Brianda watched from the edge of the crowd. Having crept past the priests when the others had been stopped at the door and told to wait in the ante-chamber, she kept to the edge until she found a place in one of the niches set at regular intervals around the room.

  Incense burned in a brazier set on the shelf above her and the column on the inner edge of the walkway around the central seating area helped shelter her from view, as did the potted plant she’d drawn to the front of the niche so she could crouch behind it.

  Observing through a gap in the leaves, Brianda had a clear view of the dais on which the exchange ceremony would be held. None of the priests in attendance gave the niche more than a second glance as they took their places, and Brianda felt a small sense of satisfaction.

  She might have sworn loyalty to Raomar when she’d overstayed her welcome in Toramar, but her first loyalties had been held by King Strevani’s spymaster, and he’d taught her well. None of her skills had been reliant on the goddess who’d cast Raomar aside, so she’d lost nothing when she’d been expelled from Toramar’s guild with her master.

  And speaking of Raomar… Brianda looked for the ex-guildmaster, worried she’d lost him in the crowd of robes and heavenly servants.

  She breathed a sigh of relief when he stepped into view to take his place on the dais, watching as he knelt.

  He no longer wore Enshul’s deep blue, although his straw-gold hair still possessed the three streaks of blue denoting her favor.

  I wonder why she let him keep them?

  Brianda studied her master, tensing as a ripple of horrified whispers accompanied his appearance, and only relaxing a little when the High Priest had calmed them. Raomar had kept his eyes on the floor, taking his place in the dove-gray robes of a supplicant as though he was the only one in the room.

  He’s the only one that matters, Brianda thought, eyeing the others.

  There were priests and priestesses from almost every known deity, both good and evil alike, but no sign of the usual rivalries that divided them. Instead, a sense of waiting hovered over them all.

  As the crowd settled, the high priest raised his voice in prayer.

  He called on the deities of those gathered before him…and on one or two more, asking them to come and make their exchange. He also asked them to be merciful, to grant their servants an understanding of their love and the reason they’d been set aside to serve another.

  He asked for peace, and for the pain of rejection to be soothed.

  After that, he spoke to the deities taking on a new servant, urging them to let their new servants know they were loved and valued, and requesting they be told why they had been called, and demanding they value their new servants at least as much as the deity from whom they’d called them.

  As he moved from one gray-robed priest to the next, High Priest Ardor called others from the audience: a senior priest from the priest’s former deity, and an equally senior priest from the deity who’d requested them. One by one, he oversaw the transfer of each priest whose services were required by another.

  There were tears, some of regret, and some of relief, but many of joy, as men and women who’d felt the same empty space where their deity should stand filled by another who needed them.

  Brianda waited, watching as the number of priests on the stage dwindled, leaving Raomar to kneel alone. High Priest Ardor moved to the center of the dais, looking out over the gathered priests as though searching for someone, but Enshul’s priest stood three paces back, and he was Staravan’s representative.

  After he’d waited in a long moment of silence, the high priest turned to Enshul’s representative.

  “Is she—” he began, only to be cut off by a sudden commotion at the temple entrance.

  The door slammed open and a man and a woman arrived, breathing hard as they skidded to a halt to scan the room. One of Staravan’s priestesses, followed, gesturing urgently to the front of the room, before closing the door behind them. Her face looked pinched and anxious, but she quickly caught up with them, hurriedly escorting them to where the high priest was waiting.

  Brianda studied the newcomers, noting the woman’s blue skin and recognizing she wore the robes of Lurani, god of fisherfolk, coastlines and coastal waters. The man with her was some kind of warrior, his skin shining a coppery bronze in the lamplight, while his loose-fitting silk shirt denoted his nobility.

  She watched as his eyes scanned the gathering of priests, and a thrill of unease swept over her. Here was someone on a war-footing…or hunted.

  Or not comfortable in crowds, she amended, In spite of being used to command.

  When the man’s gaze fell on Raomar, his hand dropped to his sword hilt, and Brianda tensed.

  Not one move, mister, she thought, Or you’ll be feeling my blade, priests and sanctified ceremony regardless.

  She almost relaxed when Staravan’s priests stopped the man at the edge of the dais, while the priestess drew his charge forward and away from Raomar, bidding her kneel and wait. As she settled, two more priests left the gathering to join her.

  One was that of Zhirinok, the god of worlds, and the other wore robes of a deep blue-green. It took Brianda a moment to recognize who they belonged to, given she’d been raised so far from the sea, but the name eventually came, Skarsht, the all-encompassing god of oceans, seas and coastlines. Lurani’s superior.

  High Priest Ardor glanced at Enshul’s representative, only to receive a sharp shake of his head.

  Brianda’s spirits sank, out of sympathy for her master.

  Not here, yet. Anger bubbled briefly in her mind. But why would she leave him like this?

  With a sigh of regret, the high priest turned to the newly arrived priestess. As he did, a presence built around him, its power growing as though more than one deity lent themselves to its creation.

  Brianda drew a quick breath, and shrank further into her niche, seeking the protection of the shadows as the presence spread. Keeping her eyes on the stage, she saw the sensation was accompanied by something more. As it grew stronger, she began to see the gods themselves.

  At first their forms were shimmers in the air, then they grew more solid, until they took on the substance of ghosts…and then…

  She hardly dared to breath.

  Skarsht reminded her of the sea she’d glimpsed from Toramar’s clifftops, while Zhirinok…

  Zhirinok struck her as strange. He held nothing in his hands, yet, when she glimpsed his palms, they seemed to hold all things between them. His legs and feet seemed at once to be there and not, as if he was walking the distance between her world and another.

  Brianda shivered, curling into the shadow and leaning against the cold, hard comfort of the rock. Staravan’s presence was less frightening…except for the impression he knew everything that was going on, including the fact she was hiding in his temple, when no one but the priests and the woman’s companion had been allowed admittance.

  His presence glanced in her direction as though in confirmation, and his lips quirked briefly upward in greeting, leaving her shocked.

  Does he read thoughts as well?

  Another glance at the deity revealed nothing. He’d returned his attention to his priest and looked lost in the blessing being spoken over the priestess’s head. The priests of Skarsht and Zhirinok glanced up as a priestess of Lurani moved hesitantly to joined them.

  She looked unsure, and was obviously their junior in rank, but they beckoned for her to join them, inclining their heads in welcome as she came to a halt before them.

  “You have traveled far,” High Priest Ardor intoned, “Feeling the rejection of your god and wondering why he has forsaken you.”

  The girl raised her face to acknowledge the truth of his words, and her cheeks were streaked by tears.

  The high priest continued as though he hadn’t noticed.

  “He has not. See? He is here, waiting to soothe your hurt. He has watched over you, all your long journey, unwilling to withhold his presence, but knowing he must or you would not be sure of your path.”

  The girl looked from the high priest to the newly arrived priestess. The priestess smiled, and the developing presence of Lurani smiled with her. The girl’s face reflected their joy and she opened her mouth to thank them, but High Priest Ardor had not finished.

  “Know that Lurani bids you well. Know that he has chosen you for the path about to open to you…and know that his blessing and good wishes go with you.”

  The girl bowed her hand in reply, but not before Brianda caught the glint of newly formed tears.

  High Priest Ardor reached down and placed one hand on the girl’s shoulder, while offering her the other.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Rise now, and meet your new master. His name is Skarsht, and he knows all that happens in the realm of the sea and the lands that border it. Lord over Lurani, he has asked your service from one of his own, and been granted it.”

  The priestess of Lurani nodded in confirmation, and the girl took the high priest’s hand and allowed him to help her rise. He turned her to face Skarsht’s representative.

  “I present you with Ormorik, high priest to Skarsht, both within these lands and the lands beyond it…”

  His voice faltered, and his breath caught as he noticed the all-too-tangible presence of the gods. When he spoke, again, it was in a voice quaking with deference and awe.

  “Priestess, I present you with Skarsht himself.”

  All around the room, Brianda saw priests drop to their knees, and wondered why it had taken them so long to notice the deities. Once more, she caught a glance from Staravan and, this time, he winked.

  The priests on the dais would have knelt as well, but their gods moved to prevent them. Skarsht slipped an arm through that of his priest, preventing him from kneeling, as well as reaching forward to take his new priestess’s hand.

  “Another time,” he told them.

  His voice was deep and full of resonance, reminding Brianda of the rushing of waves on a distant shore.

  “For now,” the god continued, “For you, there is no time. I welcome your service and regret the necessity of taking you from my son’s service. There are parts of you that are unique, that are found nowhere else on this world.”

  “Or on any other,” Zhirinok added, inclining his head as the girl stuttered her thanks.

  He said nothing more, but faded from sight.

  As Brianda watched, she saw other gods appear throughout the hall. They came to stand before or beside their priests, until every priest had company…all bar one.

  The place behind Enshul’s high priest remained ominously vacant.

  Brianda saw Raomar glance at the space she should have occupied, and wondered at the goddess’s lack of care.

  * * *

  Other eyes noted the empty space with gathering satisfaction, hostile eyes, distant and disembodied. They observed the exchange involving the young priestess through the reeking, yellow gleam of an observer hiding in the shelter of the hall’s portico.

  The observer swayed. It was a snake-like creature of earth, and rocked by its master’s mixed emotions.

  Alessia and her apprentices, and Raomar and his companions, would have recognized its foulness and danger, but no-one else, since the weirds had only recently been returned to the lands, and none of those present had ever come across one.

  The earth weird was something like the elementals that had earlier graced the temple’s courtyard, save that it had a twisted core of evil that made the land around it shrink from its presence. It was a minion of the elemental god, Walshira, and the deity’s first living servant since his defeat.

  It and Walshira’s other servants had slept, dormant while their master’s prison had held his presence from the world. Summoned to wakefulness and service by Toramar’s king, it was a master of its kind, and well aware of what the human’s relationship meant to his god.

  While the king had worked to increase his master’s power, so Walshira had worked at enlarging the flaw in his prison, so that it not only allowed him to reach the outside world, but let him increase his influence upon it. With the flaw close to breaking point, Walshira now sought the one thing it needed to break the last of the wards preventing him from breaking through—the sacrifice of a powerful wielder of magic.

  …And they had found one in the wizardess, Alessia Mistlewood.

  Her name had been provided by a local crime lord, and Alessia and her apprentices had been captured and taken to the castle.

  “So. Close!” Walshira mourned, his anger burning through the creature. “SO. CLOSE.”

  The creature tried to focus on the ceremony before it, the ceremony and the single waiting priest, but Walshira’s memories dwelt on a different ceremony. That ceremony had included the wizardess and her apprentices as intended sacrifices, alongside scores of priests belonging to Miralei, goddess of law and order.

  The priests’ misery and torment had been intended to strengthen the deity, while the souls, spirits, and magic of the wizardess and her apprentices had been meant to free him.

  The ceremony had failed.

  Walshira’s frustration at this raked his servant’s mind with pain, and the weird suppressed an agonized moan.

  Dropping the temple’s protections to allow his master access, had also allowed true elementals of the air to free the intended sacrifices from their chains, and flee with them.

  The weird suppressed another growl.

  A fifth creature had flown with them, one that was neither elemental, nor weird, but a shapechanger. A witch?

  His master wondered. There had been witches of elemental power in his time, but he’d thought them so rare as to be extinct. The king had not known of them.

  This fifth being had taken the first apprentice, while the elementals had taken the rest…and others, a girl thief, a Northman, and a kevarag had wreaked havoc by freeing the priests.

  But not all of them, Walshira gloated, remembering the power he’d garnered from those the would-be rescuers had been forced to leave behind.

  The weird ground its teeth.

  Even unable to prevent their deaths, Miralei had still managed to wrench some of their souls from his master’s grasp…and their spirits also. Between her unexpected strength and the raiders, they had managed to rob Walshira of the power he’d needed to free himself.

  “Vengeance!” Walshira demanded, and the weird tensed, only its master’s will keeping it from entering the ceremony and killing whoever it could reach. All it was permitted was to crane its head further around the nearest column to grant its master a better view.

  From there, they could see the gathered gods, all of whom showed a rising disquiet at Enshul’s non-appearance. Walshira wondered at it, also.

  The goddess was not his ally, but the longer she delayed her arrival, the closer he came to recapturing the wizardess and her apprentices. The weird hoped she would delay a little longer, since every heartbeat meant his master was closer to getting back what he had lost.

  It watched as the priests prepared to wait even longer, only to be interrupted by their deities, and told the ceremony must continue regardless, that time was short.

  The weird curled its lip in scorn. Time was far shorter than they knew.

  When all the priests had been transferred, and the kevarag was the only one left waiting, the priests settled down to wait. Watching them, the weird saw both anxious and impatient glances directed toward the priest.

  Still the goddess failed to appear, and after a full turn of the hourglass, Walshira sent the weird into hiding, and left.

  He needed to speak to the king.

  * * *

  In the distant city of Toramar, Walshira found his priest waiting beside the pool in his private garden. He spiraled into the pool’s twisted whorl, smoothing its breeze-rippled surface until it resembled glass.

  Sensing his presence, the king opened his eyes, his moment of private contemplation replaced by alertness.

  “He waits,” Walshira stated, showing him the scene in the temple.

  Raomar’s blue-streaked hair gleamed in the temple lamplight, and the old god was careful not to show the waiting gods.

  “You must order your men to stop the ceremony.”

  “But, my men are miles from me, and the last report indicated they would reach the town just as the sun sets.”

  “I will help you reach them,” the old god replied. “Are you ready?”

  “Tell me when, my lord. What would you have done?”

  “I have reached your commander,” Walshira told him, shifting the image he was sharing with the king from Enshul’s rejected priest to the king’s commander. “Tell him dissidents are hiding in the temple. Tell him the priests have risen against you and their lives are forfeit, that the temple must be cleansed by fire and all within it executed before they can spread any further lies.”

  “As you command, so shall it be,” the king intoned, fixing his eyes on the dark-haired man marching at the head of a squad of forty men.

  His eyes roved over the surrounding countryside, watchful by habit, even when such alertness wasn’t essential.

  The king opened his mouth to convey the Old One’s orders, then stopped.

  “What about the town?” he asked, knowing there would be some who’d try to save their priests.

  “Any who come to the priests’ aid are to be taken, as well. There will be no uprising in Toramar.”

  “And the other temples?” the king enquired.

  “Leave them for now,” Walshira instructed. He might be able to take on the deities gathered in Staravan’s temple, but if he forced more of the current pantheon to take notice, he’d end up losing the ground he’d gained.

  They watched as the commander glanced at the sky, and called a halt.

  “Speak, now,” Walshira instructed.

  “Commander Estelle,” the king said, seeking the man’s face in the picture.

  The man started in surprise, glancing hurriedly around. When he spoke, he kept his voice low, and moved a short distance from his men.

  “Your majesty?” he asked, scanning his surroundings.

  “Stop looking for me,” the king commanded. “I am observing you from the palace. The power I serve has bridged the distance between us.”

  The king watched the commander’s throat work, and waited. It took a heartbeat for the man to swallow his uncertainty, then the commander cleared his throat.

  “Your majesty,” he acknowledged, his voice tight as he bowed his head. “How may I serve?”

  Observing the man, Walshira saw the dislike he hid from his king, and decided the commander would be perfect for his next array of gifts. There would be none to oppose him, none so aware of their compromised king that they sought to defeat him.

  He listened to the king relay his orders for the priests of Wildejun, and relished the thought of the terror that would rise from this battle-hardened veteran as he was transformed.

  “I have just received word of an uprising,” the king stated, and the man tensed. Noting his reaction, the king continued, “The priests of Staravan are inciting rebellion in the guise of their lord’s teachings. I want you to storm Staravan’s temple in Wildejun and kill them all. Make them an example of what happens to those who move against me.”

  The commander’s face hardened at the idea of rebellion, and the king pressed his advantage.

  “There are others involved. They have designs on Toramaran troops in other lands.”

  He watched the commander’s face harden further, and knew the man wouldn’t flinch from the slaughter ahead. It was one thing for people to rebel against a king he didn’t like, but for them to intend harm to his fellow soldier…

  “There will be no mercy,” Walshira observed, as the man’s eyes took on an angry glint.

  The king agreed with his deity’s assessment. From the look on the man’s face, there would be no mercy shown, no quarter given. All within the temple grounds would be within his hands before the sun rose in the morning…or they would be dead.

  He sighed with satisfaction, then tensed.

  They were not alone. Someone…or something…else watched.

  “That is all commander,” he said, and waited until the commander’s image had faded from before him.

  “We are not alone, Master,” he said. “Someone watches.”

  Walshira hissed with anger, extending his awareness to sense they were observed, but unable to sense by whom, or where they were located. He ascertained a direction and reached for their hidden observer, only to discover a swirling emptiness where their observer had been.

  He angrily sniffed the empty space, and detected a distinctive scent.

  Walshira laughed.

  “Sweet, sweet Enshul,” he chuckled. “What makes you think you can watch me and remain untouched? Don’t you realize the rewards I have set aside for you? Don’t you realize how I crave the sweetness of your flesh after I have taken all those who are yours and you have no one left?”

  He gave a happy sigh.

  “That is when I will come for you. That is when I will take your spirit and everything left within your power to give. And that is when I will make you my body slave and give you such service that you will beg me for release—and release of every kind, you will have.”

  His laughter swelled as he summoned darkness to reflect her form, and taunted her with the slow movement of his hands across it, before tearing it apart and banishing it. He turned his back on the place she’d been standing, and was still smiling as he re-focused on his king.

  “She is of no importance,” he said, “But her presence has made me hungry. This night begs my interference, and I need all the sustenance you can summon. Bring the magelet you retrieved, and send soldiers to raze and sack Staravan’s remaining temple. All his priests will die, tonight—since it is clear the treachery in Wildejun has spread to the capital.”

  “It has?” the king asked, and Walshira chuckled.

  “That is what your soldiers believe,” he replied. “Do not tarry. I have much to achieve before dawn, and cannot afford to run short of the power to achieve it.”