Page 233 of The Gods Order

“The irony has never been lost on me. The gods spent centuries trying to create what they believed would resemble a Nexus. In the end, they never accomplished it themselves. The souls did. The souls declared there’d be true Starwoven Valtrues. The fifth and final one, the one we’ve labeled the Binder, forms in the middle and threads them together.”

My jaw hangs unhinged as I stand shoulder to shoulder with her and crane my neck back. I raise my fingers in the air and trace the cluster she has up close and personal to us.

“Amazing,” I breathe. “So these five stars here? They are really souls that formed a true Starwoven Valtrue?”

“That’s not just any souls or Starwoven.”

Her fingers lace through mine and she gives me a gentle squeeze.

“That is your true Starwoven Valtrue, my girl.”

Thayla

29

A breathless huff of air flees me. I blink up once again and stare through the glass.

Four brilliant, shining stars are in a perfect formation around another in the middle. They’re all so bright, so perfect, so…whole.

For a moment, I can’t speak.

I’ve spent so much of my life—especially since the Veiling—believing that everything that brought me here was a choice made by someone else. Every person I loved. Every person who loved me.

The battles. The sacrifices. The impossible odds.

But these stars…

We chose each other from the very beginning. The Valories may somehow have known we’d choose each other, but they had to adapt to us.

A quiet laugh escapes me, though my eyes burn.

“I would have never known.”

My mom glances over.

“Known what?”

“That those were the marks our souls left behind.” My voice catches as I look back at the sky. “I’ve spent my entire life looking at the stars, and I never knew I was looking at pieces of us.”

“There are countless stars in the sky. Not every one belongs to a prophecy, powerful god, or even a Starwoven. Some simply belong to someone. Some Starwoven find their way to each other when one holds power, and one does not. Some, though…”

She smiles as she lifts her hand, and the stars beneath the glass shift. The cluster grows closer. Vivid lights stretch and expand until one of them fills my vision. I gasp as the star changes. His face appears within the light, and my hand flies to my mouth.

“Lambrit.”

Her grin grows as she shifts the stars again.

Another light appears.

Rose. Right beside Lambrit.

They’re Starwoven.

Another light.

Mara.

Another Havar, with a star beside him.