Seduction

by Jaymin Eve

  I tried again, but this time the faces before me began to blur, and I realised that I was losing my grip on whatever mind-link I had managed to form. Darkness swam into my head, and I slipped into sleep, as though the whole scene had been just a colourful dream.

  Wake up. Lucille’s voice flooded my nerves, jolting my eyes open and kick-starting my body into action. We have arrived.

  I tried to sit up, but my back was stiff and cold, so it took me a few moments. The cloak that I had stolen from my guardian-victim had blown up around my shoulders, tangling about my neck. I pushed it away and winced against the feeling of the blood rushing back into my limbs, as though I had been crushed under a weight for a long period of time, and it had only just lifted.

  I began to try and swing my leg around Lucille to jump to the ground when something had me pausing.

  I was surrounded by pantera—not just the pantera that had escaped from the abandoned lands, but many, many more. We must have been somewhere in Topia, because even the air tasted better than it did on Minatsol. We were in a clearing with a high mountain on one side, and a small brook twisting through the trees on our other, forming a little island of sorts. I slipped carefully off Lucille’s back, my feet landing in the soft grass, and I quickly untied the guardian’s cloak, dropping it onto the ground. I was still barefoot and dressed only in my underwear, but I doubted that they would care. They weren’t wearing any clothes either.

  The panteras were surrounding me, all staring with their too-intelligent eyes. There didn’t seem to be any hierarchy amongst them, that I could see—not one of them had stepped forward from the others to examine or address me. They were simply watching.

  Waiting.

  “I’m sorry about what was being done—” I began, but one of them cut me off.

  You set us free.

  It was a voice different to Lucille’s, but just as calming. I didn’t know what to say to that … because technically, Cyrus had set them free. So I said nothing.

  How can we repay you? This time, it was Lucille’s voice, and I turned sideways to look at her.

  “My friends are somewhere here, in Topia. I need to get to them.”

  Not yet, Lucille answered, but soon. When you are ready, we will take you to them.

  “Ready for what?” I glanced around at the other panteras nervously.

  You need to be taught the beauty in Chaos, Lucille answered. The gifts of the gods are not good or bad—they are only gifts, shaped from the very forces of the world. It is the person who makes them good or bad.

  I paused once again, my eyes scanning the numerous sets of eyes all trained unflinchingly on me. It is the person who makes them good or bad. I repeated the words inside my head.

  What did that say about me?

  I had set a building on fire—no. Cyrus had set a building on fire. But I had set the room on fire when Coen and Aros had kissed me. In fact, so far my Chaos only seemed to be manifesting as fire, which wasn’t a great sign. Of all the ways that it could manifest, fire was probably the worst. Lucille was right. I needed to learn about this power before it destroyed me, or someone else.

  Come with us, we will show you.

  Another pantera this time, I didn’t know which one, it was just a lower toned trilling of words in my head. But there was a small group of four dark-furred males that broke away from the main group and started walking toward the stream. I followed, since it seemed I wasn’t getting out of there until they decided I was ready.

  The four paused at the edge, staring down into the water that trickled past, almost lazily.

  Drink from the stream.

  Those words were not a request. They held a note of command, which immediately had me on the offensive.

  “Why?”

  Large, soulful brown eyes met my gaze, and I found myself almost uncomfortable under that penetrating stare. You need to understand.

  I needed to … seriously? Riddles were so not my thing. Emmy, on the other hand, was great at reading between the lines. It was probably easier for me to just obey.

  Dropping to my knees, I leaned forward and placed my hands in the crystal-clear water. It was shallow here: I could see all the way to the stone and sand-lined bottom. My hands were covered in red dust from the guardians’ lands still, so I let them trail through the sparkling water until they were clean enough to drink from. Cupping up some of the water, I brought it to my lips, and as the first trickle slid down my throat, I let out a breathy sigh.

  Firstly, I had not realised how thirsty I was; and secondly, the water tasted nothing like the water in Minatsol. It was sweet almost, with a hint of fizz that danced across my tongue. I let the rest spill into my mouth, needing to taste more of it, and immediately my head went a little fuzzy.

  I stumbled to my feet, my wet hands falling to my sides, and I tried to glare at the twelve dark-furred panteras. Twelve … when did the others come across? The one closest to me shifted, before coming back into focus. Oh crap. I had been seeing three copies of the original four that led me to the water.

  “You drugged me,” I slurred, before swiping out with both arms, in an attempt to keep them away from me.

  Your mind is now opening to the magic. You need to stop fighting it.

  One of my flailing fists hit a small trunk that had been rooted close to the edge of the creek. I let out a shriek, hopping away. That hurt so much more than when I was in Rome’s head.

  As my mind focussed on the pain, it seemed to forget about my previous disorientation, and that seemed to give the water just enough time to do the job it had been trying to do all along.

  Clarity hit me with the force of a cart colliding into a brick wall, and as the fuzziness in my brain vanished, something rather strange took its place. Knowledge. Flashes of images started to crash through my mind. Over and over. One after another. At first I had no idea what I was seeing, but then I recognised some of the landmarks that I had seen in Topia before.

  This is our Topia. A pantera told me. Before the gods. Before the gifts.

  My history lesson continued, and I finally got my first glimpse of a human-like figure. It must have been Staviti. He stood in a blank landscape of Topia, staring around in confusion. Water ran in rivulets down his face, and along the ragged shorts he wore. He was smaller than I had expected, lithe and striking with his golden hair and flashing dark eyes, but not as massive as I’d begun to think all gods were.

  I was no-doubt spending too much time with the Abcurses.

  The next image was Staviti drinking from a stream, a stream which appeared to be very similar to the one I stood before, and then he lifted his hands to the sky and marble platforms began to form. Elements were ripped from the ground. Panteras and creatures fled from the being who was destroying their world.

  The water of Topia is unique. It carries within it all of the magic that keeps this land alive. This water flows into Minatsol also, for our two worlds are connected. The water there is not as strong as it is here. It is tainted, in a way.

  “Why doesn’t everyone in Minatsol have gifts then?” I couldn’t see past the images in my head, it was frozen on Staviti, his hands held aloft.

  It runs deep within the earth. Not accessible by many. Staviti was sick as a child, growing worse as he aged. His father was a miner, and had heard about a magical water. He searched for many life-cycles, somehow finding a small reservoir of it.

  “He gave it to his son?” I guessed.

  Yes, and it changed him.

  The origin story of the gods was a little wrong, then. This sort of made more sense, though, than the thought that he had just been struck by a random gift.

  “What happened to his father? Did he try and get more water when he found out it had healed Staviti?”

  There was no more. The rest runs deeper than any can access.

  So the water changed Staviti, and then he became a cocky shweed, using his ballbags way more than he should have, and all of his offspring ended up with the same magical gif
ts as he had. Then, when they had bred with other dwellers, this gifted thing had continued on until there were suddenly two very distinct beings on Minatsol. Dweller and sol.

  “I just drank the water …” I said each word slowly as I tried to figure out what that meant for me.

  This is not the first time you have tasted the water. You, too, were saved.

  “By who?” I demanded, slightly panicking that I was about to learn something about myself that I couldn’t handle.

  Maybe I was Staviti’s sister. No, wait. I would have to be centuries old. Maybe I was Staviti’s … great great great great—

  Your father.

  “But there was no more water. That’s what you said, right?”

  They didn’t reply, and I felt that this was the end of the knowledge they were imparting. Or maybe they simply didn’t know.

  “That’s why you called me Divine One?” I knew it wasn’t this pantera specifically, but it had been one of them.

  Yes.

  None of this made sense. Not a single freaking thing they had said. I needed to speak with my mother. I would demand that she tell me exactly who my father was this time, and what had happened when I was a baby. Why was she such a mess? There had to be some sort of traumatic event. What if it was about me all along?

  The world of Topia was back in my eyesight, and I blinked a few times to clear the last of Staviti from my mind. Only a single pantera remained before me, the others had re-joined the herd.

  “How did Staviti capture you?” I asked. “You’re stronger than the gods, right?”

  He lowered his head, in what seemed like a nod. Stronger in many ways, but the water does not work for us the same way it does for you. If you control the water, you control all of the world.

  “Those collars were made of this water, somehow?”

  It runs within the chain, and we are bound to the one who controls the magic.

  Staviti was moving right to the top of my shit list. “Have I learned all I need? Can I go back to the Abcurses now?”

  He let out a weird snorting noise, which I was choosing to believe was him clearing his throat. You have learned almost nothing, he told me. Surely there is more you want to know.

  Uh, not really. Gods-dammit. Time to pretend I was smart. “So, my Chaos … I should be able to control it better now, thanks to the water?”

  The pantera made another snorting sound.

  I pointed to a tree just behind us. “Chaos!”

  That’s not how it works.

  “Yeah, so I’ve heard,” I muttered.

  An explosion rocked through the picturesque valley, shooting me back a few feet to land on my ass. Pushing back long tangles of my hair, I blinked a few times to make sure I was seeing things correctly.

  The tree was completely engulfed in flames. Nothing else around it was touched. The pantera appeared to be doing a similar wide-eyed stare with me. I climbed to my feet and stood at his side.

  “Not how it works, hey?” My voice had a touch of smug to it, which died off when he turned narrowed eyes on me.

  The word does not create Chaos. It is the mental intention. Clearly your words and brain have no barrier.

  It was like he had known me my entire life. “Yeah, I tend to react rather than think. Thought and words happen at the same time.”

  If you intend to control Chaos, that has to change.

  Well, in that case … we’re all screwed. “I did at least hit the target I intended.” My voice was meek as I searched for the silver lining.

  Controlled subtly will get you what you want much faster than brute force.

  “Don’t tell Rome that, he can’t even open a door without taking out half the building. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he always gets the job done, it’s just never very pretty.”

  The pantera didn’t reply, which forced my mind back to the task at hand. I was starting to understand what he meant. All of my bursts of Cyrus-Chaos had been … messy, and hadn’t really achieved much outside of a distraction. If I wanted to instil real change, then I needed to figure out how to make the randomness of my gift work in a more refined way.

  For the next few rotations, I practiced attempting to control Chaos. It required a mental strength that was frankly beyond me, and I could sense the frustration of the few panteras who were working to help me.

  “Maybe I need more water.” I stared hopefully at the stream, which was a few hundred yards away.

  You need to focus. The water has already done all it can.

  I almost stomped my foot. “It’s faulty. The water is broken, we should all go and check the water right now and make sure it’s still working.”

  The water is fine.

  I had long ago given up trying to figure out which of them was talking in my head, there were too many. They surrounded me on the ground, not to mention the many flying through the air, frolicking across the meadow, drinking from the stupid water.

  “I’m never going to get this.” My words were a warning and a statement. “I have never been able to control my gift-that-feels-a-lot-like-a-curse.”

  Chaos is not a curse. If the person wielding the Chaos only uses it for evil, it becomes a curse—but that is only by the fault of the person and not the gift. Chaos can be a beautiful thing, if you know where to look for it. If you learn to see it properly and wield it properly.

  I thought about the panteras’ words, scanning their ethereal eyes while I mulled over the shifting of everything I thought I had known. Maybe they were right. Maybe the only reason my Chaos had been manifesting as fire was because I kept associating it with Rau.

  “Okay,” I finally sighed out. “Will you show me?”

  Nine

  My name is Leden, the pantera told me. Her voice was softer than the others, almost a whisper, and her coat was a glistening, snowy white. She was beautiful.

  I climbed onto her cautiously, hesitant to put dirt all over her lovely white fur, but she only made a small, snorting sound and reared up a little, forcing me to fall forward and cling.

  Hold on, her soft voice cautioned me, sounding amused.

  She launched up from the ground, and four other pantera followed, two spanning out either side of her as she took to the sky.

  “Where are we going?” I shouted, pressing my face into her soft neck.

  She was fast. Faster than any other pantera I had ridden—and she knew it, too, because there was a small hum of appreciation that vibrated through her body as soon as the thought flitted through my head.

  We are taking you to the mortal glass. The eyes of the world.

  “The what?” I shouted back. “Did you say eyes? You’re taking me to see some eyes?”

  Leden didn’t answer, which wasn’t a good sign. I groaned, shaking my head and cursing internally. That was the gamble you made with magical objects: sometimes they were pretty and they tasted good, like the stream; and sometimes they were … eyes.

  They didn’t fly far before they began to dip toward the mountains, swooping into a cave and landing in a spray of pebbles and dust. Leden wobbled a little before she managed to straighten herself, and I quickly jumped off her back and took a few steps away before I turned and grinned at her.

  “The speed is excellent, but you need to work on the landing.”

  She made a grunting sound in the back of her throat that was more animalistic than the graceful noises I had become used to from the pantera, and then she flicked her hoof into the gravel and kicked it up, sending a cloud of dirt and rocks right at me. I quickly covered my face with my arms and laughed. I liked her.

  It seems the girl is forming a bond, one of the other panteras noted, causing my head to peek out from between my arms.

  “A what?” I asked the cave in general, since I wasn’t sure which of the four, massive, black-furred pantera had spoken.

  A bond, this time from Leden, it happens on occasion, between the gods and the pantera. They are children of the same magic, children of the same land.

&n
bsp; “I thought you were here long before the gods?” I asked, turning to peer into the cave. It was dark—almost too dark to see anything, though I could still distinguish a faint, black glimmer.

  And the land was here long before us, Leden replied, pushing her snout between my shoulder blades and urging me forward, further into the cave. It is not uncommon for the gods to bond to the animals of Topia.

  “But I’m not a god,” I whispered, trying to resist the insistent pushes I was receiving, “and I also can’t see in the dark!”

  We will bring light, one of the other panteras announced, and then only a moment later, tiny little balls of light began to flicker on, beating against the wings of miniscule creatures that flittered sleepily about the cave.

  I stopped moving altogether, my mouth falling open and my eyes going wide. The walls of the cave were lined with a glittery black rock, so smooth in some places and so jagged in others—it almost appeared like glass. The little lights moved around, illuminating further into the cave, and I followed them without the nudging of Leden this time. I could see my own reflection in the rock, walking alongside me with so much awe painted over her face … but then the reflection began to change. Suddenly, I could see five broad backs, their owners all facing the edge of a marble platform.

  “What’s happening?” I whispered, as one of the reflections spoke.

  “We could just jump. I mean we can’t die or anything.” It was Siret’s voice.

  “You know Staviti would have stationed people below,” Yael replied, sounding downright depressed. “Maybe even Crowe himself. Staviti is serious this time—if D.O.D hadn’t insisted that we should be used to test the sols in the arena fights, he might have attempted a way to strip us of our gifts by now.”

  “This is bullshit,” Rome growled. “Staviti loves it when sols die—that’s the whole point of the arena fights isn’t it? He doesn’t want them to prove themselves. He just wants them to die.”

  “It isn’t about sols dying.” Aros seemed to be offering the voice of reason, judging by his tone. “Staviti doesn’t like us not obeying his commands because it shows the other gods that he can be disobeyed.”