Strength (Curse of the Gods #4)(75)

“A god of creation, just like him,” Jakan confirmed, “though my powers have been stripped away.”

“Why did he kill you?”

“He killed me because he wanted to be the only one. He will kill you for the same reason.”

“I’m as good as dead.” I tossed my hands out, indicating where I stood. I had been too busy fighting off Rau before, for the reality of that statement to properly sink into me, but it did now.

There was a part of me that would never die. A part of my soul that had splintered away from me and latched onto each of the five Abcurses, the beings who surrounded me after Rau’s curse tore me apart. But the rest of me? It was lost. Limp and lifeless, as Sienna had been.

“That’s not entirely true,” Jakan argued. “You’re not dead. Not yet. Since a part of you remains, you can use the chains as a tether. A pathway can always go in both directions: forward, or backward. They brought you here, so they can take you back.”

“Come back with me,” I blurted, the plea barely even making sense.

There were children that needed saving, not to mention Sienna, and countless others. I wasn’t sure how I was going to bring back all of the children, though, especially if Staviti would only banish them all over again.

Jakan smiled. “I cannot. My soul here is whole, it would tear me apart to go back with you. Remember, you can only carry the weight of half a soul ... though I think you will want to save that space for someone else. Someone who has been waiting to speak to you for a long, long time.”

He held out his hand, and I took it again, allowing him to lead me down a dusty, dirt-cracked path. We didn’t seem to be heading in any particular direction. The landscape seemed to go on forever, with no place to stop or rest. It was dust as far as the eye could see. I realised after almost half a rotation of walking that there wasn’t even a sun, or a sky. The dust had merged with the horizon, providing no source for the dull light that illuminated everything, and no sense for where we were in the sun-cycle.

“She is usually here,” Jakan told me, his voice lowered. His tone was softer now, his eyes downcast.

The woman was standing at the crest of a hill, staring listlessly off into the distance. She was familliar to me, even through the washed-out greyness that was painted over her profile.

“Mum?” I choked out.

She turned, her hand raising up. “Herd,” she said.

I froze in my scramble up the hill, confused. “Herd?” I asked, turning to Jakan, repeating the word. “Herd? What does that mean?”

He shrugged lightly. “She says strange things, sometimes. Her body is still functioning. I don’t know where it is right now, because you took it from Topia.”

“Herd,” my mother repeated, her hands now seeming to grasp something invisible in front of her. She made a stabbing motion. “Herd. Herd.”

“Oh gods,” I moaned. “She’s copying what Donald is doing in Minatsol. Emmy mentioned that Donald was malfunctioning, trying to herd her with an invisible pitchfork. Is this why my mother hasn’t ever seemed quite ... right in the head?” I asked the question of Jakan, who had moved to stand beside my mother, leading her shadow gently down from the hill to where I stood.

“You don’t understand the feeling,” he told me. “You are never apart from the pieces of your soul that have been ripped from you. Your mother has been incomplete for a long time.”

“Will this fix her?” I asked, reaching out and taking her wrist. She was still trying to stab things with her other hand.

Jakan smiled again, but the gesture was sad, somehow … different to a real smile. Tainted by something that I didn’t yet understand.

“Does she really need fixing?” he asked. “Can’t she be perfect in her incompleteness?”

I stared at him, uncomprehending. “Are you trying to say you’re going to miss her, and that you don’t want me to take her away?”

“What I have to say no longer matters, Willa. You must return immediately. The other pieces of your soul are in danger.”

I snapped one of the cuffs onto my mother’s wrist before the full weight of his words had even sunk into me. It must have been the sudden shift in his tone, or the way that my mother stopped trying to stab at things, her whole body going slack, her head hanging from her shoulders as though partly unhinged.

If the other pieces of my soul were in danger, that meant the Abcurses were in danger. I snapped the other cuff to my other wrist, and watched as Jakan covered both cuffs with his hands, his eyes settling on the shadow of my mother, before shifting to me.

“This will not be easy,” he told me. “Staviti is your enemy. He does not want any beings in Topia other than the ten perfect beings that he created. He will do everything in his power to kill any sol who has a chance of ascending to godhood, and any god who has already ascended. If he could put a stop to ascension in itself, he would.”

I nodded, my brain absorbing the information and storing it away somewhere to be dealt with later. I had one thing on my mind, and one thing alone.

I needed to protect my Abcurses.

“Thank you,” I murmured, as our eyes met again.

“Close your eyes,” he replied. “Reach into the chains as though they are a rope, and when you think you can see it, grasp that rope and pull. It will resist you. Keep pulling. Eventually, you will find your way home again.”