Pain (Curse of the Gods Book 5)

by Jaymin Eve

  They both grinned then, and I tried not to react to the seductive pull of Aros’s energy and the way Yael’s crooked grin had heat bubbling through me.

  “Pain!” he called out. “Rocks needs some more persuading!”

  “What are you doing?” I hissed, even as excitement rushed through me. Three of them? I wasn’t even sure that I could physically do it, but now wasn’t the best time to shirk away from a challenge.

  “What’s the problem?” Coen asked, walking back into view. Apparently he hadn’t gone far.

  “Willa is feeling guilty about being intimate while an army marches toward us,” Yael told him.

  “Guilty?” Coen questioned, arching a brow at me.

  I started to shake my head, but paused. Yael was right. I was feeling guilt over the idea of doing anything pleasurable while hundreds of dwellers were scurrying toward Blesswood, scared for their lives. They would reach the sixth ring and none of them would have a guide—only their own fear and company, and the message that we had sent with them.

  “I … I don’t think I can leave them,” I admitted. “This is Staviti’s doing, but he’s doing it because of us. Because we freed the water to into Minatsol. We can’t just send everyone on their way like that. They must be so lost and afraid—we’ve been living as gods for too long; we’ve forgotten what it’s like to have no power. You five have never felt what it’s like to be at the mercy of the gods, to live as a pawn in a world that doesn’t belong to you. These people have done nothing to deserve this. They’ve done nothing but worship the gods and the sols, and look at what happened. They would have been the first to die. The first to fall—without warning—beneath the horde of servers rising from the ground.”

  The longer I spoke, the more their expressions shifted from amusement at my sudden mood swing to admiration.

  “Cyrus and Emmy will station the Original Gods at the remaining rings,” Coen reminded me.

  “But the Original Gods don’t actually care about the dwellers.” I sighed, admitting the small fact that I had been deliberately ignoring in our entire plan. “They’re only helping because of us. Because of Staviti. We might have won their allegiance to me, but they have no allegiance to the dwellers. They have no allegiance to the sols, either. These people are being torn from their homes and sent into unfamiliar lands, only to join hundreds more who are uprooted and sent onwards. They need someone to guide them who actually cares about them.”

  “How do you still surprise me, Willa-toy?” Yael asked from behind me, and I spun away from Coen, running into his arms.

  He caught me up, lifting my feet from the ground as his lips pressed against mine.

  “I want to hide out here and be a god with you,” I muttered against his lips. “But I can’t, because I’m not just a god. I’m a dweller, too, and these are my people. These are Emmy’s people. My … father’s people.”

  “And we’re your family,” Aros added, extracting me from Yael and pulling me into his arms, stealing my lips in a warm, soft kiss. “So that makes them our people, too.”

  “We have separated ourselves a lot,” Coen admitted. “From the sols in Blesswood, and at the Peak. From the gods in Topia. But the dwellers aren’t a danger to us, so maybe it’s a bad habit in this situation.”

  “We don’t need to separate ourselves from them,” I agreed, turning slightly in Aros’s arms. “We can join them on their level. Help them evacuate instead of just ordering them to. We can show them that they aren’t just dirt beneath the shoes of the gods. They’re just as important as we are.”

  “Call Strength and Trickery,” Coen suggested. “I think it’s time we made our way to the sixth ring.”

  I grinned, closing my eyes as I reached for Yael’s hand, remaining within the comforting circle of Aros’s arms.

  Rome. Siret. Come back to me.

  They were there within a matter of clicks, their faces washed in alertness.

  “What’s happening?” Siret demanded, just as Coen had.

  “Rocks has decided that she can’t leave the dwellers and the gods alone with each other,” Yael replied, his lips twisting up into a grin. “She wants to head to the sixth ring and help evacuate them. She’s convinced the gods are being mean to them.”

  “They are.” Rome shrugged. “They’re gods. They don’t have an identity unless they’re being mean to dwellers and sols.”

  Siret chuckled. “Well then I guess that’s decided. No bathing. No sleep. It’s time to supervise the big people and the little people so that we still have people left when all of this is over.”

  My heart swelled, and I looked upon the five amazing beings that I was in love with, marvelling at how they had switched gears so suddenly. We had fallen into a routine of fighting the forces of the world and then hiding away together, disappearing into our own little bubble where we loved each other, took from each other, and replenished our energy together. We needed it, to soothe the soul-bond and to soothe ourselves. It was important to us, but helping the dwellers was important to me—and they were willing to break our pattern to do what I needed.

  “I love you all so much,” I blurted, tearing up as I broke away from Aros and spun to stare at them all.

  “We love you too,” Coen answered for all of them, but there was a spark of mischief in his eyes as he began to walk away, taking the road that would lead us out of town and back toward Blesswood. “But I heard what was in your mind when Yael and Aros called me over. So … you owe us.”

  I flushed, ducking my head down and hurrying to follow him. Behind me, two of the guys chuckled, and I was pretty sure it was Yael and Aros. I was surprised that Yael hadn’t rebelled against the idea, considering his unwillingness to share. Maybe I had underestimated their need to have me alone, to re-establish our bond in this brief quiet time that we had before the servers descended. And still … they had given it up for me.

  I fell back a little, waiting until Yael reached my side, and then I reached out and captured his hand with mine, twisting our fingers together. He smiled at me, and we took off at a run, disregarding how it would drain our energy further, because we had more important things to think about.

  We ran hard and fast all the way back to the sixth ring, and as we were nearing their main settlement, it became clear that we had been right to come. The gods hadn’t arrived yet—Cyrus and Emmy must have been having trouble convincing them to come to Minatsol, where they would be weakened. The dwellers were in chaos, scrambling amongst the huts and spilling onto the roads, yelling at each other. Several of them were simply stopped in their tracks, crying. There wasn’t any order, or any single point of calm for them to gather. I couldn’t see any sign of the leaders from the previous three rings.

  At first as we approached, the people didn’t take much notice of us, but after a few clicks they began to quieten and track our progress. Maybe it was the mania that seemed to be spreading through them, or maybe news of our arrival in each ring had spread, because there were no repeats of what had occurred in the other rings. There were no screaming girls running to the Abcurses, and nobody stepped forward to challenge our authority. They looked upon us with awe and fear. As with the other rings, many of these people had never thought to set eyes on a god, and now six of us were striding right between their houses.

  At one point, a woman ran out to our group, and we halted, only a few paces from the centre of the town. She held out a basket, and I could tell that she had packed it in preparation of her evacuation inward. She lifted back the cloth on top, showing breads, cheeses, fruits, and cakes. When I didn’t immediately take it, she thrust it forward a little more adamantly, and Siret, who was the closest to her, stepped forward with a smile. Instead of taking the basket, he took several of the cakes and broke them apart, dividing up the food between all six of us before thanking her. She smiled, tears running down her face, and I realised that she still hadn’t said a word.

  I was suddenly uncomfortable with the realisation that this woman, who was a
dweller just the same as I had been, was crying over the simple fact that we had eaten her food. A child rushed forward, stopping beside the woman and holding up a jug of water; a cup arrived soon after, carried by another child. The woman put her arms around them; they were hers. I reached out and took the cup, filling it and drinking before passing it to the guys. They all did the same.

  “Thank you,” I said, including each of them in the sentiment before I settled my gaze on the woman again. “Where are the leaders?”

  “They’re holding counsel in Leader Yennek’s hut,” she replied. “I will show you the way.”

  She replaced the cloth over her basket and muttered to her children to go back to the house with it before she turned and began to hurry down the road.

  The chaos had almost completely died down by that time, and everyone had gathered around the centre of the town. They kept their distance, but watched us keenly, waiting for news of what was coming, or orders on what they should do.

  “Everyone needs to remain calm,” I announced, raising my voice. An eerie hush immediately fell over them. “What you’ve heard is true: the Creator has raised an army of the dead, and they are marching toward the ninth ring. They will reach it by morning, and then they will continue to move inwards. This army has one purpose alone. They have been created to wipe this world clean.”

  “What have we done?” one of the men cried out, stepping forward from the others. “We’ve served the sols and kept to our jobs and our towns. What have we done to anger the gods so much?”

  “A great river once ran through this land,” I told him, deciding on a story that was short enough that it didn’t contain all the details, but still long enough hold many truths. “It connected to several other waterways, but if you traced each of those waterways back to their source, you would find that they all led into Topia. The water is what gives Topia its magic, and Topia itself powers the magic of the gods. But when new gods ascend, the Creator has to share his magic, his energy, with those who were previously sols. Just as he took the water from Topia to make himself more powerful, he is now wiping out the people of Minatsol to keep it all to himself.”

  “But we aren’t sols,” the man replied in despair. “We can’t ascend anyway.”

  “I was a dweller,” I told him. “Of the seventh ring. My father was a god, and so I became one when I died. When my sister, another dweller, died, I turned her into a god. It has never been just the sols that have threatened Staviti: there are powers at work that none of us understand—possibly not even him. He won’t wait around to figure it all out, though. It’s faster and more effective to just kill everyone. To put an end to ascension as a whole. An end to sharing his power.”

  “How do we fight them?” a new voice asked, and I turned to find Leader Graham walking through the gathered people, Leader Chet, Leader Julie, and another man who I assumed was Leader Yennek followed him.

  “We aren’t going to wait here and fight them,” I said, and even though I was repeating myself to these leaders, I assumed that they had forgotten most of the plan in their initial panic and doubt. “We’re going to evacuate everyone to the sol cities. They have warriors, guards, and weaponry. The sols are all trained in fighting and defending; they’ll be of more use in the battle. What’s important now is to get all of you to Soldel, where you will be safest. Gradually, we’ll evacuate everyone—including the sols—to Blesswood. It’s a large island surrounded by water, and the only way to get there is by train or barge on one side. On the other side there is another group of the undead coming from one of the biggest rivers. They should all arrive more or less at the same time, since that river was further away from Blesswood than the other was from the Ninth Ring.”

  “The sols will never allow us in,” Leader Graham said, shaking his head.

  Even though I was no longer the dweller fuck-up who had once lived in his village, he was still staring at me as though I was. I could see the disapproval in his eyes: he thought it was a terrible plan.

  “The sols have no choice.” Siret’s voice boomed out, and I was surprised for a moment that he had been the one to answer. “They will accept you all and protect you, or we won’t help to protect them. If they want to survive, they will have to survive alongside the dwellers.”

  An actual cheer rose among the people, and I reached out for Siret’s hand, turning my attention back to Leader Graham.

  “Everyone will rest here for the night. We’re waiting on others to join us. When they arrive, we will move everyone inward.” Turning to the one leader I hadn’t yet met, I raised my voice a little so that a few of the surrounding dwellers would hear. “Leader Yennek—will your people open their homes to the escapees from the outer three rings?”

  He bowed his head graciously. Whether it was genuine or because he didn’t want to be embarrassed in front of the people who had heard my question, I wasn’t sure.

  “We will do our part,” he promised, before lifting his voice. “Everyone back to your homes! We will assign people to your household and have them sent over shortly! If you have any questions, please wait until your guests are brought to you. Prepare to leave early on the next sun-cycle.”

  He walked away, drawing several people with him and muttering instructions to them.

  “Let’s go find somewhere quiet,” I muttered to the Abcurses. “If we keep standing here, they won’t go back to their houses.”

  Yael pointed to a nearby hill, where only a few scattered houses were sitting amongst scraggly brush. “If we go up there, we should be able to see when the gods arrive.”

  Agreeing, we followed him through the people and up the side of the hill, sitting along a few larger rocks to wait. I was starving, because a single cake wasn’t enough, but Donald wasn’t there to magically produce food anymore. I wondered briefly how she was getting along with Jakan, and whether they’d be the first gods we saw this sun-cycle.

  We sat there and watched as the dwellers all filtered back to their houses like ants disappearing into dirt. It struck me, then, why people had always called us dirt-dwellers. There was no colour where we lived. No water, no greenery. It was all dust and dirt.

  Gradually, the dirt roads cleared again, and the houses grew quiet. The escapees from the previous rings were divided up by the leaders and escorted to their designated houses for the night. The lights stayed on and the smell of hundreds of different meals being cooked wafted up to us.

  The arrival happened as the lights in the houses began to die out, and we all jumped up, recognising the colours of the robed figures. Abil and Adeline had come, appearing in the centre of the town, by the town’s well, their appearance lit by the outside lanterns that had been left burning. Another appeared a moment later: Terrance.

  That hopefully meant that Haven, Ciune, Lorda, Jakan, and Gable were in the other rings moving toward Soldel, where we’d all meet with Emmy and Cyrus.

  We rushed down the hill to meet the others just as the leaders rushed toward them from the hut they had all been convening in. We ran into the area a few clicks after the others, and I caught the tail-end of Leader Graham’s words.

  “—all under control.”

  “Nothing is under control,” I announced, as the three gods turned their attention our way.

  “Willa,” Terrance greeted. “I see the storm has finally come.”

  I blinked, and then realised that technically, he was right. I had managed to “wash” something through the lands.

  “Are the others in the next ring?” I asked.

  “Ciune, Gable, Lorda, and Haven are all there,” Abil confirmed, watching me closely. “And now everyone will have to excuse us. We need to have a family meeting. Where may we go?”

  “My house is on top of that hill,” Yennek offered, pointing to the hut that was really more of a house, sitting on the highest part of the hill. “You may all stay there the night, and I will share with others.”

  “Thank you,” I quickly muttered, mostly because I knew that nobody
else was going to thank him.

  “I think I’ll take a stroll around,” Terrance offered, giving me a wink. “Enjoy your family time.”

  “Come,” Abil ordered, ignoring the other god as he turned and strode off toward the base of the hill.

  Adeline followed, and then Coen, Rome, Aros, Yael, and Siret. I stood where I was, unsure, until the guys all turned around, waiting. When they stopped moving, Abil also turned around.

  “You’re part of the family, are you not?” he barked. He didn’t wait for an answer, only turned again and continued on his way.

  “What’s his problem?” I whispered to Siret, catching up with them quickly.

  “I don’t think he’s angry at us,” Siret replied, his eyes concerned as he watched Abil lead the way. “I think he’s afraid.”

  Seventeen

  We stood around Leader Yennek’s house as Abil and Adeline paced restlessly, almost as a single unit, from window to another.

  “Staviti’s army isn’t our only problem,” Abil finally announced.

  “Of course the asshole had more than one contingency plan,” Siret groaned, falling into an armchair, his head propped back so that he could stare angrily at the ceiling.

  “What is it?” Coen asked, his hand slipping around my waist.

  I leaned into him, watching Abil apprehensively.

  “It wasn’t even his main contingency plan.” Adeline was the one who spoke, her words coming out on a sigh. “As you all know—well, except for you, Willa.” She gave me a brief, apologetic look before continuing. “I’ve been working with Staviti on a project. It has required me to go away for long periods of time, and I think I can finally tell you all the details of what the project is, and what it was that could have possibly motivated me to agree.”

  She took a deep breath, and Abil’s hands landed on her shoulders, the touch soothing. He already knew, judging by the look of resigned dread on his face.