Pain (Curse of the Gods Book 5)

by Jaymin Eve

  I lifted my head in that moment and his lips crashed into mine as he sent me spiralling into the abyss. I cried out against his lips and he started to move slower, dragging out my pleasure. Wrenching my mouth away, I sucked in as much air as I could because I was mere clicks from passing out. Then, with a low whisper of my name, Aros pumped a few more times inside of me. The warmth in my centre, along with the warmth in my chest, exploded. I was filled with Aros’s power and his light and when I looked down at where our bodies were joined together, I almost expected us to be glowing. Something had clicked inside of me, secured into place with a permanence that hadn’t been there before.

  “What was that?” I whispered, my words catching.

  He lifted me away from the wall, his hands holding me securely as he moved back toward the water-filled bath. “It was our bond.” His voice was husky, the words scraping deliciously across my senses. “It’s complete.”

  Five

  I stood in front of the mirror as I contemplated the soft cotton nightdress I wore. It sure as hell hadn’t been designed by Siret, because it covered my breasts and fell to my thighs. It was also loose and comfortable. Since it was a pale pink colour, I could only assume that Pica had supplied my new wardrobe. It felt strange to be wearing normal clothing again instead of the Trickery-designed cloth that hugged my skin and adjusted to my movements. I wondered how long it would be before Siret burned everything of mine in our combined dressing room. I’d be back to wearing leather and silk in no time, I was sure.

  The glass that I was staring into spanned from the plush carpet of the dressing room all the way to the ceiling, and it covered the entire width of the wall. I could see more than just myself in the reflection—I could see the shelves and drawers that decorated the other walls of the room, along with a marble bench in the middle. There were several smaller drawers set into the bench with tall velvet stools on either side. I had no idea what the bench was for, but there were crystal vials, candles, and several other small boxes lined up neatly on the surface.

  I could also see Aros: he was a few paces behind me, settling a pair of pale gold pants around his hips. The material was light and thin, the colour so faded that it almost looked white, but the yellow was definitely there.

  “You guys wear your colours more … consistently here,” I said, leaning back against the glass and crossing my arms.

  I could hear the others in the bedroom and sense the traces of them remaining in the dressing room; they had changed while I was in the bathing chamber with Aros. I was surprised at my ability to read their energy signatures, but the truth was that I had been doing it for some time … I just hadn’t realised exactly how I was doing it. It felt like it was stronger now that I’d sealed the bond completely.

  I had been attributing my sense of them to other things, like a hint of their smell in the air, or the sound of their muted voices in the next room, but the truth was that I could actually feel them. If my sight and smell had been stolen, I would still see and smell them. I would still know which robes Yael had run his hands along, which drawers Rome had opened, and which part of the glass Coen had leaned against. I would still be able to hear them moving around next door, and I would still know exactly what they were doing.

  They felt tired, and their movements were more sluggish than usual.

  We hadn’t had a full night of sleep in a long time. For me, it had been when I passed out after turning Emmy into a god. For them, it had been much longer.

  I could also feel that they were waiting. Trying to stay awake.

  For me.

  “Did you hear me?” Aros asked gently, closing the distance between us.

  He had left his shirt off, and that made me happy for more than one reason. There was a fire crackling in the sitting room, and the door had been left open to allow the warmth to seep in. It was still snowing outside; the weather aberration didn’t seem to be willing to let up anytime soon. Even with the cold weather outside, though, the bed was sure to overheat with so many huge bodies pressed in closely together.

  “I was concentrating on the soul-bond,” I admitted. “I feel it so strongly now. What did you say?”

  “I said it’s an important symbol in Topia: your colour. It’s your identity.”

  I nodded, our hands brushing. I lifted the fingers on my left hand, and he turned his palm, allowing our fingers to twine. We shared only a brief moment—a memory of what we had done. There was gratefulness flowing between us, and it warmed me, along with the almost constant burn of his powers. I was growing used to the feeling already, and I was sure that it had something to do with the bond. He was a part of me … or I was a part of him. I wasn’t sure which way it worked, but it was undeniable. They would be able to pour their powers into me without end. Without harm.

  “Thank you, Willa,” he whispered, his eyes flicking between mine. “You didn’t just ask for all of us. You showed us that it was our only choice, and then you made it okay. You made it good. You made it amazing.”

  I wanted to thank him, too. To thank all of them. They were the ones who had agreed to give me everything—it worked both ways—but I was too choked up. I squeezed his hand and he seemed to read how overwhelmed I was, because he only led me to the other room, where the rest of my Abcurses waited. I was usually very vocal about what I wanted and needed, but I was suddenly too exhausted for words. I was also too exhausted to take another glance around our bedroom. I had eyes only for the main feature: the giant, sprawling bed.

  The others were all spread out, except for Coen and Yael, who were close together in the centre, only a small sliver of space between them. I wondered if they made it look that inviting on purpose as I crawled up onto the mattress and wiggled my way between them. Aros took care of the lanterns, dimming everything until only the faint flicker of fire from the next room was visible, and then he claimed his own space on the bed.

  Goodnight, I thought, as two sets of strong arms wrapped around me, cocooning me in.

  The next sun-cycle passed too quickly as we pored over possible escape routes from the location that Pica had chosen for the party.

  “I still don’t think it’s a good idea,” Cyrus muttered from where he stood at the edge of Pica’s garden. “The Garden of Everlasting isn’t exactly everyone’s favourite vacation spot—”

  “We were reading a book last night about old-world vacation spots,” Emmy whispered to me, leaning over the picnic table that we sat at with Pica, Coen, and Siret.

  I smirked, glancing up at Cyrus and speaking in a normal tone. “What’s wrong with the Garden of Everlasting?”

  “There are no beaches. Or lakes. Or rivers. You need water to appeal to people. They might not attend the party unless you give them a desirable location.”

  “We can dig a hole, fill it with water, and call it a lake,” Siret offered with a shrug.

  “It won’t matter,” Pica interrupted, before they could start fighting. “They will come, no matter where it is. They will come to see my Willy.”

  “That’s what he said,” Cyrus muttered.

  We all turned to stare at him, perplexed—but Emmy burst into laughter. “It was in one of the books last night,” she explained, grinning at Cyrus.

  Ugh, those nerds were bonding over books and starting inside jokes without me. I hated their relationship.

  “We can have inside jokes, too,” Siret assured me, his arm stretching over my shoulders and pulling me into his side. “Why don’t the six of us think of some tonight, after the party … without books.”

  I almost choked on the tea that I had just sipped as Emmy’s face flamed bright red. I quickly put the teacup back onto the table before I could drop it and start a bout of hysterical crying from Pica, because yes, even teacups had feelings.

  “Okay,” I finally managed.

  “Okay,” Coen said from my other side, a deep chuckle riding his tone. “And now that we’ve settled that … what’s our escape plan from the garden?”

  “The
garden!” Pica exclaimed happily.

  We all waited for her to continue, but apparently that was all she was going to say. She was currently staring into her own cup of tea, a small wrinkle of concentration appearing between her brows. It wasn’t exactly a frown, but it was an imperfection in her mask all the same, which had us all on high alert.

  “Oh,” I finally said. “She means the garden is our escape route. Didn’t you say it was magic-resistant?”

  “It is,” Cyrus confirmed. “It will protect you to a certain degree, but if someone came at you with a blade, for example …”

  “But my outfit,” I argued. “That’s resistant to physical attacks. Maybe we could find similar clothing for the rest of us? Then we’d be protected enough to escape into the garden if we need to.”

  “My smart Willy,” Pica cooed, abandoning her inspection of her tea to instead pick up one of the cookies she had brought out. “So smart. So beautiful. So special. Everyone will see, just you wait. They’ll see my daughter for what she is.”

  She was scraping the cookie along the picnic table, as though trying to draw with it. We all watched her for a moment, witnessing as the “thing” she was drawing slowly grew stick-thin legs and arms, protruding from a similarly shaped body. A circle for a head topped the figure, and then crumbles of wild curls were fanning out around the head like a messy halo.

  Three guesses who that was.

  Siret snorted, and Coen shifted uncomfortably, probably trying not to react. I waited for her to do something even crazier, but she kept chipping away at the figure, the serious look back on her face.

  “She’s not your daughter, Pica,” Cyrus reminded her, his tone bland. He had to repeat the same thing almost once a sun-cycle, so I didn’t blame him for the insensitive delivery, but for some reason I was wary of Pica.

  She crumbled the rest of the biscuit in her fist, tossing the crumbs to the ground in a rapid, cutting movement of her arm. When she rose to her feet, her presence seemed to swell, an electric energy drawing about her. The hair on my arms started to stand up, and I quickly jumped up before she could advance on Cyrus.

  “Pica,” I muttered, drawing her eyes to me instead. “We have only a few rotations until the party, and we still need to obtain clothing for the others that will repel physical attacks. Can we do it?”

  The switch in her was instant. Maybe it was my hand on her arm, or the way that I was appealing to her personally, but my attention seemed to draw out the crazy Pica that we were used to.

  “Oh, my silly Willy.” Her hands slapped gently to my cheeks, framing my face. “The gods would never resort to such dweller methods of attack. None of them will even have weapons. If we run into the garden, they will be disabled.”

  “We’ve been in Minatsol too long,” Cyrus grunted, sounding displeased. “She has a point.”

  “I don’t feel comfortable being the only one with added protection,” I admitted.

  “Emmy is not unprotected,” Cyrus argued, and the briefest flicker of white flashed before my eyes.

  I blinked, trying to follow the colour, but all that remained was Cyrus’s mildly pissed-off expression. I had hurt his feelings.

  Emmy herself spoke up then, rising from her seat across from me to stand with Cyrus. “I’ll be fine. But what about the other guests? Will any of them be harmed?”

  “Just for attending?” Cyrus asked. “No, that would be a waste of energy. If Staviti bothers to attack at all—and I doubt that he will—he won’t waste his time on foot soldiers. He’ll go straight to the head. He’ll attack the reason itself and take down our main focus so that we’re left confused and scattered and without a purpose. He’ll target Willa.”

  “Good to know,” I muttered dryly, though I was actually happy to hear that everyone else would be safe.

  “It’s settled then,” Coen announced. “We’ll all work as a unit, keeping in groups of no more than two. Each member of your pair will be responsible for watching another member of our group. Does everyone agree?”

  “Agreed,” we all chimed, except Pica, who had spun away from me to tend one of her purple rose bushes. She didn’t even seem to be listening anymore. I supposed it didn’t matter, because Staviti had proven already that he would never attack her.

  “Who’s going to decide on the pairs?” I asked, sensing a disagreement in our near future.

  “I’ll take Emmy,” Cyrus volunteered before Coen could reply. “We will both watch Willa, since she is the biggest target. Siret, you’re with Willa. You’re the most good-natured of your brothers, and we want people to feel safe approaching her. Yael, you’re with Rome. Coen, with Aros.”

  “I’ll watch Four,” I quickly said, catching sight of the narrow-eyed look on Yael’s face.

  He glanced to me and inclined his head an inch, a slight challenge lighting his eyes. I realised that we hadn’t had much alone time together, and it was probably starting to bother him. I would need to rectify that as soon as I could.

  “And I’ll watch Seduction,” Yael volunteered.

  “I’ll take Strength,” Aros offered.

  “Pain,” Rome grunted.

  Coen nudged his head in Siret’s direction. “I’ll take Trickery. Where do we go from the Garden of Everlasting?”

  “Wait,” I inserted, before anyone could reply. “Why aren’t we just disappearing somewhere in the first place? Why run into the garden at all if the plan is to use a pocket in the end?”

  “Because Staviti is smart enough to know that if he attacks, most people could just disappear—the same way he did on Champion’s Peak.” Emmy was the one to reply—evidently having figured out what I couldn’t. “If he’s confident enough to attack, he won’t want you running away, Willa. It’ll be like walking straight into a trap. He will have set up some kind of backup plan in case you disappear through a pocket.”

  “What could he possibly do?” I asked, directing the question at Cyrus and the Abcurses.

  “Staviti might not have created this world, but he manipulates it as easily as he would a lump of clay,” Cyrus replied.

  “He is the one who makes the entrances and exits to Topia from Minatsol,” Coen added. “When we use pockets to travel, it’s like imagining where we want to go on a single page. We visualise where we stand, and then we trace our way along the map to where we need to be, and then we fold that map in half until the two points are touching … and then it’s easy. We just jump through the map.”

  “Sounds … easy to learn,” I muttered.

  Rome chuckled, the sound barely more than a husky sound from the back of his throat. “Staviti knows that you haven’t had time to memorise all the maps and terrains of Topia, so he won’t bother trying to tamper with your connection to the land. The most likely course of action is that he will reroute all pockets to a location of his choosing.”

  “Why hasn’t he already done that?” Emmy asked, voicing the question that had just popped into my head.

  “Because it would take an inordinate amount of energy,” Pica explained, shocking us all with her sudden reappearance. She had abandoned her gardening to eavesdrop on our conversation, apparently.

  She stepped out from behind Cyrus, a happy smile stretching across her face. She held a rose to her nose, breathing in deeply before tossing it up into the air. It rose a foot above her head and then broke apart, the petals spreading out in the air around her head.

  “If you imagine,” she said, looking up at the petals as the thorns of the rose stalk began to peel away, in an almost gruesome manner, “these petals are the glue that holds Topia together, the malleable spine that runs through not just this world but Minatsol too. All the beautiful gods are bending this land to jump between points on a map—but it works, because they all use the same map.” She paused, and the petals began to dance, bending and twisting, passing over each over and brushing by each other. They all moved with the same peaceful energy, and for just a moment, I forgot that it was Pica speaking. I was filled with an odd wa
rmth, as though I had just witnessed something ethereal.

  “There are no contradictions,” Pica continued, as the petals danced. “Nobody is trying to bend the map in a way that it won’t bend. If one of these gods tried to step through a natural pocket, but Staviti rerouted them somewhere, he is bending the map three times.”

  Suddenly the dance changed. What had appeared harmonious at first now appeared painful. The petals were being wrung. Their movement was stunted as they twisted around and around themselves. I wanted to turn away or to force Pica to stop what she was doing, but I was suddenly too afraid to speak. She tortured the petals with an exuberant look on her face, her eyes shining with happiness and … love.

  “Now imagine that he isn’t just doing that for one god, or a handful of gods—because pinpointing individuals would take up too much of his concentration. He wouldn’t be able to function outside of his task. He wouldn’t be able to attack you.” Suddenly, her eyes were on me, her attention narrowing to a single point of focus, the happiness in them flaring to glee.

  I took an involuntary step backwards until I was pressing all the way into Siret’s chest. His arms came around my shoulders, wrapping over my chest and forming a solid barrier between me and Pica. I couldn’t relax, though. Not while the petals still warped in their painful movement above us.

  “So what will he do instead?” I asked, hoping to break the spell that Pica was weaving over all of us.

  “He will fold every pocket three times,” she answered. “Every person who tries to travel in Topia during our party—because he won’t be able to hold it for longer than that. He hasn’t done that before because … well …” She flicked her fingers, and the thorns of the rose suddenly flew through the air, tearing through the petals and raining the pieces down onto the ground. “It will put too much pressure on the map,” she explained.