It’s not that I have an issue with drinking. I’ve just never been a drinker. In the past, whatever mood I had going on prior todrinking, intensified with each drink. Needless to say, in Oddian, I wasn’t a fun person to party with.
He flicks his wrist at me again, and I huff as I plop down in the seat he made for me. Despite myself, I take a small sip of the brown liquid. Surprisingly, it isn’t too strong or bitter.
“Good, isn’t it? It’s so smooth and burns so nicely.”
He lets out a loud-ass “Ah!” after he guzzles some down.
“What the fuck is going on, Derivius?”
He sighs. “We’ve been betrayed again, little troublling. Played like poorly tuned fiddles.”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “Please, for the fucking love of the stars, explain what that means.”
“What that means is we aren’t getting the boys back. Obliteration, Seduction, Creation…Accord played us. I talked shit to Kira about not reading the fine print, but neither did I. Neither did Amick, or Nero, or anyone but Accord and Creation, apparently. There’s a fine, itsy-bitsy clause in Creation’s section that states each year, she’s granted the right to spend a day with the boys. She can call upon those days whenever she pleases.”
“Yeah, I get that. That’s literally why they’re there now.”
“No, no, no. You aren’t listening. Just as I didn’t read. She can call uponthose dayswhenever.”
Those days…
I jump from my seat, chest heaving. “She hasn’t seen them in twenty years.”
“There you go. Now you get it. She has nineteen and a half days left with them. By decree. In thirty-six hours, she and the others will appear at the Neutral and wait for their arrival, knowing good and well they can’t arrive.”
My breathing labors as I pace in front of the chair and a heat flash rips through my blood.
“Calm down, Thayla. We’ll figure this out.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down, V! What the hell are we going to do?”
Neither he nor Derivius answers me.
A bellow tears from my throat as I throw the glass across the temple and scream my rage. I swear I wish this place weren’t already falling the fuck apart. I’d tear it all to shreds.
“This is all my fault.” My gaze cuts to Derivius’s mournful admission as my shoulders shake. “If I had never betrayed the Valories all those years ago, none of this would’ve happened. None of you would’ve been born. None of this…shit would’ve been happening.”
My forehead wrinkles as I stare at him.
“What does that mean?”
“I, dear sweet troublling, am the first betrayer. I betrayed the creator’s trust by announcing to them I was in love, and there was nothing they could do about it.”
My fingers flex at my sides as I watch a distant cloud coat his blue eye. His current condition isn’t helping, butthatlook isn’t only from the alcohol.
“You…” I lower myself back into my seat as he rests his elbows on his knees. “You were the first to break the rules about Beginning Gods not having relationships.”
“Oh, not only that. I deceived my love. All my counterparts. I told them all I told the Valories the truth of my affection toward Rella and they gave me their blessing. They gave all of us their blessing.”
My mouth parts.
“They didn’t, though.”
“Absolutely not.” He chuckles, staring up through his moon window, then back at me. “I wasn’t giving my relationship up, though. If I was going down, they were going down with me. Rella made me…feel things I never felt. I fell in love withher the moment I laid my eyes on her. My perfect pair. She complemented me, and I her.”
My fingers rest against my trembling lips.
He was her Attendant.
