Page 240 of The Gods Veiling
That was the largest and last secret I’ve been keeping from them.
The abundance of information thrown at me in the last few minutes, though, has my mind shutting down. It’s hard to force myself not to stare off and lose myself to the thoughts.
Overwhelmed isn’t a strong enough word to describe what’s going on inside of me.
My system’s fried by the rapid change of my want and opinion about my soul being inside the four of them. Even after last night and the beginning of this conversation, I still held a great amount of fear about them having slivers of it. Anyone having that amount of power over me scares me to death.
What scares me even more, though, is the possibility they just presented to me.
I’d hate to break it to them if they changed their minds and didn’t want my soul, but that’s where it’s staying.
I really and naively thought I had it all figured out last night after getting out of the hot spring. In my mind, I’d worked it out that because of what was done to the guys and choices my parents made that are now directly affecting me, that the choice we’d have to make is stand against the Abandon.
That’s the most unnerving and out-of-order place I’ve ever seen. It was simple to conclude that. Fix the problem that is the Abandon, it’ll fix the problems in the realm.
Like obviously we’d choose to stand against it.
It feels far deeper than that, though. Like only standing against the Abandon isn’t enough.
Why go to such lengths to make sure I’m never killed?
My life is no more valuable or important than any other god. Also, not to sound overly sure about myself, especially after what Gladian did to me yesterday, but I believe my chances of survival are higher than the average.
Between the power and skills of my Valtrue, add in Creed’s killing sword, my own power settling—which we still don’t know what it is, nor have we addressed it—I’m confident that it’d be hard to kill me.
I’m going to continue telling myself that until all my doubt and fear dissipate.
None of them, aside from Riven, have voiced that they want my soul gone or their feelings about what this all means, but we’ve been rapid firing one large remark to the next in the span of a few minutes.
Once the realm’s largest dickhead leaves our front door, maybe they’ll have time to let this information settle. Then they’ll decide they don’t want to have that much responsibility over my life or be involved more than they’re forced to be in the taurnshit the realm has going on.
Fuck, my life is in their hands. Literally.
“Come on,” Kyzen says quietly as he grips my hand and pulls me up.
“Wait, we’re all answering the door?”
“Yeah. He never shows up here unless he’s demanding to see all of us. I can count on my hands the number of times he’s come to our door in twenty years.”
Shit…I bet this is about yesterday and he’s about to tear my ass a new one.
The tension bleeding between the five of us is strong. I struggle to swallow with how clogged my throat is from my nerves.
I would’ve figured the whipping Gladian gave me would’ve been enough of a punishment I’d have to face. I never even considered the High Chancellor would get involved.
Creed and Amick step slightly in front of us as we approach the door. The four of them all exchange a nod, then they all give me one. Kyzen tightens his grip on my hand, and I squeeze his back in silent thanks.
“Amick, Creed.”
“High Chancellor,” they reply in sync with a small tilt of their heads, then their muscles go rigid.
Kyzen and Riven step closer to me on each side and I try to peer around the other two to see what has them reacting that way, but their bodies block me completely.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Amick asks.
“This is not of my doing. I am only coming to retrieve you. Your father has requested a meeting. You may take a minute to yourself, gather your Binder, and report to the temple. He is already waiting for you. They have orders to escort you there when you come out. Make sure you come out.”
Excuse me? Their who?
