Pain (Curse of the Gods Book 5)

by Jaymin Eve

  “Sorry,” I muttered. “Shall we give you a moment?”

  The woman didn’t answer, and I turned to the others for help, but they were too busy watching with expressions of amusement. I was glad they could still find the humour in my situations, despite the rapidly approaching end of the worlds.

  I tried again. “You really should … uh … finish up your … Just finish, okay! There is an undead army of servers heading this way and it’s time to evacuate. You need to head toward Blesswood.”

  She continued to gape at me, but the man under her no longer appeared as shocked. He reached out to cover the woman, awkwardly dragging their blanket up. “Could you maybe leave our house?” he asked gruffly. “I’d prefer to have this conversation with clothes on.”

  Right. Right. Not everyone was cool with naked end-of-worlds conversations.

  The Abcurses were still grinning as we pushed through the old rickety door, so familiar to me with it’s the multitude of scars across the bottom three panels. Most of them from me tripping and hitting it with things. Like hot fire pokers, metal dinnerware, and even my head.

  “So this is where you grew up?” Yael seemed fascinated by the village, staring around at it like he’d never seen anything like it before.

  “This is it,” I said, holding my arms out and spinning in a circle. “The seventh ring.”

  “It’s … nice,” Aros said, clearing his throat.

  Truthfully, it was a dump. Ragged brown grass where they were used to seeing green meadows in Topia. Small hut houses built from whatever could be scavenged in the surrounding areas. No trees for shade. No water for swimming.

  “The land is going to be rejuvenated,” Coen reminded me. “You won’t recognise the area soon.”

  I wondered how the Topian waters would spread through the outer rings, because I couldn’t see any signs of it here. It would probably take a long time to spread because of how barren the desert was.

  A man ducked out of a nearby hut then, and he was noticeable in the silent early morning emptiness of the village. I recognised him, and without thought hurried forward, reaching out to snag his arm as he hurried past. He had been in such a rush that he hadn’t even noticed us standing there, and he let out a low shriek at my touch before wrenching himself free and careening backwards.

  I crossed over to where he had sprawled, holding out an assisting hand to him.

  He stared at my hand before transferring his eyes to my face. “I know you,” he said slowly, ignoring my proffered hand. “Emmanuelle? You were chosen to serve Blesswood.”

  I shook my head. “Nope, but you’re close. I’m her sister, Willa.” I wasn’t surprised he remembered Emmy. She’d been the star of the seventh ring. “Leader Graham,” I said quickly. “I have to tell you something of the utmost importance. I need you to listen very carefully, and then I need to you move your ass and get everyone out of this village.”

  His eyes narrowed as he scrambled to his feet. “I’m sorry, but on what authority are you even here? You are supposed to be serving in Blesswood now.”

  I drew on my limited power and brought twin flames to life in both of my hands. The Abcurses also stepped up then, and for the first time Leader Graham seemed to realise that they were there. He was completely unobservant, the self-centred bullsen ball.

  “I’m a god now,” I told him, cutting off my flames. “And we’re here to warn you about what is heading your way now.” My voice lowered, and I hoped my words were registering with him. “It’s bad. The gods are sending an army after you. You’re vulnerable out here, ready to be picked off by this army of undead servers that is heading this way. You need to get all of our people and take them to Blesswood.”

  He started to splutter, shaking his head. “Are you kidding me? How dare you come here and spread rumours about the gods. What you’re saying is impossible. If this is some sort of revenge because Blesswood rejected you …”

  He trailed off, narrowing his gaze on me. I remembered that look all too well, the way he stared you down like you were a dead rodent that had crawled into his bed. His bed made of tokens that he didn’t share with the rest of the village.

  Rome must have taken offense to the tone of voice, because his voice was a growl when he said, “Willa was not rejected. She is as she said,” he paused, “a god. And you need to listen to her. Grab whatever shit you can carry and start walking. If you don’t leave, you will all be dead within two sun-cycles.”

  Leader Graham took Rome much more seriously than he took me, which was kind of annoying, but as long as he got on board with the plan, then I really didn’t care. At this point the door to my former house opened and a dressed couple walked out, hand in hand.

  They had the sort of look on their face that indicated someone had interrupted them before they got to the good part of their morning. Whoops.

  “We have to go now,” I told Leader Graham. “We’re heading for the ninth ring to warn them as well. I promise, I am here with the best of intentions. This was my home once, and I don’t want to see any of you destroyed.”

  There was a softening in his face then, just a minute one, but I thought I might have gotten through to him.

  “We’ll be back here in a sun-cycle,” Siret told him, grinning in a way that would make me want to run. “It would help us if you could spread the word through the other rings as you head toward Blesswood. Make our job a little easier.”

  Graham nodded, his head moving so rapidly that his chin was quivering. “I just can’t believe it’s true, but … I suppose the gods have never favoured us.”

  I gave him a rueful smile. “We favour you now.”

  He almost returned my smile with one of his own, before he turned and quickly conferred with the couple we had interrupted when we arrived.

  I turned my back on them to face the Abcurses. “It will take us about half a rotation to walk to the eighth, and then another fifteen clicks on to the ninth.”

  “The ninth is the final?” Yael asked, his head already lifting to stare out across the desert land.

  I nodded. “Yes, except for the temples where the servers are made, but I’m guessing that they’re long gone.” Judging by the one we’d had in our possession who hadn’t lasted past the first rush of water. I led the way out of the village, dodging between houses, and as we moved, the noise behind us picked up in intensity. Leader Graham was rousing the village.

  We ran most of the way to the eighth ring, and I was still astonished at the fact I could do that. I was guessing the Abcurses slowed their pace to keep with mine, but no one had to carry me this time. Even though they all offered more than once.

  “I’m fine,” I told them for the tenth time. “I’m stretching my god energy out.”

  Some of the balance that Cyrus had been talking about was starting to become apparent to me. I could feel my energy levelling off. For once in my life I felt like my equilibrium was right where it was supposed to be.

  When we reached the eighth ring, it was to find a village even more desolate than mine. “Do you know the leader here?” Coen asked, when we were standing in the centre of the main marketplace, which was where the only water source was situated.

  I hadn’t noticed, but there were guards stationed around their water well. The moment Coen spoke, they jumped to attention, charging forward. When they were a few dozen feet from us, Rome stepped up and took point position. The two men skidded to a halt; the bullsen horns they’d had in their hands as makeshift weapons clanked to the ground as they dropped them.

  “G-gods,” one stuttered. “The gods are here to kill us.”

  His voice rose higher, howling out through the village. It was a little later in the morning, so there were more dwellers about here than had been in the seventh ring. Screams started to ring out, along with other shouts that sounded … excited, almost.

  Three girls stumbled out into the street wearing long nightgowns, their hair curled up around what looked like multiple-sized twigs.

 
“Ah, shit,” I muttered as they sprinted in our direction.

  “Brace yourself,” I warned the others, and I could see the confusion on the Abcurses faces. “These are the godsters. They’re kind of a little god obsessed. We had a few in my village as well, but I tried to steer clear of their meetings.”

  Obsessed might have been an understatement. The women who were part of the godsters were literally waiting for a god to come and sweep them away. They chose favourites and worshipped them to a fanatic level.

  I was pretty sure this was the first time gods were actually in their presence, and it was going to get ugly. The moment they caught sight of the Abcurses, they started to scream. Tears poured down their cheeks as they pushed and fought to be first to reach us. Rome shot me a look, and I could see he was wondering what he was supposed to do.

  Shame Cyrus wasn’t here to throw them off a cliff for us.

  Yael grinned broadly, and I blinked at that odd sight. “I can handle the throwing, if you think it’s the best option.”

  His eyes were begging me to say yes.

  I had to think long and hard, and by the time I realised we couldn’t toss dwellers away like rubbish, they had reached us. The first one had carrot-red hair and so many sunspots that I knew she was someone who worked in the fields.

  She dove at Rome, who was still standing out front like the hugest target in the world. I reacted before I could think about it, sliding myself between the two of them so I took the brunt of her body. She hugged me tightly for a click, until she realised I was way too small to be the god she’d aimed for. When she pulled back her face morphed into a scowl and she lifted her arm to take a swing at me.

  Rome slammed his forearm down between us and his voice thundered louder than I’d ever heard before. “I would advise that you step back.” His chest was rumbling as he tried to contain his anger. “Touching Willa is an automatic death sentence.”

  The redhead blinked at him, her anger at me dying away as tears filled her eyes. “I love you,” she said simply.

  Siret laughed, and I tried to shoot him a glare, but I couldn’t see him from where Rome was wrapped around me.

  The other two godsters joined their friend, stopping on either side of her. Both of them were brunette; both had very olive skin and green eyes, and I guessed they were sisters. “Who is your leader?” Rome asked, his voice softening slightly. “We need to speak with the leader of your village right now.”

  The brunette on the right spoke up, her voice very high-pitched. “Leader Chet. He’s in that hut.”

  She pointed toward the largest, although definitely not fancy, brown-walled hut. “Could someone please go and get him?” Rome was attempting to be polite for me.

  The three girls appeared to be frozen to the spot, but luckily one of the guards was less mesmerised and he hurried off. We’d drawn quite a crowd of onlookers at this point, so there was probably no need for the leader, we might as well just tell the dwellers ourselves.

  “I need everyone to please listen,” I started; lifting my voice. Rome reached down then and hauled me up higher so that everyone could see me. “We are here to warn you all about an impending attack…”

  I continued on with the story, detailing what had happened and where they needed to head.

  “Leader Graham is organising the seventh ring,” I finished. “They’ll be heading out soon. If you hurry, you can join them on the journey to Blesswood.”

  Leader Chet turned out to be a small man, standing no more than five feet tall. He made up for this by having hair that was a large, bushy mass on his head—adding another half a foot to his height. He stood in his underwear, pot-belly hanging out over the shorts. “Are you seriously trying to say that every dweller who has been killed or died in Minatsol in the past hundreds of life-cycles has risen from the dead and is planning to kill us all?”

  Gods, he made it sound so ridiculous when he said it like that.

  “Yes, that’s what I’m telling you. If you choose not to believe me, you will die.”

  I was done with this bullshit. I mean, I could have guessed they’d be hard to convince, but these dwellers seemed to be actively looking for death.

  I gestured for the Abcurses then, leading them toward the ninth and final ring of Minatsol. The godsters cried and wailed as we moved away, but they didn’t follow us, which was a small blessing.

  The ninth ring turned out a similar reception, with disbelief the key factor. There was one thing that turned them quicker than the others though, and that was the fact that from the ninth ring we could see out into the dead lands.

  Only they weren’t completely dead anymore. The water was spreading across them. It was clear from the highest viewpoint of the village, especially when using one of their magnifying glass balls. When we directed the balls toward the desert lands and pressed our eyes to it, the dead could be seen clawing their way free from the muddy water.

  “This can’t be happening,” Leader Julie said, her eyes wide as she breathed rapidly. “There are hundreds of them.”

  “Thousands,” I told her. “The Creator has buried them everywhere. And he controls them all.”

  I didn’t have to say one more thing; she had her village organised and on the road within fifteen clicks. She was the only female leader I knew of in the rings of Minatsol, and no doubt it was only because no man wanted to take on the worst, driest, most uninhabitable area. But from what I could see, this little village was doing pretty well—their huts were larger and better maintained than the seventh and eighth, and they also had more than a few gardens, which were hidden under rocks, reflective glass around to give them sunlight. And more importantly, the villagers looked happy.

  Until, of course, we told them an undead army was about to kill them all.

  “Everyone is gone from this village,” Siret told us, after he did a quick scout around. It was eerie standing in an empty town like this. “I don’t think there is any point in camping here tonight. We should head back to the seventh ring and see what’s happening there.”

  I nodded, agreeing with him. Leader Julie had given us some provisions before she left: a few jugs of water, some bread, and a buttery spread that was made from crushed nuts they’d managed to grow in their village gardens.

  Before we left, we ate and drank the food, sprawling out under one of the side awnings on the main schoolhouse. It was hot here still, but the ground didn’t look as parched as it had the last time I was here.

  “Do you think the water is spreading under the ground?” I asked, poking my finger into the dirt.

  Aros leaned over to examine the small hole I’d made. It was damp just underneath.

  “Yes, it’s starting to move back into the underground artesian systems.”

  This should be something worth rejoicing over, only Staviti had insured that there was no chance of that happening.

  His war was coming for us, and maybe the lands were the only things that would survive the coming sun-cycles.

  Sixteen

  We made it back to the seventh ring just as the sun started to set. It had been a long sun-cycle, and I was feeling the exhaustion creep in again. There were no visible signs of anyone in this ring, just as there hadn’t been in the eighth. But we decided we would remain here until sunrise.

  “So, we’re sure that no dead dweller will reach us by tomorrow morning?” I asked, yawning loudly.

  “We have time,” Aros told me, reaching out to capture my hand. He wrapped his warm palm around it, and my knees buckled a little. His power slicked through me like warm oil absorbing into my skin. I was panting by the time he hauled me closer. “We have the entire village to ourselves,” he said, his breath fanning across my cheeks.

  “Emmy and Cyrus,” I mumbled, not really sure what I was even asking anymore.

  Aros’s lips pressed into my neck and I groaned.

  “They’re in Soldel. We’re meeting them there, remember?”

  I didn’t remember anything then. Not my name
. Or where we were. Or the fact that I was being seduced by gods in the very village I grew up in.

  Aros was pressed to my front now, and another warm body stepped in behind me. I swallowed roughly, almost dizzy.

  “Do you have a bathing area here?”

  That voice belonged to Yael; he was the one pressing into me from behind. “Mmm … uh … yes,” I breathed. “It’s in that building.”

  I managed to turn so I could point them in the direction of the dark grey bathing house. It was a squat building made of stone, which did give it great insulation against the elements. We were allowed a bath every few sun-cycles, to conserve water, and you had to haul your own buckets in to wash with.

  Aros’s hand cupped my face, his thumb rubbing across my cheek as his lips pressed to mine. I rose up, higher, before parting my lips to let his tongue slide inside. When he released me, I turned and allowed Yael to kiss me the same way.

  At this stage, we’d need the bath before and after. “I’m going to keep watch,” I heard Coen say, amusement in his voice.

  “We’ll figure out the bath situation,” Rome said, and there was a grunt that sounded a lot like he’d dragged Siret along with him.

  That left me with Aros and Yael. Reaching out, I fisted my hands into both of their shirts and dragged them closer to me. I didn’t want them on opposite sides because I needed to kiss them both.

  When I kissed Yael, Aros went back to pressing his lips—and power—along my lines of my jaw and throat. When my legs started to tremble because the strength of his seduction was rocking me to my very core, they both wrapped an arm around me and held me up. I gasped out a word before things could get too heated.

  “Wait!”

  They pulled back and my feet met the floor again.

  “You’re worried about the army?” Yael asked, his dark eyes taking in the torn expression that I was sure was painted all over my face.

  “Uh …” I laughed. “Yes. I’m worried about the thousands of weird, undead servers that are marching on this town right now. Is this really the best time and place to … you know?”