Strength (Curse of the Gods #4)(53)

I almost suggested someone get him a drink to go with that pride, but … who was I kidding? We all felt it. Leon handed the child over to his wife, and she cradled the young boy against her chest, holding him like he was the most precious thing in the world. Her eyes drank the baby in, her fingers tracing across his cheeks. “Welcome to the world, Jakan, you are truly loved.”

“Are you ready, Madeline?” The king used her name for the first time, distracting her from her child. “I think you’re going to have to push again.”

The queen was tired, anyone could see that. Despite the healing waters, she had lost a lot of blood. She’d almost died, but strength and determination to bring her children into the world was enough to have her leaning up, one hand holding her son close, while she pushed again.

It was quicker the second time, and soon another boy was placed on her chest, right next to his brother.

Her arms shook as she held her children, tears streaming across her cheeks and into the waters of Topia. When her husband moved to her side, they both stared at the boys. Madeline brushed her hand across the second child’s head and said, “Welcome to the world, Staviti, you are truly loved.”

Then the mortal glass went blank.





Twelve





I was staring at the glassy rock-face, my eyes wide and unblinking.

“Staviti?” I was asking for a confirmation of some kind as I reached out to touch the smooth surface. “That was Staviti. Why did it show me Staviti?” I spun, directing my question to Leden. She must have entered the cave at some point.

The mortal glass holds the secrets of the land. Leden’s calming voice washed through me, soothing some of the confusion that was clouding up my mind. It will show you the lives of those connected to the land: their truths, their histories, their realities.

“Show me my sister,” I requested, turning back to the glass, my heart beginning to thump against my ribs. “Emmy. Emmanuelle.”

The glass remained blank, the surface glittering darkly. It seemed infinite, even though I could reach out and touch it. It was dizzying, staring into that endless blackness.

The dweller you call your sister is not one of the land. She is born of people, not of magic. This had been spoken in the voice of another pantera, one with a deep, dusky tone. I turned and found myself surrounded by unblinking, luminous eyes, filling the cave behind us. The panteras shifted soundlessly, waiting. None of them stepped forward as the speaker.

“Show me ... my mother.” I revised my request. Surely my mother would be part of the land. She had been made a Jeffrey by Staviti’s magic, after all.

I waited, my heart pounding harder and faster with every passing moment, and sure enough, the colours inside the glass began to emerge.

My mother was in Cyrus’s cave, right where we had left her. She was sitting on the bed that I had slept on, her eyes focussed blankly on the wall ahead. I knew that it couldn’t mean anything, but I still found myself clinging to the hope that she had chosen my bed to sit on for a reason. She missed me, maybe. She wondered where I was. I scoffed, shaking my head. My mother would never have missed me or wondered where I was. Even before she became a Jeffrey.

“Show me Staviti again,” I asked next, my mind wandering back to the image of a tiny baby boy in Madeline’s arms.

I wanted to know why the glass had shown me that particular piece of history. Why Staviti’s birth? Was it because it marked the beginning of the gods? Topia had been a land free of gods, once. Staviti’s birth must have marked a significant turning point for the land itself. The water had saved his mother’s life. Had it changed him as well?

The scene before me slowly filtered into view, as though filled by slow tendrils of coloured smoke, gradually gaining substance.

There was a little boy before us. He was standing in a field, staring up at a mountain. I recognised the landscape after only a click, though the coastline had changed, and so had the surrounding vegetation. It was Champions Peak—the craggy rocks formed the same shape: a rough stone wall to guard against the violent waves of the sea.

Everything else was different, though. I was seeing into the past again.

“Stav!” a boy’s voice called out, and the child we had been looking at turned around. Another boy ran into view, holding a stick almost as tall as he was.

“What do you want, Jakan?” Staviti seemed agitated, his small brow furrowed, his eyes squinting at the other.

“You know you can’t go there,” Jakan replied, throwing down the stick, his voice losing some of the playfulness it had held only a moment ago. “Father said you can’t go back to Topia. If you go there again it won’t want to let you return. It might keep you.”

The boy version of Staviti rolled his eyes, picking up the stick that Jakan had dropped. “We belong there, both of us. We aren’t like mother, or father, or the other children. We’re special, can’t you feel it? Can’t you tell?”

“Don’t go back there ...” Jakan’s voice began to fade, and the scene trembled before me, beginning to dissolve into something else.

“Stav! Stop!” the other boy was crying out, frantically scrambling over the unforgiving stone that lay at the base of the mountain.

Staviti didn’t look back, and the scene fell away completely, leaving the mortal glass black, once again.