Jara nudged my side; she was waiting for me. My hand shook as I lifted it toward her, but I wasn’t afraid of the beautiful creature, even though she stood so many inches above my head.
“Hello, pretty one,” I crooned. “You’re amazing, you know that?” I was leaning in close to the warmth of the creature, my face against her fur as I murmured meaningless words over and over. I knew emotions were swimming in my eyes when I lifted them to Aros, I could feel those same emotions in my chest and throat. “I’ve been in the presence of so many gods lately, but these … they’re something so much more.”
He nodded, pressing into my free side, his other hand also running across Jara’s face. “They aren’t born of gods, nor of Staviti. They were on this world before the first god and they’ll be here long after we’re all gone.”
My hand stilled as I stared unblinking at him. “They’re the original inhabitants of Topia?”
“One of them,” Aros confirmed.
Siret chimed in then from where he stood close by. “They’re secretive, powerful, and generally hate the gods. Through a series of lucky events we made friends with this small pod, but most of them keep to themselves in the western lands. No gods tread there for fear of death.”
I wiped my hand across my mouth, trying to understand what they were saying. “How do sols not know about them?” I couldn’t understand why there was no reference to the panteras, to the fact that they predated Staviti on Topia.
Because we do not want them to know of us.
The low rumble of a voice drifted through my head, and I panicked briefly before I realised it had come from one of the creatures close to me.
“You talked in my head,” I said stupidly, before I swung my head around to Siret. “They can talk in my head?”
He nodded. “They can do that and so much more.” Before I could ask what the more was, his pantera lowered to its front knees, and he climbed on.
Jara did the same before us, and my panic set in again. I was totally going to die.
I will not let you fall, the voice said, inside my head once again.
I sucked in some of the clean, crisp air of Topia. Flecks of water from the nearby waterfall lacing a coolness across the breeze as it entered my body. The sudden burst of iciness was soothing, and I claimed an inner calm that allowed me to step forward and slide on in front of Aros, who was already seated on the dip in the bony ridges of the creature’s powerful back.
Jara stood to full height again, and I resisted the urge to grip the short tufts of hair in front of me.
“I’ve got you.” Aros wrapped his arms around my waist, anchoring me back into him.
My worry vanished in an instant, only to be replaced by a new problem. Aros was at full power again, after being in Topia, and somehow my body knew this.
Eighteen
I found myself arching involuntarily back into Aros, somehow trying to get closer to him and escape him all at once. I knew that if I was in contact with the potency of him for too long, I would lose my mind and start begging for his touch. I hadn’t forgotten our last kiss. There was no way to forget that. Just the way I could never forget the electric pain of Coen, the light teasing of Siret, the strength and power of Rome, and the persuasive thrill of Yael. Each so different, but so familiar to me. I could be in pure darkness and I would know exactly who was in there with me.
“You’re going to need to stop wiggling on me like that,” Aros growled in my ear just as Jara spread her wings wide.
With two powerful flaps, we were airborne. I let out a low shriek, my body’s sensual demands forgotten for a moment as I concentrated purely on not losing the contents of my stomach. Not that there was much inside for me to lose, but I was sure that Jara and Aros would not appreciate me barfing on them.
We rose very quickly, the other four panteras flying close by. All of the Abcurses looked relaxed.
“You’re going to have to get out of the habit of calling us Abcurses.” Aros especially seemed a lot calmer now that I was distracted from his energy. “You know that’s not our name.”
I shrugged. “Hard to break the habit now. You guys should have thought of that before you lied to me and everyone else at Blesswood.”
He said something in return, but I missed it. We were now well above the treeline, flying in the airspace just below most of the floating marble platforms. As we passed over the landscape, I was starting to see how vast it was. Minatsol was large, much of it still unexplored—all of that dead land beyond the inhabited rings—but I was thinking Topia might be ever larger.
It is vast beyond your wildest imaginings. The gods inhabit only a tiny section. Much more of it belongs to the others.
I barely even jumped at Jara’s melodic and sexless voice in my mind this time. I was getting very used to this world of weird. Reaching down, I gave her side a gentle pat.
Thank you for helping us. I directed that thought to her, though I was sure I didn’t need to. She seemed to be able to read my thoughts whether I directed them to her or not.
We went into a bit of a glide then, and as we skimmed closer to the nature below, I thought I caught a glimpse of a little pool surrounded by a cloud of sparkling little … bugs. Or something. I couldn’t see that well from how far up we still were, but the entire scene was hypnotising.
“There’s Rau’s main residence.” Siret’s words from close-by had my focus off the ground and back in the air.
The platform was different to the one he’d dropped me on earlier—it was a dark grey marble, shot through with streaks of some red porous stone. There were a lot of pillars, towering up across it, and much of the inner structure was hidden by masses of thorny vines.
The panteras were almost silent now, their flapping ceasing as they drifted in under the edge of the platform. Coen, Yael, and Siret’s flying beasts were the closest, clearly already in on the plan. Those three vaulted themselves up over the side in a single graceful movement, and it wasn’t until Jara moved closer and Coen reached down to haul me up, that I realised we weren’t going to remain with the beasts.
“They have to return to their families,” Aros explained, as he followed me up on to the edge of the platform. “We don’t ask from them any more than is necessary. It’s not safe for them here in this part of Topia.”
Farewell, divine one.
Divine one? There was no way the pantera was talking to me. Clumsy one, cursed one: both of those fit. Divine … not so much. Maybe that was what Jara called everyone, or maybe she had been saying goodbye to Aros, and my brain had gotten in the way of the message. Either way, I didn’t have time to ask, because the five sleek, black bodies were disappearing in a few powerful thrusts of their wings, leaving us to our task.
Retrieve Steve.