Seduction (Curse of the Gods #3)

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.

Pica. Leden’s soft voice sounded inside my head. The goddess of Love. And then I watched, in a series of rapid images, as Pica touched the lives of people who couldn’t see her. Some, she gifted, and some, she cursed. There was a kind of irrational beauty to what she did, as sols courted each other and dweller children ran around each other in the dirt, flirting playfully. All the while, there were two men standing behind her, watching the things she did. I recognised them as Rau, the Asshole of Chaos, and Staviti. Both of them reached out to her, but she only ever turned to Rau. There didn’t seem to be a reason behind her love. It was chaotic.

As soon as that realisation hit me, her image dissolved away, to be replaced by another. The stream from the pantera camp was suddenly flowing along the wall before me: a glittering thing full of life. It seemed so calm and peaceful, little currents visible through the transparent depths. I watched as silver-skinned swimmers wriggled their way through the water—although I realised after a click that they were swimming the wrong way. They were going against the current—upstream. I frowned, watching them wriggle and wriggle and wriggle, until suddenly I could see the entire course of their lives. They struggled to the top of the river, and laid their eggs, before dying. That was the course of their existence. I then watched as their eggs hatched, as the swimmers matured and travelled downstream, and then as the whole process repeated itself.

“It makes no sense,” I found myself saying to the wall.

The things that we are driven to do that go against all sense—those are the things you will find Chaos in, Leden replied. It is not a force of evil, simply a force of nature.

“I think I understand now.” I turned away from the wall, to face the panteras.

Mostly, I was lying. I did understand what they wanted me to see, but I had no idea how to apply it. More than anything—I just wanted to see the Abcurses again.

Without thought, I turned back to the wall. “Will you show me again?” I asked the rock, touching it lightly with my fingers.

The panteras didn’t seem to be controlling it anymore, because it was only showing me my own reflection again. I watched in relief as the image rippled, and the five faces came into view. I was seeing them almost from above this time, as they sat around a circle of benches. There was a familiar glint of midnight black stone set on a table directly in the center of their circle, and I gasped when I saw it. It had been melted down into a gilded frame, almost like a mirror, and I remembered Rome saying something about Siret having stolen D.O.D’s mortal glass before they were banished to their platform.

“Is she in another cave?” Coen grumbled.

“Are those fire-bugs?” Siret added.

“And panteras?” Yael, this time.

“Hey guys!” I replied.

I watched as they all froze, glancing at each other, and then back to the mirror.

“Who’s she talking to?” Siret jumped up from his seat and leaned over the mirror.

“Hey, Five!” I said this time, just to clear up any confusion.

“Me?” Siret sounded dumbfounded, and then the others were all jumping up from their seats, too.

You do not have time for this. Leden broke into my reunion moment, her voice carrying a hint of urgency. Your escort will be arriving soon.

“I can’t be here for long,” I told the guys, keeping the ‘escort’ thing to myself, since I had no idea what that was supposed to mean. “But I’m coming. Stay there. I’ll be there soon.”

“You’re in Topia?” Coen’s question was stuck between surprise and anger. “You snuck into Topia? Do you have a death-wish, Willa-damned-Knight?”

A truly excellent, loaded question. My simple answer was no, I really didn’t. I had always been about living as fully as I could, mostly because death was always one step away. Now, though, death meant something a little different. Would I end up out with the guardians? Or would I become a god, like the Abcurses?

The thought of what might happen when I died stirred up a deep and painful emotion within my chest, cracking little fissures across the protective layer that had been in place for as long as I could remember. A layer that shielded me from the constant rejection and loneliness of my life. Emmy had slipped through: her persistence in loving me had broken the shielding long enough for her to become family. But there had been no one else, until now.

Of course, all of that information remained in my head as I said simply, “Where you guys go, I go.”

Five sets of eyes were locked on the framed stone, and each of their expressions were so different from the other. But each reflected a single quality. Need. In differing ways, the six of us needed each other, and being apart like this had taken a toll. It was deeper and more cutting than I had expected, as though our separation should have been a graze. A little irritating, but easy enough to live with. Instead it felt almost like a fatal wound. Or a poison, where the longer it remained in my system, the more damage it began to cause.

“You need to come back to us now, Willa.” Those solemn words, almost gruffly spoken, came from Aros.

My golden Abcurse didn’t look his usual ethereal, shining beam of light. There was a heaviness in his broad, tense shoulders; a darkness shadowing his furrowed brow and rigid jawline. He was unhappy in a way I had never seen before.