“Come on,” Emmy muttered, her temper clearly rising, if her tight grip on my arm was any indication. “I already know where they’re putting everyone, they had us set up the bed-mats earlier.”
I didn’t argue, and surprisingly, neither did the Abcurses. We followed her as she led us from the platform; we were the first to leave the marble hall—the other sols were too busy freaking out. Thankfully, the exit was on the opposite side to where the screaming girl had been tossed off. We passed down several sets of stone staircases that had been built into the mountain, curving around the outside and leading to different platforms and structures built into the rock. Eventually, we came to a much larger opening, almost like a cave, though I could see light at the other end. It was a gigantic tunnel through the heart of the mountain, with lanterns swinging from the rock ceiling. There was a wooden sign also swinging from the ceiling, chains dropping it down so that it hung above the entrance to the tunnel.
The Falling Caves, it read.
“Please, gods, no,” I muttered, looking from the sign to Emmy’s grim face, and back again.
“Figures,” Rome grunted. “He wants to make the sols stronger, not pamper them.”
“I think I should just go tell everyone I’m not a sol,” I decided, spinning on one foot.
“Not so fast,” Aros chuckled, catching me before I could escape, his arm wrapping around my waist and pulling me back. “You’re really going to tell Cyrus that you’re not a sol? The god who killed you?”
“Wait …” Emmy’s voice was hoarse, barely above a breath. “Wait …” now she seemed to be struggling to breathe at all. “What?”
“Oh, right,” I started casually. No more avoiding this conversation. “I’m dead. Cyrus killed me.” Still a bastard. Just ask the girl who sailed off a cliff.
Emmy staggered back, her hands reaching out to press against the nearest wall. “I don’t … understand.”
That made two of us.
With a sigh, I took a step closer to her. Just in case she collapsed. I owed her for the last million or so times she’d caught me. “It’s a long story, and right now I don’t think we have time to go into all the details. Let’s just say that Rau was trying to make me into his Beta, and Cyrus was trying to stop that from happening, and the only way he could think to do that was to stab me and let me die in his arms. Then he smuggled me into Topia—to the Abcurses.”
Yael made that angry noise which usually meant that someone was about to get Persuaded to do something really bad. Emmy didn’t look away from me, her eyes wide and glassy. Shock had a hold of her.
“Are you a god now?” she whispered. In a fraction of a click she had run through all the logical explanations and reached the only possible conclusion. Except we had no idea if that was the only conclusion.
Reaching out, I wrapped my hand around her forearm, giving it a little squeeze. “We don’t know. Usually to become a god, Staviti would have to anoint me or something, but that didn’t happen. So right now, I’m other, and we’re working to figure out what that is, while trying to escape Rau and Staviti’s attention.”
I’d never seen her so pale, and considering everything I’d put her through over the life-cycles, I considered this a personal achievement.
She shook her head, tears sprinkling her eyelashes. “All of these life-cycles I’ve been trying to keep you alive. You were in so many scrapes, so many accidents that should have been your last, but you always pulled through.”
She straightened then, anger flashing across her face. Her right index finger jabbed in the direction of the Abcurses, who were waiting behind me. “You five!” Her voice and finger shook. “You were all supposed to keep her safe. I trusted each of you. I let Willa go into your world, into your care—into the care of five gods—and somehow she still managed to get LITERALLY MURDERED!”
I waited for one of them to defend themselves, to explain that it wasn’t their fault. We had all trusted Cyrus, and I had been the one to go off without them—one of those stupid things that I often did. I waited, but no one spoke. They just stood there, their expressions shuttered, their eyes blazing while Emmy ripped them a new one.
Holy father of the gods. They were still blaming themselves for what had happened to me.
“Stop!” My word had some bite, and while it pained me to talk to Emmy with anger, I would not let the Abcurses take the fall for this. “This is not their fault,” I told her before I turned to look at them.
“This. Is. Not. Your. Fault,” I repeated with more force. Five sets of eyes held mine. I looked between all of them, wordlessly reiterating my point. When some of the tension relaxed from their broad shoulders, I took a deep breath and faced Emmy again.
Working some calm into my voice, I said, “I was cursed long before I met them. My life has never been one of safety or longevity. I think we all knew that. The reality is that it’s probably because of the Abcurses that I am standing here right now. They saved me, more than once. I’m soul-bound to them—we’re linked in a way that goes beyond life and death. It’s forever.”
This fact no longer had my insides squirming. I wanted them forever. I took a step back, until I was pressing into one of them. I couldn’t turn to see who it was, but multiple arms wrapped around me as we pressed closer. “I would choose the same path over and over again, Emmy. I love you so much, you are my sister and that will never change. But the Abcurses are part of my very soul, and I choose this life with them.”
My feet left the ground then as one of them picked me up, and in a dizzyingly quick movement, we were out of the tunnel, moving too fast for me to track our path as we ended up in a dark, cold room. Emmy wasn’t with us: it was just me and my five guys. I blinked stupidly up at them, trying to figure out what had gone wrong.
“Is Rau here?” I murmured, my eyes darting around as I tried to make sense of what was going on. “Why did you leave Emmy behind? We have to go back for her.”
It was difficult to see everything properly, with the only light streaming in from the stone hallway. Aros captured my hand, threading his fingers through mine.
“Rau isn’t here. Emmy is fine, Persuasion asked her to go back up to the main building.”
“So what was with the rapid race through the tunnels?” I asked, still confused. The expressions on their perfect faces were not helping me figure it out.
Aros was still holding my hand. Siret stepped in on the other side and took my other hand. The low level of energy that had always been between me and the guys thrummed to life, like I’d just touched a live wire and the current was spreading through my body. I was starting to feel very hot again, and I said the first thing that came to mind. “We should go swimming!”
Rome and Yael chuckled, and then all I could think about was the way they had touched me that night. The sensations of being with them like that.
“You chose us, dweller baby,” Coen said, moving closer so that his body was almost touching mine. “Whatever force brought you into our lives, did so for a reason. You could not have formed a soul-bond with the five of us if it wasn’t meant to be.”
“You belong with us,” Siret added, drawing my gaze to his glittering green eyes. The gold slashing through them in bright arcs drew me closer. He lowered his head so that our lips could touch, and I felt Aros tighten his grip on my hand. But he didn’t do anything else to stop the kiss.
I lost all thought then. When we finally pulled apart, I struggled to catch my breath. The pure sweetness of that kiss had been like nothing I’d ever felt before. Looking down, I blinked at my hand, which was clearly no longer being held by Aros. A quick look around the main room of the cave told me that Siret and I were now alone. It was considerably darker, but my eyes were quick to adjust. Someone had closed the door.