All I hear is their heavy breaths.
I gulp as Kyzen steps in front of me. His face is shrouded in hatred. Not aimed at me, I don’t even believe at Derivius.
He grips the back of my neck and tugs me until our lips crash together. My hand lands against his heart and I try my damnedest to calm its erratic beat.
“This is not how I wanted you to find out. If I’m being completely honest with you, I’d have never told you.”
For the Valories. What the hell? It can’t be that bad.
He releases me and takes a step back. My ears ring as Amick and Creed step up beside him in a line of solidarity that has my insides shaking.
“Our mother is the Goddess of Creation. Who is, and has always been, madly in love with our father,” he says through gritted teeth.
My heart does a flip and sinks through my stomach as they caress my soul, then they turn their attention to Riven.
My worried gaze jerks to him.
He’s staring Derivius down. There’s a tremor in his hands that I’ve never seen before.
He bows his head, then turns toward me.
“The Goddess of Accord. Who…” He pinches his eyes shut.
“Is the love of my life. Always has been and always will be,” Derivius whispers.
“What?” I breathe.
I don’t know who to look at or what to focus on.
Their souls are running rampant in my chest to the point I can’t draw in a full breath.
“I need some sort of explanation.”
“There isn’t much to explain. Our mothers are pieces of shits. One, ours,” Creed says as he motions his hand between Kyzen, Amick, and himself, “has a fucking skewed view of everything our father does. Even when it comes to us. She pretends everything is done out of love. Which is fucking disgusting. Riven’s has no fucking emotion left in her. She’s nothing but a damn—”
“That’s enough, Creed,” Derivius warns.
“No, it’s not enough. Quit fucking defending her, Derivius. I understand now more than ever before why you do it. I’d defend Thayla with my dying breath, but what I wouldn’t allow her to do is treat a child the way she treated Riven. Ever.
“Now you’ve come to warn us they one, haven’t been informed we’re in a completed Valtrue, and two, they also don’t know we broke the fucking rules and saved him from the Abandon. You know good and damn well, Accord is going to lay the fucking law down about that. Valories, not to mention, if she finds out we gave ourselves power out of the Binding and our Binder is tied to the Messenger, we’re really screwed.”
Creed’s bellow has dust falling from the ceiling that may very well cave in at any moment. I swear, my lungs attempt to match the heavy breaths he’s taking, but I can’t.
“How did we break the rules by saving Riven?” I ask.
That’s the main thing that stuck out to me.
“He was technically taken under fair circumstances. The Binding was tampered with. That was a breach of the original agreement for us going on that quest. In her eyes, she’ll view it as we broke the agreement by not allowing him to fulfil his consequences,” Amick says.
“Told you, little burden. Accord isn’t emotional. It only cares for agreement, alignment, and clarity.”
“Riven—”
“Don’t.” He shakes his head, cutting off whatever Derivius may have wanted to say.
“I’m so confused and have so many questions.”
“Well, Big DD here could give you all kinds of answers. Why don’t you tell her the fucking truth? Your truth. Why don’t you tell her how my mom fucked—”
