Strong arms wrapped around me from behind, and I found my body lifted up off the ground and spun around until I was staring at Yael. His hugeness engulfed me, the strength in his grip almost too much for my poor little heart.
“No one ever hugs us for no reason.” His voice was a whispered caress across my body. Like the sweetest, most seductive breeze ever. “No one gives themselves without expecting something in return. You honoured us, little dirt-dweller.”
Wow. Back-handed compliment much?
He’d been waiting for me to hug him, and I hadn’t. That kind of hurt my heart, and I had to lift my arms and loop them around his neck, even though he’d also half insulted me. I had to squeeze him toward me to try and ease some of the hardness in his cold gaze. My body softened against him, and I felt some of his anger ease.
This was all insanity. All of it. That I could be so forward with any boy, let alone a god-blessed sol, was crazy. But here we were.
Hugging.
In Topia.
Shit, maybe I was already dead, and this was hell. Note that I said hell there. Definitely not heaven. Even if it felt a little bit like heaven …
Yael’s huge body rumbled beneath me, and an energy drifted from him toward me. It was warm. Then, in a flash, I was back on my feet. I found myself feeling a little bereft. He strode away. I stared after him, not sure what had just happened.
“We won’t let you die, Willa.” Coen distracted me, and I flinched back at the look on his face. He wore his hard, carved-from-granite face, which was ten types of scary. I associated it with the trying-to-shoot-me-with-a-crossbow incident. “We need you to help us, and then we’ll make sure that no one at Blesswood messes with you again.”
Sucking in deeply, I tried to gather up every iota of bravery inside of me. I had like a teaspoon so far. The Abcurses weren’t giving me much of a choice, but they were at least making it worth my while. If I managed to do this for them, I wouldn’t be getting sentenced to death-by-sacrifice anytime soon by the Blesswood teachers. And I appreciated Coen’s promise that they wouldn’t let me die in Topia. It showed that they didn’t think of me as being completely expendable, only a little bit expendable—maybe like fifty-percent expendable.
I nodded a few times, the lightest of breezes ruffling my curls. “Okay, I’ll try my best. Just remember that even though they might not be able to sense my energy, I am still curs—clumsy. I mean … things sometimes happen around me. Things that aren’t very inconspicuous. Like bleeding injuries and shattered valuables. So, I can’t promise anything.” My bravery was almost at a tablespoon now, so I asked, “What do the gods have of yours? What am I getting back?”
The others all glanced at Yael, as though he had magically persuaded me to cooperate. He met their stares with a smirk twisting his lips, but Siret was the one who spoke.
“It’s just a little cup, nothing serious. Well, nothing serious to D.O.D., but it’s very serious to us. D.O.D. took it the last time he was in Minatsol for the moon-cycle tournament. He won’t even realise it’s gone if we take it now.”
“And who the hell is D.O.D.?” I asked.
“He’s a god,” Siret replied, as though I should have already known. And, well, seeing as we were in Topia …
“I gathered that much.” I deadpanned. “But which god?”
“You wouldn’t know even if I told you.” Siret was suddenly in front of me, tapping against the side of my head. “You were getting stitches the sun-cycle they taught the dwellers about D.O.D.”
I frowned, and not because he was insulting me again, but because he may have been right. There was every chance that I had no idea who D.O.D. was because of one of my many medical emergencies.
“So where’s Luciu then?” I turned, looking up to one of the marble platforms. “And will we be done before dinner? I’m starving.”
“She’s starving,” Siret repeated, shaking his head.
“You’ll have to go through another pocket to get there.” Coen stepped up behind me, his hand shaping to the curve of my spine, his softly-spoken words sounding just a little bit frightening. “I’m going to push you through, and then you’ll be on Luciu’s main platform. One of the gods hosts a feast there every sun-cycle, without fail—”
“Yay! Feast—”
“And,” Coen cut across me, his hand pressing harder, “the cup is always at his side. You won’t be able to miss him; he’ll be wearing purple. It’s his colour—”
“His God-colour?”
“One more thing.” Coen completely ignored my question, stepping up so that the heat of his body hovered right behind me. He ducked his head, his words whispering over the sweep of my neck. “This is going to hurt.”