working down. Of course they did. I would expect nothing less than to be assigned the furthest possible rooms. I sucked in my sigh, tucking my chin to my chest while I pushed ahead with my cart. If there was anyone in my path, they were going down. They’d have to get their asses out of the way, or else. Luckily, I didn’t encounter anyone, and I made it to Room Number 5 without incident. I didn’t bother to pause and check the name. I didn’t care which spoiled, sacred sol resided within. Not unless they were going to write me into their will and leave me a bunch of tokens when they died so that my mother wouldn’t have to …
Best not think about sex-for-token favours so early in the sun-cycle. Save the hard thoughts for after lunch.
I knocked on the door, waiting a few moments without an answer before pushing inside. Wow, these rooms were even nicer than I had expected. Tall, rippled glass windows displayed a warped mirage of the mountainside past the arena, to the back of Blesswood. I didn’t actually know what was beyond the academy, beyond the mountain. I left the cart at the door, stepping over scattered clothing and dropped books, passing by the massive bed, with ornately carved, matching bedside tables. I passed it all without blinking, reaching the glass and walking alongside the windows, my fingers tracing the rippled surface. It followed along the entire length of the room, ending in a small, attached sitting room, separated from the bedroom by a stone archway. Shelves lined the walls, two stuffed armchairs facing the glass. Glass which wasn’t rippled anymore. I gasped, stepping into the room and pressing both hands against the window.
Beyond the mountain … was nothing.
Miles and miles of nothing. More mountains, tipping and reaching, piercing the skies with uneven peaks, some of them even appearing white-capped. There wasn’t even a discernible road weaving through the mountains. I felt my nose bump against the glass, and knew that my breath was fogging it up, just the same way the mist was fogging up the base of the mountains in the distance. I’d never seen anything like it. Anything so vast and empty all at once. It was technically nothing; no more towns, cities, settlements. But it was everything; it was beautiful and proudly formidable.
That was where I belonged. In that place of unforgiving, empty terrain.
But for now … there were beds to be made. I pulled away from the window, rushing back to my cart. I actually had no idea what to do. We’d been given our assignments, but no real instruction to go along with the assignments. I supposed most dwellers knew how to clean properly, though, because most dwellers weren’t me. I hurriedly made the bed, punched the shape back into the pillows, and picked everything up off the floor. I didn’t know where to put any of it, so I just tossed it all onto the freshly-made bed. There were a bunch of big, cloth bags in my cart, with labels for me to put on each bag, so that made laundry easy. There was even a list stuck to the top of the cart—something that I only noticed after moving the basket of supplies that had been covering it. The locations of the laundry-rooms assigned to each hallway of dorms were listed, along with room numbers of resident dwellers tasked with ordering new supplies.
I finished with the first three rooms in record-time, but I was slowing down by the time I got to the fourth. I’d suffered three stubbed toes, one near-concussion, and an accidental rag to the face, because apparently jumping up and down and tossing a wet rag at the glass wasn’t the best way to clean a window. My shirt was damp with sweat and soap, my hair kept dragging into my eyes, and the hole in my pants had reopened. I was starting to wonder how I was going to survive a full sun-cycle of this, let alone a lifetime career of it.
I didn’t bother to knock on the door this time, because Emmy had been right, the dorms had all been empty so far—the sols obviously having arena practise. I pulled down the handle and turned around, pushing the door open with my butt while I walked backwards, dragging the cart, since I’d lost most of the strength to push it in front of me like a normal person.
“No, it’s fine, come right in,” a deep voice drawled, making me freeze.
I had a moment where I thought it would be a good idea to pretend that I hadn’t just waltzed into someone’s dorm, to pretend that I hadn’t heard them clearly admonishing me, and to pretend that I’d had a sudden, unexplained change of heart. I slowly started pushing the cart forward, instead of pulling it backwards. I didn’t stop until the door closed behind me, and then I just stood there, my internal organs threatening to explode with panic.
The door swung open behind me, a hand landed on my shoulder, an arm shooting out beside me to grasp the handle of the cart, and before I knew it, both myself and my cart were back inside the room,
and the door was shutting behind us.
“Wrong room,” I squeaked, keeping my eyes fixed on the door. Maybe if I didn’t look at him, he wouldn’t look at me, and then he’d just forget my face and I’d never be punished for this.
“You mean wrong hall, maybe?” he asked, walking away from me.
I still didn’t turn. Instead, I just listened really hard. I couldn’t tell where he was standing anymore, but I could sense that he was still there somewhere. Well obviously … because he didn’t exactly jump out of the window.
“Dweller?”
“Will you reassign me?” I blurted, spinning around, and immediately wishing that I hadn’t.
He was sitting on the end of his bed, and he appeared all-too familiar, with glittery green eyes smoking to black around the very edge of the iris, and messy, textured hair, coloured in a meld of blood and ochre.
“Reassign you?” he asked, with an arch to one single, dark brow. He wasn’t quite smiling, but he was obviously amused.
Why me? That was all I could think. Why? Why!
I swallowed carefully. Another Abcurse brother. The last one. He looked just like Coen, the pain-gifted sol who had tried to kill me. They both appeared slightly older than the other three: Yael, the persuasion-gifted one; Siret, the trickery-gifted one; and Aros, the one who apparently had some kind of seduction gift.
I didn’t even want to imagine what kind of sol I was now standing alone with. It was too much for my minuscule little mind. I was going to have a breakdown and start screaming obscenities at any moment. He stood then, because I obviously wasn’t uncomfortable enough. I stumbled back a step, my eyes stretching even wider. He was huge. Massive. Like a freaking giant. Or a mini-giant, at least. Coen had been big, too, but this was something else. Coen looked like he tossed trees around for fun, but Room Number 2 looked like he ate trees for breakfast.
