He had their full attention now. From what I could see, they weren’t fighting against his hold any longer. Their eyes were locked on the god in white.
“We have brought you here tonight to give you a choice,” he continued. “To side with the one who destroys our balance for his own power gain: Staviti. Or … you have another choice. A new god has been created—though she wasnotcreated by Staviti. She is an Original, and her power may even rival Staviti’s. With her help, we can seize control of our world and begin the healing process before it is too late. Topia stands on a precipice and we can no longer hide from reality. If you do not support this new goddess, Staviti will destroy her, and his cycle of abuse will continue uninterrupted. We ask only for your support and your help. This world does not belong under the control of one man, and no one man can claim ownership of the land we stand on.” His hand waved out toward the snow still visible beyond the garden. “See the truth with your own eyes. Snow has started to fall: the land is weeping. The panteras are losing their members to a wild urge they cannot control. Staviti is manipulating the natural order of ascension; he is attempting to prevent any further sols from reaching Topia, and in time, he will start to cull those who are already here. You all know this is the truth, you just don’t want to face it.”
“Holy shit,” I whispered. He was laying it right out for them all.
I then realised I’d spoken out loud, which meant that Cyrus had lifted whatever energy was controlling us, or it had eventually faded away with his light.
Still no one spoke.
Emmy stepped up then to join her guy. She looked stunning, her head held high, determination creasing her brow. Cyrus placed his hand against her back. “This is Emmanuelle,” he said, pride lacing his words. “She was a dweller until just recently, but now … now she is a god.”
“How?” someone shouted.
“Yeah,” another god added, “you just said that Staviti can make no new gods.”
Cyrus turned his gaze in the direction of the speakers and silence fell again. “The goddess I spoke of is also a Creator and she has achieved something that not even Staviti has done: she brought Emmanuelle—adweller—back from death, changing and morphing her into something none of us have ever seen. The first God of Fertility.”
There was a snort of disbelief from somewhere close by, and it was starting to feel like Cyrus was losing them again. Emmy must have gotten the same vibe as me, because she smiled, and I recognised her expression immediately. Either she was about to launch into a lecture or she was going to demonstrate her power, but either way, she was about to prove them wrong.
With a single leap, she was off the stage and striding across the grassed area below. The gathered people began to crowd in around her, but none dared to get too close. Probably because of the white light beginning to shoot from Cyrus again. Emmy’s skin was glowing too, and I was still half convinced that it was the glow that tied her and Cyrus together on an emotional level. And their rules. And their books. And their stupid inside jokes.
“Calm down, Soldier,” Siret said with laughter in his words.
Right.Calming down was probably a good idea.
“I can demonstrate Fertility to you,” Emmy was saying, her voice just audible from where I was standing. “But you’ll have to let me through to the other side of the garden.”
The gods parted immediately, and a long path to the snow formed for Emmy. Grabbing hold of Siret’s hand, I tugged him along, rushing to follow. I used my power again to create my own path, all the while feeling paranoid that everyone was going to know it was me now. Cyrus had given them the initial information, but he hadn’t named me yet. It was only a matter of time though. Then I would be a target.
When we reached the snow, Emmy stepped out and lifted her hands. I could feel the warmth she was creating from where I stood a few feet away, and immense pride filled my chest when a plethora of flowers and herbs and bushy gardens spread out from under her feet.
“I create life where there is none,” she said simply, her garden continuing to grow. “The snow kills most plants; the cold isn’t survivable for them. But … Fertility is life.”
Her garden was thriving, new flowers bursting to life everywhere. Emmy was really pushing her show, and I worried that she might tire herself out too much.
“She’ll know her limits, right?”
Siret pressed his lips close to my ear when he answered. “We have one shot to get them on our side. It needs to be impressive. There’s no other choice, but I’m sure Cyrus will stop her before she goes too far.”
Sure enough, as more of her garden started to spread, Cyrus reached out and grabbed her hand, drawing Emmy’s attention toward him. He murmured something I couldn’t hear, and then she nodded once, a few fatigue lines appearing around her eyes.
“Was it enough?” I asked.
Siret started to answer but got no more than a “yes” out before something happened to quieten everyone again.
The Garden of Everlasting started to shift around us.
For a moment I wasn’t sure if I should panic or not, because I hadn’t initiated the change.What was the garden up to?
The trees and bushes that had been forming the boundary started to spread across the ground, pushing away from the border and claiming Emmy’s new section. Immediately the snow ceased in the newly claimed section of the garden, warmth surrounding all of us who had been standing in the cold.
“What in the worlds?” I choked out.
Cyrus looked immensely pleased by this new development. “Only Fertility could create new life that was filled with enough old magic to be claimed by the garden,” he said loudly. “And only a Creator with strong and ancient energy would be able to create Fertility.”
“Who is the new Creator?” a god asked from further back in the crowds. “Who is the god to perform these miraculous tasks when our original Creator could not?”
Fuck.This was me. My moment to shine. The time where I had to step up and prove my worth to them all. Only I was having a complete mind blank. I had no idea what I could do that was big enough, and the “best thinking when not thinking” thing wasn’t working for me.
Luckily, no one seemed to have noticed that I was frozen on the spot with a stupid, stunned expression on my face. I closed my eyes, hoping that something would come to me, that the correct path would be revealed before my name was said.
“It’s my sister,” Emmy replied. “Willa Knight!”
I opened my eyes in time to see her swing her arms at me, directing everyone’s attention to where I stood, frozen. For some reason, all I could think about was Jeffrey. Her face randomly appeared in my mind, maybe because I’d come to rely on the servers a bit to rescue me. Or maybe because I was doing the not-thinking thing and that’s where my brain went. Either way, I latched on to that thought of Jeffrey in my panic, yanking it tightly to my mind and trying to figure out why it had suddenly appeared in my head. Siret let out a strangled sound a moment later, and I was just spinning my head toward him when everything went dark.
