Chapter 9 Thayla #2
He’s propped himself on the wall beside the door with his arms crossed and the look on his face is distant. I’m not even sure if he’s heard anything that’s been said for the last few minutes.
As touching as his fierce reaction on my behalf was, it leaves me more confused. The mean-ass jealousy he showed earlier completely contradicts the quiet question that he asked me when Amick announced our relationship.
I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why he’d ask what he did.
I also can’t put my finger on whether he truly cares about me, or he’s just possessive over me.
“Why are you staring?”
His voice has the rest of the room coming back into focus. I was definitely staring at him so hard everything but him was blurry.
“Just got lost in my thoughts.”
A smirk stretches across his lips. “Tell me all about the crazy conversation you had with yourself.”
“I will if you will.”
His head tilts to the side before he watches Lambrit, Rose, and Yemi come back into the room behind Kyzen.
“No, thanks. I’d rather hear what the wise one has planned for us today.”
A pinch of disappointment crawls through me.
I turn my head when his face contorts in confusion. If I let that little emotion slip enough for him to see, the last thing I’m about to do is continue to let him analyze it and use it as his next joke.
“Very well.” Amick never takes his gaze off the large paper laid across his desk, but his voice drags all of our attention to him. “Yemi and Rose, will the two of you be okay sharing a room on our journey?”
A room?
“Oh…um.” Rose flushes red as she looks between Yemi and Lambrit.
My poor best friend looks like he’s desperate to speak up, but Yemi’s chuckle, that’s swiftly covered by a fake cough, halts him.
“I can share with Havar. It’ll be just like old times. He’s going to be thrilled.”
“Rose, that will leave you sharing a room with Lambrit. Are you comfortable with that?”
A laugh breaks free from me as Kyzen runs his hand down his face. Amick’s obliviousness may be hilarious, but honestly, I find it so incredibly sexy that he’s asking them what they’re comfortable with.
“Yes, I am.”
My smile softens as I watch relief fill Lambrit to the brim. His shoulders drop and the wrinkles in his forehead disappear as though her words made all his fears vanish.
It was just three little words, but there’s power to be found in certain three little words.
“Good. Riven, I’ll start with you. You’ll be in charge of overseeing the building of our carriage. These are my design plans. If you see anything that may be out of place, let me know.”
Well, call me shocked for the absolute millionth time.
The feeling spreads even further when Riven kicks off the wall and walks over to Amick’s side without a single comment. The two of them silently scan the plans with keen focus and I stare my little heart out.
I’d probably never voice my opinion out loud, but truth be told, Riven and Amick look more alike than Amick does with Kyzen and Creed.
I’m not sure what godly intervention caused that, given their situation, but if I didn’t know the truth, you could tell me they were twins, and I’d believe it no doubt.
If Riven had told me they were quadruplets, I’d have believed him.
“Are we looking at the same plans? Fuck yeah, I see an issue.”
“Where?” Amick asks, snatching the paper off the desk and holding it up to the light.
“Um, the whole thing. Did you not realize you only asked for three bedrooms?”
Amick lowers the paper back down and his face completely blanks as he stares at Riven like he’s asked the dumbest question he’s ever heard.
“Are there seriously bedrooms or is there another meaning that I’m missing?”
“You’re not missing anything. The carriage will have three rooms to accommodate us. They’ll be equipped with restrooms as well and a small living room and kitchen.”
It’s my turn to stare at Amick blankly.
“I’m sorry?”
“For what?”
I huff and focus on Kyzen’s smiling face. “Yes, the carriages can be made with all those things and yes, it will appear as our house does. Smaller on the outside, larger on the inside.”
“So the Goddess of Illusion will be there to help build this?”
“No. Once the Plentifuls have completed construction, Ellian will inspect it, then seal her illusion in place by using her key.”
Again, I have no fucking clue what Amick’s talking about.
“Just like my swords are infused with power, the Goddess of Illusion infused a key for Chancellor Ellian, or whatever Chancellor’s in charge of the Plentifuls, to use in the completion of something being built.
He’ll insert the key into the lock on the doors, turn it, and her power embeds itself into the carriage.
Then the keyhole disappears. Understand now? ”
I sneer over at Creed’s shitty tone, even though he’s completely ignoring me as he glares at the design plans.
I do understand now, though. I also have at least five more follow-up questions, but I’m not asking them. This has already been too much information for one morning.
“Anywhos, back to the issue. Where the hell are we all supposed to sleep? You’ve got the other four assigned to the other two bedrooms.”
“Obviously, we’ll stay in the largest room together.
It’s either that or we get incredibly cramped spaces.
I know two of you who would thoroughly hate that.
There’s no wiggle room to make it any larger, only shrink the current design.
This is nearly at capacity for what the Veilatara are comfortable with, so I was trying to utilize the max space available. ”
Shit, their ability to pull and fly the carriage slipped my mind completely.
Kyzen steps toward the desk as well, observing what the other three are staring daggers at. He runs his finger in a circle, I assume around the problem bedroom.
“Is there any way to shrink the largest room and make two more right here? Or cut the size of the largest room back and create a room Creed and Riven can share?”
Amick’s scowl deepens, although he nods. “To give you two your own rooms will leave your space smaller than you prefer, Riven. We could cut into this area of the kitchen, half the larger room, and make the bathroom adjoining.”
“That’s too small.”
“That kitchen wouldn’t be functional for nine people.”
Huh, so it’s Riven who has a problem with small spaces.
I wonder if Creed does. Surely Amick doesn’t know I have an issue with that as well. I’ve never once mentioned it…
The four of them fall silent as they observe the plans like it’s the realm’s greatest mystery. With a loud huff, I finally get out of my seat and squeeze between Creed and Kyzen so I can look at it myself.
It’s fine the way it is.
Fuck, it’s not like we’re taking a luxurious vacation.
“Is it really that big of a deal that the five of us share a room?”
Their gorgeous, matching faces all turn toward me.
I see the issue now.
For some idiotic reason, I pictured this as no different than how our current living situation is. I definitely should’ve put more thought into the fact that there will be no privacy. I’ll be showering, sharing…fuck, possibly snoring in the same bed as them.
Before I can say never mind, Riven grabs the plans and rolls the parchment up.
“We’ll make it work.”
Great.
“Creed, you know what you’re responsible for, as do you Kyzen.
We’ll finalize our details at home. Rose, Lambrit, this is a list of locations and gods I’d like you to be well-versed in.
Also, these reports are from the other regions.
Read them and take note of any mentions of godly powers being used. ”
With an eager smile, Lambrit takes both parchments and without another word, he leaves the office like he can’t wait to begin. Rose follows along behind him with a wave and whispered “see you later” to us.
“What do you have planned for Yemi and me?”
“Your lesson on powers starts now.”
Oh…fucking lovely.
It took ten minutes for me to regret telling Amick I was done with lessons for the day and to skip right to power training.
He’d already told me days ago, before the unfortunate meeting with their sperm donor, that he planned on explaining first how the Gods Binding truly releases power and what the power is doing to my body before he tried to have me do anything more than cut lights on or off.
The second he started talking, though, I cut him off and told him I couldn’t deal with any more information.
I was still worked up from the High Chancellor’s taurnshit, the formal request nonsense, and the carriage debacle. I just wanted to release some energy in the form of working with my power.
Another way would’ve been nice as well, but I didn’t think Yemi or the others would’ve appreciated getting kicked out so I could have a quickie.
On Amick’s desk.
Anyway, that shit backfired because my power wanted nothing to do with me.
Literally, it wouldn’t even respond to me commanding the lights, although I felt it thrumming under my skin and this hasn’t been an issue until now.
According to Creed’s rude ass, it’s as stubborn as I am.
Kyzen tried to be supportive. Riven fucking giggled. Yemi observed.
The more I felt the tingling and nothing happened, the more annoyed I got.
Amick attempted to explain to me numerous times how to make the power spread everywhere through my body. He even made me hold one finger on my forehead and bend over and touch my toe with the other.
His reasoning for doing that was to give me spots to pinpoint, but it didn’t work.
It just made me look stupid as fuck.
We don’t know what kind of power I have or the abilities it’ll manifest, but regardless of that fact, there are things I should still be able to command it to do, and it listen.
Such as cut the damn lights on and off, rearrange our house, and starshoot. Hell, they even told me I’ll get to the point where I can starshoot anything that’s mine or has my essence embedded in it, to me.
Hence how Riven snapped his finger and a statue head fell into my food.