29. Thayla #2
“They would search for you before you ever had the chance to live. I was very careful about what I said and who I said it to. Every piece had to line up.”
“Did anyone besides you know the whole prophecy?” I ask.
“Yes.” Her answer is immediate. “I told your father and Sabelline knows both versions.”
The answer shocks me to my core and I flinch.
“Why in the realm would you tell her of all people?”
“The prophecy required six. Mellcom had to exist for the path to unfold. If Sabe didn’t know her child had a greater purpose, she wouldn’t have had one at all.”
“Still,” I say, shaking my head. “Why not tell one of the other Goddesses? Her out of all of them?”
“Rella is brilliant, although cold. She would have found the weakness in every word I spoke. She would have searched for the child carrying the ties before the child ever had the chance to breathe. Calista would’ve done everything she could to ensure none were conceived because it wasn’t her idea. That’s what I really needed from Sabe.”
I stare at her, blinking.
“You needed to plant the seeds of an idea for the Beginning Gods to have children.”
“Yes,” she says. “And who better to foster that idea than the Goddess of Seduction. The Goddess whose goal since her creation was to have all the gods to herself. I know who Sabe is deep down. She does an impeccable job of swirling her wine and making everyone around her believe all she cares about is sin, sex, and power at Kira’s side.
That is the furthest thing from the truth.
Sabe is smart. Smarter than any of them. Even him.”
My forehead wrinkles. I haven’t seen proof of that, but I don’t live behind their doors, and knowing the shit Sabe pulled on Derivius, I really can’t or won’t put anything past her.
“You never told Kira about the prophecy,” I say. “No one did as far as I know.”
“No, I never said anything. There was no point. Kira doesn’t believe in destiny unless he controls it.
He would have searched for a way to force the outcome.
He would have taken the prophecy and twisted it until it served him.
Sabe knows that as well, and that’s why she’s never shared the prophecy with him. Just…bits and pieces of an idea.”
Bits and pieces. It finally feels like the pieces are coming together.
“What about Meridamus and Derivius? I know Dad went to the nonmagical realm and made Derivius come home. After that, he felt like you all betrayed him because none of you told him how the prophecy would unfold.”
A flash of guilt spears through her eyes and she pinches them shut for a fleeting second.
“I did withhold that from him. I knew he’d stop it.
I told him the wrong prophecy, then shared with him that when the fifth came, he would know of her arrival.
I told him you’d have seven ties and his job was to protect the path ahead of you by any means necessary.
He knew the prophecy required certain things to happen.
He knew some truths needed to remain hidden until the time was right. ”
By any means necessary…
“You should’ve been a little more specific with him. Splitting my soul was a tad much.”
She lets out a small laugh just as I do and the smiles linger on our faces.
“It wasn’t my girl. It was the perfect amount of protection.”
I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way.
“And Meridamus?” I ask.
Her smile turns sad.
“He knew Mellcom’s existence would be tied to the prophecy. He knew keeping the five sons together would lead to consequences none of us could afford. I shared more of the truth with him because he could see consequences no one else could. He knew what to say, how to say it, and when to.”
“What…” I close my eyes and shake my head. “What is Mellcom’s path in all of this? Aside from the prophecy requiring six gods?”
“Without him, there would have been no path forward.”
My brows pull together.
“But he isn’t one of the four.”
“No, he isn’t.” Her quiet mutter rings through my ears as her gaze stays fixed on the stars. “Mellcom’s purpose was to bring the Starwoven together. He succeeded in that.”
The Starwoven.
It isn’t the first time she’s said it, but it’s the first time my mind has clung to the word. The first time I ever heard it…
Starza. The Valmareri in the Lost Sea.
“What is the Starwoven?” I ask.
Her eyes alight with wonder and she holds her hand out for me to take as she stands.
“Let me show you.”
The newfound excitement thrumming from her has my heart pounding in my chest. It throws me back in time to when we’d roam around a forest and I’d ask a question about a random plant or flower.
She loved explaining things to me. So did my dad. They both had a wealth of what I thought at the time was pointless knowledge. I know better now. They’re so much older than I ever would’ve imagined.
We step up on her dais together and she lets my hand go as she takes a few paces from me.
“When our souls enter the realm, they fall straight from the Valories’ Stargate.”
She waves her arm through the air, and I stagger back, wide-eyed and purely astonished. The stars race across the glass as if she’s controlling the night sky. They spin and spin until she finds the ones she’s looking for. She pinches her hand shut, and they suddenly stop moving.
Holy shit.
My eyes damn near bug out of my head when she spreads her fingers wide, and the stars zoom in closer to us.
“It’s a truly remarkable process. One of the only processes in the realm the Valories have no true control over.”
“What process is that exactly?” I ask slowly, stepping closer to her once again.
“Each star you see up there is the mark a soul left behind on its fall to our realm. On their way down, they find their perfect match—or well, matches. The souls pick each other as they fall from the sky.”
She smiles from ear to ear like this subject means something special to her.
For a breath, I watch her instead of the stars.
“The Starwoven is as old as the Beginning Gods’ first creation of gods beneath them.
Souls bound to one another for eternity.
They knew who they’d spend the rest of their lives with before there was even flesh for them to live in,” she says with pure affection in her tone.
“For most of our history, a Starwoven consisted of only two souls. They were destined for one another long before either of them ever drew their first breath. Entire traditions and sayings were built around these pairings. A god is only granted his worthiness by the goddess who stands before him.”
My eyes snap to her knowing ones, and she gives me a small wink.
Phoelius told Creed that saying in Hell.
He said he looked forward to seeing what he was worth.
Before I can say anything, she continues.
“People often mistake that quote as a declaration of power, but it never was. It meant that a god wasn’t considered complete until the soul woven to his own stood beside him.”
Her expression grows more thoughtful, but I don’t dare interrupt her train of thought.
“Then the portal to Elementra closed. The Beginning Gods began obsessing over her power system and the brief information they believed they understood about a Nexus. They thought if they could recreate even a fraction of that balance, our realm would flourish. So they began shaping their own power structure.”
“Derivius explained this before he split my soul,” I mumble. “The gods were manipulating groups before they were even called Valtrues.”
She hums and nods.
“That’s right. Those groupings became common among the gods, but they never possessed the strength everyone expected. They were individuals who were forced to stand together, not souls that had been woven together from the beginning.”
She pauses, shaking her head.
“I can’t explain how, and neither can the Valories, or they’ve chosen not to tell me, but the realm itself shifted. Somehow the souls recognized it before anyone else did. For the first time in history, Starwovens began forming in groups of five.”
She glances toward the group of stars she has zoomed close to us before continuing.
“It didn’t replace the pairings of old. Those still exist, just as they always have.
They’re just as strong. There’s not a thing wrong or missing when two souls are bonded, but the new structure of five emerged alongside them.
I’ve spent centuries watching those bonds form, and one truth has become impossible to ignore.
If it’s more than two, then the only grouping that makes sense is five.
There’s balance in five. Three lacks the stability to endure.
Four and six can’t come to an agreement.
Seven carries too many competing wills. But five… finds harmony.”
She laughs lightly, her eyes glossing with a teasing touch.
“The irony has never been lost on me. The gods spent centuries trying to create what they believed would resemble a Nexus. In the end, they never accomplished it themselves. The souls did. The souls declared there’d be true Starwoven Valtrues.
The fifth and final one, the one we’ve labeled the Binder, forms in the middle and threads them together. ”
My jaw hangs unhinged as I stand shoulder to shoulder with her and crane my neck back. I raise my fingers in the air and trace the cluster she has up close and personal to us.
“Amazing,” I breathe. “So these five stars here? They are really souls that formed a true Starwoven Valtrue?”
“That’s not just any souls or Starwoven.”
Her fingers lace through mine and she gives me a gentle squeeze.
“That is your true Starwoven Valtrue, my girl.”