Page 348 of The Gods Order

It’s day one of the Veiling week.

The start of the new chapter for all of these people’s lives.

The first young woman steps up and approaches my starshoot. I don’t know her name, but I recognize her face. Her fingers flex at her sides and her shoulders bounce.

“You ready?” I ask her.

She bobs her head up and down repeatedly, doing a double take at the Vedaryas on my shoulders. They distract her nerves easily.

She gives me a small smile, and I return it.

“I’m ready.”

I grin.

“Good luck.”

I hold my hand out for her to follow, and she steps through.

The light swallows her whole.

For just a heartbeat, I stare at the place she’d been standing before peering through to the other side. Riven’s already running his mouth and waving his hands around wildly. I chuckle at him and the way Amick gently cuts in while Kyzen pulls Riven back a step.

My men know exactly what to do.

It tickles my heart that I spent my first Veiling with them. Now look at us. We’ll spend every Veiling, whatever variation of one we have in the future, at each other’s sides as well.

Today, though…day one of the realm’s first ever Veiling Week isn’t about us. It’s about guiding hundreds, maybe thousands, toward their futures.

This is their beginning.

Riven

43

Three years later

“Happy wedding day to me,

Happy wedding day to me,

Happy wedding day dear Riven,

Happy wedding day to me.”

Oh, my Chaos, I’m so fucking ready.

Five years.

Can you believe my little burden has made me wait this long? For the life of me, I can’t fathom why she’s had the audacity to keep me waiting like this.

I mean, granted…we had to save the realm, give out power, kill unworthy gods, strip others of the power they didn’t deserve, torture Mellcom weekly.

Really, we’ve been busy, so I get it.

Today, though…

Today is the day she officially marries me.