Page 44 of The Gods Veiling (The Valorian Veil #1)

That obviously answers Lambrit’s question because he lowers his hand and stuffs it into his pocket while wearing a bright smile.

He’s living his dream right now. As much as I’m still pissy about being here by betrayal and just going with the flow for now, I’m really happy I get to witness him experience this.

He had his doubts about himself, but they’re slowly fading away right before my eyes.

“The other two of you know your second Designations and have received your schedules, so you know what your day-to-day rotations look like. We’ll take a tour of the Athenaeum, then I’ll assign you to Guiders who will get you comfortable in the roles you’ll be undertaking here. Follow me.”

My feet seem to forget how to work when he attempts to walk by me and I stutter step in place, trying to get out of his way. With a grip on my elbow, he simply moves me a step back and walks around the corner of the nook with no further instructions to anyone.

“Gah, he’s such a serious ass all the time,” I grumble as Yemi steps to one of my sides, Lambrit and Rose the other.

“You’ve known him for five minutes, Thay. How can you call him an ass?” Lambrit asks with a small chuckle.

“Did you forget I told you yesterday he called me a temporary anomaly?”

“I didn’t forget. I’ve been thinking about it. You are an anomaly, and the temporary part probably just meant until he figures you out. Then you’re no longer an anomaly.”

My lips press together as I look from him to the god we’re following. He would agree with him. They’ve got different personalities but very similar mindsets.

It doesn’t matter. A genius is a genius.

If I can crumble one genius’s shell, I can do it to another.

“Thayla,” Amick calls, causing me to startle and quicken my steps to catch up with him.

“Yes, dear.”

I catch the smallest eye roll ever rolled.

“You’re to be beside me at all times. You’re not going to learn anything by chatting the morning away with people who don’t know the first thing either.”

My sigh echoes between us. “First of all, Lambrit will have this place mapped and memorized within the hour. Secondly, you haven’t said anything in the five seconds we’ve been out of that area, so you aren’t teaching me anything worth learning yet.”

“Listen.”

That’s all he commands as he stops walking and laces his fingers behind his back. I mimic his stance.

“There are miles’ worth of bookshelf space within the Athenaeum.

Each shelf, every row, every artifact, relic, scroll, tome, statue, and book has its place.

The thousands upon thousands of items here are recorded, cataloged, and kept in the utmost condition.

There’re multiple Guiders and Attendants whose roles are solely to verify the catalog daily.

If something is found out of place, cataloging has to be repeated. ”

Ah, I see now.

Riven’s such a dick.

He turns on his heel and like the good little Guiders we are—they are—we follow along. Every row, he explains the information we’ll find in each section.

I hate to admit it with how ornery he’s been with me, but Amick knows his shit. I can’t imagine the time it’s taken him to memorize all of this, but there isn’t an area or row we go down that he doesn’t know everything about it.

My steps slow as a set of double doors to the right grabs my attention. He stops walking as well and waits for everyone to gather closer. There’s a smidge of annoyance gleaming on his face, but it’s washed away in a heartbeat .

“The hall behind those doors is a restricted area. That space is completely off-limits to anyone who isn’t a Chancellor, their Attendant who’s been given explicit permission, or a Beginning God. Traversing in there without that permission will result in dire consequences.”

That’s a little extreme.

“Do you have permission to go in there?” I ask.

“No.”

Well, damn. That makes me want to go there even more.

For the next hour, we walk every square inch of the Athenaeum and listen to Amick as he tells the history and significance of this place. Apparently, once upon a time, the Athenaeum was the only building in all of the Valorian Veil that held text of knowledge.

The Beginning Gods created the Sanctum first, and that’s where they lived. After years of them writing and recording their own stories, the Athenaeum was created to store it all.

It’s only grown from there.

We make our way back to the nook we originally started in and my face scrunches when I spot two new men as well as Chancellor Ellian.

“Amick.” He bows slightly. “A good first day for our newest gods, I assume.”

“Same as every Veiling. Clarisse and Ruth, the two of you will join Tyson and Luke. They’ll accompany you to gather your beginning materials. I’ve given them your roles to walk you through. Lambrit, Chancellor Ellian has requested you accompany him for the rest of the morning.”

Lambrit’s eyes widen. “Really?”

“Yes.”

All three of them join whoever they were just assigned to and after quiet introductions—which now I realize Amick never did introduce them to Yemi and me—they leave the little area. I shift back and forth on my feet anxiously.

“Come.” With his single word order, he marches past us and I sneer.

“Don’t say a word,” Yemi harshly whispers.

I’m proud to say I didn’t make one joke or sarcastic remark to him at any point during his tour. Despite the burning desire to anytime someone asked a good question, and he responded with emotionless facts.

It didn’t matter who we came across, who bowed, or spoke to him. He acted and treated everyone the same.

Like he couldn’ t care less.

“Oww. Damn it,” I shriek when I slam right into the door that Amick walked through.

“Shit, Thayla, are you okay? Why did you keep walking?” Yemi asks as she pulls my hand from my face to look at me.

“Because he kept walking. I thought the damn door was like the wall at the healing villa.”

“This would be the door to my office. It requires my essence or permission to enter. Next time, wait for me to open it.”

“Yeah, no shit, God of Stating the Obvious.”

He cocks his head to the side briefly, then turns and walks farther into the room, leaving the door open for us to pass through. I quit rubbing at the pain in my nose as the full display of his office comes into view.

The precise organization and dimly lit space remind me a lot of our living room. I have no clue how the others’ rooms are set up, but based on Amick’s office, that little touch at our house has a lot to do with him.

“Yemi, you can go to the information foyer and grab your material for your new lesson tomorrow.”

My mouth opens to tell him not to tell her what to do, but her excited “Really?” halts me. When I turn to her, her smile dims a little. “I don’t have to. I can get it tomorrow and start with the others.”

Oh, she was excited about getting a head start over everyone else.

“No, go on. The more you know, the more I know,” I say with a smile and a wink. I’m not really joking, though. I’m pretty sure I’m going to learn more from her than my ever-changing rotation between the guys.

“I won’t be long,” she says as she practically races to the door.

I keep my face relaxed although my stomach is twisting into knots. Being alone with Kyzen felt a hell of a lot different from being alone with Amick.

Kyzen joked, flirted, and carried on with normal conversation. Even though I know he was only doing that to help me feel comfortable and he meant nothing by it. Amick doesn’t come off as the type to care about others’ comforts. He seems to exist in his own headspace.

I rock back and forth as I watch him sort books into two piles. “So what do we do now?”

“I’m going to go through the new group of Chosen’s schedules, aside from you, and assign them Guiders to lead them through this first week based on where they placed. You may start reading this. ”

He picks up a book—a damn tome—off the top of his pile and holds it out to me. I eye the massive-ass thing skeptically and slink my way to him to grab it.

The Creation of the Godsdawn.

The heavy text forces me to use both hands to hold it. I flip it over and crack the back cover open to check the page numbers but find that there are none. There are at least two, maybe three thousand pages, though. Have to be.

“As much as I love reading, it’s going to take me a year to get through this.”

“If you truly read that slow, you’ll need to ask Kyzen to help you get through it. You don’t know a quarter of what we do, and you need to catch up.”

The book drops to his desk with a loud thump. His eyes peer at me through his lashes. “And how fast do you expect me to catch up to the four of you?”

“Immediately.”

I snort and shake my head. “Sorry to burst your bubble, Amick, but you’re going to have to lower your expectations of me. I do love to read and learn new things, but it’s going to take some time adapting to this. Not all of us have a domain in knowledge.”

“Who’s stating the obvious now?” His sarcastic question seems to catch us both off guard. My mouth curls up into a smirk, while he pauses and shakes his head. “What’s your preferred learning method?”

It’s my turn to take a pause as I ponder that. “Uh, I’m not really sure. I don’t know if I have a preferred. Some things I learn better from reading, sometimes I just need to observe, and others it works best to just throw me in and let me learn on the go.”

He nods repeatedly. “Of course there’s no rhyme or reason. In that case, what I had planned isn’t going to work. If you can manage not to talk while I do, then observe and listen. I’ll come up with a regimen that’ll better suit your needs moving forward for your rotations with all of us.”

I let the insult about my talking slide since he’s willing to give me a little grace with my learning. “Thank you.”

His eyebrows squish together. “For what?”

“For creating a plan for me to follow that’ll work best for me.”