She took a minute step closer to me, her face creased in lines of dark fury. “I warned you, dweller. You have meddled in things which should never have been touched. Crossed lines which have already started a wave of trouble that will probably take us entire life-cycles to repair.”
I tried to speak but my throat was so dry that nothing more than a squeak emerged. It took me two attempts but finally I managed to say, “What are you going to do with me?”
They hadn’t just killed me, which meant that they either wanted something from me or else they wanted to brag before killing me. Neither option gave me any great hope of escaping this alive.
“As far as anyone in Blesswood is concerned, you ran away. We have witnesses. Your belongings have been packed up. No one will know the truth. You see … if we killed you now, the gods would notice. They have an eye on you and for whatever reason have chosen to … indulge this little fantasy world that you’ve created with the Abcurse sols. A fantasy which is causing more problems than your stupid little brain can even comprehend. The gods don’t care about routine life on Minatsol. But I care. I see how important it is, and my entire life is dedicated to making sure that dwellers and sols have a distinct place in this world. Distinct, and purposeful. So you’ll stay in this basement. No one knows about this wing of Blesswood, it’s long forgotten. We’ll feed you for a few dozen sun-cycles, until this all dies down, until the gods forget about you, and then you’ll go … back to your village.”
Yeah, right. I could see in those icy eyes that I was never walking from here free. She just wanted to make sure the gods no longer cared about me before she ended my life. She was afraid of hurting her chances of going to Topia.
“Pretty sure the gods won’t like you chaining me down here like an animal,” I lied.
She laughed. The light and airy sound made my skin crawl. “Don’t overthink your importance here, dweller. There is a slight possibility they are monitoring your energy, which would mean they’d know if you died. But they aren’t going to be literally watching every move you make. They don’t care about you. They care about the Abcurse brothers, which means that as soon I remove you from them, I remove you from the attention of the gods.”
Yep, Elowin had a touch of the crazy going on. “What about the Abcurses?” There had to be something she feared enough to let me go. “They’ll look for me. They’re not going to be happy about what you’ve done.”
She waved my concern away. “I’ll deal with the brothers. They’re in need of a little reminder that they’re not yet gods … that they’re still sols and students of this academy, subject to the power of those employed by the academy.”
I fell silent then. Arguing with crazy got you nowhere—even though she was very wrong about the Abcurse sols. They were as close to gods as one could get on Minatsol, before actual death turned them into full gods. They would destroy Elowin when they got their hands on her, and then they would come for me. I knew it. They would tear this academy to the ground, because I had accidently forced myself into their group, and they protected their own.
Hope … it was scary to let myself have any, especially when things looked grim, but if I didn’t have something to hold on to, I would lose my mind. Or … more. I’d lose it even more.
Elowin, Henchman Number One, and Henchman Number Two stepped back, each of them bestowing one last look on me before the door slammed shut behind them. I ran at it, fast as I could through all the pain my body was currently in, and wrenched the handle. No movement, nothing at all to indicate that there was even a door there. It felt as solid as the stone wall surrounding it. There was no opening for me to look out of, and something told me that screaming would not help. Everything would be deadened by the acoustics of this place.
I slammed my hand against the stone and fought back another sob. “Don’t leave me here alone!” My yells echoed around, just as I had predicted. Doing nothing but tormenting me with my current situation.
Turning around, I sank against the wall, my arms wrapping across my ribs as I attempted to keep it together. I was not someone who dealt well with being alone, just my own company, no distractions. I think it was half the reason I was always causing trouble in the village.
The ache in my chest intensified. The Abcurses were moving further away from me. I wondered how much distance it would take before I died, because I could feel that possibility sawing away at my insides. I was beginning to gag, and my vision was becoming blurry, my breath rasping with each dry heave. I was right now teetering on the edge of death. I hadn’t told Elowin that her plan had one very real flaw: I was connected to the Abcurses, and I couldn’t be separated from them, which meant that they were either going to find me soon, or I was going to die. Both of which would not be good for her.