26. Thayla #2
“She blamed me for a while,” Derivius says. “She and Kira kept me incredibly close for years after that so they could keep an eye on me.”
“That’s why you were around nonstop?” Kyzen asks, and Derivius nods.
“And they never blamed you? Not once?” I ask again, focusing on Meridamus. “It wasn’t suspicious to them at all that you just kept disappearing?”
“That’s always been my nature. During the times that I had to come back to Godsden for extended periods, the…Etains kept Mellcom.”
Jeremiah’s family.
Of course.
I shake my head once as I place my hands on my hips and glare at the floor for a long moment.
Then I glance at Derivius.
“Did you know in the Veil he was the god who spoke to Mellcom? Did you lie to me?”
“No,” he states firmly. “At that point, I truly didn’t know.
I had my suspicions, yes, but that was never a part of the plan they shared with me.
He didn’t admit the truth until I confronted him when he approved Harriseen’s request for their fake Valtrue to join you all on the search for Sabe’s Binding.
After that, I knew I couldn’t tell you the truth yet.
It would lead to more questions and answers too soon. ”
I stare at nothing and breathe. No one attempts to fill my silence. That annoys me more than anything. By this point, answers should be offered without me having to ask questions.
Guess that’s not how this is going to go.
“Why?” I ask, lifting my head to meet Meridamus’s gaze once more.
My voice cracks around the single word.
“Why leave us?” I take another step toward him. “Then, eleven years later, why come to Mellcom in a dream and tell him to do the one thing you spent years drilling into our heads never to do?”
I shake my head again, unable to stop.
“Why leave us a note saying you were going to help my parents? Why disappear without another explanation?” My chest rises sharply. “Why build our lives one way…only to turn around and unravel everything you’d taught us?”
My hands fall uselessly to my sides.
“Just…why?”
He holds my gaze without flinching.
“I left because my part in raising you had ended.”
A humorless smile touches his lips before disappearing just as quickly.
“I knew you wouldn’t see it that way. I knew you’d believe I’d abandoned you as well. I accepted that consequence the moment I walked away.”
His eyes drift toward my men for the briefest second before returning to me.
“You spent eight years learning how to survive under my guidance. If I’d stayed, you would’ve continued surviving under it. You needed to learn what kind of woman you’d become once my voice wasn’t there to answer every question.”
The muscles in my jaw clench.
“Mellcom turned out the way he did because you left.”
“I know.” A quiet breath leaves him. “I spent years teaching the two of you never to enter the Veiling because it wasn’t your time.
The Veiling isn’t a place to satisfy curiosity.
It’s a place you enter when you’re prepared to live with whatever truth you find here. The time came for the two of you.”
His expression hardens and my stomach twists.
“Neither of you was moving anymore but going with the motion. Just existing and waiting. Kira was making his moves. Attacks at the barrier were increasing. The boys were having to cross that barrier often to help. Every day that you remained where you were, the realm lost ground.”
“So you forced us forward,” I say.
“I gave Mellcom a choice.”
“You knew what he’d choose.”
“I did.”
“Did you know the man he’d become in the meantime? In the year he had to wait between Veilings, did you know the things he’d do to me?”
“I knew it was a path and a possibility, but I never thought in a million years that’d be the one he’d take.
I raised him bett—” He slams his mouth shut and jerks his head once.
“It doesn’t matter how I raised him. What matters is I made a decision that left you alone to face the consequences. For that, Thayla, I am so sorry.”
His answer hits me straight in the heart, and a tremor races through my clenched fists.
“And the note?” My voice comes out quieter than I’d like. “You said you were going to help my parents.”
“When I walked away, there was nothing more I could do for you by remaining at your side. There was everything I could still do for them.”
I frown, but his gaze never wavers.
“I couldn’t free them. I couldn’t reunite your family.
But I could move the pieces that neither of them could reach.
I watched Kira, Sabe, Rella, Creation, and even Derivius.
I watched the Valories. I guided those I still could.
I set events in motion that would one day lead you to the truths you deserved.
Every decision I made after leaving you was another step toward bringing your family back together. ”
My breathing slows. His explanation doesn’t ease the hurt. I don’t agree with all of his choices and I may never, but I understand I’m staring at a being who’s spent more time than I can comprehend weighing the consequences of choices.
My eyes drift past him and land on the man who hasn’t answered for his own choices.
My father.
The man who was supposed to be there and love me through it all.
“V…” I swallow the emotions that tear through my throat. “He told me when the time was right, I’d be conceived. That time came and Kira and Sabe arrived in Oddian. Was that the day I was conceived or born?”
“Born,” he says.
“They felt the power of your Binding taking my power.”
“They did. They thought it had something to do with their son.”
My lips pinch together, but I nod nonetheless.
“So we moved and moved from that point on. Then ten years later, he attacked Edistoia after the guys attacked the Abandon and you decided to leave me with Meridamus.”
“Yes.”
“Then you made a choice to go against the Valories’ wishes and threw the Goddess of Seduction’s Binding into the sea and you delayed when I was supposed to enter in the Veiling myself. I assume that’s why Meridamus waited to leave until after the Veiling I was eighteen had passed?”
“Yes,” he says simply again, and I grind my teeth.
“That day by the hot spring when you were getting ready to leave me, you said the two of you had to leave to prepare for the consequences of your actions. You made these decisions, knowing what the consequences would be? You knew you wouldn’t be able to return to me?”
“I did.”
My jaw trembles from the effort it’s taking to fight back the tears that want to fall. I refuse to allow them. This is what I wanted. The truth.
“I was worth choosing.”
He takes a small step forward, and I hold my hand up. He halts immediately.
“You were always worth choosing,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “We disobeyed the Valories and knew it’d come at a cost to us. Your mother was given a punishment. I was given a choice.”
The words hollow something out inside me.
Punishment…
I stare at him.
“Her punishment was obviously the fact that she couldn’t return to me. Is that why she’s beyond the barrier?”
He dips his head once.
“She was blessed with the impossible. The ability to have a baby when that was never meant to be. The ultimate punishment was taking that child from her. That guaranteed further cooperation from her. From me.”
Rage burns through my blood like a fucking inferno.
That’s cruelty and manipulation. Plain and simple.
They’ve got her just…locked away from me. From the realm.
“And your choice?”
He hangs his head, taking countless measured breaths. His eyes glisten when he finally glances back up at me.
“Return to you or stay with your mother.”
Ice slithers through my veins and my body falls still.
“The Valories made you choose between the two of us.” My quiet statement sits between us for a long moment. “How…how did you even make that choice?”
“The consequences for both decisions were presented to me.”
My attention jerks to Meridamus and his nod for a fleeting second, then back to my father.
“If I chose to return to you, your mother was to be cast beyond the barrier, and I wouldn’t be allowed to see her until the realm was made right once again. She’d be alone until that time came. If I stayed with her—”
“You couldn’t see me but could move freely past the barrier.”
“Yes,” he says. “As long as you never laid your eyes on me, I could continue aiding wherever I was needed.”
“I needed you,” I whisper.
“I know,” he breathes, and a single tear slides down his cheek. “But the woman I loved needed me more.”
A watery, harsh laugh tumbles out of me as I grip the roots of my hair.
“You could’ve found another way. For both of us.”
“There was no other way, Thayla. It was impossible.”
“There’s always a possibility in the face of impossibility!”
My shout echoes through the house, and my gaze drifts up to V’s nook. He’s the one who told me that. The first night we met and experienced our Calling.
He was so, so right. There’s always a way.
It may be the hard way, but there is a way.
“You could’ve found the possibility. You chose not to come back completely.”
His brow furrows.
“They told you that you couldn’t see me. I couldn’t lay my eyes on you.” I take a step closer to him. “They never told you that you couldn’t contact me. You could’ve written me.”
He stays silent as he stares at me.
“You could’ve sent a message through Derivius or Meridamus.”
His jaw tightens.
“You could’ve let me know you were alive.”
“It wasn’t that simple. Before now, I wasn’t permitted to see you, tell you the truth of who I was, or anything like that.”
“I didn’t need the whole truth!” I shout, throwing my hands in the air. “I didn’t need to know about the Valories, you being a Beginning God, my mother’s punishment, or any of it!”
The words rip out of me and my heavy breathing muffles my hearing. I inhale slowly, deeply.
“You could’ve let me know…” My voice breaks. “You were alive. That you still thought about me.”
A reckless tear slips free and I don’t bother wiping it away.
“I needed to know my father hadn’t forgotten me.”