Strength

by Jane Washington

  I nodded, knowing the sense of what he was saying—even though Cyrus’s logic wasn’t the best. My temper stayed with me, however, as we walked toward the marble sculptures, heading toward a gap in the first line of marble trees—the same gap that Emmy had passed through. It turned out to be a hallway or passageway of some kind, and I realised that the flat-sided trees were acting as sectionals. We walked a few steps and came across another gap in the marble, forming a small doorway. I glanced inside, ignoring the current occupants of the space. The marble sectionals had formed a little alcove, just large enough to fit three plush, red couches along the back and side walls of the room. There was a crystal lamp dropping from a marble branch that was extending from the sectional in the shape of a real tree branch, reaching far above the room.

  It was a marble forest of tiny rooms. The adventurous spirit inside me wanted to release the others and take off, to explore every secret hiding room that the forest could be concealing, but Aros must have heard the thought, because he chuckled, releasing my hand, his arm wrapping tightly around my shoulders.

  “Let’s just find a room that will fit us all, and we can figure out how to survive the rest of this life-cycle.”

  “You five will survive the rest of this life-cycle just fine. You’re all immortal,” I shot back, purposefully leaving myself out of that equation, just in case the sols were listening.

  “I didn’t mean Staviti’s champion game.” Aros glanced at me, and then shot a look over his shoulder. “I meant teaching. As an occupation. I don’t know how long we’re going to survive that.”

  “And by we,” I interjected, “you mean—”

  “Them, yes. Obviously. Whenever I say that ‘we’ can’t survive something, you can assume I mean every other person who is in the same situation but isn’t one of us.”

  “So, you really mean ‘they’ every time you say ‘we’?”

  “Yes, but I try to be sensitive about it.”

  I laughed, snuggling closer to him. It was a sad time when your asshole gods became endearing by way of their massive, all-consuming egos.

  “Here!” Aros called over his shoulder, slipping off down another narrow passageway. He brought us into a large room with a central meeting place and several half-concealed alcoves branching off from it.

  “I think this one is taken,” I whispered, my eyes riveted to one of the alcoves.

  I couldn’t see anything more than a female figure plastered up against a much taller, male figure, but I could see one of the male’s hands on the female’s ass, while the other was tangled in her wild blond hair … wild blond hair that had been neatly braided only five clicks ago.

  The male made a sound, somewhere between a growl and a groan, and the female stepped back from him. His hands dropped as his face was revealed, and then his eyes flicked over to us in realisation.

  Cyrus.

  Emmy, on the other hand, hadn’t noticed us at all. She was re-braiding her hair with cool efficiency, her hands steady. “Don’t even bother telling me you don’t want me,” she remarked. “You just gave up your game, Neutral.”

  She turned on her heel, and then paused, noticing us. I raised my hand in an awkward wave, but she barely even skipped a beat.

  “Oh hey, Will,” she said, smiling calmly as she moved to the centre of the room.

  There was a circular table set up there, with an open stack of scrolls and two stools pushed back. A lamp was burning near the scrolls, illuminating her face just enough for me to make out the red that was creeping up her cheeks.

  “Did you have an appointment with the Neutral?” she asked, checking her scrolls and then looking back up again.

  “She takes this fucking job too seriously,” Cyrus growled, stalking angrily to the table.

  “Uh,” I managed. The others remained silent. “We were just, uh, looking for somewhere to have a meeting. All of us. This is the biggest room in the forest.”

  “In the forest?” He grinned, but his eyes were avoiding mine. “Well, it’s the biggest room because it’s mine. And you need an appointment to see me.”

  I scowled, turning to Emmy. “Can I have an appointment to see the Neutral?”

  She glanced down at her scroll again. “He has made it clear that the majority of the rotations in the sun-cycle are to be reserved for his silent contemplation of wine. However, I think I can shuffle a few things around.”

  The darker Cyrus’s expression got, the wider my smile grew.

  “Excellent.” I rocked back onto the heels of my feet. “I’ll just wait here while you shuffle.”

  “Ah!” Emmy fake-exclaimed. “I spot an opening in his schedule, seeing as everyone is too afraid of him to make any appointments. How does right now sound?”

  “Right now sounds perfect!” I fake-exclaimed in return. “Thank you so much for your assistance.”

  “Any time.” She smiled at me in a very professional way. “That’s what I’m here for. I’m here to assist. Now please make yourself comfortable. I will notify the Neutral that you have arrived for your appointment.”

  She turned to face Cyrus as we filtered in, moving toward the furthest set of alcoves. They all opened into the common area of Cyrus’s room, and there were only partial walls separating them, raising up as far as the backs of the couches.

  “Your appointment has arrived,” I could hear Emmy telling Cyrus.

  “I am going to have you sentenced to eternal damnation,” Cyrus growled back. “Make them go away!”

  “Is that really a thing?” Emmy asked, and I turned to watch as she pulled out another sheaf of parchment, running her finger down a list that only she could see. “Nope, it’s not a thing. It’s right here on the list of things you assured me weren’t real, right along with gods who have sex with dwellers—as I recall, it was impossible because they find dwellers repulsive—oh wait,” she paused dramatically, and then started scribbling on the list, “we can cross that one out, can’t we?”

  Cyrus was digging into the pockets of his robes. He pulled out a flask, took a deep pull, and then strode toward us.

  “Willa, come with me,” he barked. “I have your first assignment.”

  “I can’t right now,” I quickly replied, before one of the guys could start a fight about it. “I have lessons this sun-cycle. For the whole champion thing? Remember?”

  “You don’t have lessons.” He shook his head, taking another frustrated swig. “You don’t have a teacher. There’s no Chaos Beta.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m going to teach myself. I mean there’s no harm, right? Staviti said the strongest sol in each power group, he didn’t say the strongest sol in each power group, minus the Chaos sols.”

  “How do you know you’re the strongest Chaos sol at all?” he countered, as I felt one of the guys step up behind me protectively, another at my side.

  Cyrus was smiling, but it was humourless. He knew that I wasn’t a Chaos anything, and he was calling me on my bluff ... but why? So that I didn’t make his life complicated by insisting that I train at Champions Peak? Or ... understanding suddenly dawned on me. He was worried that word of a Chaos sol would get out to the gods, and then Rau would realise that he had been betrayed. That Cyrus had lied to him. I hadn’t ascended to Topia as a Chaos Beta, I had ascended as myself, but Rau didn’t know that. All he knew was that I hadn’t ascended as his Beta, and that I was supposed to be dead.

  The most logical explanation for him to draw would be that Cyrus had lied to him, and that I hadn’t really died.

  Would that mean Rau would start trying to kill me again?

  Did I really care, if I couldn’t die?

  Did I really trust that I couldn’t die?

  “Let’s just focus on the important question for right now,” Siret whispered behind me. “Do you care if Rau finds out about you being here?”

  “No,” I answered Siret loud enough that Cyrus thought I was talking to him.

  His brows crinkled, his eyes glimmering. “No what?” he asked. />
  “No, I’m not going to let you take this opportunity away from me,” I told Cyrus. “This is what happens when gods try to plan everyone’s futures as though it’s their right. If there is a stronger Chaos sol out there, they’re welcome to come and take my place, but until then, you have a Chaos dweller, and I’m going to teach myself.”

  “I supposed it would be an impossible task, keeping this hidden forever,” Cyrus muttered. I knew what he was talking about, but the sols in the room would possibly assume that he was talking about there being a dweller with Chaos powers. “Very well, Willa. You can have your place here, I just hope you’re ready for the kind of attention that will bring you. See me after you have finished teaching yourself. I will have your assignment ready.”

  I nodded, turning my back on him as we all spread out through the alcoves. I noticed that the girls all took seats, while the Abcurses stood, lingering by the entrance to the alcove. I glanced around, trying to figure out what to do with myself. Rome dove into his teaching session without much of pause. I watched as he reached over and broke off the arm of one of the couches, tossing it at his student.

  “Do that,” he told her.

  She reached over and did the same thing on the other end.

  Rome shrugged. “Can you crush someone in a hug?”

  “Not yet,” she answered, brushing at the blunt line of her fringe. She was scuffing the toe of her boot against the ground, glancing from Rome to the other sols and back. “Should I be able to do that?”

  “Yeah, probably.”

  I turned away from them, mostly so that I wouldn’t start laughing. Rome was not the teacher type. He was definitely more the crush things into pieces while grunting incoherently type, and he was trying his best to utilise those exact skills in his task.

  Beside Rome, Coen sighed very loudly. “I’m not going to teach you shit,” he told the small, dark-featured girl sitting before him.

  “Why?” she shot back, colour rising to her cheeks. She shot to her feet, shifting her eyes over to me, and then back to him. “You have to. That’s your job.”

  “I don’t need to,” he sneered. “You want to cause pain, but there’s nobody here you can experiment on. I don’t believe it’s a skill you should practise at all, unless you really need to, so fuck off. Find something else to do.”

  She stalked away from him, shoving her shoulder into mine as she passed. Pain shot through me, from my arm to my centre, sharp and fiery. I bit down on my lip, turning to watch her so that the guys wouldn’t see the look of pain on my face. When I had myself under control, I tried to shake it off, turning back around again.

  Coen was now sitting on the couch that the girl had vacated, his feet kicked up on the other couch, his muscled arms folded behind his head, his eyes closed in respite.

  Beside him, Yael and Aros were huddled together, whispering. Their students were sitting beside each other on the couch opposite them, talking to each other in a very surface kind of way, as their attention was almost entirely still on the two brothers. I shook my head, turning to find Siret, except that he wasn’t there. I blinked, striding forward. Gone.

  “Where’d he go?” I asked the sol he was supposed to be teaching.

  She was sitting on the couch, still awaiting instruction. “He’s right in front of you.” Her voice was laced with irritation, her words spoken hurriedly. She quickly flicked her eyes back to a spot in front of her.

  “Yeah, Rocks.” Yael was beside me now, a smirk on his face. “He’s right there, teaching and instructing like an obedient god. Why do you have to be so dismissive of him like that?”

  My mouth was dropping open, but I was distracted by a thunderous, grating sound from the other side of the room. I peeked around Yael to discover that Rome had pulled a marble tree branch clear from the divider wall behind him, leaving a gaping hole that looked into another room beyond them. A sol boy appeared in the opening, staring through at us. He opened his mouth, seemingly forming words, but I couldn’t hear anything.

  “An enchantment,” Yael answered my unasked question. “Each of the alcoves is sound-proof. You shouldn’t be able to see between the marble branches, either, but I think Strength just poked a hole in that enchantment.”

  I shook my head as Rome tried to fit the branch back into place, before giving up and throwing that at his student, too. She managed to catch it in time, turning and placing it on the couch beside her. The seat cushions were flattened under its weight.

  “Was that supposed to be a lesson?” I asked Yael beneath my breath.

  “I can still hear you,” Rome answered in a raised voice, “you’re not that damn far away, Rocks.”

  “Oh, right.” I shoved my thumbs up. “You’re doing a great job! Mind if we all just sit here and watch?”

  “Go ahead.” He kicked one of the couches aside and then picked it up, leaning it against the wall to cover the hole that he had made. “I know I’m doing a great job. I do a great job at everything.”

  “Can we maybe do training somewhere other than here?” his student finally asked. Her voice was rough, short, and lacking refinement. Her eyes were also sharp, and she couldn’t seem to decide where to put her hands.

  “What’s wrong with here?” Rome gestured at the space by spreading his hands out. “It’s lovely in here.”

  I snorted. Yael was trying to hold back his laugh. Aros was shaking his head. Everyone seemed to have turned to watch Rome, except for Coen, who was possibly taking a nap, and Siret’s sol, who was still listening intently to a Siret that the rest of us couldn’t see.

  “There aren’t that many things to demonstrate my Strength on,” the girl replied.

  “Strength is more than the physical damage you can cause,” Yael spoke up, stepping toward the girl with a very familiar look on his face.

  He was being ‘persuasive’.

  “Oh?” She turned fully to face him, as did Rome.

  “Yes.” Yael nodded wisely, coming to a stop in front of her. “Strength is of the mind, also. The best exercise to demonstrate strength of the mind is to stand without movement or sound, for extended periods of time.”

  “Really?” She sounded half-convinced already.

  In reply, Yael simply walked her to the wall, and then stood back, looking proud. “You’re doing so well already. Mind you don’t move a muscle or make a sound, though. Blink three times if you understand.”

  I was impressed that Yael had managed to trick her so easily. She was trapped in the experiment now, as questioning it further would break the experiment that he had sneakily started right under her nose.

  She blinked three times.

  “Can we throw things at her?” Aros asked, suddenly interested in the experiment.

  “Don’t see why not.” Rome glanced from the chunk of marble on the couch, to his student, and back again. “It would certainly build strength.”

  “Oooo-kay,” I interjected, jumping forward and standing in front of the weapon that would probably do more decapitating than strength-building. “Why don’t we all just let the girl do her experiment without torturing her?” I tugged on the sleeve of Rome’s shirt, pulling his attention to me. “Two? Want to take a nap? Look how much fun One is having.”

  Rome glanced over at Coen, who miraculously still had his eyes closed.

  “It does look fun,” he admitted.

  “Okay, that’s settled then. You’re going to nap and the sol will still have a head for you to throw things at tomorrow.”

  His hands found my hips, lifting me up and away. He then tossed the marble off the couch, causing another horrible cracking sound as the chunk of stone hit the ground. He slumped heavily down onto the couch, but too much abuse in such a short period of time caused it to splinter and collapse beneath him. He jumped up, scowling at it, before stalking into Aros’s alcove.

  “Switch,” he demanded, staring at the Seduction student and the Persuasion student, and pointing at the broken couch.

  The Seduction stu
dent got up from her seat gracefully, flicking a silky mass of red-pink hair over her leather-clad shoulder, before brushing past Rome. I fought the urge to pluck each gorgeous red-pink strand of hair from her dumb, gorgeous head. I couldn’t watch her as she sauntered seductively over to the broken couch, so I turned my attention to the Persuasion student instead. She had soft blond hair, left in waves about her shoulders, and a childishly beautiful face. She didn’t exactly have commanding features like Yael’s, but I could see how her suggestions would be taken easily. There was something about her that I just wanted to trust even though I kept trying to tell myself that the only thing I could trust about her was how much I wanted to lock her in a closet so that I could have my Abcurses back.

  Was that unreasonable?

  “A little bit,” Yael answered my thoughts, “but we’re not complaining.”

  Rome sank down onto the vacated couch, propping his feet onto the other couch in that alcove and tipping his head back just like Coen’s. I watched as he shifted around uncomfortably, constantly re-adjusting his position. How the hell was Coen remaining so still?

  “What did we miss?” a familliar voice asked from behind us.

  Rome jumped up again, his eyes shooting open. “I knew there was no way you could sleep comfortably on those things!” he announced, sounding victorious.

  Coen and Siret were striding into the room, and the apparent illusions of them had flickered out of view. Coen was no longer sleeping on the couch, and Siret’s student was no longer fixated on the spot where he was supposed to be standing. She had jumped up in alarm and was now staring at the real him, stuttering in confusion.

  “You are a sol of Trickery, aren’t you?” Siret bated her, stopping at Cyrus’s circular table and dropping an assortment of wooden food containers onto the surface.

  Emmy must have followed Cyrus out of the room earlier, because I didn’t hear an outraged scream when her scrolls were crushed.

  The Trickery student looked appropriately chastised, her purple eyes downcast, her hands shoved moodily into the pockets of her pants.