“You’re going to be the death of me.” The sentence was half a snarl, half a groan.
I grabbed his shoulder and jumped, launching myself onto his back. He caught me deftly, reflexively, his hands winding about my thighs, his head turning to the side. I reached forward, grabbing his chin and forcing it back to the front, before dropping my head down beside his and lowering my voice to a whisper.
“You can’t die, Two. Let me go to the arena, it’s important.”
He broke my grip of his chin, turning his head back towards me again. His gem-like eyes narrowed on mine, clashing in a firework display of green sparks. “I’m going to count to ten,” he warned me, his hands flexing on my thighs.
“What?” My mouth dropped open and Siret chose that moment to turn the corner and spot us.
He arched a golden-black brow, pushing the curls away from his forehead, and then he simply propped his shoulder up against the wall and grinned, as though waiting to see what was happening. Rome didn’t even seem to realise that he was there.
“Ten.” Rome started, his voice rough, the warning growing into a threat.
“You’re not my mother!” I tightened my grip around him stubbornly.
“Nine.”
“Two,” I hit my hand against his wide chest. It kind of hurt.
“Eight.”
“Two!”
“Seven.”
Shit. He was completely ignoring me, the green in his eyes hardening to stone. The hands on my thighs were now painful. I wiggled, but he didn’t drop me.
“Six.”
“Two,” I tried again, wiggling once more. “I can’t get down until you let me down.”
“Five.”
My mouth was dropping open again. Now I was just confused. I glanced to Siret for help, but he now had his hand wrapped around his mouth, trying to stifle a laugh.
“Four,” Rome continued, pulling me closer into his back before abruptly dropping me.
“Thank you!” I forced out, my tone exasperated.
“Three.” This time, there was even a smirk on Rome’s face, but it wasn’t anything like Siret’s. This one was mean.
“You have to be kidding me.” I deadpanned.
“Two,” he continued.
I backed up, suddenly scared, most of the bluster draining out of me. What the hell was going to happen when he got to—
“One.” His thick arms flashed up to either side of my head, and I realised that I had backed myself into the wall. “Shaking much, little leaf?” He was almost outright laughing at me, his mask cracking completely, his question laced in dark humour.
“Argh!” I managed, as soon as I had recovered. I shoved against his chest and he backed off.
He wasn’t going to win that easily.
“I’m going to the arena!” I declared, stomping ahead of them. “One of you better follow me unless you want to be the reason I’m left screaming in pain on the ground.”
I was so angry I aimed a kick at one of the couches in the circular common area at the end of their hallway. It skidded several feet, smacking into the couch beside it with a jarring lurch. The sol who had been sitting on the second couch jumped up in shock, turning astonished eyes on me.
“Er.” I wanted to turn astonished eyes on myself. “Is that thing on wheels?” I crouched down, glancing beneath the couch. It was most definitely not on wheels.
What the hell?
“What’s going on?” Rome demanded, striding into the room after me, Siret right behind him.
The sol—whose scowl had been deepening, the shock melting out of his eyes to make way for anger—glanced from Rome to Siret a few times before quickly striding out of the room. He looked like he was heading straight for the leader of the dweller-relations committee to tell on me. Unfortunately for him, Elowin was dead. I briefly wondered if they had already chosen someone to take her place, and then I briefly wondered who they were. I really didn’t know anything about the mechanics of the academy. It was as though I had breezed in through the gates, and my only contribution to those inside was my own unique brand of chaos. I couldn’t even see outside of it. I was living inside a bubble.
“There’s something wrong with that couch,” I accused, pointing to the piece of furniture that I had kicked.
They looked at it, and then back at me.
“I don’t see anything wrong with it,” Siret stated dryly. “How is it offending you, exactly?”
“Never mind,” I muttered, tucking my chin to my chest and moving on.
I hadn’t hallucinated that, had I? The couch really had … flown from my kick. Almost as though I had grown some kind of super-sol strength overnight. I stopped just before clearing the common room, turning to the couch on the opposite wall, now right beside me. I drew my leg back and delivered it a swift kick. It didn’t budge, and pain shot viciously up through my leg, causing me to hop around while wheezing swear-words for the second sun-cycle in a row.
If it hadn’t been for the Abcurses, I would have said that my luck was getting worse.
Rome and Siret were actually laughing at me now, which only served to remind me that I was mad at them. All of them. The whole world would feel my wrath for the remainder of this sun-cycle because I was Willa Freaking Knight. Which made no sense at all, but sometimes the world didn’t make sense, and we just had to accept what was.
I continued to stomp away, down the long hall and out into the warm, caressing sunlight. So far I’d felt nothing but warmth in Blesswood. Warmth and green trees and singing birds. They took their blessed thing very seriously, and the gods clearly indulged it. No other beings were gifted with so much beauty. The outer rings and the villages within them were dry and desolate and sad. Everything there was hard, and the quality of life was lacking.
I’d never really stopped to think about how unfair it was—dwellers were encouraged not to think very much—but if the Abcurses had taught me anything, it was that dwellers were not so different to sols. We could be friends with gods. We could be blessed. I had proven that.
It was this very thing which had driven Elowin to team up with Rau, lose her mind, and act like a crazy person. She was afraid that my actions would encourage ‘free thought’ amongst the dwellers, and she hadn’t been wrong. And the sols were already noticing, and they were going to fight this with everything they had. As much as I wanted change, I also feared the suffering that my fellow dwellers were going to have to go through. Which meant I was on cleaning duty.
The ache in my chest was manageable, even as I crossed the grassed area and entered the underground doorway of the Sacred Sand arena. At least one of the Abcurses was following me, but since they weren’t at my side, it almost felt as though I was free and independent. Just a dweller, out doing her job, contributing to the world. They were so lucky to have me. Right up until I almost burned a building to the ground. I’ve never fully burned a building down, just almost.