Page 212 of The Gods Order

“You spent eight years learning how to survive under my guidance. If I’d stayed, you would’ve continued surviving under it. You needed to learn what kind of woman you’d become once my voice wasn’t there to answer every question.”

The muscles in my jaw clench.

“Mellcom turned out the way he did because you left.”

“I know.” A quiet breath leaves him. “I spent years teaching the two of you never to enter the Veiling because it wasn’t your time. The Veiling isn’t a place to satisfy curiosity. It’s a place you enter when you’re prepared to live with whatever truth you find here. The time came for the two of you.”

His expression hardens and my stomach twists.

“Neither of you was moving anymore but going with the motion. Just existing and waiting. Kira was making his moves. Attacks at the barrier were increasing. The boys were having to cross that barrier often to help. Every day that you remained where you were, the realm lost ground.”

“So you forced us forward,” I say.

“I gave Mellcom a choice.”

“You knew what he’d choose.”

“I did.”

“Did you know the man he’d become in the meantime? In the year he had to wait between Veilings, did you know the things he’d do to me?”

“I knew it was a path and a possibility, but I never thought in a million years that’d be the one he’d take. I raised him bett—” He slams his mouth shut and jerks his head once. “It doesn’t matter how I raised him. What matters is I made a decision that left you alone to face the consequences. For that, Thayla, I am so sorry.”

His answer hits me straight in the heart, and a tremor races through my clenched fists.

“And the note?” My voice comes out quieter than I’d like. “You said you were going to help my parents.”

“When I walked away, there was nothing more I could do for you by remaining at your side. There was everything I could still do for them.”

I frown, but his gaze never wavers.

“I couldn’t free them. I couldn’t reunite your family. But I could move the pieces that neither of them could reach. I watched Kira, Sabe, Rella, Creation, and even Derivius. I watched the Valories. I guided those I still could. I set events in motion that would one day lead you to the truths you deserved. Every decision I made after leaving you was another step toward bringing your family back together.”

My breathing slows. His explanation doesn’t ease the hurt. I don’t agree with all of his choices and I may never, but I understand I’m staring at a being who’s spent more time than I can comprehend weighing the consequences of choices.

My eyes drift past him and land on the man who hasn’t answered for his own choices.

My father.

The man who was supposed to be there and love me through it all.

“V…” I swallow the emotions that tear through my throat. “He told me when the time was right, I’d be conceived. That time came and Kira and Sabe arrived in Oddian. Was that the day I was conceived or born?”

“Born,” he says.

“They felt the power of your Binding taking my power.”

“They did. They thought it had something to do with their son.”

My lips pinch together, but I nod nonetheless.

“So we moved and moved from that point on. Then ten years later, he attacked Edistoia after the guys attacked the Abandon and you decided to leave me with Meridamus.”

“Yes.”

“Then you made a choice to go against the Valories’ wishes and threw the Goddess of Seduction’s Binding into the sea and you delayed when I was supposed to enter in the Veiling myself. I assume that’s why Meridamus waited to leave until after the Veiling I was eighteen had passed?”

“Yes,” he says simply again, and I grind my teeth.