Strength (Curse of the Gods #4)(70)

I was a little further back, on account of my shorter legs and the way my belly was clenching with annoying need. I hadn’t always been so needy. It seemed that I grew worse with every encounter. I’d heard about sex addictions back in the seventh ring. Maybe I was developing a sex addiction ... although that didn’t seem quite right, because I only wanted to have sex with my Abcurses. That had to count for something. I only wanted to have sex all the time with each of my five boyfriends. Sometimes at the same time. No, definitely at the same time. Both is better—that was my new motto.

“Wil-la.” Aros drew out the word, his voice a mix of frustration and strain. “There’s a crisis going on, you need to stop making me want to drag you back to that room.”

“Right. Crisis.” I nodded, my breath puffing out as we ran up the steps toward the top of the mountain.

I wasn’t sure why we were running to the top of the mountain. I was following Aros and Aros was following Coen. I supposed it seemed like a smart place to go, considering the main hall was the largest area for people to gather in.

Siret, Yael, and Rome were already waiting at the top—though they were half-hidden behind a few towering pine trees, visible only from the direction we approached them in. We reached the top of the stairs just in time to witness the second strangest thing I had seen that sun-cycle.

A group of sols were pushing through the entrance ahead of us, herded by several Topian servers.

“What the hell is going on?” I whispered, as Coen suddenly froze, snagging me by the waist and pulling me over to the other Abcurses.

Aros was already hidden, his back to the trunk of a tree beside us, muttering lowly to Siret. We all peered out at the servers: they were holding pitchforks, which they occasionally prodded at the sols they were herding into the main hall.

“I have no idea,” Aros answered, “but considering Staviti’s energy was all over this place before you passed out, I’m going to say it’s nothing good ...”

We all paused, Aros’s words dying off as a sound rang through the hall, floating out toward us with an eerie echo. It had been a man’s laugh: high and maniacal.

I knew that laugh.

I would have known it anywhere.

“Rau,” I whispered, before breaking away from Coen. He reached out and re-caught me before I had even taken a step.

“No,” he said, “you’re not going to storm in there and confront Rau.”

“This is because of me,” I argued, as a form became visible before me, running up the stone steps of the mountain toward us. “Wait ... that’s Emmy, let me go!”

“Willa!” She was screaming, having spotted me at the same time as I spotted her.

I tried to signal to her that she needed to keep quiet, but she wasn’t paying any attention.

“Stop!” She was still screaming, even though we were clearly stopped already.

“Shhh, Emmy,” I was motioning to her frantically now as she reached me and I pulled her into the cover of trees.

She was bent over, trying to draw in painfully deep gulps of air. Where had she run from? Topia?

“You. Can’t.” She paused for air again. “Go. In. There.”

“Take a click, Em, you’re about to die,” I advised, before further shouting had my eyes flicking over to the building again. The servers standing at the entrance had disappeared, and the front had been left bare, the doors hanging open. I side-stepped the guys, moving toward the opening without thinking. One of the Abcurses cursed from behind me as I reached the door, positioning myself behind it and peering through the hall. It was surprisingly empty, other than the lines of sols leading right through the hall and to a set of doors at the other end. The servers were still policing the lines with their pitchforks, prodding the sols toward the other doors.

Through the hall, and beyond the doors, I could barely make out Rau standing on a wide expanse of clifftop, his back to the ocean.

“All sols will line up there,” he shouted, his voice carrying through the doors and echoing around the hall.

The sols that were already facing him were mostly shaking and grey-faced. “You will all go up against me, one by one, until my Chaos sol shows herself. She is the only one who can save you.”

“Willa Knight,” he shouted out, just as the realisation sank into me. “You are the only one who can save them.”

Oh, shit. Why was I always the one called into battles? One look at me should have told everyone concerned that I wasn’t much of a fighter. Not that it mattered. I couldn’t just stand back and let all of these sols die for me. And maybe it wouldn’t be so bad? I had brand new powers, after all. Rau was about to find out what it felt like to have a real live dic—

“Willa!” Emmy’s cry cut off that train of thought, and I spun to her. Her breathing was now calm enough for clear speech. “Don’t even think about it. You cannot take on an Original God. Not to mention … you need to go to Donald.”

I hadn’t expected her to say that at all. I had expected the warning about Rau and how he was probably going to rip my undead head off, but … my mother was supposed to be comatose.

“She woke up, and immediately started malfunctioning,” Emmy continued. “She’s currently trying to stab people with her imaginary weapons. When I left, she was using a pitchfork, but who knows what’s next.”