I snorted. “Nice. That’s just what every girl likes to hear.”
Yael slowed his walk and faced me fully, his eyes glinting in the well-lit hall. “You’re coming into a group of gifted beings, Willa, not your average friendship. One girl and five men? You’re going to have to get used to that dynamic causing some problems. Especially while we’re all riding the wave of whatever curse Rau hit you with.”
Five!Holy crap. He was right, that was a hell of a lot of guys to have in my life, and yet, I almost couldn’t imagine them not being there. Like they had always been a part of me and the sun-cycles before were nothing more than a dream.
“If my soul is split five ways, how come I only have to be with one of you and not all of you?” I had thought this earlier, but there never seemed to be enough time to voice every question that crossed my mind.
Yael’s face went blank, very carefully blank. I knew then that he had an idea of why that was, but he wasn’t going to tell me about it. Instead, he turned and pushed back the double doors to the dining hall. Up until now, we hadn’t seen that many other Blesswood students. Most of them had long-ago left the Sacred Sand arena. Of course, they had left the arena to come to the dining hall. A hall I was now standing in the doorway of with a thousand glares shooting in my direction.
Yael strolled in like he didn’t have a care in the world, heading for their usual table, which was always empty and waiting for them. “Come on, Willa-toy, it’s time for us to eat. I’m starving.”
I backed up and out of the room. No way in hell was I walking in there. Even though Yael was hard-core as all hell, he could not take on a thousand sols if they decided to tear me limb from limb. I liked my limbs right where they were.
The double doors closed in front of my face and the pace of my breathing began to speed up: in and out, in and out; the air shuddering past my lips. I couldn’t do this. The gods were going to mess everything up and there was a high possibility that someone was going to get hurt. What if it wasn’t just me? What if Emmy or one of the Abcurses were caught in the crossfire?
The ache in my chest was present again. Yael wasn’t close enough to me now and my stupid broken soul was letting me know. Plus, I was still backing up. Fear had my feet moving before the reasonable side of my brain could catch up. Of course, there was one problem … backing up meant that I wasn’t looking where I was going. Thin, graceful arms wrapped around my middle and before I could call for help, a ball of material was shoved in my mouth and a heavy cloth dropped over my eyes. Darkness shrouded most of my senses as I fought against whoever held me.
They were far too strong for my struggling, and more than one set of hands grabbed me as they moved away. I heard shouts, more than a few actually, but a stern and familiar voice shut them down quickly.
Elowin.
Holy crap.The dweller-relations committee had just kidnapped me. No need to worry about the rest of Blesswood. This was the moment I was turned into bullsen fodder.
Yael!I screamed for him through our mental link. He was the closest, with the best chance of reaching me. My concentration felt a little shaky though, probably because the pain in my chest was threatening to tear me apart. After a few more hurried steps, the fine tendrils of light which had been seeping through the woven material of the bag over my head lessened, and we were now descending. The air was cooler, the light almost non-existent.
I’d stopped struggling a little, hoping that they would ease up on their tight grip. So far, though, Elowin and her hench-dudes were staying diligent. If anything, their grips were getting tighter, which was more discomfort to add to my pain.
“Hurry,” Elowin’s cold voice echoed around, sounding creepy as hell. From the muted echo of their footsteps, I guessed that they were leading me down into an area of stone. “The distraction will only work for so long before they realise it isn’t actually the dweller.”
What distraction?I tried to scream out again, but the gag was wedged in my mouth crazy good, and my chest was also trying to splinter into a million pieces, which made doing anything difficult. Tears ran down my cheeks, soaking into the fabric surrounding my head. I knew that I needed to stop crying before my mouth filled with liquid and I suffocated, but the pain was so intense that my tears continued to fall without any hope of stopping them.
The descent levelled out after a few more steps, and whoever held me let go, flinging me easily across the room. All of the air was knocked out of me when I hit the floor, skidding a few feet across the stones, pain now screaming up my back and sides. It fit in well with the chest pain. They were all friends coming together for a little pain-party. It had been hard enough to breathe through my gag, but the blow to my body had me gasping and wriggling around like a dying dweller. Probably something I was about to become.
Forcing myself to calm, trying my best to ignore the pain, I focused on the simple task of getting air into my lungs. Simple and easy. In and out. Except of course my attackers were still in the room, and they were so not done with me yet.
The bag was ripped off my head, and since I hadn’t been expecting it, I ended up smashing my skull into the stone floor with the sudden motion. Stars danced before my eyes and I fought through whatever darkness was trying to claim me. If I blacked out, I was definitely going to end up dead.
Rome! Coen! Abcurses … come on assholes. Hear me!
The screaming for the sols continued in my head, even though I had already resigned myself to having to get out of this mess without any help. That was the way of Willa Knight. Lone Soldier. Professional Escaper of Death. Once the ringing cleared in my head, I was able to scramble up to my feet and back away from the three sols across from me. When there was a little distance between us, I tore the material from my mouth, licking out with my tongue in an attempt to moisten my lips. They tasted salty, my tears still trailing along my cheeks.
I didn’t have to wonder why Elowin was letting me back up, from what I could see, the room was small, circular, and made of thick stone. She stood with her muscle-sols in front of the only entrance: a heavy stone door with metal bars for reinforcement.
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 bragbeforekilling 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 …indulgethis 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 fromthem, 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.”
