Cyrus wrapped his hands around my biceps, firm, but not hurting me. He drew me closer and up, so that my feet almost left the ground. I swallowed roughly because it looked as though he wasn’t about to offer up an answer to my question, which meant that I had angered him by hinting that I might try to get into the imprisonment realm. To distract him from what I had said, I started speaking again. “What does it mean for Willa if Jakan is her father?”
His expression barely changed. “It would explain a lot,” he eventually said, taking on a faraway look in his eyes. It was almost like he’d forgotten that he held me up. “As the daughter of a creator, she might have inherited some kind of godhood from him … but, she also must be half dweller, to be the way she was originally—before her death. A body not strong enough to house her power. It was supressed within her, only escaping to cause small amounts of chaos in her life.”
It did make sense.
“The only part that I don’t understand,” he said, finally focussing on me again, “is how he managed to get Willa’s mother pregnant, when he has clearly been stuck in the imprisonment world since before Staviti first ‘appeared’ as a god.”
A noise from beyond the barrier halted our conversation, and I glanced toward the woven barrier. Through it, we could now see that servers had lined up outside the cave; they watched us, completely unmoving. Unless you counted the unnatural tilt in their postures from having somehow pieced their bodies back together. It was as though they couldn’t replicate the same bodies as before—as though they couldn’t find the same balance, the same exact place for their parts. One of the man’s eyes had been switched around, making it almost dizzying to try and look at him. Another woman had somehow reconstructed her arms so that one was significantly shorter than the other. Her ears were now also double the size of a normal pair of ears.
“I think there’s a lot we still need to learn about Topia,” Cyrus murmured, almost to himself.
I glanced over at him: he was watching the servers too, a deeply pensive look on his face.
“And a lot we still need to learn about Staviti,” I added.
“They are one and the same.” He waved his hand at the cave wall again, but this time the rock began to shift, cracking and groaning until a large slab of it crawled across the entrance, blocking out both the barrier and the waiting servers.
We were thrown into an even deeper darkness, but it was only temporary, as tiny little white lights began to flicker into being, crawling along the walls of the cave and settling into small nooks and crevices. The entire cave was visible now, and I walked along to the back wall, running my hands along the rough stone, my fingers catching in all the uneven places. Cyrus watched me. We were both too deep in thought to snap at each other the way we usually did.
“Why are we hiding in here?” I eventually spoke up. “Can’t we just go through a pocket, back to your home?”
He laughed, but there was a flash of something defiant in his bright eyes. “Nice try, bug. I told you: we’re not leaving until you display your power. Even if it means we’re trapped in a cave while an army of altered servers builds up outside.”
I growled, the angry sound vibrating from the cave walls. “You’re the all-powerful, gods-dammed Neutral, why can’t you just … force it out of me?”
“I’d much rather wait until you can no longer contain it.” He smirked. “I like the thought of watching you come undone, of being the one to witness the mess I know you have somewhere inside of you.”
“There is no mess inside of me.” I sniffed. “I clean and organise whatever is inside me several times a sun-cycle. I would never leave a mess, even where nobody can see it.”
He rolled his eyes and held a hand out, stretching his fingers as a small sphere of spidery, contained light flickered into existence, arching toward his skin as though eager to dive back inside him. I backed away from the evil, expectant glint in his eyes.
“What are you doing?” I narrowed my eyes on him, feeling my way along the wall. I was cornered, no matter where I moved.
“Raising your emotions,” he replied. “I thought we’d start with fear.”
“And then?” My hand caught against a loose rock wedged into the cave wall. I pulled it behind my back as Cyrus stalked toward me.
“And then pain,” he answered, looking as though he was a micro-click away from tossing that ball of white light at me.
I acted first, hurling the rock toward him. He flicked it away without even blinking. I remained where I was standing, rage starting to swell inside me. I hated being cornered.
“Fine!” I finally shouted, holding both of my hands up. He lowered his arm an inch. I stepped toward him, and then held my arm out.
“You can hit me here.” I pointed to my forearm. “We’ll see if pain works.”
He stared at my arm, and then stared at me. Eventually, he snorted. “That isn’t pain.”
“It is for a dweller.”
“You’re a god.”
“I was a dweller a moon-cycle ago. It still counts. I’m sure my brain is wired to react just the same as when I was a dweller. It hasn’t had time to settle into my new invincibility yet.”
He rolled his eyes up toward the roof of the cave, exasperated, before sighing out, “Fine.”
I screwed my eyes shut, preparing for him to punch my arm, but his fingers wrapped around my wrist instead. I blinked one eye open. He was staring at my forearm, his other hand finding the sleeve of my robe, brushing it up to my elbow to reveal my skin. I watched him as he watched me, staring too intently at my skin. He pushed the sleeve up higher, but the fabric bunched, refusing to go any further. He made a frustrated sound, and the fingers around my wrist tightened, yanking me forward a step until the heat of his body was right there before me, burning down my front.
“You feel so full oflife,” he breathed out, almost in a trance, his hands moving to the neckline of my robes, fingers fanning out beneath the fabric, settling in against the bare skin of my shoulders with a heaviness that seemed possessive, almost needy. “What is this change?”
“The change would be that I died,” I replied dryly, though my heart was suddenly beating so loudly that it almost drowned out my own words. “So I think you’re picking up on the wrongfeelingthere.”
“No, that’s what it is,” he rumbled against the top of my head, pulling me even closer so that I was now pressed fully along the front of his body.
His hands inched further out along my shoulders, pushing the robe out with the movement. I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry, my body starting to shake. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” This time, my reaction showed in my tremulous tone.
“Your skin is fucking vibrant,” he answered. “You are starting to show your power, Emmanuelle.”
