Seduction (Curse of the Gods #3)

“It wasn’t an illusion,” Cyrus answered carefully, “and I did stab you—but, before you kill yourself all over again trying to murder me out of revenge, you should probably ask why I stabbed you.”

I could feel that rage again, and I knew that some of it spilled into my tone when I answered him. “I don’t think the why is really so important in this scenario. I think a stabbing is still a stabbing and should be treated as such. Where are the Abcurses? Why aren’t they torturing you right now?”

“They did,” he admitted. “I healed. They’re waiting in a secure place. I gave my word that I would send for them when you woke up.”

I frowned, glancing toward the open doorway leading out into Cyrus’s living room. I recognised his secret little hidey-house. What I didn’t understand was why he would bring me here.

“Did you say something about me killing myself all over again?” I asked, my tone going completely flat. Surely he hadn’t said …

“Yes, Willa Knight. You’re dead.”

“I’m dead,” I echoed, still completely toneless. “Like … died and ascended to Topia?”

“More like murdered and smuggled into Topia, but you can tell whatever version of the story you want to all your new Topian friends. If you manage to stay here that long.”

“Where else would I go?” I almost screamed, starting to sound a little hysterical now. “I’m dead, Cyrus!”

“There are ways to kill the gods, just as there are ways to weaken the sols so that they never become gods. Really, there’s a way for everything. You just have to find it: and now we just have to find a way to keep you here, and keep everyone from knowing that this is where you’re hiding.”

“But Emmy … my mother …”

“Donald is in the living room. It seems that Staviti was a little … lax, in his orders with her. You were supposed to be captured at the arena and brought to him, and Donald was supposed to be the distraction that stopped you fighting long enough for one of his servers to grab you.”

“Why didn’t he just tell Donald to grab me?”

Cyrus smiled then: a crooked, humourless grin. “Donald isn’t very good at following orders.”

“It runs in the family,” I admitted, and if I was going to be completely honest … I was a little proud.

He shook his head at me, stepping back toward the doorway. “You can go and fetch them now,” he called out. “She’s awake.”

“Yes, Sacred One.” I could hear my mother’s robotic-sounding reply, and I clenched my jaw a little too tightly, my eyes flicking to the open doorway.

She wasn’t even going to come in and see me.

She wasn’t even happy that I was awake—alive—going for Round Two? I wasn’t sure how to describe my current state.

“What would you call this, exactly?” I asked Cyrus, glancing beneath the sheet that had been draped over me.

I was dressed in white robes—I preferred the yellow dress so much more. I would have thought that they were Cyrus’s robes, except that they fit me perfectly. I frowned, plucking at the wispy material before drawing the sheets away completely and holding up a section of the skirt toward the light, sticking my hand beneath it.

“What in the name of Topia are you doing?” Cyrus asked, following the movement of the skirt with his eyes.

“Checking to see if it’s transparent,” I muttered. He closed his eyes, and I caught him shaking his head again, but I wasn’t going to let him avoid my question, so I dropped the skirt and met his eyes again. “I don’t feel dead. I definitely feel like I’ve been stabbed by an asspit, but I don’t feel dead.”

“Did you just say asspit?” His brow was a little scrunched, as though such high and mighty beings as the Glorious Gods of Topia didn’t say things like asspit.

“What of it?” I asked defensively.

“What is it?”

“An asshole was too … small a word to describe you. You’re an asspit. An asschasm. An asscrater—”

“Wow,” he interrupted, holding up a hand. “I think I get the picture. Unfortunately. Thanks for that. And to answer your question: whether you feel dead or not, that’s what you are. We made sure of it. Welcome to godhood, doll. Try not to stop the world from turning in the right direction.”

“That’s something I can do?” I finally managed to pull myself out of the bed and stand, my legs threatening to collapse beneath me. I pressed a hand to my ribcage, right between my breasts. There was a scar: thick, long, and raised. I could feel it through the flimsy robe.

“Honestly …” Cyrus glanced at where my hand was pressing, his frown matching my own. “I have no idea what you can do.”

“So why the fuck did you kill me?” I growled out, getting a little agitated that the Abcurses had left me alone with him after he had stabbed me.

“Rau was convinced that you were the Chaos Beta—hell, even I was convinced. His curse had been centuries in the making, a concoction proven to alter powers—alter allegiances. He had been using it for a long time on the sols, because Staviti wouldn’t allow the Chaos power to be cultivated in Minatsol. The curse that hit you was different. It was powerful enough to alter a god: powerful enough to kill a sol. And you, a dweller, survived it—absorbed it, as though you were a god yourself.”

“I actually tripped into it,” I told him. “Didn’t mean to do any absorbing or anything.”

“Of course not.” He sighed. “You have always been a dweller. Rau guessed that you had formed a soul-link with Abil’s sons and we both assumed that the soul-link was the reason you had survived. It made sense. He had tailored the curse for Abil’s bloodline, and when the curse splintered you, the pieces of your soul that fractured apart were drawn to the beings around you that the curse had been intended for.”

I frowned, leaning back against the side of the bed. It was a nice theory and everything, but I was failing to see how any of it justified stabbing me to death while Rau whispered sweet, creepy nothings in my ear. I opened my mouth to tell Cyrus that much, but he was already continuing with his story.

“So that’s what we thought, but when I joined your soul-link and channelled your power, I noticed something strange.”

“Only one strange thing?” I quipped. “Because I remember a cart full of bodies and a server-creation-farm. That’s at least two strange things. And Fakey making out with Mountain Man counts for five points, so that’s seven strange things.”

“I have no idea who those two people are, but the strange thing wasn’t to do with what was happening around you, it was your power. Your Chaos … wasn’t actually Chaos.”

“What are you talking about? You set a building on fire and disfigured a bunch of people.” I had meant the statement to come out sounding matter-of-fact, but the image of Evie flashed into my mind as I was speaking, and it ended up coming out as an accusation.

“It was pure power,” he told me, his expression openly curious. “I have been the Neutral God since before Abil’s sons were born—believe me, I know what Chaos feels like. Your power is not it.”