Strength

by Jane Washington

  “Not to be a dick or anything—” Siret began, before Rome cut him off.

  “He definitely means to be a dick.”

  “But,” Siret continued, “you should really be able to tell when you’re being conned by an illusion. It’s part of the power, being able to see through other people’s tricks. I guess it was slim pickings for Trickery sols this life-cycle.” He shrugged, taking the lids off the food containers.

  He definitely meant to be a dick.

  The Abcurses all grinned then, amused by my thought.

  The Trickery student snarled, stalking past me for the door. “I’m just going to go, since you five clearly aren’t going to teach us anything.”

  “We’ll stay,” the Seduction student piped up in her honeyed voice.

  “Oh joy.” I rolled my eyes. “Did you hear that, guys? The sexy one is staying. That’ll calm things down.”

  “The sexy one isn’t allowed to go anywhere,” Coen muttered, pulling me against his chest. His hands slipped down over the curve of my back, finding their way into the folds of my cloak and down over the curve of my ass. He pulled me harder against him, making a deep, rumbly sound in the back of his throat. “You belong with us. Always.”

  I was having trouble finding a response that didn’t involve me winding my legs around him and pushing my lips against his, so I only nodded and threw my arms around his neck. My face ended up pressed against his collarbone, so I dropped a soft kiss there. He shifted me up higher against the growing hardness that pushed into my belly. He was having that reaction over me. Me. Not some perfect, pink-haired, honey-voiced seduction sol. Just me. I pressed another kiss to his skin, and then another, and his hands tightened before reluctantly releasing me. His eyes found mine as my feet hit the floor, and I could see the promise in them. The heat of what might happen later.

  Ten

  I didn’t have the energy to do anything other than slump down at the circular table and start pulling food toward my face. Rome came along behind me soon after and looped an arm around my middle, lifting me up from the stool. In response, I just leaned further over the table so that I could continue shovelling noodles into my mouth.

  Shifting his position slightly, he took my place on the stool and sat me down so that I was now on his right leg. Then, without a word, he began pointing to the various foods arrayed before us. With one hand, I fed myself, while my other followed his indication, picking up the foods he was interested in and handing them back to him. The others watched our process with slightly astonished looks on their faces.

  “That’s actually impressive.” Siret saluted me with his bread roll.

  I tried to swallow most of the food in my mouth before I thanked him, because multitasking was only good up until the point where you were talking and eating, and then multitasking suddenly wasn’t something to be that proud of.

  We didn’t say anything more as we ate, mostly because the two remaining sols were still in the room, but also because we were all starving. I wasn’t sure how many meals we had skipped, but it was too many. After eating, Rome gently set me down again, and we started to file out of the room. I was sure that the guys had forgotten all about the two sols by that point, but they all seemed to be in a good mood so I didn’t want to ruin it by pointing out that the two girls had slipped out after them and were now following us.

  “So, how did we do on our first sun-cycle of being godly instructors?” Siret asked me, throwing his arm around me and pulling me into his side.

  I was grateful for the embrace, because I still didn’t want to slip on the frost-covered stone stairs leading down the mountain. I clutched at his shirt as we stepped down, wondering why the five of them didn’t seem to need any further protection against the cold, whereas I did.

  “You did great,” I told him. “Your student really seemed to be ... learning ... so much. What was your illusion teaching her?”

  “He was running through a list of all the punishments given to gods who make eye-contact on Topia.”

  I arched a brow at him. “That doesn’t happen.”

  “Hi.” He held out his free hand to me. “My name is Siret, I’m the god of Trickery. Of course it doesn’t happen, but she learnt something at least.”

  “She learnt something that isn’t even true.”

  “Better than nothing.”

  I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to argue with that logic or not, so I dropped it. “Where are we going?”

  “We’re going to find Cyrus, obviously. We have our assignment, remember?”

  “I have my assignment,” I corrected him. “And I don’t really think that the last rotation and a half counts as the required amount of teaching.”

  “We’re coming with you.” Rome was the one to answer. “No arguments.”

  I stopped walking suddenly, causing one of them to almost run into me from behind.

  “Oh my gods, we left your student in there,” I realised aloud, spinning to face Rome.

  “Who?” he grunted.

  “Your student!” I reached out and swatted his arm. “She must still be standing against the wall.”

  “Oh.” He scratched his head. “Well if she’s still there tomorrow I won’t throw her off the mountain. Happy?”

  I glanced behind him to the two sols loitering on the path.

  “You can go and tell your friend that she’s free to move,” I said, pointing back the way they had come. I might have disliked the sols because they were working far too closely with the Abcurses—therefore impinging on my Abcurse time—But that didn’t mean I could stand by while they were tortured, no matter how mild the torture. I’d faced too much bullying in my own life. It wasn’t in my nature to be okay with it, even for Abcurse-stealing sols.

  The girls didn’t budge, instead choosing to look down at me with varying amounts of disgust and disdain.

  “Go,” I repeated, putting a little bit of steel into my voice. My softer emotions toward them were going to disappear really quickly. Especially if they kept up this superior attitude.

  “Or what?” The Persuasion sol folded her arms over her chest, looking down at me.

  I could tell that she was holding herself back from what she really wanted to say and do, on account of the Abcurses. Unfortunately for her, I didn’t have that same problem.

  I pushed through the male bodies attempting to surround me, until I was facing her alone, my guys backed up behind me. The temper was bubbling up inside me again, feeling like some kind of dangerous force. For just a moment, it distracted me from the girls in front of me. Usually, when my emotions flared out of my control, it manifested in flame, but after what had happened with Yael the night before, I felt panic at the thought of causing another fire.

  Instead, I directed my energy toward the ground beneath me. I had thought that it would help to focus me, but when the rocks along the side of the path began to shiver, I knew that I had made a mistake.

  “Or. What?” the sol repeated, leaning forward to poke a finger into my chest.

  Nearby, a large boulder splintered, sending tiny little rock pieces everywhere. One of them flew past my cheek fast enough to cut me. I felt the sting of it, and the sensation of blood running down my jawline. The sol didn’t look so confident anymore, and I knew that it was probably because I was looking at her like some sort of crazy person in my attempts to focus my power. I hadn’t even flinched when the rock had cut me. The ground beneath us was beginning to shake with small tremors.

  “Let’s go,” the Seduction sol muttered, pulling on the arm of the other.

  They both cast one final look in my direction before turning and hurrying back up the stone stairs. I watched, just in case I might have the pleasure of seeing one of them slip on the ice, but it wasn’t meant to be.

  “Soldier?” Siret was behind me, his hands on my arms, spinning me around. “You’re doing great, just focus on my voice, look at me ... that’s it, good girl.”

  His hands slipped up to my neck, warming my s
kin as he pulled me forward, his lips pressing to the side of my mouth.

  “Just focus here,” he whispered, brushing his lips across my mouth.

  My fingers were in his hair suddenly, pulling his mouth fully onto mine. I wasn’t sure who had deepened the kiss, but his tongue was against mine, and the heat of his body was all the way along my front.

  “Hate to break up the party…” Emmy’s hesitant voice spoke up from further down the path, “…but I came to see how the lessons were going.”

  Siret set me down with a frustrated groan. “If that dweller interrupts us one more time, I don’t care how attached to her you are, I’ll—”

  I slapped a hand over Siret’s mouth, glancing through the guys to Emmy’s pale face. Shit, she didn’t even have a cloak. Cyrus was such an asshole.

  “He didn’t mean that,” I told Emmy. “And it’s lucky you showed up, because we need to find Cyrus.”

  Emmy sighed, and I released Siret to make my way to her.

  “I was using checking up on you guys as an excuse to get away from him. Now I have to go back. Worst timing ever.”

  “I thought you would love this job, considering, you know ...” I shrugged off my cloak, handing it to her. “You love rules and gods and organising things.”

  “My problem isn’t with the job, it’s with the asshole who’s making me sleep in his room and eat all my meals with him. I can’t get a break.”

  I tried to hold back my smile. “Oh? Why is he making you do that?”

  “Because he says I’m a bug and it’s fun to torture bugs?” Her answer was more of a question. She threw up her hands, sending the cloak billowing out around her. “How do I know? He’s just an asshole.”

  “Sounds like he wants you around but he doesn’t want to admit it.” I tried to say the words innocently and casually and—

  “Ow.” I rubbed my arm, where Emmy had hit me. “So can you take us to him? I want to get this assignment out of the way before dark, not that sunlight will make a huge difference, but I can hope, right?”

  “I wouldn’t have any kind of hope for anything when it comes to him,” Emmy said.

  She turned and began to stomp back down the stairs. Siret was at my side again, fashioning another cloak for me before I could take even a single step.

  “Thank you.” I turned to him, reaching out for his hand. As soon as our skin touched, my thoughts immediately returned to the kiss that had just been interrupted. How his lips had pressed insistently against mine, how his tongue had driven into my mouth with enough purpose that we should have ended up naked and swimming.

  “Please stop,” Yael groaned, appearing at my other side. “You’re going to cause an embarrassing situation out here for everyone to see.”

  I bit down on my lip, turning to head after Emmy.

  Either Emmy was deliberately taking us the longest way possible to find Cyrus, or else Cyrus was using all of his godly talents to avoid her, because it took us thirty clicks to finally track him down.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, as soon as I saw him.

  My words seemed to startle him, but that was only his fault, because he had startled me. He was floating. Or, more accurately, hovering. He skimmed across a small pond, west of the main platform at the top of the mountain. His feet didn’t touch the water, even though small ripples spread out from where he floated, as though he was actually wading through the water. As he turned in the direction of our group, Emmy crossed her arms and let out a huff.

  “I thought we had scheduled in a break from drinking for the next four rotations.”

  Cyrus arched his left eyebrow at her. “The schedule said to take a ‘drink break’, not a ‘break from drinking’.”

  His foot slipped on the last word and I watched as an arc of water shot across the pond in our direction. I was pulled out of the way just before it splashed me, but no one helped Emmy. She ended up drenched, dripping wet from head to toe.

  My body was so tense that my muscles were starting to ache from the force of being held so tightly. Emmy was already on a knife’s edge when it came to the Neutral God. She seemed to be one incident away from murdering him in his sleep. The water-drenching might have snapped her final thread of control. She didn’t speak or move, other than the slight twitch in the corner of her eye. Not that she would succeed if she did try to murder him—seeing as he was immortal. Might have been fun to see her try, though.

  Cyrus, who had finally recovered from his alcohol-induced stumble, actually looked slightly apprehensive. I’d never seen him show an ounce of unease, even when in the presence of other gods, but something in Emmy’s expression was throwing him off.

  “Uh … sorry,” he muttered, moving closer to us, while still remaining out of reach, hovering over the water. “It was an accident.”

  Emmy lifted a hand. I flinched.

  Run, Cyrus.

  I was mentally urging him on because I’d only seen Emmy this angry a few times in my life, and there was nothing that could make me stick around when she snapped like that. Your only chance was to hide until she cooled down.

  “I. Quit.”

  She said those words without emotion. No inflection at all. Every one of us gasped. Okay, that was a lie—I was the only one who gasped. But dwellers couldn’t quit. It wasn’t a thing. They didn’t get to just decide not to do their jobs anymore. That was like deciding not to live anymore. There weren’t any other options. Life or death, dweller or death. It was the same thing.

  “Emmy!” I rushed forward, reaching her in a moment. “What are you saying?”

  She wiped her face, shaking off the excess water. “You heard me, Will, I refuse to take any more orders from him.” She stomped to the water’s edge. “You no longer control me, Cyrus. I will take my punishment, but I’m done with you.”

  Then with a huff, she spun around and stormed off.

  Anger rose in me again. I swung myself toward Cyrus. My hands were shaking as I waved them at him. “You will fix this, Cyrus. So help me. Otherwise I am going to … uh … I’m going to do something really bad and annoying. Every single time you close your eyes you’ll fear that this is the night I strike.”

  He wasn’t looking at me, despite my threat. His eyes were directed along the path Emmy had just taken, even though she was no longer visible.

  When he finally turned back to me, his expression was one of pure astonishment. “No one quits me.”

  I let out a derisive laugh. “Cyrus, you’re a real asshole most of the time. Don’t try and tell me that this is the first time someone has told you to go fuck yourself.”

  He glided across the water, his feet finally standing firm on dry land. He was beside me now, towering over me. Heat washed down my spine. The Abcurses moved closer, clearly uncomfortable with Cyrus’s sudden proximity.

  Cyrus leaned down to me. “I’ve never let anyone get close enough to ‘quit’ me before. The dweller does not know who she is messing with. There is no way she’s leaving.”

  I reached out and grabbed a fist full of his shirt, yanking his face even closer to mine, since I assumed the intense eye-contact he had going on was supposed to be some kind of intimidation tactic. “If you don’t go and apologise to her right now, I’m going to make you wish you’d never been born … created … whatever the hell you are. That’s my sister. I don’t care if she’s a dweller, or a bug. I don’t care if she just quit you. If you mess with her, you mess with me. If you mess with me, you mess with the Abcurses. She might be a dweller, but I think you understand just how annoying all of us can be, when we want to be.”

  I heard a few rumbles of laughter from behind, but there was also a lot of tension riding the group. Everyone was wondering if I’d just pushed Cyrus too far. We were about to find out if the leverage I’d had over him since he killed me was gone.

  We remained close together, silence growing between us. His eyes were raging, swirling in the scariest way. But I didn’t break the stare-off. Dweller or death. Emmy was remaini
ng a dweller, that was the only option.

  “Fix it, please.” I tried to give him something, so that he could feel like he had the upper hand. The please was my offer.

  His jaw tightened, but the icy rage in his gaze lessened minutely.

  “Fine,” he snapped, pulling away from me. He tilted his head up, squeezing his eyes tightly closed for a moment, before letting out a breath.

  “Your punishment still stands,” he told me. “Go to Topia, to the panteras. They have something of mine. I find myself in need of it.”

  I tried not to let my excitement show. Cyrus had given me exactly what I needed: a reason to go to the panteras.

  “Is that all?” I asked, almost bouncing on the spot.

  He nodded. “For now. Let’s see how you go with one assignment before I give you the next one.”

  He brushed past me then, striding back toward the main platform in a rush of white robes and icy energy.

  Tension had been holding me rigid for so long that my leg muscles actually ached when I finally relaxed. I found myself leaning back against Aros as he draped an arm around me, his warm heat seeping through my clothing and into my skin.

  “You shouldn’t antagonise Cyrus,” Rome told me. “Let his wrath be directed at us. We can handle it.”

  I shrugged, straightening a little so that I could clear my head. Aros was very distracting.

  “Everyone knows that taking me on means taking you all on. I might as well use that to my advantage.”

  He shook his head at me, but the half-smile on his face told me that he wasn’t as upset as he was acting.

  “Do you think Cyrus will hurt Emmy?” I asked them. If they thought there was even the smallest chance, I wouldn’t be leaving Champions Peak that sun-cycle.

  Siret flashed me his trademark, wide grin. “She has you and you have us, not to mention she’s always been mouthy as hell when it comes to Neutral. I’m pretty sure that if Cyrus hasn’t thrown her off a cliff already, he’s probably not going to start this sun-cycle.”