Page 6 of The Gods Veiling (The Valorian Veil #1)

The hint of annoyance in his tone snaps my attention to him. I find him, the four men on the platform, and the entire crowd turned in my direction.

Was I freaking out?

Was I screaming out loud?

Why is he calling my name and staring at me?

“Thayla, you must go.” Mrs. Armend’s words are firm as she pulls Laney out of my arms. My hands reach out to wipe her cheeks, but Mr. Armend stops me.

“Go…go where?”

I must have hit my head this morning in training. Everything is sluggish, and my mind can’t catch up on what’s happening right now. There’s a whistle blowing in my ears, and I’m lost in the sea of stares focused solely on me.

“You’ve been chosen.”

Chosen.

No. No, I have not. I didn’t enter.

I’m not sure if I spoke my denial out loud or if I took a step away, but Mr. Armend snatches me around. He forces my feet to work as he drags me until I’m stumbling on the path made for the Chosen to walk down.

I don’t have to watch him to know he’s returned to Mrs. Armend and Laney’s side. Her cries and questions are loud.

I’m shaking like a leaf hanging on for dear life during a storm. The pressure behind everyone’s stares builds. At any moment, I’m going to be buried alive under the weight growing on my shoulders.

I search out my best friend, then my brother. He’s the one I’ve run to for everything for twenty years. He’ll tell me what to do. He’ll know what’s going on.

The depths of his hunter green eyes are where I always find comfort and reassurance.

Right now, they’re shattered.

Unease fills my stomach. The longer I search, the more I see.

A small chuckle, covered by a cough, has me moving my attention to the other side of him. The pleasure written across Jeremiah’s face seals what I already know on a soul level but refuse to accept.

Mellcom won’t meet my gaze again. He doesn’t have to, though. Guilt is scripted across his face. He can’t hide from me.

Clarity slices my heart in two, and my panic subsides to barely restrained rage. An inferno burns through me .

A throat clearing has me redirecting my glare and the annoyance on the Chancellor’s face flinches at whatever he sees. He quickly rights it and an unmistakable warning stares back at me.

I take the hint.

I’m not sure how I make it up the platform steps, but I have enough wits about me to reluctantly bow back to the Chancellor. Although the show of respect was begrudging on his part as well.

Before I have the chance to place myself at the end of the line, Mellcom and Jeremiah step apart. Each grip an arm of mine and place me between them. I imagine sending fire to the spots where their hands touch me. If I could, I’d burn them to a crisp where they both stand.

“Oddian, I give you this Veiling’s Chosen.”

The entire community erupts in cheers.

They celebrate as though they’ve forgotten the past year. As if they don’t recall the shriek that left my lips and caused them all to treat me as a societal disease.

They’re so swept up in their excitement, they’re blind to the fury coursing through my shaking skin.

The tears streaming down little Laney’s cheeks halt my disgust at the crowd.

Sweet girl.

There have been times when I’ve thought about how much more mature I was at her age. It was a real concern I had for her before I realized she’s had a perfectly normal childhood. I did not. She’s always acted her age and just as she should.

Now it’s like looking into the past as she sits there and sobs because she’s being left behind.

I know the feeling all too well.

It’s only because of her that I don’t kick the fucking Volreen off the platform.

“Return to your homes and give thanks to the gods as you say your goodbyes. Necessities only. The rest will be provided for you. Very soon, you will embark on your journey to Godsden.”

With that, a flash of white light swallows the Chancellor and the Volreen. Nothing is left standing where they just were.

It’s called starshooting. It’s the means of movement through the realm that only those with godly power can access.

An ability the five of us will gain one day soon.

I wish I had it now. I’d starshoot as far away as I could.

Oddian continues to roar in happiness around us as we march back through their parted path .

I’m not marching. I’m being dragged.

Each step we take, I allow my temper to grow.

How the fuck is this even possible?

Who did what?

I will get my answers.

Mellcom’s and Jeremiah’s hands tighten around my biceps as though they feel my blood heating beneath my skin. Or they’re preparing for me to bolt. Smart on their part.

The sadness that sweeps through me is like a blanket of ice over my fury as our bright white front door comes into view.

Its coloring is stark against the simple dark gray stone structure it’s built into.

So is the lush green grass I’ve spent hours lying on, daydreaming about dancing in the clouds or flying in the stars.

The rainbow of flowers I smell daily to calm myself when I return from a brutal training will wilt and die since I won’t be here to water them.

It isn’t much, but it’s more than enough for me.

It’s my home.

A home that’ll soon be packed up by strangers and moved to the region’s center since Mellcom and I have no family to collect it for us.

It’s where I’ve lived for the last twenty years of my life, waiting for my parents to return for me. I accepted long ago that they missed the entirety of my teen years, but my heart held hope they’d be back for my adult ones.

The ones where a different stage of life started.

Now I have to unwillingly say goodbye to this home and that dream.

Their hands release me as we approach the front door and there’s a tremor in my fingers as I reach for the knob. It takes me two tries to actually get a grip on it to turn it.

The creak of the hinges that I’ve grown accustomed to hearing every day sounds harrowing. It echoes through the empty house as though it’s warning all the rooms, this will be the last time we enter it.

My steps carry me to the middle of the room at the division of the kitchen and living room. A space so small the area is really just one.

“We need to go get our things.”

Mellcom’s voice washes away my melancholy and my fury barges to the surface once more. My tightly braided bun of hair comes loose from the speed behind me whipping around. The words I want to say, scream, get stuck in my throat.

I want to slap the guilt right off his face.

“We’ll explain when we leave. Go get your things.”

My sneer is vicious as it runs up and down Jeremiah.

“We? As in, not only did you know, you had a hand in this as well?”

His silence speaks volumes, but whereas Mellcom seems riddled with guilt, Jeremiah is giddy.

The curl on his lips as he prowls toward me is the last drop in the bucket of my anger. He goes to open his mouth once there are only a few inches between us, but I don’t care to hear it.

My knee rises faster than he can get a breath out.

Instead of whatever it was he was going to say, a pitiful whimper falls from him as he grabs his crotch and hits his knees.

Exactly where he belongs.

I raise my leg and kick my foot out as hard as I can directly to his chest. The hit sends him flailing backward and his head ricochets off the ground.

The force of my back hitting the floor steals the air from my lungs and Mellcom’s weight makes it impossible to pull more in.

I bash my fist into his throat before he can pin my arms down, then my body follows him over as he falls back. My gown ripping covers the sound of him wheezing.

My fists continue to pound against him as my legs straddle his waist. I don’t know where I hit. Each strike is uncoordinated, chaotic, and full of the hurt from his betrayal.

How could he do this to me?

“Thayla.” The shout comes seconds before I’m lifted. I fight the grip with everything I got so I can continue beating the hell out of Mellcom. “Thayla, stop, it’s me.”

Lambrit’s voice pierces the panic-induced fury, and my hands let him go, then flop to my sides. He holds me up as I struggle to catch my breath, and his tremors pass into me.

He’s not a fighter. Never has been.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Jeremiah bellows as he attempts to help Mellcom up, but my traitorous brother waves him off.

Lambrit’s arm tightens around me as I try to take a step forward.

“My problem? I know you’re a self-centered ass, Jeremiah, but not so much that you honestly think I’ve done something wrong this time. You two betrayed me. ”

His sneer is cruel, but Mellcom’s hand to his chest holds back any more retorts he may want to say. “Go get packed. I need to talk to her.”

I glare at him as he stomps from the room and it’s only when I hear his door slam do I turn my scowl back to Mellcom.

“Talk. Now.”

“Lambrit, give us a minute.”

“No. Whatever you have to say, you can say in front of him. Own your actions, Mellcom.”

He grits his teeth and his fists ball at his sides. “I entered you into the Veiling. I had no choice.”

“What does that even mean? There’s always a choice.”

“No, not always, Thayla.”

“Had no choice or chose wrong? That’s two different things. I want the whole truth, Mellcom. NOW.” My shout rattles the windows.

“A god told me to.”

A cold sweat breaks out across my skin and Lambrit flinches beside me. He pulls himself together far faster than I do. “A god spoke to you? When?”

Mellcom’s taurnshit remorseful gaze answers the silence. It tells me a thousand words, and the breath that whooshes out of me leaves my lungs empty.

“After the last Veiling.”

He nods. “I was visited twice. The night before the last Veiling and the night after. I was instructed the night before to get up and go enter you. I thought I was having a crazy dream and couldn’t sleep the rest of the night.

That morning, my head pounded from the dream replaying repeatedly. It had me paranoid, angry, confused…