Page 20 of The Gods Veiling (The Valorian Veil #1)

Riven

“This is so boring. What should we do to liven this place up a bit?” My question is a delicate whisper in the ear of this random god standing in front of me.

He tries to swat me away like a pesky little critter, then sneers over his shoulder. I greet him with a bright smile and wiggle my finger.

His face pales to a concerning shade of white, then he stumbles over his feet as he hauls ass away from me.

I huff and place my hand to my heart as I face my brothers. “Goodness, I think he saw an Oblirian.”

Kyzen tosses his head back, laughing my name. “Why did you bother him? He wasn’t doing anything to you.”

“Not doing anything? Look at all this space. Why in the realm did he come and stand right in front of me? He would’ve blocked my view.”

Amick scans the small clearing around us. “There’s all this space because you’re scaring everyone. As usual.”

“I haven’t done the first thing to scare anyone.”

No sooner do the words leave my mouth than a girl somewhere behind us screeches at the top of her lungs. I don’t have to turn around like my brothers to know that she’s now covered from head to toe in rainbow dust.

She just ruined my celebration explosion.

It was supposed to go off when the High Chancellor stepped on the platform.

Kyzen snorts while Creed and Amick turn their glares on me .

“Honestly, that was incredibly disappointing. Not my work at all.”

I brush the lint—maybe that’s some residual powder—off my shoulder and continue to smile forward. I promised them I’d behave today.

I’ll meet them somewhere in the middle. That harmless little prank is absolutely nothing.

I behaved enough this morning if I’m being honest.

Amick would’ve died to know that my expert backup plan was, if someone, namely one of the Chancellors, tried to walk down the restricted hall, I was going to push over an entire row of shelves.

The whole scene played out in my mind and made me giddy.

One would crash into another, then another, until the whole Athenaeum was sitting in a pile of chaos. As the Chancellor ran around like a madman, horrified at the mess, I’d swoop in like the savior I am and fix it all for him.

He would’ve kissed my hand and thanked me profusely for saving the Veiling Day. My reward would’ve been that I didn’t have to attend the ceremony, and I could’ve done whatever the fuck I wanted.

That would’ve been spectacular.

The reality is none of that happened. Whatever Amick needed, he either found or didn’t without a hitch. I stood around, twiddling my thumbs, and rearranged books for either him or one of the other scroll lovers to find and freak out about.

Not even one of them thanked me for my role.

Sigh.

I hope I’m around to see him freak out about all the things I moved. I wonder how long it’ll take him to find the piece I decided to keep as a souvenir for my hard work. The precious breath leaving my lips turns into a laugh as I think about his pissy red face.

The three of them shoot me a cautionary glance. My returned smile is feral and purposeful. With the touch of chaos already in the air, the half of my power that feeds from that domain is on high alert.

Ready and waiting to participate like a good sport.

The other half, my harmony half as I refer to it, is begging the wilder side to settle down and pay attention.

The two of them rarely see eye to eye.

I’m the only being to have not one, but two domains. Split right down the middle.

That makes me special .

The gods and Chancellors wouldn’t give me a title, so I gave one to myself.

I am the God of Duality.

The gods, the Godsdawn, and the rest of Godsden refer to me as trouble. Which is a little unfair. When my more well-behaved side of power comes out to play, they’re more receptive.

Everyone loves me.

But you can’t have peace without a little chaos.

A heavy hand lands on my shoulder and I smile innocently at Creed. His eyes narrow and his voice strains. “Could you stop bouncing around like that? You’re driving me mad.”

“Aww, you wake up every day mad. That has nothing—minimal—to do with me.”

“You’re making everyone nervous, Riven. Look around. Even the fully formed Valtrues have stepped away from us and we’re as far from the platform as we can get,” Kyzen butts in before Creed can chew me a new one.

His words are delivered thoughtfully as they always are, with that big, beautiful smile of his, but that doesn’t remove the unfairness of his statement.

“First of all, it doesn’t matter if they’re fully formed Valtrues or not.

Everyone keeps their distance from us because the three of you, out of our pretty little quadruplet group, scare them so much.

Second of all, why do I have to dull myself down to make everyone else comfortable?

It’s not like I’m going to unleash my power and make everyone do something crazy. ”

Again.

“We aren’t quadruplets,” Amick states.

“Just—”

Cheers and claps ring out, swallowing up anything else Kyzen might have added. The four of us turn our attention to the platform in front of the Sanctum and watch the High Chancellor emerge from the Gods Veil like he’s the gods’ gift to the Godsdawn.

See, this is when my surprise should’ve gone off.

That imbecile girl probably stepped on it.

She should’ve seen it under the pile of dirt I covered it up with.

The old fucker up there is a power-hungry hypocrite. For twenty years now, he’s refused to allow my brothers and me to step back through the Gods Veil to receive the remainder of our power.

Order of the Beginning Gods, so he says.

It may be the truth. We don’t pray to any of them anymore. Honestly, we’ve basically sworn them all off. Even those we love.

So it isn’t like one of them is going to just be gracious enough to release it from their Binding randomly or willingly.

That’d just pile onto the many, many issues they have.

None of them get along.

Beginning Gods fight with Beginning Gods. The next tier of gods, Domain Gods, are bitches to whichever Beginning one they suck off—pray to, I mean—the most.

They’re so at odds with one another, they’ve forbidden the people from praying or worshipping one of them.

My favorite one.

Another has disappeared and doesn’t answer prayers or calls from the people or other gods. He just fell off the face of the realm and can’t be found. His disappearance is exactly why shit around here keeps getting worse.

And another, the worst of them all. The one who put my brothers and me through hell for almost half of our lives is causing monumental problems for us all. His name isn’t uttered around here whatsoever, yet they don’t remove his statue out front or his temple in here.

No one dares to step foot in there, but it still stands. I’ve tried to blow it up several times, but the protective barrier around it won’t budge.

I’ll figure it out, eventually.

We should’ve killed him when we had the chance.

I’m still going to one day, I believe.

Consequences be damned.

The High Chancellor finally holds his hands up, silencing all the racket coming from everyone.

“Yeah, High Chancellor, you got this,” I cheer and give him two thumbs-up. He scowls like he hates me, but secretly he loves me.

I loathe his ass.

“Gods of the Godsdawn, welcome to another magnificent Veiling Day. We give all our thanks, praises, and gratitude to our Beginning Gods who make this possible.”

He holds his arms out, encouraging the cheering that he just stopped to start again, and I groan as the noise makes my ears ring. I shove my finger in one and shake it manically to stop the dreaded sound .

“Stop that before you damage your eardrum,” Amick commands, smacking my arm away.

“I’m not going to damage anything.”

“You are. You’re going to rupture your eardrum, and we’ll have to take you to the healing villas because you’ll claim you’re going deaf.”

“I’m an immortal God. I can’t go deaf,” I scoff.

“Naturally. You can’t go deaf naturally, but you certainly can be the cause of it.” He pops my hand again as I raise it like I’m a damn child not a thirty-five-year-old man, and I sneer at him.

Fucking smart-ass with all his knowledge.

I swear Amick drives me nuts. He’s also my favorite person to terrorize. His lack of emotional response is a challenge I’m so desperate to break through.

“This Veiling is one to be remembered. This group of Chosen has over fifty percent Defender Designation. The gods have truly taken our protection into consideration and have delivered us strong and worthy men.”

“Men,” Creed chuffs.

Kyzen nods along. “So no female Defenders this Veiling.”

“Again,” Amick and I say together. I refuse to look at him and enjoy our little moment.

He’s pissed me off with the hand popping shit.

The Defenders have like…I don’t know really, six maybe seven females who are there solo. The other number of them are a part of completed Valtrues.

Poor vicious things take ass beatings left and right and their groups do nothing but tell them to do better. That shit wouldn’t fly with me. I mean, thank fuck I don’t have a Binder, but I tend to be a little possessive over my things.

“Gods who are still receiving your power, you all will be granted another piece today after the Chosen if the Beginning Gods see it as their will. Be gracious and continue to give thanks for all that you receive. Remember your roles and prepare these newly becoming Gods as you were prepared before them. Teach them our history and our way of life as the time comes.”

“Yes, High Chancellor,” the crowd chants, and my brothers and I wrinkle our noses.

The gullible idiots.

Maybe not all of them, but most.

Each year, they suck this shit up like it’s the finest wine. They listen and hold onto his lies like they’re their lifelines.

I’m in awe of the way he manipulates them so easily .