Seduction (Curse of the Gods #3)(33)
It seems the girl is forming a bond, one of the other panteras noted, causing my head to peek out from between my arms.
“A what?” I asked the cave in general, since I wasn’t sure which of the four, massive, black-furred pantera had spoken.
A bond, this time from Leden, it happens on occasion, between the gods and the pantera. They are children of the same magic, children of the same land.
“I thought you were here long before the gods?” I asked, turning to peer into the cave. It was dark—almost too dark to see anything, though I could still distinguish a faint, black glimmer.
And the land was here long before us, Leden replied, pushing her snout between my shoulder blades and urging me forward, further into the cave. It is not uncommon for the gods to bond to the animals of Topia.
“But I’m not a god,” I whispered, trying to resist the insistent pushes I was receiving, “and I also can’t see in the dark!”
We will bring light, one of the other panteras announced, and then only a moment later, tiny little balls of light began to flicker on, beating against the wings of miniscule creatures that flittered sleepily about the cave.
I stopped moving altogether, my mouth falling open and my eyes going wide. The walls of the cave were lined with a glittery black rock, so smooth in some places and so jagged in others—it almost appeared like glass. The little lights moved around, illuminating further into the cave, and I followed them without the nudging of Leden this time. I could see my own reflection in the rock, walking alongside me with so much awe painted over her face … but then the reflection began to change. Suddenly, I could see five broad backs, their owners all facing the edge of a marble platform.
“What’s happening?” I whispered, as one of the reflections spoke.
“We could just jump. I mean we can’t die or anything.” It was Siret’s voice.
“You know Staviti would have stationed people below,” Yael replied, sounding downright depressed. “Maybe even Crowe himself. Staviti is serious this time—if D.O.D hadn’t insisted that we should be used to test the sols in the arena fights, he might have attempted a way to strip us of our gifts by now.”
“This is bullshit,” Rome growled. “Staviti loves it when sols die—that’s the whole point of the arena fights isn’t it? He doesn’t want them to prove themselves. He just wants them to die.”
“It isn’t about sols dying.” Aros seemed to be offering the voice of reason, judging by his tone. “Staviti doesn’t like us not obeying his commands because it shows the other gods that he can be disobeyed.”
They are not like the other gods, Leden told me, her breath warm against the back of my neck. They are the only beings born of a union between the gods.
“How is that possible?” I asked, reaching out to touch the broad back of Coen against the rock. “So many hundreds and thousands of life-cycles and no children born?”
The voices of the Abcurses were fading away, barely audible to me anymore as the reflection gradually shifted back into my own face.
There were other children. Leden’s soft voice grew even softer, her tone only a gentle hum inside my mind. The sorrow emanating from her was suddenly so acute that I had to wrap my arms around myself.
“What happened to them?” I asked, my voice a rasp.
Staviti did not allow them to live. The reply was short—simple—and yet it dripped with the kind of loss that made my heart ache. The panteras had been born in Topia, just like the Abcurses. It would make sense that they felt connected to the other children born in Topia.
“Why did I see the Abcurses?” I turned from my own reflection, finding the four black panteras lit up by hundreds of little illuminated bugs, while Leden waited directly behind me.
You see who you want to see, Leden answered. Every shard of glass in this cave is a part of Topia. It is how the world is seen. How every being on this world is seen. It is as sacred as the water, and just as protected—
And just like the water, one of the black panteras cut in, it has not escaped the urge of the people to steal and defile.
Suddenly, all of the little light-bugs converged into one small section of the cave, illuminating a part of the rock wall that had been hacked at in several places. Silvery liquid had spilled out and over the cuts like blood, drying and congealing only halfway down the wall.
I flinched, but Leden only nudged me around to face the same part of the wall that I had been facing before, and the bugs dispersed around the cave again.
Let’s begin, she whispered inside my head.
“Begin what?” I replied aloud, probably killing her dramatic vibe a little bit, but I really wasn’t great with riddles and secret caves and magical rock-glass and water that was apparently alive. Those things weren’t inside of my comfort zone.
Leden didn’t answer me, but she didn’t need to, because the glassy surface before me had begun to shift again, my reflection dissolving away. The shape of a woman began to form, almost as if through a screen of smoke; small wisps of colour licked over skirts and limbs, swirling around an upturned face. Suddenly she was clear, and it felt as though I could see her more distinctly here—in the rock—than I might have been able to if I had been there in person. She had ice-blue eyes, melding to green around the pupil; her hair a dusky, golden blonde. She was beautiful—but there was something else about her that drew me in. I couldn’t figure out what it was until she reached out, her hand on the rock that separated us—as though she wanted to reach right through and comfort me in some way.