10. Thayla #3
He releases me and takes a step away. I sit in the silence and for a fleeting second, enjoy whatever it is that clicks into place.
“Okay, Thayla,” he says, sounding a tad farther from me than he was a moment ago. “Now, I want you to narrow the connection down. Focus on whichever sound has been the loudest for you. Allow everything else to slowly filter in but what you choose.”
Okay. I can do that.
Apparently, I can’t. The noise of the meadow comes crashing down on me and a loud-ass groan rips from my throat.
My pissed-off, annoyed gaze collides with Val’s, and the slew of curses on my tongue dies. His face holds a tender understanding, and his small smile speaks to me although he doesn’t utter a thing.
“It’s okay. Let’s give it another go,” he says.
My head tilts to the side.
“Interesting, isn’t it.” Meridamus chuckles under his breath. “It’s both frustrating and fascinating how power works the way it does.”
“Meridamus,” Val warns, but he goes ignored.
“Your power is fighting you and you know exactly why. Even if you’re too stubborn to acknowledge it.”
“It’s not being stubborn when I just figured it out for myself, asshole,” I grit through my teeth.
“What’s happening?” Yemi asks as she pushes herself up and out of her bubble of power. She looks much better.
I tear my gaze from her, though, when Meridamus laughs lightly once again.
“She isn’t struggling because she doesn’t understand the lesson or because her instincts don’t understand what the power of Boundaries is supposed to do.”
I open my mouth to tell him to shut the hell up, but Yemi’s question leaves her first.
“Then what’s going on?”
“This is going on,” he says, waving his hand between Val and me. “Her power is fighting her because the source of your domain—one of hers—is standing two feet from her and she’s resisting her instinct. Resisting her power’s urge to reach for him.”
“My power isn’t reaching for anyone,” I say.
“Yes, it is. And you know it.”
“Enough, Meridamus,” Val says.
The guilt in his gaze tells me he realized what was happening since my first failed attempt, but he wasn’t going to say anything.
Because of this.
Because it opens up a line of emotional communication that I don’t want to have yet.
“It’s not enough. She keeps trying to force her power to focus on the exercise while her instincts are focused on you. You continue to allow it.”
“Yes, I do. She and her power will eventually figure it out.”
Meridamus scoffs at him.
“Pretending there isn’t a deeper connection between her, her power, and you and yours while trying to teach her your domain is idiotic. It’s never going to work.”
He swings his light brown gaze my way and my temper rises. It pisses me off that he can look both so concerned and fed up at the same time.
“Your power not only recognizes that he’s its source, but it also knows the same blood in his veins is in yours.
Power may react to your emotions, but it doesn’t understand your emotions.
It couldn’t care less that you don’t want anything to do with him—with us.
It only wants to be closer to where it came from. And you’re not allowing it to.”
My fists ball at my sides. Even Kyzen stepping fully into my space doesn’t lessen how painfully clenched they are.
“I recognize plenty that he’s the God of Boundaries and this particular domain comes from him.”
He snaps his fingers and points at me.
“That right there. You separate the two. You’ve established that consciously and subconsciously. Father. God of Boundaries. That isn’t how it works. He is one and the same. Your father and the God of Boundaries. You can’t categorize him any other way.”
His words come out brutally blunt. There’s no hint of judgment or cruelty, though. Just straightforward, undeniable fact.
“Suma.”
Val’s one-word warning is both quieter and louder this time. The switch from the name I’ve always known to his real name gets everyone’s attention. Meridamus finally relents his tense stance enough to drag a hand through his hair.
“Thayla girl, hate us, don’t trust us, refuse to hear anything we want to say for the next thousand years if you want to.
What you can’t do, though, is deny in your mind who we are.
It isn’t just this power that will rebel against you.
Mine will too. If you don’t want to suffer day after day of pointless training, accept, acknowledge, and understand the truth. ”
My chest rises and falls as I stare at Meridamus. Every desire I have screams at me to tell him to mind his own damn business. Let me process this in my own way and in my own time.
Unfortunately, though, I can’t. Apparently.
I put my father in two separate little boxes in my mind because acknowledging he’s one and the same forces me to walk into a territory I have absolutely no desire to enter yet. I cannot focus on what we need to get done and our past at the same time.
It’s two extremes on two different spectrums and, currently, the fate of the realm is more important than me solving my fucking daddy issues.
This is easier to tolerate if, in my mind, I identify him as the God of Boundaries. Then this simply becomes just training.
If he’s only my father, then that’s a different disaster entirely. He’s someone I don’t even know.
If he’s both, then he becomes the god who abandoned the realm.
The father who abandoned me.
The man with too many secrets to even remotely begin to understand at the moment.
I squeeze my eyes shut as the anger I’ve been working really hard to tame rises fast and hot beneath my skin. It’s not even completely directed at the two of them. It’s this whole situation plus the fact that my power has chosen right this fucking second to form an obvious opinion.
I think that pisses me off the most.
I’ve worked tirelessly to accept, acknowledge, and grow with my powers. A couple hours in his presence and my power of Boundaries decides to stage a mutiny.
My gaze cuts toward him before I can stop myself. He’s glaring at Meridamus like he’s done fucked everything up. A smidge of appreciation spreads through my chest. He did call him down a couple of times and warn him to stop.
My fucking power vibrates against my back, as if it’s attempting to push me toward him.
Fine.
The word is nothing more than a growl inside my mind.
You annoying-ass power. You want him to be your source?
Fine.
You want me to acknowledge he’s the God of Boundaries too?
Fine.
You want me to acknowledge he’s my father also?
Fucking fine. I acknowledge and accept he’s all three.
I release a sharp breath and stop fighting myself and my power. It slices across the space like it can’t wait to be free. The surge is so abrupt that Val’s and Meridamus’s eyes widen.
The familiar tingling that’s been fighting me all morning smooths out, and the resistance vanishes. The strange disconnect between my intention and instinct settles into alignment so quickly it nearly throws me off balance.
Around us, the meadow continues moving. The grass dances, branches bend, and critters scurry through the undergrowth.
Yet, the movements make no noise. Only the sound of breathing remains. Mine, Kyzen’s, Yemi’s, and the Beginning Gods’.
For several seconds, nobody speaks or moves.
My gaze locks onto Meridamus.
“Happy now?”
His grin is infuriating.
“Yes, actually.”
The silence around us shatters as I snatch my power back. Sound snaps back into existence from every direction at once. They study me for a long moment. I take the realm’s deepest breath as I square my shoulders. I focus on Meridamus first.
“You are and always will be Meridamus to me. I know you’re the God of Consequence and my godfather all in one.”
I don’t let the pleased twinkle in his eyes piss me off. I still have more to say. I turn my attention to Val.
“I do acknowledge you are my father and the God of Boundaries. One and the same. But this goes for both of you…”
They shift and the small smiles that were tugging at the corners of their lips fade away.
“I don’t know either of you. I’ve never known you truly and I don’t trust you.
I don’t know when I will. Just because I can say out loud who you are to me, that doesn’t mean that’s how I feel in my heart.
This is me accepting those things because they are factual.
This isn’t emotional acceptance. Anyone can be a father.
It takes more than that to be a dad. Neither of you is that to me.
Understand that just because you held those titles at one time in my life, you don’t hold them any longer. ”
Emotions clog my throat when their features crumble. My heart thuds uncontrollably against my rib cage and its pulse continues to pick up speed. Pain twists across my chest, but I refuse to take the words back.
“You are Val and you are Meridamus.”
The color drains from Val’s face and his shoulders cave in like I just slid a sword through his stomach. His throat bobs twice as he swallows down either emotions or the words he wants to say. Meridamus’s jaw clenches.
Neither of them looks like Beginning Gods right now.
They look like ashamed men.
“W-we understand,” Val mumbles.
A trembling breath leaves my lips and my soul shivers in my chest.
“Let’s go home and take a breath,” Kyzen says quietly as he lays his hand against my lower back.
I hold Val’s gaze for a heartbeat before nodding and taking two steps away.
“We can pick training back up later if you—”
My breath is snatched from my lungs faster than I can blink and my fingers curl into Kyzen’s shirt, cutting his words off. My knees crash into the ground as my soul screams out in absolute agony.
Fuck. That pain wasn’t just from that emotional moment.
“Thayla.”
My name rips from multiple throats, but I focus on Kyzen as he kneels and cups my cheeks.
“Who?” he asks.
“C-Creed.”