Page 219 of The Gods Order

“Yeah,” Creed says as he runs his fingers through her hair, then tucks the piece dangling across her forehead behind her ear.

They hold each other’s gazes for a heavy moment. Both want to say something, but neither wants to say something first.

“What—”

She starts, then instantly stops, and his gaze softens on her.

“When V…his…”

Creed’s words break as well. His face contorts as though speaking the truth will pain him. He takes a moment, bringing her hand to his lips, and kisses each knuckle.

“When you were holding him, and his body began to disappear, his soul hovered above you. He waited and watched you as you called your power forward.”

A shuddering breath falls from her trembling lips, and she tangles her fingers in his shirt.

“As his soul started floating up, he looked at me and said…”

“Said what?” she asks, low.

“Don’t let me go.”

I lean back in my chair, observing the multiple emotions that cross his face at one time. No one rushes him, but my heart continues to thud at an infuriating rate in my chest.

“I’ve never felt anything like it,” he finally says. “It took nearly all the strength within me to hold his soul while something tried tirelessly to pull him up. I kept telling him I had to let go. His soul was beginning to shred and take too much damage, but he just kept repeating no. Ordering me not to give up.”

“And you didn’t give up,” Thayla whispers.

He shakes his head.

“I didn’t. I held on until that beam of light shot down from the sky. It swept through his soul and slammed it into the lighter-colored creature. It attached, but it was so—”

His eyes slam shut and he rubs his hand across his mouth.

“Damaged,” I mumble.

He nods.

“I threw everything I had left in me at him and tried to heal it back whole, but it wasn’t enough. I didn’t finish healing it before my power drained out of me and darkness took me under. I’m so sorry, Thayla. I tried. I gave it all I had. I fucked—”

“Hey, none of that,” she says, laying her finger to his lips. The slow tears flowing down her cheeks are heartbreaking to witness once again. “You did exactly what he told you to do.”

“I did, but at what cost? He’ll…”

“He’ll what?” I ask.

“He’ll never be the same.”

My body falls still as a watery gasp tumbles from Thayla’s chest. She shakes her head feverishly as though if she denies it enough, it won’t make it true.

Kyzen’s head hangs as he pinches the bridge of his nose while Riven stares up at the ceiling like he’ll find a better answer there.

“Why?” I ask. “Why won’t he be? What’s the difference between this and Thayla’s soul being split? This isn’t like Vihaan’s and Otiero’s failed attempts at bringing creatures back from the dead or placing a soul in an already used vessel. This was a brand-new creature given a soul. With enough time, it can heal and be whole.”

“It will be whole one day, yes, but when a soul takes damage like that, it’s like ripping off pieces of who you are. When we get a cut, and over time it heals, new skin grows. Not what was damaged.”

“S-so…” She clears the stutter from her throat and wipes her tears on her shirt. “We don’t know what pieces of him were permanently destroyed. We don’t know what he will and won’t remember or anything like that.”

“Right,” Creed mumbles.