Page 30 of The Gods Order

Fuck. I know exactly what’s going on. We all do.

Well, except for them.

Poor Chasin.

Hell, poor Mara.

“Would you like to explain, or would you like for me to?”

My head jerks at Amick’s question.

“I most certainly don’t want to explain,” I say.

“So you all do know what’s going on?” Mara asks.

A tinge of guilt spears through me. The pleading in her tone makes me feel bad, although nothing about this is my fault. She’s confused as fuck, though, understandably, and she’s about to get some unsettling news.

“Yes, we do,” Amick says as he laces his fingers behind his back. “The Beginning Gods have been tampering with the Valtrue pairings for many years now, centuries really, rather than allowing the Gods Binding to do it properly. Mellcom and Jeremiah arrived here because of a promise from an unidentified god, not true selection. So with Jeremiah’s death and Mellcom’s faux tie being severed—I assume it’s now truly severed—it unraveled the arranged pairing, and the power of the Gods Binding responded.”

Gods. Did it fucking respond when he stepped out from right in front of it?

“It responded? What does that mean?” Mara asks.

“Responded simply means it did what it was always supposed to do. It revealed your true tie. Chasin is not your true Valtrue member. The two of you, by the looks of it, are true Valtrue members. Since you still bear your marks, although new, you have three other members somewhere here where the Gods Binding’s power can reach. What you felt this morning wasn’t entirely Mellcom’s tie severing, but your proper tie clicking into place.”

He didn’t soften the delivery of that news whatsoever.

Did Mellcom’s tie really sever, though?

I can see the Gods Binding responding when my—Val split his barrier open, but all of those things happening at the exact moment seems a little too perfectly aligned.

I curl my lips between my teeth and blink at the shock holding Gladian and Mara frozen in their spots.

“So that’s how…” Gladian points his finger between Sevryn and Yemi, nodding.

“That’s correct,” Amick says.

“But Chasin. I mean, what does this mean for him? We’ve lived months as a completed Valtrue. What—”

Mara silences her frantic stammering and looks at Gladian for something. Guidance, answers maybe, I don’t know.

I honestly do feel bad for Chasin. I’ve always thought he didn’t really fit in with their Valtrue at all, but this is going to be a reality shock for him. I mean, seriously, how do you go months living and spending nearly every second with the same people, then find out you don’t truly have a tie to them at all?

It’s sad.

Oh…gods.

It’s just like the forced connections the Goddess of Creation made.

Fucking Beginning Gods. Assholes. Every single one of them.

I swallow down my grunt and focus back on the two of them.

“Did anything in your house change? Any new noticeable differences?” I ask.

Mara shakes her head. “I didn’t really pay attention this morning. I was too focused on Chasin flipping his shit over his mark.”

“Are there still five bedrooms?” Yemi asks.