What the hell was I doing? We needed the other gods and goddesses to see Emmy, to realise the power that Willa had, to see the proof of it. I tried to calm the protective surge that ran through me. Unsuccessfully. Pica clapped her hands together before she spun around in a circle, her arms windmilling back and forth in some sort of dance.
“Willy, my favourite daughter!” Her voice was all dreamy.
I felt Emmy stir behind me and I hoped that for once she would keep her mouth shut. Most of the gods didn’t appreciate a mouthy dweller.
Except me, apparently, I thought sarcastically.
“She’s not your daughter, Pica,” I reminded her. “You don’t own her. Remember that keeping her here is permitted because you’re keeping her safe,notbecause she belongs here. She is not a prisoner.”
This was a reminder I had been forced to repeat almost every sun-cycle since our stand-off on Champion’s Peak.
Pica stopped twirling, and when her eyes met mine, they were tinged with ruby tones. “I do not keep prisoners, Cyrus.” Her voice grew deep, and while my first instinct was to smack her into the platform because she was seriously pissing me off, I managed to restrain myself. “I love everything I have,” she continued. “I love it more than my own life. This is their sanctuary.”
Love and obsession. Pica had blurred the lines between the two to the point that she couldn’t even keep it straight any more.
“We need to see Willa,” I reminded her.
A bright smile tilted up her cheeks. “Right! Follow me.”
As we walked, I continued to manoeuvre myself between Pica and Emmy, trying to block her completely from view. Her damn robes were too bright though, they drew attention, the blues and greens shifting as she walked, almost like the colour couldn’t decide what colour to be. All the gods had one solid shade, that was how it was. Except for the creator, of course. He had two colours.
Emmy’s robes were going to cause a stir, and the last thing I needed was for Staviti to catch wind of her reappearance after he had killed her. Or for Pica to want to add her to her ‘sanctuary’.
“I’ll just pop in and see if she’s awake first,” Pica told us, pausing outside the room Willa had been taken to.
I’d checked on her a few times because I knew Emmy would want to know, when she eventually woke. And … because Willa had grown on me. She was like a walking hurricane, but somehow I enjoyed watching her cause chaos wherever she went. Of course, Willa came with a set of five asshole gods that I had to deal with, so Emmy was my preferable dweller companion. If I had to have one.
“Has she woken at all yet?” I asked.
She’d been unconscious the last time I saw her as well, asleep in the bed with all of Abil’s sons. They hadn’t left her side for a moment. I admired their loyalty, even while I couldn’t really imagine ever feeling like that about anyone. Pica didn’t answer me; she just disappeared. My hands itched to force her back with my energy, but then I’d have to deal with her insanity, and I really wasn’t in the mood.
I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to Emmy. “What?” I snapped, my emotions escaping me again.
She paused, examining me. “Have you been drinking again? You’re acting very … volatile. You need to be careful, you’ll get addicted.”
I closed my eyes for a beat, trying to regain my control. “No, I haven’t been drinking,” I bit out. “Gods cannot become addicted to drugs or alcohol. We can stop any time we want. I’ve been completely sober since I’ve been back in Topia, now that I don’t have to supervise the insect farm that was Champion’s Peak anymore.”
Staviti had punished me by placing me on Champions Peak. He’d done it because somehow, he knew that I had helped turn Willa into whatever she was now. It had also been a power-play, of sorts. He had wanted to remind me that even though I didn’thaveto obey him, he was still the most powerful god in existence. Topia had created me a long time ago—a full-grown being born into white light. Initially, I had been a simple force: a judge, a mouthpiece for what was right and wrong, my only purpose to keep the balance in Topia. Staviti couldn’t have wiped me from creation, though I had a feeling he had wanted to, and had probably even tried. Instead, he had been forced to allow me to exist. So, I existed, and as I did, I grew. I learned. I watched the dwellers and the sols and gained an understanding of their mortal emotions. I judged the gods and became acquainted with the many variants of magic and how the energies of Topia formed into powers. I watched as those powers twisted the personalities of their hosts. Love into obsession, Trickery into deviance, Creation into madness. And eventually … I became one of them. My power twisted me into a cold judge of character. An immortal being disgusted by imperfection.
It wasn’t until Willa fought her way into my life that something began to change. Her imperfection set off some kind of chain-reaction inside me—a trigger mechanism that tripped my mental processes and began a transformation in my personality. The only logical conclusion was that she was linked to Topia.
The balance had been unsettled, but instead of righting it … Topia was rightingmeto suit … well,Willa-Fucking-Knight,apparently.
Staviti was going to figure out what I had figured out eventually. Maybe he already had. The drinking had helped me get through multiple situations, but I couldn’t indulge anymore. Things had escalated more quickly than I could have ever anticipated. I also didn’t want to dull the sensation of being around Emmy anymore. It had helped, initially, but I was quickly switching from one addiction to another. Namely, the faint scent of vanilla that lingered on her skin. Her presence was both irritating, and somehow … interesting.
“Why did you take the position at the Peak?” Emmy asked, breaking up our long silence. “You don’t strike me as the sort of god who usually follows orders,” she noted, in her far too observant way.
“I almost didn’t.” I stared pensively out across the land of Topia. “No god can control me, because I was not born of Staviti. Until you and Willa, I was the only being here who wasn’t created from Staviti, in one way or another. I was created from the world itself, like the panteras.”
“So why didn’t you just refuse to go to the Peak?” she pushed.
At the time, I hadn’t been able to refuse. The urge within me was too strong.
“A need,” I admitted. “I was drawn there, to an important event. I didn’t know what, at the time, but it was to prevent Staviti from destroying everyone on Champion’s Peak. He initiated that program under false pretences, convincing the gods that it was in the best interests of both the sols, and the gods. He lied. He was trying to single out the strongest sol in each energy group. He wanted to shave off the fat—to keep them weak.”
“Why would he want that?”
“I can only assume it was a grapple for power, but I’m not sure how.”
“You saved them,” she muttered thoughtfully. “That was restoring the balance? Saving all those sols and dwellers?”
“I would have saved them eventually, when the time came to act. But it was Willa who forced his hand. He wouldn’t have acted for another life-cycle if he hadn’t found out about her.”
“You still fought him,” she countered. “You, Pica, Adeline, and Abil … you all made him feel out-numbered. Now he has been exposed, and all those people are still alive.”
“For now,” I agreed. “But the final battle is yet to come, and this one won’t be between Staviti and the sols. It will be a battle of the gods—andthatis a battle to change the worlds, Emmanuelle.”
