Stepping forward, I snapped my fingers a few times in Yael’s direction. “Hey, can you seriously focus for like one click. What the hell happened to my soul?” If he answered my damn question, he’d have a much better idea of why I was in his brother’s head. It was clearly all connected. “What did Rau do to me?”
The persuasive sol gracefully twisted in my direction, and part of me instantly regretted snapping my fingers at him. I’d seen some of the villagers do that to call the bullsen up and always thought it looked like a nifty trick. Possibly, Yael wasn’t fond of being called up like a wild beast.
He stepped into me, and my eyes fell to his lips. Lips which were kissing me only last night. No, Willa. No more kissing sols.
That was probably a mantra I would have to repeat a few times; couldn’t quite get it to sink in.
“Rau hit you with a curse that was designed for one of us. A powerful curse which was most likely intended to cause chaos. He wanted to shake up the natural order even more, giving himself more power, and thereby gathering enough power to find his Beta.” Yael spoke matter-of-factly, but his eyes were ice-cold.
“The more powerful you are, the more you can sense the sols with the gifts strong enough to ascend to Topia,” Rome added.
“Or steal your godhood,” Siret chimed in.
Yael growled low before picking up the conversation again. “Yes, as I said, it’s important that gods can sense these sols, and Rau has had that power stripped from him by Staviti. He wants it back.”
I tried to breathe around my confusion and panic. “So it was a curse meant for one of you guys and it hit me … it splintered my soul and now you all carry it inside. Like in your heart pocket or some crap.”
Heart pocket? Really, Willa?
Siret took pity on me. “Souls aren’t like a bag of tokens. It’s not like some got slipped into our pockets when we weren’t looking. Your energy, the essence of what makes you Willa, is now woven with the energy of each of us.”
So he was saying …
“I’m never getting those parts of my soul back, am I?” I was not going to be able to demand that they simply empty their pockets and hand me my soul back. It was all mixed up with their messy-ass souls, getting tainted by the sol-ness of their stupid, superior selves.
A disembodied voice rang through Siret’s room then, sounding entirely robotic and sexless. “Gods have arrived to the arena, all sols have one click to make it inside. This is mandatory.”
The Abcurses started moving. I noticed that Siret was now dressed in his own pretty set of armour plates, black and gold to reflect his hair. “Come on, Rocks. We’re going to the arena, you better haul ass to keep up.”
I flapped around for a fraction of a click before ringing my hands. “Dwellers aren’t allowed in the Sacred Sand arena like this. I haven’t even done my first cleaning shift there because you have to be trained and cleansed before you step into the halls of the gods.”
Siret fitted his hands under my arms and hauled me out of the room. The Abcurses were moving rapidly, ignoring my freak out.
“Guys!” I tried to drag my feet, especially when I realised that I was still dressed in Coen’s huge clothes. “Stop right now. Now! I’m not wearing my own clothes and my ass is literally hanging out. I can’t go before the gods like this.”
“Close your eyes,” Siret whispered in my ear and for some reason, I obeyed him. I almost suspected that he was channelling some of Yael’s persuasion.
Thankfully, he was still half carrying me down the hall because walking with eyes closed for someone like me was not advisable. I felt the warmth of something caress my body, and figured it was the sunshine as we stepped out the front door, but when I found my eyes flying open, we weren’t quite there yet. Which meant …
I glanced down to find that my clothes had completely changed. The dress was a deep purple, moulding perfectly to my body, as though it had been made specifically for me. It even felt like I had underwear on and everything. I could even see that my hair had somehow been tamed, curling obediently over my shoulders, the strands looking silky and shiny. Well wasn’t I a bit fancy right now? But how the heck had Siret done that to me? Was it a trick or an illusion?
“You shouldn’t be wasting your energy like that, Trickery.” Yael’s face was expressionless, his voice flat. His brother didn’t bother to answer; he was focused on getting to the arena.