I was just beginning to wonder if I should move on when the spray turned off. The next archway was now visible to me, and I stepped toward it, dripping along the ridged, wooden floorboards. The steam assaulted me again, but stronger this time. It crept along my skin, making me break out into an immediate sweat. But it was nice. A nice kind of sweat. Almost like the magical bathing chamber was now cleansing me from theinside. There were a few more wooden cubes stuck along one of the walls, piles of cloth stacked within. I wandered over, grabbing what looked like a hem of fabric and extracting what appeared to be a robe, without sleeves of any kind. I pulled it up over my chest, marvelling at the whisper of cloud-like material. It barely seemed to weigh on my skin at all. It did stick to the sweat, though, forming a second skin around my chest, stomach, and thighs as I wrapped it around, tying it off beneath my arms. It ended around my knees, so I supposed that on the male sols, it would be fairly short. And that was when I realised that I was wearing it wrong. It clearly wasn’t supposed to be tied off at the chest. It was supposed to be tied off at the waist, because male sols didn’t have boobs.
Eh, whatever. Innovation, Soldier!Leader Graham would be so proud of me.
I sank down into the wooden bench that ran along the back of the room, my head thumping back against the wall. The steam was making me sleepy. I could almost ignore the pain. It had dulled so much that I barely even noticed it anymore. And it was getting better by the moment. It was almost …
Crap! Take cover, Soldier!
I scrambled up off the bench, but it was too late. Siret spilled into the room, looking wet, clean, and pissed. His clothes were soaked through, his medley gold-black hair was now mostly black, sticking to his head and running rivulets of water over his face.
“Er, hey there, Five,” I muttered.
“Hey, Soldier.”
I jumped to my feet, my face and body heating—no doubt as red as a berry, which he hopefully wouldn’t notice through all the steam. “You’ve been listening to me!”
Siret’s eyes darkened as he took a moment to run them over my body. Areallylong moment. No doubt the white wrap hid about the same amount as Jeffrey’s outfit. Still, for the same reason as last time, I didn’t cover myself. Part of me sort of felt like I didn’t have to with the Abcurses. They wouldn’t take advantage. They wouldn’t judge me. I wasn’t sure I had ever felt acceptance like that before. Then again, maybe it wasn’t acceptance. Maybe it was apathy.
Siret stepped closer to me. My eyes were glued to the rivulets of water running through his dark hair.
“Why did you come through the bathing rooms in your clothes?” I asked, because the silence was getting uncomfortable.
He still wasn’t saying anything, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do. He reached out then and wrapped his hand around the back of my neck, pulling me closer to his body before pushing me back down on to the seat and settling in next to me.
His hardness pressed along one side of my fairly naked body, and together we remained like that, for a long while. Both of us leaning back against the wooden slats, staring out into the steam room.
His voice was a rumbling whisper when he finally spoke. “I felt your pain. You were hurting before I got here.”
I had actually gotten pretty used to the chest-shredding thing that went on when I wasn’t with them. Of course, now that Siret was touching me, my body was able to relax in a way it couldn’t when I was away from them.
“You felt me?” Why was my voice all breathy and low? What was Siret doing to me right now? This had to be some sort of sol gift, right? His trickery was messing with me.
“I felt you.” He confirmed, his hand raising subconsciously, rubbing against a spot on his chest. “You were hurting and now you’re not. I told the others we couldn’t leave you alone.”
“I’m fine. Well … I mean, I did trip and hurt my leg, and then I was dirty and needed to be clean … you know, the usual stuff.”
I had no idea why I was resistant to telling them about the painful co-dependence Rau had created. Part of me wanted to try and figure out how to fix it before they realised what a thorn-in-the-ass I was.
Vibrations ran along my side and I realised that Siret was laughing. For some reason, this made me smile. I liked Siret’s laugh, and hearing it did things to me. Hot, swirly things. Finally, he stood and hauled me up to my feet. “Come on, Soldier, let’s check out your leg. And make sure you’re clean.”
Sweet gods of Topia.
His voice did that growly thing again. “I heard that, Rocks. I’d prefer it if you didn’t offer any sort of exclamations to those assholes.”
“Why do you hate them?” I asked as he led me from the steamy room. “I still don’t understand how you five even figured out how to get into Topia.” And why weren’t they afraid of Rau? At no point during the entire threat-and-attack thing Rau had going on, did any of the Abcurses show one ounce of concern that he would smite them into dust. Their confidence was pretty amazing. And annoying.
I hadn’t actually expected Siret to answer, but oddly enough, he did spill something. “The gods are not as deserving of worship as you people like to think. They have weaknesses. Fears. They fight and bicker amongst themselves about the stupidest things. Rau doesn’t scare us, he’s powerful of course—all of the Originals are—but he has one big problem. He’s one of the only Original Gods without a Beta and no one really knows why there has never been a sol to step into the role.”
His pause was heavy and I had to ask, “Are you sure you don’t know why?”
Siret glanced down at me, a flash of white teeth shining in my direction. “Personally, I believe that someone is manipulating things so that Chaos doesn’t get out of hand. Rau does enough damage on his own. Of course, having no Beta leaves him weaker and more vulnerable. The only thing ensuring his dominance is the fact that chaos is the natural order of the worlds. His power grows by the simple act of you all living.”
“So if he got a ‘Beta’ then …”
I trailed off as the horror of what the world might look like washed over me.
“Yes, complete and utter destruction of everything you’re used to. He would burn this world to the ground in a bid to gather enough power to take down the other Original Gods.”
“So that’s what he wants? To destroy the other Originals?”
