Strength (Curse of the Gods #4)(76)

I did as he told me, my eyes closing, my consciousness directed toward the chains. It was easier than I had thought it would be, since everything in me was already reaching out for the Abcurses and the other pieces of my soul.

I clasped the invisible tether, and the chains hummed with power against my skin.

“Jakan,” a clear, bright voice rang out. My mother’s, I realised. I had never heard her sound so coherent, so ... alive.

“Jakan!” she cried out again, in despair, this time. “No! I want to stay with you!”

Shock barrelled through me, because I had never heard her speak any beings name like that. Like … she loved him. Did that mean that Jakan might be more important to me than just Staviti’s brother and something the mortal glass wanted me to unravel? Could he possibly be … my father?

I cried out for him as well, but it was too late. We were being pulled back the way we had come, and I could feel the jarring snap of my soul crashing back into my body, before everything went dark.





Seventeen





I woke up to the sounds of screaming. When I blinked my eyes open, the cliff-top that Rau had challenged the sols upon had drastically changed. There were scorch marks along the grass, and a giant mess of charred, twisted rubble where the main hall had been. There was a god standing amidst the debris, his feet safely balancing on a single, unblemished plank of wood, his robe still somehow pristine as it fluttered about him, pushed by some invisible breeze.

All around the rubble, the sols and gods had gathered, each of them turned toward a woman who had collapsed on the ground, her screams of agony filling the air.

There were five broad backs spanning out in front of me, positioned to protect my body. I was laying on the grass, an inert body beside me, the chains linking us together. For just a moment, I thought that it was my mother, but that was only wishful thinking. The blood-red robes that enveloped the form belonged to Rau. He remained still, his eyes open, as though he was dead. I shoved the cuff off and scrambled to my feet, rousing the attention of the guys. Each of them spun around, and I was suddenly tangled in the embrace of too many arms.

“We could still feel you,” one of them muttered.

“We knew we hadn’t lost you,” another added.

I was still disoriented, still dizzy and trying to get my bearings, but it felt right being momentarily crushed and then repositioned, only to be crushed again as they fought with each other to hold me properly. A kiss landed on my lips, another on my cheek, another on my neck. I basked in the warmth of them, the solidness of them. Each unique scent, and the brightness of their colouring. It was shocking, after being stuck in the world of grey dust, but it was a welcome shock.

“Staviti is trying to kill everyone,” I muttered, as we turned to watch the woman again.

I didn’t recognise her.

“What do you mean by everyone?” Coen asked, claiming my right side, his eyes on the god standing above everyone, his voice almost a whisper.

I squinted at the god, and then almost fell back a step in shock. It was Staviti. On the Peak. Watching a woman break down. From the remains of the hall.

This was apparently too much information for my brain to handle, because the only word that I could manage to form was, “What?”

“She means everyone,” Rome supplied. “I heard it in her mind before she started freaking out. He wants to kill all of us.”

“Everyone but the Original Gods,” I clarified. “His brother told me.”

“His brother ...” Aros trailed off, turning away from the scene before him to stare at me, his brow crinkled. “You mean Jakan—”

I leapt forward, quickly covering his mouth, but it was too late.

His brother’s name had captured Staviti’s attention.

“Willa Knight,” his voice boomed out, cutting over the sounds of the sobbing woman. “You have taken something from me.”

“If you lost something, you should probably check that mess there,” I found myself responding as I pointed to the broken pile of building that he stood on, my voice almost loud and confident ... if you ignored the tremble of terror undermining everything.

He smiled, his head shaking slowly from one side to the other, and then he was moving toward me. With each of his steps, a wooden plank shot out from the rubble, providing a smooth and unblemished step to aid his descent.

“You have taken one of my creations,” he said, when he was before me.

I could feel the tension coursing through Coen and Rome on either side of me, and I knew that all five of my Abcurses were a click away from jumping in front of me and starting a fight with Staviti just to distract him.

“We’re even then,” I said, trying to force my voice into a semblance of calm, the way he was doing. “You took my mother from me. I took Rau from you.”

“I saved your mother,” he crooned, his voice soft, placating. The way you might speak to a child who was getting upset over ghost stories. “She was incomplete when I visited her. I only wanted to ask about you.” He smiled, the gesture almost gentle. “I was curious, that is all. I wanted to know what made you special, but she barely seemed to know anything about you at all. I killed her, but I fixed her, don’t you see? She’s better now. And I let you have her back, didn’t I?”

There was no reasoning with that level of crazy. I should have guessed that he would be insane; a god who killed children just to keep his own power was not a benevolent sort of god. I had to try, though.