Strength (Curse of the Gods #4)(74)

“If this isn’t what over looks like, then I no longer trust the meaning of the word,” I retorted, still out of breath. I motioned to the wasteland around us, populated only by banished ghosts.

Rau’s eyes were fixed steadfastly to mine.

“Why were you not torn apart?” he rasped out, his eyelids flittering briefly, his body crumpling back. He was losing strength. “The crossing to the realm. It should have torn your soul into two—the chains are only enough to carry the weight of ... of ...” He started coughing, but the movement only ended on a moan of pain.

He was silent, then, hunched over himself, blood pooling along the ground around him.

“The weight of what?” I prodded, taking a few steps away from the spreading pool of blood. I didn’t want to get my boot dirty, seeing as it was the only one I had.

“The weight of one soul,” a voice replied.

The voice from earlier.

I turned, finding the maybe-blond man behind me again. The children had gathered around him, all of them staring at Rau. I wanted to cover up the god of Chaos, to shield the image from their view ... but what was the point in protecting their innocence? They were already dead. You couldn’t be more mature than a dead person.

“But two of us came here,” I muttered, the man’s meaning finally catching up to me.

“Two parts of two souls travelled here,” he countered, “equalling the weight of a single soul.”

“You mean ...” I turned back to the slumped over, washed-out image of Rau. “He’s not dead?”

“A sliver of his soul has died, absolutely, but the rest remains.”

I groaned, stalking away from the body, back toward where the black chains lay, still in the dirt several feet away. “Just my luck. I finally beat that asshole in a battle, and it turns out I was only battling a piece of him. Not even the real him. Wait ... does that mean I’m not even the real me? What was he saying, about my soul not being torn?”

The man had his head cocked as he watched me, walking slowly toward where I crouched beside the chains.

“Your soul had already been separated,” he informed me. “The sons of Abil and Adeline guard the splintered pieces, forming a bond between the six of you that cannot be broken, even in death.”

I froze, grabbing the chains and standing again, my gaze sharpening, trying to make out any further details in the shadowy visage before me.

“How do you know about that?” I asked, swallowing. “Who are you?”

“We can see through the eyes of what we left behind,” he replied cryptically, motioning to one of the children. The girl hurried over to him, casting a wary look at me.

“Where is your body?” he asked her. “What can you see?”

The girl closed her eyes, and her body immediately seemed to shrink, to recoil away from us.

“It’s dark.” Her voice was shaking. “And cold. There are others here, but I can’t see their faces. There are chains—they’re heavy, and cold. Water is dripping on my leg. There are bugs crawling on me.” She started crying, and the man whispered something to her. She opened her eyes again and threw her arms around his neck, sobbing.

I realised, then, that she was talking about the body she had been imprisoned in, and I wanted to throw up again. I waited until the girl calmed down, and the man sent her back to the others, rising to his feet again.

“We can still see,” he told me. “And I have seen you before, Willa Knight.”

I stared at him for a long time, sure that I had never seen his face before, though there was an inkling of something familiar about him. I thought that it was in the shape of his eyes, or the wideness of his smile.

“Wait ...” My voice was shaking, shock tumbling through me. “Sienna?”

He blinked, unsure how to answer for a moment, and then he was laughing. The sound wasn’t as full as it should have been, as though laughter wasn’t allowed in this place of dust and shadow.

“No,” he replied, when his laughter had died off into a chuckle. “I am not Sienna.”

“Then how have you seen me before? Did you die in Minatsol?”

“I didn’t,” he replied, a smile twisting his lips. “I died in Topia, at the hand of my brother. He locked my body away, but the panteras drove him from the spot. They now guard it, and he cannot return. I lay behind the mortal glass, my body preserved from age and decay, so that I might see the secrets of the world, both past and present. I watch as the world changes, unable to do anything about it, unable to change myself. I watched you while you watched me. Do you remember?”

I stumbled forward, one of my hands reaching out toward him involuntarily. “Jakan?” The name was only a dry whisper, barely escaping my lips.

He nodded, and then he captured my extended hand. It felt natural for my hand to fit into his, and I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because we both lacked substance in this realm, but longed—with whatever substance we did have—for a connection to the other realm. Or maybe it was because he knew everything there was to know about me, through the glass, and I had seen his birth with my own eyes. We were connected, in a very strange way.

“I should be scared of you,” I found myself saying, as I pulled back from him, my hand falling to my side again. “You are Staviti’s brother. A god, just like him.”