“It was thrown into the sea, Thayla girl.”
“Oh shit, yeah, obviously. I blanked on that bit from Doren. Who would just throw something like that in the sea?”
I chuckle and shake my head. That’s absolutely crazy to me.
“Your parents.”
My laugh dies on my lips as though it was sliced by one of Creed’s swords.
Instant. Cold.
My head jerks in denial before I can even process what he just said to me.
“What? No, they didn’t.”
“They did. On my arrival home two hundred and twenty-five years ago, I was instructed to give the Binding to your parents to guard and keep safe. They did so, for a very long time.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Why? Why would they agree to do that and why would they throw it away? What is…”
I practically throw myself off my bed and pace with one hand on my hip, the other on my chest as I plead with my heart to calm down. My words are spewing out of me in a flurry rather than collected thoughts.
I can’t collect them as my mind flashes back to the last conversation I had with my parents. Namely, the things my dad said.
“Your mother and I did some things years ago, and our choices are catching up with us. We need to leave you now while we prepare to face the consequences of our actions.”
“I won’t allow them to have the power they want over you, my girl.”
“I need you to explain this to me, V. Not cryptically, but in its entirety. What choices did they make that led them to run or prepare for the consequences of their actions? Why them?”
“I can’t explain everything to you, Thayla, but what I can, I will. As I’ve told you before, your parents were the ultimate believers in the Valories and the Valorian Veil itself. The Beginning Gods crushed that faith in them and the Valories promised to restore it. That promise, though, came at a cost.”
“Which was?”
“Your parents’ greatest desire. A child. You. The Valories agreed to give them you, in exchange for their unwavering dedication to help righting the realm. That included the role you would play as well. Their first task was to protect the replica of the Gods Binding and not let it fall back into the hands of certain Beginning Gods. They were shown many paths, not only for you and others, but themselves. They were given many allies along the way and were told when the time was right, they’d conceive you. That time came, then the Goddess of Seduction and the God of Obliteration arrived in Oddian.”
“What? In Oddian? There are no records of that.”
“No, there wouldn’t be. Your parents fled immediately, as far as they could go because they knew there was no doubt those gods sensed the power.”
“That’s why we moved so much. They had that on them the whole time,” I whisper, taking a brief pause in my pacing.
“Correct.”
“What made them…”
My legs give out beneath me as my gasp sucks all the strength out of me. Everything within me sways and swooshes as the night before my parents left me, an event my mind has blocked out, comes roaring forward.
“Don’t look, my shooting star.”
The screams pierce my ears as I squeeze my eyes shut and bury my face into my dad’s neck. My body bounces around as he sprints through dark streets.
I yelp as something crashes into us, and I go soaring from his hands. My back scrapes against the hard gravel as I go rolling and rolling until I slam into a wall.
I can’t see. It’s so dark.
Where’s my daddy?
“Daddy!”
