Val still did not like to admit outright that her mother was the Demiweaver. “If she is a goddess, she will have a lot of explaining to do!”

A short, sour laugh came from Arius in response to that. “Good luck getting any information out of her. Any immortals who start dealing with time or destiny are insufferable.”

A blade of grass pinched between her fingertips, and Val plucked at it. “Are you calling both of us insufferable?”

“Oh, I did not mean to refer to either of us! Luckily, you only deal with the past which is straightforward. Wait, Val. The past is set in stone, right? Can you go back and change it?”

Both hands dragged over her face, fingers pulling down her lower eyelids. “I sure hope that it is unchangeable. I don’t like the complexities of time or fate no more than you! Unless the world goes to absolute ruin, I am not going to even try messing with any time stuff.” Simply put, Val would make a terrible time traveler because she would just want to curl up with a headache.

“Hopefully that will be the case, the Weaver willing,” Arius added dryly. “As for me, I only sense fate in regards to romantic relationships. Knowing who is destined to keep fucking each other in the long term is not much of an ability, is it?”

If they were sitting any closer together, Val would have punched him. “Ugh.”

That was a terrible way to rephrase the profound nature of true love. It was made even worse since Arius claimed that the two of them were supposed to be soulmates.

On second thought, perhaps Val should not take issue with that. Her heart rate elevated a tiny bit as she let her mind drift somewhere inappropriate.

She had the basic desire to have a man like her and experience the things that came along with an intimate relationship. Val had not shared her firsts with anyone yet. Her body craved to know the pleasure of simple touches and kisses. One hand curled around in towards her chest, feeling her heartbeat there.

Arius had an alluringly handsome face and also an irresistible body. Objectively, he would be a good person to touch. She could only imagine how it would feel to be touched by him in return, especially if they did so with little clothes on.

Could Arius read her thoughts right now? Val would die on the spot from embarrassment if he could.

The slight, upturned corner of one side of his lips told her everything that she needed to know.

Her face became the reddest thing in the night, rivaling even his hair. She thrust her face into her arms to hide. The blades of grass tickled her cheeks.

“Uh, Val, I am used to being privy to the things that go on in other people’s head. You do not have to feel embarrassed.” Arius leaned down with his own cheek coming near to the grass, trying to look at her.

Val turned her head just enough to the side to peak at him through the blades of grass. What was she even doing? Her attempt to hide in her shame only made her more ashamed of herself.

“I can sense the difference between flippant thought and serious intent.” His hand moved to hover over her head. Whether he had thought to pat her head or stroke her hair, Arius did neither of those things. Thankfully, he saved her that pain and let his hand fall back to his side instead. “It’s seriously okay.”

Biting her lip, Val picked herself up slowly. “Okay.”

His belief that they were soulmates was like having a perfect boyfriend delivered to her on a silver platter. While she had trouble wrapping her head around this sudden dynamic that she had with a near stranger, logically speaking, it only made sense for her to appreciate him. In her defense, she would have to be crazy to object to an amazing, instant relationship.

“Anyway, with the nature of your mother’s ability to change fate, does that make sense why Suvier wants to kill you?”

Val closed her eyes with a wince. “Maybe it does. I don’t know.”

“We are in a simulation dreamed up by the Weaver, right? All of our choices have a certain probability of happening.” Arius sat up to his knees and held both hands over the grass.

A square of fire blazed up, contained in that small area. The flames died down once all of the grass had been burned away. A swath of barren dirt and ash had been left in its wake. In this, Arius stuck his fingers to start drawing a picture.

“This scenario comes down to basic game theory. The Demiweaver is expected to alter her children’s destiny to make them a core component to Suvier’s downfall. Therefore, Suvier should take action to try to kill them. If the Demiweaver does not act, Suvier still wins if he orders the death of some innocent kids. Hence, the Demiweaver needs to make sure to change her kids’ destiny if she wants them to actually be able to live in the world without having to hide their entire lives. On the off chance that Suvier does not target her children, then they will have all the easier time in killing him.”

Val’s attention glazed over at his words, but the diagram definitely helped her follow his train of thought.

While talking, Arius drew one of those charts for the game theory options. “They both need to act essentially. This pacifist option is not happening.” He tapped the lower left-hand box that he had drawn for both the God Supreme and the Demiweaver’s inaction. “Too much blood has been spilled already. My mom, Mother Earth is dead. Your father, the Righteous One is dead. Anywhere between a million to a billion mortals had died. The Sea Itself is upset that he cannot kill even more mortals! Our world is a mess.”

Val had rolled onto her belly so that she could observe Arius’s chart better. With her cheek laid across both of her folded hands, she lent her attention up to him. “Am I supposed to do something to sort out the world?”

His shoulders lifted in a big shrug. “I guess so. It would depend upon what your mother did to your thread of destiny.”

Her gaze shifted to stare straight ahead at the mountains in the distance. “Do you think that she made us soulmates?”

“I don’t know. That would have required her to manipulate my thread of destiny too.” Arius looked out to the mountains too. “When I let your mother go, I had gotten close enough to touch her. The Demiweaver just reached back, touched the side of my head, and trailed her fingers through my hair. I was always paranoid that she did something to give me an ill fate!”

Leaning back onto his hands, Arius smiled broadly. “I like your theory better though. It would be nice if I already had your mother’s approval, you know.”

“Oh, gods.” Val slapped a hand to her forehead and laughed from the sheer awkwardness of that idea. “I do not want to think about my mother playing the matchmaker for me before I was born.”

“Don’t think about it that way then! It makes sense why we are soulmates regardless. We both know the pressures of having these insanely powerful gods and goddesses for parents.”

Val shifted around in her spot in the grass. “Do you really think that I could become an impressive goddess. Like, could I actually become an equal to you?”

“I give you two decades, three tops, and your raw power will become something to rival me, Tavras, and all of the other powerful gods.” Arius smiled with such kindness and encouragement down to her that she almost wanted to believe him.

Her toes curled around inside of her boots. Val really wanted to cling to his every word, but once again, her blatant misconceptions about the world were being challenged. “I-I thought that age mattered a lot with regards to power.”

“Old gods like Tavras want you to think that. In reality, the younger generation of demigods like us have a higher concentration of blood to work with. We have the sheer power to make up for what we might lack in experience. If you give us a thousand years, the old gods will not be able to compete anymore. You have noticed this for yourself, right? When you were sparring with Tavras, or maybe even Iharu or Fangarus, have you noticed the power disparity?”

A tight swallow slid down her throat. She was forced to recall the moment in which her ability had torn through Iharu’s entire body, leaving her on the brink of death.

As much as she hated to admit her own recklessness, Val felt like she could say anything to Arius. In a mutter, she said, “I almost killed Iharu by accident.”

“Wait, really?” He spun around to face her. “I almost killed Iharu by accident too!”

“Oh no.” Val could not help but duck her head down to the grass and laugh.

“This is exactly what I mean. We have so much in common!”

Everything that they had in common was stupidly random. On the big picture, the feud between their fathers seemed like something that would detract from their relationship rather than add to it.

Her eyes pinched up as she tried to express this. “What if I am destined to kill your father?”

At once, Arius said, “I would appreciate that.” The redness of his eyes had dissipated to a cool, brown color. His calmed demeanor made him look scarier than if he had said this out of rage. “We already discussed how I hate my father. I think that Suvier needs to die, just I do not want to be the one to do it.”

He hung his head low, perhaps out of some feelings of shame. Whether he felt ashamed for wishing his father dead or not having the drive to do it himself, Val did not want to know.

She pushed herself to a sitting position so that she could reach out to him. Her fingers touched to the side of his elbow.

“I would never expect you to do anything horrible on my behalf, but if fate just so happens to take you down that path, then it would not bother me.” In a lowly voice, he added, “I would be grateful.”

Tilting her head to the side, Val could only offer her best attempt at a tight smile. She could only try to understand the extent of the injustices that his father had done to him. Supposedly, the God Supreme had killed his mother. While Arius genuinely believed this, Val feared that his altered memories warped his perspective of reality.

“I guess that we can see where this goes and see what the world will throw at us,” Val suggested.

Arius nodded firmly. “I think that we will find that we are stronger together than we are apart. We are soulmates for a reason.”

Already, Val and Arius had an important foundation for their relationship: honesty. It was something unique that she only had with him. Neither her mother nor Tavras had ever treated her with such straight-forward respect. If Arius always treated her like this, Val imagined that she could come to like him very much.

With newfound hope, she looked to him with a bright smile.