The holy leader glanced around, swallowing nervously at the crowd that we were gathering. He cleared his throat once, and then twice.
“I bless this union,” he finally said. “With the gods in our presence as witnesses, you are married.”
* * *
“What do people usually do once they’re married?” Yael asked as we all stepped onto the barge to take us over to Blesswood.
We were accompanied by all of the Original Gods that had helped to coordinate the mass evacuation to Blesswood: Abil, Adeline, Terrance, Ciune, Lorda, Haven, and Gable. We had done a last sweep of Soldel before boarding the barge—everyone else was already on Blesswood. As large as the island was, it hadn’t been designed to hold so many people, so Cyrus and Emmy had gone over earlier to set up a small pocket. They were herding several hundred dwellers into Topia and settling them into the Garden of Everlasting, where they might be somewhat protected. Even with those people taken care of, the island was still overflowing. The sols and dwellers had filled every room, cave, and field in Blesswood, and were spilling out onto the edges of the island, by the water. I wasn’t sure if Cyrus’s pocket would be powerful enough to take any more people over to Topia, so I would have to do the best I could to make my own pocket large enough to protect everyone on the island before the server armies arrived.
“Willa?” Yael’s voice brought me back from my stressful thoughts, and I glanced over at him. “What do people do after they’re married?” he repeated.
“They move into the same hut,” I replied. “They set up their home.”
He frowned, exchanging a look with the others. We were far enough away from everyone else on the barge that we could speak privately, but Coen still lowered his voice when he spoke.
“Where do you want to live, baby?”
I blinked. The thought hadn’t even occurred to me. “Somewhere near Emmy,” I decided. “And Cyrus. And maybe … Abil and Adeline, too? I would like to spend more time with Jakan, to get to know him. And I want to figure out a way to help Donald … to make her a little more my mother and a little less Staviti’s server.”
“So, Topia then?” Siret asked, arching a brow. “Not Minatsol?”
I hadn’t even realised that Minatsol was an option, but as soon as the word was out of Siret’s mouth, I was shaking my head.
“No … dwellers and sols spend their lives fighting to get to Topia. To become more powerful. To reach eternal life. I think … I think I’d like to stay here. I have no interest in being the most powerful being in the worlds. I belong here.”
“And we belong where you are,” Aros said.
I saw our lives, then, in a flash of sudden clarity. It wasn’t a vision—but more like a hope. Their questions had opened up possibilities to me that I hadn’t even thought were available, and with them, my blank vision of the future grew form. I saw the winding steps leading up to Champions Peak, and the wave-whipped mountainside. I could taste the salt air and hear the laughter of the people I loved.
“The Peak is pretty big…,” I ventured cautiously, but they had already seen the vision in my head. Their eyes were glazed over, their expressions ranging from pleasure to surprise.
“It’s perfect,” Coen whispered. “We will have to clean up the ruin of the main building and rebuild it ourselves. We can make it ours. It’s in neither a sol city nor a dweller town.”
“It’s perfect,” Siret agreed. “And I think the others will follow us there.”
“We can start a new community,” I said wistfully. “Dwellers, gods, sols, servers, and creators … all living equally.”
Whatever their reply might have been was cut off as the barge bobbed against the Blesswood dock, and the gathered people parted to make room for us.
“Give Willa and the Knights room!” Cyrus boomed, herding the people back a little farther.
As much as I regretted his tone, I was also equal parts grateful that he was stopping them from crowding me as I attempted to figure out my next task, and amused of his use of the Abcurses’ new last name. It was a novelty to them, having a true last name.Mylast name. As soon as I had given it to the holy leader, he had raised his eyes to mine, studying me intently.
“Knight was the family name of the last ruling family of Minatsol,” he had told me. “It is a good name.”
In that moment, he seemed to forget all of his reservations about our marriage, and he happily signed the paperwork with my last name repeated six times. I didn’t tell him that I was a member of that final ruling family—that I was, in fact, the heir. The grandchild of the last king and queen. The … princess …
I snorted, and the Abcurses all turned to stare at me.
“Is she laughing?” Cyrus asked.
“She’s thinking about how she’s a princess again.”
I couldn’t see Cyrus, but I knew that he was rolling his eyes. “Could we focus on the pocket, please, Willa? I can sense them coming. We don’t have much time.”
“Fine,” I muttered, closing my eyes and tipping my head back, my arms extended.
We had discussed the two best points for the portal: one on the dock—assuming the servers could swim—and one at the back entrance to Blesswood, between two high stone walls. Both were the easiest access points, and while we knew that the servers would be difficult to defeat, we also knew that they weren’t that smart. They would take the most direct route. No tricks.
