Strength

by Jane Washington

  The man had his head cocked as he watched me, walking slowly toward where I crouched beside the chains.

  “Your soul had already been separated,” he informed me. “The sons of Abil and Adeline guard the splintered pieces, forming a bond between the six of you that cannot be broken, even in death.”

  I froze, grabbing the chains and standing again, my gaze sharpening, trying to make out any further details in the shadowy visage before me.

  “How do you know about that?” I asked, swallowing. “Who are you?”

  “We can see through the eyes of what we left behind,” he replied cryptically, motioning to one of the children. The girl hurried over to him, casting a wary look at me.

  “Where is your body?” he asked her. “What can you see?”

  The girl closed her eyes, and her body immediately seemed to shrink, to recoil away from us.

  “It’s dark.” Her voice was shaking. “And cold. There are others here, but I can’t see their faces. There are chains—they’re heavy, and cold. Water is dripping on my leg. There are bugs crawling on me.” She started crying, and the man whispered something to her. She opened her eyes again and threw her arms around his neck, sobbing.

  I realised, then, that she was talking about the body she had been imprisoned in, and I wanted to throw up again. I waited until the girl calmed down, and the man sent her back to the others, rising to his feet again.

  “We can still see,” he told me. “And I have seen you before, Willa Knight.”

  I stared at him for a long time, sure that I had never seen his face before, though there was an inkling of something familiar about him. I thought that it was in the shape of his eyes, or the wideness of his smile.

  “Wait ...” My voice was shaking, shock tumbling through me. “Sienna?”

  He blinked, unsure how to answer for a moment, and then he was laughing. The sound wasn’t as full as it should have been, as though laughter wasn’t allowed in this place of dust and shadow.

  “No,” he replied, when his laughter had died off into a chuckle. “I am not Sienna.”

  “Then how have you seen me before? Did you die in Minatsol?”

  “I didn’t,” he replied, a smile twisting his lips. “I died in Topia, at the hand of my brother. He locked my body away, but the panteras drove him from the spot. They now guard it, and he cannot return. I lay behind the mortal glass, my body preserved from age and decay, so that I might see the secrets of the world, both past and present. I watch as the world changes, unable to do anything about it, unable to change myself. I watched you while you watched me. Do you remember?”

  I stumbled forward, one of my hands reaching out toward him involuntarily. “Jakan?” The name was only a dry whisper, barely escaping my lips.

  He nodded, and then he captured my extended hand. It felt natural for my hand to fit into his, and I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because we both lacked substance in this realm, but longed—with whatever substance we did have—for a connection to the other realm. Or maybe it was because he knew everything there was to know about me, through the glass, and I had seen his birth with my own eyes. We were connected, in a very strange way.

  “I should be scared of you,” I found myself saying, as I pulled back from him, my hand falling to my side again. “You are Staviti’s brother. A god, just like him.”

  “A god of creation, just like him,” Jakan confirmed, “though my powers have been stripped away.”

  “Why did he kill you?”

  “He killed me because he wanted to be the only one. He will kill you for the same reason.”

  “I’m as good as dead.” I tossed my hands out, indicating where I stood. I had been too busy fighting off Rau before, for the reality of that statement to properly sink into me, but it did now.

  There was a part of me that would never die. A part of my soul that had splintered away from me and latched onto each of the five Abcurses, the beings who surrounded me after Rau’s curse tore me apart. But the rest of me? It was lost. Limp and lifeless, as Sienna had been.

  “That’s not entirely true,” Jakan argued. “You’re not dead. Not yet. Since a part of you remains, you can use the chains as a tether. A pathway can always go in both directions: forward, or backward. They brought you here, so they can take you back.”

  “Come back with me,” I blurted, the plea barely even making sense.

  There were children that needed saving, not to mention Sienna, and countless others. I wasn’t sure how I was going to bring back all of the children, though, especially if Staviti would only banish them all over again.

  Jakan smiled. “I cannot. My soul here is whole, it would tear me apart to go back with you. Remember, you can only carry the weight of half a soul ... though I think you will want to save that space for someone else. Someone who has been waiting to speak to you for a long, long time.”

  He held out his hand, and I took it again, allowing him to lead me down a dusty, dirt-cracked path. We didn’t seem to be heading in any particular direction. The landscape seemed to go on forever, with no place to stop or rest. It was dust as far as the eye could see. I realised after almost half a rotation of walking that there wasn’t even a sun, or a sky. The dust had merged with the horizon, providing no source for the dull light that illuminated everything, and no sense for where we were in the sun-cycle.

  “She is usually here,” Jakan told me, his voice lowered. His tone was softer now, his eyes downcast.

  The woman was standing at the crest of a hill, staring listlessly off into the distance. She was familliar to me, even through the washed-out greyness that was painted over her profile.

  “Mum?” I choked out.

  She turned, her hand raising up. “Herd,” she said.

  I froze in my scramble up the hill, confused. “Herd?” I asked, turning to Jakan, repeating the word. “Herd? What does that mean?”

  He shrugged lightly. “She says strange things, sometimes. Her body is still functioning. I don’t know where it is right now, because you took it from Topia.”

  “Herd,” my mother repeated, her hands now seeming to grasp something invisible in front of her. She made a stabbing motion. “Herd. Herd.”

  “Oh gods,” I moaned. “She’s copying what Donald is doing in Minatsol. Emmy mentioned that Donald was malfunctioning, trying to herd her with an invisible pitchfork. Is this why my mother hasn’t ever seemed quite ... right in the head?” I asked the question of Jakan, who had moved to stand beside my mother, leading her shadow gently down from the hill to where I stood.

  “You don’t understand the feeling,” he told me. “You are never apart from the pieces of your soul that have been ripped from you. Your mother has been incomplete for a long time.”

  “Will this fix her?” I asked, reaching out and taking her wrist. She was still trying to stab things with her other hand.

  Jakan smiled again, but the gesture was sad, somehow … different to a real smile. Tainted by something that I didn’t yet understand.

  “Does she really need fixing?” he asked. “Can’t she be perfect in her incompleteness?”

  I stared at him, uncomprehending. “Are you trying to say you’re going to miss her, and that you don’t want me to take her away?”

  “What I have to say no longer matters, Willa. You must return immediately. The other pieces of your soul are in danger.”

  I snapped one of the cuffs onto my mother’s wrist before the full weight of his words had even sunk into me. It must have been the sudden shift in his tone, or the way that my mother stopped trying to stab at things, her whole body going slack, her head hanging from her shoulders as though partly unhinged.

  If the other pieces of my soul were in danger, that meant the Abcurses were in danger. I snapped the other cuff to my other wrist, and watched as Jakan covered both cuffs with his hands, his eyes settling on the shadow of my mother, before shifting to me.

  “This will not be easy,” he told me. “Staviti is your enemy. He does not
want any beings in Topia other than the ten perfect beings that he created. He will do everything in his power to kill any sol who has a chance of ascending to godhood, and any god who has already ascended. If he could put a stop to ascension in itself, he would.”

  I nodded, my brain absorbing the information and storing it away somewhere to be dealt with later. I had one thing on my mind, and one thing alone.

  I needed to protect my Abcurses.

  “Thank you,” I murmured, as our eyes met again.

  “Close your eyes,” he replied. “Reach into the chains as though they are a rope, and when you think you can see it, grasp that rope and pull. It will resist you. Keep pulling. Eventually, you will find your way home again.”

  I did as he told me, my eyes closing, my consciousness directed toward the chains. It was easier than I had thought it would be, since everything in me was already reaching out for the Abcurses and the other pieces of my soul.

  I clasped the invisible tether, and the chains hummed with power against my skin.

  “Jakan,” a clear, bright voice rang out. My mother’s, I realised. I had never heard her sound so coherent, so ... alive.

  “Jakan!” she cried out again, in despair, this time. “No! I want to stay with you!”

  Shock barrelled through me, because I had never heard her speak any beings name like that. Like … she loved him. Did that mean that Jakan might be more important to me than just Staviti’s brother and something the mortal glass wanted me to unravel? Could he possibly be … my father?

  I cried out for him as well, but it was too late. We were being pulled back the way we had come, and I could feel the jarring snap of my soul crashing back into my body, before everything went dark.

  Seventeen

  I woke up to the sounds of screaming. When I blinked my eyes open, the cliff-top that Rau had challenged the sols upon had drastically changed. There were scorch marks along the grass, and a giant mess of charred, twisted rubble where the main hall had been. There was a god standing amidst the debris, his feet safely balancing on a single, un-blemished plank of wood, his robe still somehow pristine as it fluttered about him, pushed by some invisible breeze.

  All around the rubble, the sols and gods had gathered, each of them turned toward a woman who had collapsed on the ground, her screams of agony filling the air.

  There were five broad backs spanning out in front of me, positioned to protect my body. I was laying on the grass, an inert body beside me, the chains linking us together. For just a moment, I thought that it was my mother, but that was only wishful thinking. The blood-red robes that enveloped the form belonged to Rau. He remained still, his eyes open, as though he was dead. I shoved the cuff off and scrambled to my feet, rousing the attention of the guys. Each of them spun around, and I was suddenly tangled in the embrace of too many arms.

  “We could still feel you,” one of them muttered.

  “We knew we hadn’t lost you,” another added.

  I was still disoriented, still dizzy and trying to get my bearings, but it felt right being momentarily crushed and then repositioned, only to be crushed again as they fought with each other to hold me properly. A kiss landed on my lips, another on my cheek, another on my neck. I basked in the warmth of them, the solidness of them. Each unique scent, and the brightness of their colouring. It was shocking, after being stuck in the world of grey dust, but it was a welcome shock.

  “Staviti is trying to kill everyone,” I muttered, as we turned to watch the woman again.

  I didn’t recognise her.

  “What do you mean by everyone?” Coen asked, claiming my right side, his eyes on the god standing above everyone, his voice almost a whisper.

  I squinted at the god, and then almost fell back a step in shock. It was Staviti. On the Peak. Watching a woman break down. From the remains of the hall.

  This was apparently too much information for my brain to handle, because the only word that I could manage to form was, “What?”

  “She means everyone,” Rome supplied. “I heard it in her mind before she started freaking out. He wants to kill all of us.”

  “Everyone but the Original Gods,” I clarified. “His brother told me.”

  “His brother ...” Aros trailed off, turning away from the scene before him to stare at me, his brow crinkled. “You mean Jakan—”

  I leapt forward, quickly covering his mouth, but it was too late.

  His brother’s name had captured Staviti’s attention.

  “Willa Knight,” his voice boomed out, cutting over the sounds of the sobbing woman. “You have taken something from me.”

  “If you lost something, you should probably check that mess there,” I found myself responding as I pointed to the broken pile of building that he stood on, my voice almost loud and confident ... if you ignored the tremble of terror undermining everything.

  He smiled, his head shaking slowly from one side to the other, and then he was moving toward me. With each of his steps, a wooden plank shot out from the rubble, providing a smooth and unblemished step to aid his descent.

  “You have taken one of my creations,” he said, when he was before me.

  I could feel the tension coursing through Coen and Rome on either side of me, and I knew that all five of my Abcurses were a click away from jumping in front of me and starting a fight with Staviti just to distract him.

  “We’re even then,” I said, trying to force my voice into a semblance of calm, the way he was doing. “You took my mother from me. I took Rau from you.”

  “I saved your mother,” he crooned, his voice soft, placating. The way you might speak to a child who was getting upset over ghost stories. “She was incomplete when I visited her. I only wanted to ask about you.” He smiled, the gesture almost gentle. “I was curious, that is all. I wanted to know what made you special, but she barely seemed to know anything about you at all. I killed her, but I fixed her, don’t you see? She’s better now. And I let you have her back, didn’t I?”

  There was no reasoning with that level of crazy. I should have guessed that he would be insane; a god who killed children just to keep his own power was not a benevolent sort of god. I had to try, though.

  “She’s not better,” I told him. “You need to understand that most of the things you’ve done to ‘improve’ the worlds have only served to hurt them. Don’t you care about your creations?”

  Obsidian eyes examined me; he almost looked curious. “How are you alive, Willa Knight?” He disregarded my questions as easily as he disregarded his creations. “I was watching you. You died. And then you were no longer in my vision. So, tell me, how this is possible?”

  I opened my mouth, but the words died on my lips as he continued. “Your mother told me you weren’t special. She was very insistent about that. She seemed to truly believe that there was no way you could have had the Chaos power. She called herself the lowest of the dwellers, and placed you right alongside her. You were supposed to be nothing more than a burden. A mistake. A blight on Minatsol. So, explain to me how you have been hit with Rau’s curse, skewered by Cyrus’s blade, and retrieved from the imprisonment realm … and yet here you stand. Still alive.” He finally pulled that unnerving gaze from me, letting it rest on the Abcurses, who were at my side. “How do you command such powerful gods? The power within you, how was it given to you?”

  There was no right answer. I knew that. He was just playing with me before he struck, because his intentions were to kill me—along with everyone else who wasn’t an Original God. He must have needed something from the lesser beings. The weaker sols and the dwellers who posed no threat to him. He must have needed their worship, their beliefs, otherwise he could have just destroyed all beings on Minatsol instead of trying to pick away at the strongest. I just needed to stall long enough to figure out what to do.

  “You’ve been so easily fooled,” I blurted out.

  Real smart, Willa. Insulting him would definitely stop an attack.

  I hurried on:
“Siret has been using Trickery to convince Rau, and all of the gods, that I have a Chaos power. He even tricked Rau and Cyrus into thinking that I died that night. My mom was right. I’m nothing special.”

  Someone made an angry noise beside me, and my heart warmed, because I knew that there were at least five people here who disagreed with Staviti and my mom.

  Staviti took a step closer. He was about ten feet away now. “And, yet, somehow you managed to take Rau from me.” He flicked a hand toward the god who was still on the ground, unmoving. “One of my creations. One I do care about very much.”

  Interesting. My words before had registered with him, even if he did choose to ignore them.

  “It’s time you felt the same loss,” he announced, his tone cold.

  His entire demeanour had changed, and now I felt the threat that he presented. I felt it right to my core. He was about to attack. I tried to figure out how to protect my boys, power swirling inside of me with more force than I’d ever felt. Heat was already pouring out of me. I’d just taken a step forward when a scream rang out. It was not the woman from before, but a new cry of pain. Emmy flew through the air, stopping just before Staviti, hovering there, her face a mask of pain and suffering.

  “This one is precious to you,” he said, almost conversationally. “This is one you treasure. One you will mourn more than the pathetic mother who has no love for her daughter.”

  For a brief click, I wondered if I should pretend not to know Emmy. Pretend that she meant nothing to me. But in almost the same instant, I knew that would be a futile endeavour. Staviti knew so much about my life. He had been studying me, trying to figure out the riddle of who I was.

  He knew how much I loved my sister.

  I released my hold on the power inside. My skin was awash in flames, because for Emmy, I didn’t care if Staviti knew about my powers. For Emmy, I would burn Minatsol to the ground.

  “If you hurt her, I will never stop hunting you down,” I told him, taking a step forward. Five gods stayed closer by, or as close as they could without getting completely incinerated. “I will kill every single god you created. And when I’m done killing them, I will kill you.”