29. Thayla
Thayla
I can’t stop looking at her.
Every feature I’ve spent years trying to remember is somehow both exactly the same and completely different. The curve of her smile. The softness in her eyes. The warmth that’s always existed in her voice.
She looks more tired now than she did in the memories I clung to.
I can only imagine how different I look to her.
For a long moment, neither of us speaks.
We simply…observe. Like we’re trying to memorize each other all over again.
Oh gods.
All the shit I’ve talked to the Messenger. All the things whispered in my mind or shouted at the sky. She’s heard it all. She knows how I’ve always felt about the being I had a tie to.
Red is beginning to rim her eyes, and a memory surfaces so suddenly my breath catches. The very last conversation I ever had with her.
My lips part before I can stop them.
“There isn’t a force in this realm that could keep us from you forever,” I whisper.
Fresh tears spill down my cheeks and her lips curl between her teeth.
“No creators or creations…no Boundaries or barriers…and especially no gods.”
Her hand rises to cover her mouth.
“Our love for you transcends any power.”
My voice cracks.
“We’re always with you and will always see you.”
Silence hangs between us and I swallow around the lump lodged in my throat.
“You asked me if I understood.” A watery laugh escapes me. “I told you I did, but Valories know that was a lie.”
Another tear slips free, sliding down my face and disappearing into my small smile. My mother laughs lightly behind her fingers.
It’s quiet. Beautiful. Heartbreaking.
“I understand now.”
She reaches forward and cups my face exactly like she used to.
“I know you do,” she whispers.
Neither of us says anything else. She keeps her hands around my face, and I simply let her. I memorize the warmth of her palms, the lines around her eyes that hadn’t been there before, the tiny scar near her thumb I’d completely forgotten existed.
I thought I’d forgotten everything. I didn’t.
Eventually, my gaze drifts past her shoulder. Past the dais and endless stars suspended beyond the glass.
Valories. My mother is the Messenger. My father is the Beginning God of Boundaries.
My role now makes terrifying sense.
“They really are closer here,” I murmur, continuing to stare at the stars.
Her smile deepens.
“They are.”
Her hands slowly fall from my cheeks, and she gently strokes the ends of my hair. I offer her another small smile as I take in this chamber with entirely different eyes now.
“This is the Eye of the Veil,” I say.
“It is.”
I look back at her.
“Have you…always lived here?”
A quiet laugh escapes her.
“Oh, no. I, once upon a time, had a bedroom at the Sanctum.”
My eyes widen as she turns my hand over and rubs the scar on my palm.
“Your…the Sanctum.” A disbelieving laugh tumbles from my lips. “Seven bedrooms for the Beginning Gods. One for the Gods Binding. One for the Volreen. The Gods Veil. One for you. The Messenger. The eleven mystery rooms.”
“The Messenger. The Goddess of Fate, the Fates, the oracle, the Seer. I’ve been called so many things over the span of my lifetime, but…” She shakes her head. “All I’ve ever cared to be called is Mom.”
Her glistening eyes meet mine, and the tremble in her bottom lip sends a burst of pain through my heart.
“I know your father has already explained what led us to this, but—” She closes her eyes as though she needs a moment to find the words to say. “I’m so sorry, my girl.”
The sincerity in her tone wraps around me. For a heartbeat, all I see is a grieving mother. A woman who had to mourn time lost and had no say-so about it whatsoever.
Every murmur and mention about the Messenger that I’ve heard races through my mind. There are two that stick out to me the most.
V’s insistence on me forging a relationship even if I got no response. He obviously knew the truth.
And then…Seismet’s statement. The one he gave me right after I received my first message from her. I don’t think he knows the truth about our relationship, seeing as he didn’t know about my father, but he did know her truth.
I asked him what the Messenger would gain if I succeeded in helping the realm right itself once again.
He said freedom.
“I…” I start, then take a deep breath. “It’s hard for me to just erase the pain I’ve felt over the last twenty years, but I understand everything more now than ever. You’ve been a prisoner since you took your first breath in this realm.”
Her gaze wanders across the stars, and something soft settles over her features.
“It didn’t always feel that way,” she says as she tangles her fingers in her lap. “For years, life was simple. No, I don’t have abilities like the Beginning Gods, but I can starshoot. I wasn’t allowed to go beyond the Gods Binding and the Sanctum, but I could move. That felt like freedom.”
“That’s a leash,” I grit through my teeth.
She smiles to herself. Maybe me.
“My realm really changed after the first assassination attempt on my life.”
“Kira?” I ask, and she lets out a low laugh.
“Rella and Calista.”
“What?”
Despite my shriek and what she just said, she still smiles.
“They barely missed me. I starshot out as soon as they burst into my room, swords at the ready.”
I huff and shake my head.
“And the guys think their mother’s never been violent.”
“Calista has always had a violent side to her. She just wields her violence differently. Rella will swing a sword in a heartbeat if she believes that’s the right thing to do.
” She lets out a long sigh like she remembers the event as if it were yesterday.
“After that, the Valories sealed my door. Any who attempted to enter without my permission would be burned beyond repair.”
I glance down at the scar on my palm. Guess that line of protection didn’t fade when their rooms became nothing but disappearing doors.
“That didn’t stop them, though. They’d force gods beneath them to attempt to enter first. The first and only time that worked, the Valories said enough and assigned their most loyal creation to my protection.”
My lips part.
“Dad.”
Her eyes grow dreamy and she nods.
“Your father was my protector for many years before he became anything else. I loved him for millennia before he was ever truly mine. Our unyielding faith and loyalty to the Valories kept us from crossing any boundaries. Even after all the others disobeyed their law, we didn’t.
Eventually, we were the only couple to be granted their blessing. That felt like freedom.”
The love pouring off her seeps into my soul. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that she loves him as much today as she did all those years ago.
It’s as beautiful as it is heartbreaking.
They can’t be together right now because of me.
And it’s not even my doing.
The very creator who created both of them has done this.
“When did it stop feeling like freedom?” I ask.
A huff slips from her that tugs a smirk to my lips.
“The chains felt a little tighter when Kira destroyed all your father’s temples.
The Valories were already allowing us to travel here sparingly, but once that happened, they told us it was time to disappear.
There was no barrier separating Oddian and the Unclaimed at that point, but we came here and stayed here.
It was as far from Godsden as we could go.
Then two hundred and twenty-five years ago, I sat on that dais and the Valories told me the prophecy.
That is when the chain truly locked around my ankle. ”
“The same prophecy that everyone assumed was about me, but it really isn’t.”
She closes her eyes for a fleeting second, then blinks them open and stares at the stars.
“Prophecies are a dangerous thing, Thayla girl. Words can get misconstrued and interpreted in a way that benefits those it was never meant for. It doesn’t help when a desperate mother tells it wrong in order to protect her unborn child.”
My body sinks deeper against my heels.
“You told the gods the wrong prophecy? You made them believe it was about me?”
She holds my gaze for a long moment.
“When five gods are woven by the stars,
Together they will align the realm’s scars.
They shall bring the ultimate salvation,
Or we face our ultimate obliteration.”
I repeat the words in my mind. They’re definitely more prophetic than the simpler version I’ve heard, but it’s no doubt the prophecy.
“That’s the one we all know,” I say.
“That’s the one I told.”
She tightens her fingers in her lap once more before flexing them and reaching toward me. I allow her to hold my hands. The patterns she draws with her thumbs are comforting, yet unease knots in my stomach.
“When six gods are woven by the stars,
Together they will align the realm’s scars.
They shall bring the ultimate salvation,
Or we face our ultimate obliteration.
Five shall answer when the stars align.
Four shall keep their souls divine.
One shall bear seven ties.
The Starwoven together will bring about the rise.”
Over and over, I replay her words. My head shakes back and forth from both confusion and understanding.
“That’s the whole prophecy,” she says. “The correct prophecy.”
“You…” My mouth opens and closes like a sea creature gasping for air. “You changed one word in the beginning, then omitted the whole end.”
“I did.”
“Why?” The question leaves me before I can stop it. I’m not angry or exactly accusing, but I just need to understand. “Why change it?”
Her expression softens, but she doesn’t look away.
“Because the truth was dangerous,” she whispers. “When the Valories gave me the prophecy, they also told me I’d be blessed with you. I knew exactly what that meant. They didn’t have to explain which role you’d fill. I knew it in my heart, and I also knew the history behind it.”
My fingers tighten around hers.
“Those born with ties to the seven powers have always been killed. None have survived,” I say.
She nods and a coldness settles in my chest.
“Until you.”
“So you changed it because you thought if they knew…”