Strength (Curse of the Gods #4)(19)

“You can’t decide that.” I frowned. “And that will be announcing to Rau that I’m still alive.”

“The only person it’s going to negatively affect is Cyrus, and Cyrus can look after himself,” Aros answered, sounding uncharacteristically hard-hearted. “Rau will think it was all an illusion, that Cyrus betrayed him. Because as far as he knows, you never ascended to Topia.”

“Did I actually ascend to Topia though?” I asked. “And how are you going to pass me off as the strongest Chaos sol?”

Abil laughed. “Every other Chaos sol is dead. Staviti saw to that. You’re the only candidate in the running.”

“Shouldn’t I be running away then?” I spun on Abil. “Before Staviti kills me too?”

“There is no way in the worlds that you have escaped his notice.” Abil sounded condescending, but also a little annoyed that he was having to explain this to me. “He knows more than he lets on. He sees more. Hears more. If he wanted you dead, you would be dead.”

“I am dead.” I threw up my hands. “I mean … I am dead, right?”

I glanced between them all as they stared right back at me, before Abil made a movement for something at his belt.

“Don’t even think about it,” Adeline snapped, her hand moving rapidly to cover his.

“Think about what?” I asked, when it seemed like nobody else was going to.

“He was going to stab you,” Rome replied. “To make sure you’re dead.”

None of my guys looked particularly angry, but I noticed that they had all moved a few steps closer to me.

“And you are dead,” Coen added. “We saw you die. We felt it, just as we felt you come back to life.”

I wasn’t sure if I should be happy or saddened by those words. It was starting to feel like death was a relative term. Everything felt pretty normal about me now. What happened to the other dwellers when they died? The ones who didn’t become servers. I already knew what happened to the servers. The banishment cave. That place still gave me a deep-in-my-gut bad feeling, especially the part where I’d promised to free them and never had. It was an unfinished job that would probably haunt me forever.

My head hurt.

“It’s going to be fine, Will,” Rome told me. “We’ll do as Staviti asks, because we need more time to figure out exactly what he’s planning. I really don’t believe he’ll kill off all the Betas. Sometimes he uses big threats to … encourage us.”

I glanced between all of the grim faces. “You don’t think that he’s actually looking for the strongest sols? That maybe this is all just an excuse so he can send the Betas to Minatsol for a life-cycle, because this is where they will grow extremely weak—ready for execution?”

Their expressions didn’t change, but I could tell that they were thinking. Probably weighing up their answers so that they didn’t scare the undead life out of me.

Adeline was the one to finally answer. “Staviti is about keeping his own power base secure. He is the only one who isn’t able to have a Beta—he is accustomed to being the strongest, to having the power of creation at his fingertips, and his fingertips alone.”

And that meant what exactly?

Adeline had dodged my actual question, and the cryptic response was only serving to freak me out more. What sort of things would Staviti do to ensure he kept that power? The strongest god in the worlds had a new agenda, and it involved my guys.

We had to figure it out and fast.

It was decided—again, not by me—that I would just show up with the Abcurses at Champions Peak. Willa Knight, one Chaos Beta at your service. Cyrus would probably lose his shit when he saw me not hiding in his cave like I had been ordered to do, but it’d be too late for him to do anything about it by then. Personally, I was a big fan of Siret’s theory that Rau would be less inclined to attack us at the peak, since the situation was being closely monitored by Staviti. Okay, I was the only one actually worried about an attack. The Abcurses were more of the ‘bring it on’ and ‘Rau is a whiny bitch’ opinion. Their lack of concern would really worry me … if I had time to add another worry to my already full load.





When we arrived at the pocket that Staviti had opened, it was like a shimmering, translucent mirror. He had set it up at a central gathering platform that had apparently been used for smaller, less formal meetings. Each Beta was given a time to go across, so that we didn’t all crash into the place at once.

At our assigned time, the Abcurses checked to make sure that it wasn’t being monitored—while I hid beneath a cloak that could have wrapped five times around me—and then the six of us stepped through, one-by-one, reappearing on the other side within only a few moments of each other. My kind of travel.

“So, this is the new place …” I trailed off, my eyes running over it one more time. Champions Peak was aptly named for its location. It was a huge residence, spreading out across the top of the cliff it rested upon. The main building was made from a white, shiny stone, square in shape with two towering turrets facing the sea. The building itself was small, though still large enough to hold all of the people called to the Peak.

I turned toward the view, shrugging off my cloak at the same time. Beneath, I was wearing a tight-fitting, blue dress: the top showing sections of plain blue netting, revealing hints of the skin beneath. Small brass tokens had been sewn into the neckline, making this the most elaborately expensive dress that I had ever worn. The skirt had been made up of sections of thin, silk-like material, allowing slits all the way up the legs so that I could easily run or fight in the outfit. As it turned out, Rome had been really into the whole fashion-design thing. He had planned the dress with a single-minded determination, stating that it was ‘his turn’ to put his colour on me.