Either Emmy was deliberately taking us the longest way possible to find Cyrus, or else Cyrus was using all of his godly talents to avoid her, because it took us thirty clicks to finally track him down.
“What are you doing?” I asked, as soon as I saw him.
My words seemed to startle him, but that was only his fault, because he had startled me. He was floating. Or, more accurately, hovering. He skimmed across a small pond, west of the main platform at the top of the mountain. His feet didn’t touch the water, even though small ripples spread out from where he floated, as though he was actually wading through the water. As he turned in the direction of our group, Emmy crossed her arms and let out a huff.
“I thought we had scheduled in a break from drinking for the next four rotations.”
Cyrus arched his left eyebrow at her. “The schedule said to take a ‘drink break’, not a ‘break from drinking’.”
His foot slipped on the last word and I watched as an arc of water shot across the pond in our direction. I was pulled out of the way just before it splashed me, but no one helped Emmy. She ended up drenched, dripping wet from head to toe.
My body was so tense that my muscles were starting to ache from the force of being held so tightly. Emmy was already on a knife’s edge when it came to the Neutral God. She seemed to be one incident away from murdering him in his sleep. The water-drenching might have snapped her final thread of control. She didn’t speak or move, other than the slight twitch in the corner of her eye. Not that she would succeed if she did try to murder him—seeing as he was immortal. Might have been fun to see her try, though.
Cyrus, who had finally recovered from his alcohol-induced stumble, actually looked slightly apprehensive. I’d never seen him show an ounce of unease, even when in the presence of other gods, but something in Emmy’s expression was throwing him off.
“Uh … sorry,” he muttered, moving closer to us, while still remaining out of reach, hovering over the water. “It was an accident.”
Emmy lifted a hand. I flinched.
Run, Cyrus.
I was mentally urging him on because I’d only seen Emmy this angry a few times in my life, and there was nothing that could make me stick around when she snapped like that. Your only chance was to hide until she cooled down.
“I. Quit.”
She said those words without emotion. No inflection at all. Every one of us gasped. Okay, that was a lie—I was the only one who gasped. But dwellers couldn’t quit. It wasn’t a thing. They didn’t get to just decide not to do their jobs anymore. That was like deciding not to live anymore. There weren’t any other options. Life or death, dweller or death. It was the same thing.
“Emmy!” I rushed forward, reaching her in a moment. “What are you saying?”
She wiped her face, shaking off the excess water. “You heard me, Will, I refuse to take any more orders from him.” She stomped to the water’s edge. “You no longer control me, Cyrus. I will take my punishment, but I’m done with you.”
Then with a huff, she spun around and stormed off.
Anger rose in me again. I swung myself toward Cyrus. My hands were shaking as I waved them at him. “You will fix this, Cyrus. So help me. Otherwise I am going to … uh … I’m going to do something really bad and annoying. Every single time you close your eyes you’ll fear that this is the night I strike.”
He wasn’t looking at me, despite my threat. His eyes were directed along the path Emmy had just taken, even though she was no longer visible.
When he finally turned back to me, his expression was one of pure astonishment. “No one quits me.”
I let out a derisive laugh. “Cyrus, you’re a real asshole most of the time. Don’t try and tell me that this is the first time someone has told you to go fuck yourself.”
He glided across the water, his feet finally standing firm on dry land. He was beside me now, towering over me. Heat washed down my spine. The Abcurses moved closer, clearly uncomfortable with Cyrus’s sudden proximity.
Cyrus leaned down to me. “I’ve never let anyone get close enough to ‘quit’ me before. The dweller does not know who she is messing with. There is no way she’s leaving.”
I reached out and grabbed a fist full of his shirt, yanking his face even closer to mine, since I assumed the intense eye-contact he had going on was supposed to be some kind of intimidation tactic. “If you don’t go and apologise to her right now, I’m going to make you wish you’d never been born … created … whatever the hell you are. That’s my sister. I don’t care if she’s a dweller, or a bug. I don’t care if she just quit you. If you mess with her, you mess with me. If you mess with me, you mess with the Abcurses. She might be a dweller, but I think you understand just how annoying all of us can be, when we want to be.”
I heard a few rumbles of laughter from behind, but there was also a lot of tension riding the group. Everyone was wondering if I’d just pushed Cyrus too far. We were about to find out if the leverage I’d had over him since he killed me was gone.
We remained close together, silence growing between us. His eyes were raging, swirling in the scariest way. But I didn’t break the stare-off. Dweller or death. Emmy was remaining a dweller, that was the only option.
“Fix it, please.” I tried to give him something, so that he could feel like he had the upper hand. The please was my offer.
His jaw tightened, but the icy rage in his gaze lessened minutely.
“Fine,” he snapped, pulling away from me. He tilted his head up, squeezing his eyes tightly closed for a moment, before letting out a breath.
“Your punishment still stands,” he told me. “Go to Topia, to the panteras. They have something of mine. I find myself in need of it.”
I tried not to let my excitement show. Cyrus had given me exactly what I needed: a reason to go to the panteras.
“Is that all?” I asked, almost bouncing on the spot.
He nodded. “For now. Let’s see how you go with one assignment before I give you the next one.”
He brushed past me then, striding back toward the main platform in a rush of white robes and icy energy.
Tension had been holding me rigid for so long that my leg muscles actually ached when I finally relaxed. I found myself leaning back against Aros as he draped an arm around me, his warm heat seeping through my clothing and into my skin.
“You shouldn’t antagonise Cyrus,” Rome told me. “Let his wrath be directed at us. We can handle it.”
I shrugged, straightening a little so that I could clear my head. Aros was very distracting.
“Everyone knows that taking me on means taking you all on. I might as well use that to my advantage.”
He shook his head at me, but the half-smile on his face told me that he wasn’t as upset as he was acting.
“Do you think Cyrus will hurt Emmy?” I asked them. If they thought there was even the smallest chance, I wouldn’t be leaving Champions Peak that sun-cycle.
Siret flashed me his trademark, wide grin. “She has you and you have us, not to mention she’s always been mouthy as hell when it comes to Neutral. I’m pretty sure that if Cyrus hasn’t thrown her off a cliff already, he’s probably not going to start this sun-cycle.”
“She’ll be fine.” Coen sounded confident. “Cyrus has a soft spot for her, otherwise he’d have killed her already.”
“He has a soft spot for Willa, you mean.” Yael didn’t sound particularly happy about that fact.
“For both of them, then,” Coen revised.
None of them seemed particularly worried about Cyrus killing Emmy, and I figured they were probably right. My friend hadn’t ever tried to hide how much the god pissed her off—not from us, and not from him either—but still, he hadn’t killed her yet. He also said he’d fix it. So … I had to believe she’d be fine.
“Okay, I guess we’re off to Topia. Anyone know the best way to sneak in?” The pocket that Staviti had opened was gone now.