Chapter 5
Thorian
Each time I come to this fucking room, I only see red.
Which is ironic, given the sheer amount of gold lining the walls, littering the tables, clinging to every sculpture and column.
All honey and shine. For many who come to the palace for the first time, the amount of gold is staggering.
It nearly blinds them or leaves them lightheaded.
The realization that so much wealth has been amassed in this one place while the rest of the world slowly dies of illness and hunger never seems to occur to them. They only see spectacle.
There is an ugly sort of honesty to Valtor’s taste. The god has no patience for imitation. If he demands gold, it must be solid. Not gilded. Not plated. Not dressed up to appear more valuable than it is.
Gold may glitter, but it is soft, and the excess gives everything a strange sagging quality.
The chairs, the sprawling decorative flourishes, even the chandelier hanging over the center of the room seem to droop beneath their own weight.
The wall at my back yields slightly where I lean against it, molding itself to my body as though the palace itself is slowly collapsing under the burden of its own indulgence.
Impractical, all of it. Constructing a throne room so lavish it assaults the senses, then claiming there is no time or power enough to halt the spread of godfever.
Perhaps the gold around me is softening further from the heat of my irritation.
Or perhaps I have simply had too much of this honeyed ale.
Valtor sits in the dead center of the dais, the remaining gods fanning out on either side of him like carefully arranged trophies. His throne rises several feet above the others, an unsubtle declaration of supremacy no one in the room is foolish enough to acknowledge aloud.
“They say he split the western sky with a single strike of his hand,” a man beside me says reverently.
His companion nods eagerly. “And calmed the sea again with nothing more than a thought.”
Mortals have always loved confusing excess with power.
I keep my expression neutral even as I picture beating that smug expression from Valtor’s face. Not that anyone except another god would possess enough strength to teach him that particular lesson.
“Look at him,” a woman whispers from behind me. “No wonder he oversees all realms.”
“Oversees” is a generous word for what Valtor does.
“Dominates” fits better.
Tonight he wears the form he favors most, that of a giant elder built on absurd proportions, every muscle exaggerated to the point of parody. His thick white beard spills over his bare chest, and jewels gleam against the fine leather slung low across his hips.
The entire presentation is vanity made flesh.
Below him, the line of worshippers moves steadily forward.
Each mortal approaches clutching their carefully chosen offering before setting it at the foot of the dais. Dried flowers tied with faded ribbon. Bottled herbs. Neatly wrapped parcels of cured meat and shortbreads marbled with berries and nuts. Bolts of silk. Small polished gemstones.
And always, after placing their tribute, they bow and ask for something in return. A healthy child. Relief from sickness. A stronger harvest. Protection for a fishing vessel. The requests blend into a low desperate hum beneath the clink of goblets and the gods’ casual conversation.
“Surely Valtor favors boldness,” the woman behind me murmurs.
Her friend nods solemnly. “He rewards courage.”
I nearly laugh into my drink.
At that exact moment, a broad shouldered man steps forward carrying a carved wooden box. He kneels before Valtor’s throne and places it carefully upon the floor before bowing low enough his forehead nearly brushes the gold.
He says something too softly for me to catch. Valtor pauses, his goblet suspended halfway to his lips. Then, with all the effort of brushing away a fly, he gives the barest sweep of one massive hand.
The man explodes.
One instant he is there. The next he is nothing more than a wet red stain splashed across the floor.
A sharp gasp tears through the crowd. Silence follows. No one screams. No one flees.
Servants rush forward almost immediately, polished buckets and thick cloths already in hand, scrubbing at blood and bits of flesh while the gods continue their conversation as though nothing remotely remarkable has occurred.
Terranis smirks faintly. Aqualis does not even bother to glance over. Eryndor’s mouth tightens. The hush lingers only a handful of breaths. Then the whispers begin again.
“He must have asked for too much.”
“Perhaps his offering was insufficient.”
“They say Valtor always knows when a mortal lies.”
I take another swallow of ale. That is the thing about asking favors of gods. You never know what you will receive. A blessing. Indifference. Or sudden dismemberment.
The uncertainty only seems to deepen mortal devotion.
To Valtor’s left sits Soryn, her white hair flashing silver beneath the torchlight. She turns toward the crowd and offers a small wave. It’s not much, but it’s more acknowledgment than the others have offered.
“She lit the northern sky for seven nights when her youngest daughter was born,” someone murmurs.
Another lets out a dreamy sigh. “And they say she once held the sun still in the heavens to save an entire harvest.”
That sounds like her.
If any of them could be bothered to concern themselves with mortal suffering for longer than an afternoon, it would be Soryn.
There is an unnervingly deliberate quality to her beauty. Her midnight-colored gown shimmers like a living piece of the celestial dome, and every movement carries the sort of measured precision only centuries can teach.
Beside her sprawls Terranis in his chair like he could not give less of a shit about any of this. The nearest cluster of worshippers noticeably quiets.
Smart.
“My father swears he saw Terranis crack an entire mountain in half when poachers burned one of his sacred groves,” someone mutters.
A woman beside him shudders. “My grandmother always said he sent the Blackroot blight because men cut too deeply into the eastern forests.”
That, unfortunately, sounds entirely plausible.
Terranis has never hidden his opinion that humanity is little more than an infestation. His long dark hair hangs wild around his shoulders, and vines coil over his bare torso as though the earth itself cannot bear to release him fully into civilization.
He looks exactly like what he is, a predator barely tolerating his metaphorical cage.
To Valtor’s right lounges Aqualis.
“She drowned an entire pirate fleet for insulting one of her daughters,” a young woman says, sounding almost awed.
Another nods. “But she guided my uncle’s fishing vessel home through a storm three winters ago.”
That is Aqualis. The sea has never cared for consistency.
Her opalescent gown gleams like moonlight across restless water, every movement shifting between softness and danger. There is a beauty to her that feels impossible to trust.
One never knows whether the tide means to carry you safely to shore or drag you under.
And finally there is Eryndor. No one speaks of him at first. Typical.
Then, quietly, an older man near the back says, “My grandfather used to say Eryndor gave us the wheel.”
A younger voice scoffs. “That is only a story.”
“Perhaps,” the man says. “But someone taught men to shape the world.”
At that, I allow myself the faintest curl of amusement. At least one person in this room possesses a functioning mind.
Eryndor sits bent over his tablet, blond curls brushing his shoulders, looking more scholar than divine. There is nothing spectacular about him at first glance. No gleaming theatrics. No cultivated grandeur.
And yet mortal civilization owes him more than all the others combined.
Fire harnessed to hearths. Ships strong enough to cross Aqualis’s moods. Steel shaped to purpose. Medicine. Progress itself.
The world was built on knowledge he passed down.
Naturally, louder gods have spent centuries taking credit for it.
Human women hang from Valtor’s throne like so many bugs fluttering around a flame, unaware of the pain and death to come if they get too close.
In fact, the women surrounding him are so beautiful and entranced by him that he hardly pays any attention to the new man prostrated before him on the expansive marbled gold floor.
“…all twenty-something of them, falling over as though struck by invisible lightning,” the man is saying, tears falling from his eyes and hitting the marbled floor.
When he raises his chin up to the gods, it’s with the pleading, anxious expression I’ve seen on each person’s face thus far.
“Please, whatever I’ve done, I’ll atone for it.
Without my goats, I can’t survive. My family—”
“I’m sorry,” Valtor says, voice dripping with mirth, his head turning toward the man for the first time, as though realizing he’s meant to be hearing him for the first time.
This access to the gods, this opening, it’s tradition for Pantheora. We worship them with a fervor, and they appear to us in their forms. It’s been this way for centuries, and yet, Valtor acts each year like he’s baffled by the event.
“Have you come before me?” Valtor asks, rising to his feet, his gaze sharpening on the goatherd, “Have you come before me, only to speak of goats?”
“I—I—”
“I do not care about your goats,” Valtor spits, his voice half-laughter, half-disgust. “And you’d do well to remove your ugly face from my sight. Before you befall the same fate as those stupid animals.”
Two armed guards rush onto the floor, hooking their arms under the goatherd’s armpits, dragging him away even as he weeps and pleads. Valtor falls with a grand sigh back into his throne, nearly crushing a woman who hangs halfway onto it.
“Next!” a different guard calls, and this time, when the door opens, it’s not a homely goatherd walking through.