Strength

by Jane Washington

  At first, I watched the world below, riveted to the beauty of Topia, but after a few clicks of staring down at the scenery unfolding below us, my stomach started to roll with nausea. I mainly focussed ahead after that, only peeking over my shoulder on occasion to make sure that the Abcurses were there.

  They’re still there, Leden assured me.

  “Are you going to tell me more about this truth I need to learn?” If she was talking, it must be okay for me to talk as well.

  There is only so much we can share with you. Some of it you have to learn for yourself. All I can do is send you on the right path.

  One sun-cycle, I decided, I would find a friend who was less cryptic.

  Amusement from Leden flittered across my mind.

  By the time we landed in the fields where the pantera lived, my butt was numb. When I slid off Leden, my legs almost collapsed for a moment, before I was able to straighten again. I wandered closer to the creek that Leden had landed beside, feeling an insane urge to touch the water again.

  It will always draw you.

  I didn’t acknowledge Leden’s statement, even though I really wanted to know what she meant by that. Why did it draw me? How could I possibly have had this water before, if there was none of it in Minatsol?

  “Heavy thoughts?” Yael’s face appeared next to mine in the reflection of the water, followed by the others. The six of us stood there for a click as I admired their perfect reflections.

  “I’m just trying to figure out my connection to all of this,” I told them. “The panteras … this water. The answers are here, I just need to dig deeper. I know we came here for Cyrus, but I feel like there’s something here for me, too.”

  The mortal glass.

  I wasn’t sure which one of the winged creatures had whispered that in my head—we were now surrounded by them. It really didn’t matter, though, because the end result was the same. I needed to stare into the glass again. I needed to uncover the answers it held. Last time had been a history lesson … maybe this time the history would be more personal.

  Leden was right behind me, and I turned to her. “Can you please take me to the mortal glass?”

  I thought you’d never ask.

  We walked to the mountain, and then paused at the entrance. Coen took my right side, Rome on my left, and I realised that I was rarely between the twins like that. They were both so huge that it made me feel extra small, but also safe. I was protected between them. Having been alone so much of my life, always on the outside, it was an odd concept to be the centre of something. To feel like I was important. And because I could, I reached out and captured their hands.

  We all moved together into the cave, the other boys close behind. The panteras didn’t follow us this time, and I briefly wondered why, before deciding that it didn’t matter. I had the Abcurses with me. The cave felt different this time. Familiar, like it was a piece of my history now, and stepping back inside brought old memories to the surface of my mind, memories that I couldn’t properly grasp, memories that didn’t even seem to belong to me. On my last visit, I had struggled to see through the darkness of the cave, but everything was much clearer this time.

  “Wow,” I said, blinking as I stared. “Undead eyesight is so much better than dweller eyesight.”

  “I really wish she’d stop saying undead,” Aros groaned.

  Siret snorted. “You haven’t suffered until she starts talking about it while you’re naked.”

  Aros was silent for half a click, before shrugging. “Still worth it.”

  No doubt I was blushing, but thankfully we were now at the mortal glass, so the focus shifted from my sex life to the glittery surface. Just like last time, the scars and gashes from whatever asshole had hacked at the wall were visible, but as we stared into the glass, the bleeding stone disappeared, replaced by an image of a kingdom, slowly settling into view.

  The castle was perched high on a hill. Very similar, actually, to the cliff at Champions Peak. The ocean behind it had rolling green hills on every other side, and a small village of stone houses scattered all the way down the cliff into the valley below. The only difference was that there were no dead zones around this land. Everything was green and thriving.

  “Do any of you recognise this place?” Yael asked, his voice low.

  “I think it’s Minatsol,” Coen replied.

  Our view, at that point, was from above, stretching all the way along the countryside. Then, in a swirl, the scene zoomed in closer. My head spun as we sped through the gates of the castle and into the stone building. Once inside, I was able to focus again. The interior was decadent: tapestries covered the stone walls, rugs were piled onto the stone floors, and greenery climbed through every open window, sunlight streaming after it. Not even the richest of sols—the most talented of beings—had homes like that.

  We reached a set of closed, ornately carved double doors. The carving depicted a scene of what appeared to be a crowd surrounding a couple who were elevated on a low dais, their arms in the air—

  The doors slammed open. On the other side was a bedroom the size of most sol houses or at least five dweller houses put together.

  “This is just getting weird now,” Siret grumbled. “If someone is having sex in here, I’m out.”

  I didn’t answer, too fascinated by what we were about to see. The scene continued to zoom closer until we were beside the huge bed, piled high with furs and blankets. There was a woman right in the centre of the bed, propped up on a mound of pillows. She was pale and sweaty, her long dark hair a tangled mass. Her beauty was apparent, even with her face screwed up in pain. She let out some low gasps and then the man at her side came into view. He was handsome, tall, and broad-chested. He also wore a look of complete and total devastation.

  “My love, please hold on.” His voice echoed from far away. “The healer is almost here.”

  She gasped in and out, her words hoarse. “I fear they will be too late. The babes are not patient.”

  It was then that I noticed her stomach, mostly hidden beneath the furs, but clearly round and swollen. She had said babes … twins. I glanced toward Rome and Coen. It was still impossible for me to believe their mother had twins and triplets. Lucky she was a god.

  Unfortunately, the woman on this bed—despite her beauty—was not.

  She arched up then, screaming. Her wail had the man at her side jumping, before he reached out and captured her hand in his. “They’re coming now,” she cried. “But there is something wrong.”

  A few women rushed in then, holding towelling and wooden bowls of water. They started to strip the top layer of bedding away. “Do not push yet, my Queen,” one woman warned her. “Let me check your readiness first.”

  Queen. I knew this looked like a kingdom, only … there had not been a king or queen of Minatsol for many life-cycles. This had to be a royal family from the past.

  The woman who was stripping the bed went very white, and I was guessing it was because the bed was soaked in blood. Red spread out under the queen, far too much to be part of the natural birthing process.

  The king let out a strangled sound of pain before he began to shout for healers. I realised that I was holding my breath as I waited to see what would happen. My heart pounded hard in my chest, my body unable to understand that this wasn’t happening now. That there was nothing that I could do to change the fate of this woman.

  There was a loud crash in the background—another door opening as a man wearing a guard’s uniform rushed into view.

  “Your Majesty, the healer has not arrived. I fear he will not get here in time.”

  The king looked like he wanted to rip the guard’s head off. “Fetch me Elliot,” he ordered, his voice hard.

  The guard hesitated, blinking. “That crazy preacher? You think he can help the queen?”

  “Do as I tell you!” The king dismissed him, turning back to his wife.

  When she came into view again, I let out a low gasp. Someone wrapped an arm around me an
d I sank into the warmth of one of my guys, needing the comfort.

  “She doesn’t look good,” I cried, pressing a hand to my mouth.

  The woman was as pale as parchment. Her ladies were piling towelling beneath her in an attempt to stem the bleeding. The king was shouting again, and just as I took a step closer, my eyes glued to the scene, everything went dark.

  The mortal glass seemed to die for a brief click, and then suddenly they were back again. Only this time, the royal couple were no longer in Minatsol.

  They were in Topia.

  I knew that because I recognised the stream from my first visit. There were only three in this scene: the king, the still-very-pregnant queen, and a ragged looking man with wispy white hair. “Are you sure this will work?” the king asked. He was carrying his wife, who appeared to be unconscious. “No one has ever stepped foot in the untouched world. I didn’t believe it was possible.”

  The ragged man—Elliot, I was guessing—just shrugged. “The pathways are there, Majesty, one simply needs to know the way. The water is pure on this side, the original source of power. This is your only chance.”

  They stopped before a waterfall, which trickled into a small stream.

  “Place her there,” Elliot said, pointing toward a shallow section.

  The king didn’t waste another moment, wading out into the water to lay his wife down. The water rose up around her body but wasn’t deep enough to cover her completely. The king never let her go and—not that I would admit it to anyone—I was starting to get a little weepy over their love. The possibility of losing his wife and children was obviously destroying him, but he hadn’t stopped fighting for her. Not for a single moment.

  “This better have a happy ending,” I murmured.

  The Abcurses pressed in closer to me, the six of us locked together, invested in this scene.

  At first there was a lot of blood in the water, but then it slowly drifted away, and no more replaced it. “Drip the water into her mouth,” Elliot told the king.

  The king again obeyed, without hesitation, parting the queen’s lips and letting the water slowly trickle inside. With each drop, more colour returned to her face. I was about an inch from the glass now; if I got any close I’d be in the actual scene, but I didn’t want to miss a moment.

  As a healthy pink flush returned to her face, her eyes fluttered open. She stared up at the man cradling her in his lap. “What … happened, Leon?”

  The broadest of smiles pushed his cheeks up. “You almost broke your promise to me, my love. You’re not allowed to die, remember?”

  She smiled tenderly, lifting her hands to touch his face. Just as she did, her eyes got wide, and then her face screwed up in pain. She arched in his lap, her legs drawing up. “The babies are coming,” she cried out. “You need to deliver our children.”

  This spurred him into action. His focus, now that his wife was no longer dying, was to save his children. He pulled her further back in the water, resting her head against a smooth stone surface, which stopped her from slipping under the water. He then slid across the wet rocks to pause before her legs. The stress that had been marking his face was now replaced with determination.

  “I can see something,” he said, as he pushed her long dress higher. “I think you need to push now, whenever the next wave of pain hits you.”

  She gritted her teeth, closed her eyes, and with a deep breath she pushed. Her hands slid across rocks until she found her grip on something. The moment she had a hold of some rocks, she pushed again. Her breathing was heavy between each scream of pain.

  The first tiny cry that hit the air brought an actual tear to my eye. That tear slipped down my cheek, followed by another. The king lifted the child higher, giving us the perfect view of his chubby body.

  “It’s a boy.” Rome sounded proud. Like he’d somehow had something to do with it. “Strong and healthy.”

  I almost suggested someone get him a drink to go with that pride, but … who was I kidding? We all felt it. Leon handed the child over to his wife, and she cradled the young boy against her chest, holding him like he was the most precious thing in the world. Her eyes drank the baby in, her fingers tracing across his cheeks. “Welcome to the world, Jakan, you are truly loved.”

  “Are you ready, Madeline?” The king used her name for the first time, distracting her from her child. “I think you’re going to have to push again.”

  The queen was tired, anyone could see that. Despite the healing waters, she had lost a lot of blood. She’d almost died, but strength and determination to bring her children into the world was enough to have her leaning up, one hand holding her son close, while she pushed again.

  It was quicker the second time, and soon another boy was placed on her chest, right next to his brother.

  Her arms shook as she held her children, tears streaming across her cheeks and into the waters of Topia. When her husband moved to her side, they both stared at the boys. Madeline brushed her hand across the second child’s head and said, “Welcome to the world, Staviti, you are truly loved.”

  Then the mortal glass went blank.

  Twelve

  I was staring at the glassy rock-face, my eyes wide and unblinking.

  “Staviti?” I was asking for a confirmation of some kind as I reached out to touch the smooth surface. “That was Staviti. Why did it show me Staviti?” I spun, directing my question to Leden. She must have entered the cave at some point.

  The mortal glass holds the secrets of the land. Leden’s calming voice washed through me, soothing some of the confusion that was clouding up my mind. It will show you the lives of those connected to the land: their truths, their histories, their realities.

  “Show me my sister,” I requested, turning back to the glass, my heart beginning to thump against my ribs. “Emmy. Emmanuelle.”

  The glass remained blank, the surface glittering darkly. It seemed infinite, even though I could reach out and touch it. It was dizzying, staring into that endless blackness.

  The dweller you call your sister is not one of the land. She is born of people, not of magic. This had been spoken in the voice of another pantera, one with a deep, dusky tone. I turned and found myself surrounded by unblinking, luminous eyes, filling the cave behind us. The panteras shifted soundlessly, waiting. None of them stepped forward as the speaker.

  “Show me ... my mother.” I revised my request. Surely my mother would be part of the land. She had been made a Jeffrey by Staviti’s magic, after all.

  I waited, my heart pounding harder and faster with every passing moment, and sure enough, the colours inside the glass began to emerge.

  My mother was in Cyrus’s cave, right where we had left her. She was sitting on the bed that I had slept on, her eyes focussed blankly on the wall ahead. I knew that it couldn’t mean anything, but I still found myself clinging to the hope that she had chosen my bed to sit on for a reason. She missed me, maybe. She wondered where I was. I scoffed, shaking my head. My mother would never have missed me or wondered where I was. Even before she became a Jeffrey.

  “Show me Staviti again,” I asked next, my mind wandering back to the image of a tiny baby boy in Madeline’s arms.

  I wanted to know why the glass had shown me that particular piece of history. Why Staviti’s birth? Was it because it marked the beginning of the gods? Topia had been a land free of gods, once. Staviti’s birth must have marked a significant turning point for the land itself. The water had saved his mother’s life. Had it changed him as well?

  The scene before me slowly filtered into view, as though filled by slow tendrils of coloured smoke, gradually gaining substance.

  There was a little boy before us. He was standing in a field, staring up at a mountain. I recognised the landscape after only a click, though the coastline had changed, and so had the surrounding vegetation. It was Champions Peak—the craggy rocks formed the same shape: a rough stone wall to guard against the violent waves of the sea.

  Everything else was
different, though. I was seeing into the past again.

  “Stav!” a boy’s voice called out, and the child we had been looking at turned around. Another boy ran into view, holding a stick almost as tall as he was.

  “What do you want, Jakan?” Staviti seemed agitated, his small brow furrowed, his eyes squinting at the other.

  “You know you can’t go there,” Jakan replied, throwing down the stick, his voice losing some of the playfulness it had held only a moment ago. “Father said you can’t go back to Topia. If you go there again it won’t want to let you return. It might keep you.”

  The boy version of Staviti rolled his eyes, picking up the stick that Jakan had dropped. “We belong there, both of us. We aren’t like mother, or father, or the other children. We’re special, can’t you feel it? Can’t you tell?”

  “Don’t go back there ...” Jakan’s voice began to fade, and the scene trembled before me, beginning to dissolve into something else.

  “Stav! Stop!” the other boy was crying out, frantically scrambling over the unforgiving stone that lay at the base of the mountain.

  Staviti didn’t look back, and the scene fell away completely, leaving the mortal glass black, once again.

  “Show me Jakan!” I cried out, my hands flattening to the stone, as though I could climb through it and deliver myself to the base of the mountain with the two boys.

  The glass remained blank, cloaked in darkness. I waited, and then I repeated myself, my words softer this time: a request rather than an order.

  “Show me Jakan, please.”

  The glass glimmered back, refusing to shift into another scene.

  “Why won’t it work?” I asked.

  “Jakan must not be connected to the land,” Aros replied, sounding just as confused as I was.

  “He has to be.” I shook my head. “He was Staviti’s brother. He should be connected just like Staviti is.”

  “He was Staviti’s brother,” Rome corrected me. “He must no longer be alive. What you’re seeing is the world as it was hundreds of life-cycles ago. Perhaps Staviti was the only brother to survive.”