“I was born forty-nine years ago, the middle child in a large family. We were farmers.”

  “So you were alive when the land parted? The earthquake?”

  “No questions. The Parting came when I was four, yes.

  It was my life to work the fields, from Sunrise to Sunset, from before I can even recall. I was conceived for that purpose alone. The first memory I have is picking weeds with my older brother Otto when I was two. So, you see, I was born to work. That was the sole purpose for which my father begot me.

  But I was…small. I came out of my mother prematurely and my body never developed as it was supposed to. Like a grape plucked too early.

  Every litter has its runt, right?

  I didn’t grow strong with the labor like I was meant to, but frail and sickly. I just didn’t naturally fit in the ecosystem I inhabited, unlike my eight more capable siblings who seemed to know their roles so innately.

  And so, lightweight as I may be, my existence posed a tremendous burden to my family. A failed attempt to grow the workforce personified.

  Hah!

  They called me Sitryn.

  My siblings, that is.

  To this day I can’t be sure if they were the ones to come up with it, or if my parents truly ever named me that. They certainly didn’t refer to me by that name. Frankly, I sometimes believe they’d forgotten it because they only called me ‘girl’ if they ever needed to address me.

  But it wasn’t as bad as I’m making it sound. No. These are just old resentments I carry. One can turn bitter over the years, pity oneself, ramble on about that which no longer matters.

  Forgive me.

  My siblings were fine. I liked them.

  Some were better than others, sure. But I remember happiness. I had joy with them. We played, found ways to amuse ourselves. We shared stories, mostly fictional, in the quiet dark when it was time to sleep. We were children, after all. We acted like it when we could.

  One time my older sister Kippy rubbed a healing salve from Mother’s private cabinets on my knee. I’d torn my skin on a tumble, and she looked after me, kissed my cheek afterward. Kippy liked me most I think. That particular memory never left me. I don’t know why.

  And so I grew up a little disgraced by my parents, but in the company of eight other children who didn’t seem to hate me so much for my shortcomings. In fact, they used to take my tasks upon themselves unasked, sometimes. Like when we had to bring in barrels of water from the stream for example. Or really any chore that involved carrying heavy things. They would step in and do my duties for me.

  I don’t think I ever said ‘thank you’ to them in return.

  I live to regret it now, of course. But children can be rather inconsiderate like that.

  In general, I just didn’t speak much at all. I remember they all thought me a little dull-witted for it, but I couldn’t tell you why I didn’t bother to contradict them.”

  Leroh stared and stared, transfixed by the Mantis standing a few paces away. She was the most alluring woman he’d ever laid eyes on. It chilled his blood.

  She looked young. Too young. About Leroh’s age. But no length of aesthetic anomaly could truly surprise him from an abomination such as she. Her eyes were the color of a burning log of cedar wood, brown at the core but dappled by specks of bright orange on the outer ring of her irises, all framed by a thick layer of very black eyelashes. Hypnotic was the only way to describe them, her gaze terrible and mesmerizing. Lethal.

  Her infamous red lips invited attention as they were meant to, pretty, plump. Delicious. And her hair, dark amber in color and silken like the most luxurious of fabrics, fell in soft waves just below her jaw to embellish the marvel that was her face.

  She’d been expertly designed to capture his most irrational wants, a danger Leroh’s very bones seemed to react to.

  He urged so achingly to hide, to remove himself from the creature’s reach. But she’d ordered him to sit and wait, and he would. What other option was there? There didn’t exist a man idiotic enough to think he could defy her, and he certainly wouldn’t attempt to mark the first.

  The Mantis sank to her knees and positioned herself for prayer.

  Soft murmurs of verse began to pour out of her, her voice deep and strange. Leroh’s teeth clattered together and then met in a tight clench of his jaw.

  What had he gone and gotten himself involved in?

  He was the last person in the world who should be there, out in the forest, alone with the Mantis as she communicated with her master. He’d been brought up in a community that rejected the divine and adhered to the traditional values of mankind, where children were not allowed near the temptations of magic; and he was only just new to adulthood, barely a man. Just shy of a boy, really.

  Paralysis took him. Inaction. He was too frightened to move, to heed his survival instincts.

  He soon came to realize he’d been so pressingly afraid of the wrong creature, also. As soon as he saw it emerge from the depths of the wood, he knew for certain he should have fled when he had the chance, when the Mantis was distracted.

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  While he’d been busy deliberating on whether to attempt to save himself or not, another worse thing seemingly materialized to his right side just past the clearance. It approached in eerie silence, producing no footsteps on the cluttered forest floor.

  Its appearance was that of a woman’s—of a regular height and build, clad in a modest dress of dark fabric. But despite its deceivingly ordinary exterior, the plain face, hair, and attire, its magic barreled over Leroh’s senses like a heavy mist sweeping through the air, engulfing all within it. He could smell and taste it, feel it pushing into his skin. It pierced his pores, found its way inside him.

  A God.

  He soiled himself and a low sob escaped his lips.

  “What is this?” It asked, glancing at him with all-knowing brown eyes.

  “The hunt went awry.” The Mantis said to the female entity that was her master.

  “Who is this man?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Please.” She tilted her head minutely, a gesture of deference. “I’ve made a mistake.”

  Leroh only wheezed out labored breaths, dumbfounded and close to delirious with terror and confusion.

  His garments had grown wet, but he was barely aware of the sensation. He only had a mind for one thing now, one being he wouldn’t have dreamed of encountering face to face in his most creative of nightmares.

  And it was a woman, a person, nothing memorable or even remotely noteworthy about it. Leroh would have never imagined a deity as physically…unremarkable. He’d heard a little about the Sun God—imprudent as it was to converse about him—and lived under the assumption that, like he, they all possessed menacing physical characteristics, magic displayed to the naked eye through a mighty size and impossible, inhuman features such as his blindingly-glowing skin.

  But this God before him defied this logic. If not for the unearthly energy radiating from its place in the clearing, for the debilitating power it commanded with its very presence, Leroh might not have spared her a second glance. Somehow this was worse. The deceit, the guise of the familiar, the almost convincing semblance of normalcy more unnerving than honest, apparent abnormality.

  Its dark eyes now examined his sister, lying cold on the grassy ground in the middle of the glade where the Mantis had deposited her. “You killed this one?”

  “I didn’t mean to. I need you to put her soul back.”

  The God’s head snapped back to the Mantis. “Explain.”

  “It all went wrong.”

  “All?”

  “I have your two, the butcher and the privateer,” the Mantis assured. “But I managed to kill three more I shouldn’t have in the process of acquiring the second.”

  Leroh was capable of a spark of outrage. She hadn’t meant to take Teela? When she’d shattered his life into splinters it had not even been her damned intention?

  “I killed two who were trying to defend the privateer, I believe. Perhaps they knew him. Or just saw an opportunity to do away with me. So I took their souls, to better feed you. But when I shot my links into the two hearts, I claimed three. The girl was positioned perfectly in front of one of them. I wasn’t looking. I aimed by ear. I’m—I want to put her back where she belongs.”

  “And the other two? What is wrong with them?”

  “They swore to the Sea just before I took them.”

  “You claimed souls which belong to the Sea?”

  “Yes.”

  Leroh witnessed the scene like a mote of dust floating in the air, aware that the matter at hand was beyond his rank in the food chain to comprehend. He committed every word to memory, awe-stricken, but to which purpose he knew not. Every second spent in their vicinity defied the foundations of his reality, their presence and the sound of their voices a hallucination he knew to be anything but. He could not look away for an instant.

  The God, to Leroh’s shock, sighed. Its face held severity and a hint of frustration when it declared, “In that case, you will have to give them back.”

  “To the Sea? How?”

  “You must return them to him personally.”

  The Mantis frowned and tutted, sounding irritated. Leroh couldn’t believe his eyes. But the Goddess didn’t appear to take offense. Instead, it offered further explanation, as if to placate an insolent child. “I cannot take them from you. You know this. And even if I could, Mantis, it would be unwise to provoke the Sea, to continue to make enemies larger than ourselves.”

  “Yes. Yes, all right, then. I will return them to him. Offer my apologies,” she conceded.

  “Good,” the Goddess declared. “Now my lives.” It lifted and extended both hands toward its servant, palms facing forward and fingers splayed. “I hunger.”

  “Not yet,” the Mantis dared to respond, and her master tilted its head to the side in an uncanny, animalistic manner that made Leroh aware that he had already soiled himself only because he could not do it again now.

  “Help me with the girl.”

  “Nothing can be done.” A taste of divine anger slipped into the words, a harshness that hadn’t been there before. “I will take her from you, too. Give me the three, and rid yourself of the remaining two in Okedam.”

  “No.”

  Leroh gasped. His mind could not wrap around the idea that he’d heard the word correctly as it was pushed out of the Mantis’s mouth, but she’d said it. A simple, dry no.

  To a God.

  The deities wielded the magic, ruled all, knew all, owned all. Nothing was larger or more powerful. Humanity itself knelt before them, as small and insignificant as gnats to be commanded and consumed at their leisure.

  And to its direct order she’d said no.

  “I would rather die this instant,” the Mantis added very seriously, “than feed you the soul of that girl.”

  The Goddess remained perfectly still for a long moment, studying its servant. Its expression contained fury which began to morph into hesitation, then concern.

  Leroh glanced from one creature to the next, aghast. The ground beneath him seemed to thrum with the tension they produced, with the twist in the magic as they pulled and pushed in opposite directions.

  Then, disbelieving, he saw the Goddess give the barest of nods. Acquiescence.

  It extended its slender hands toward the Mantis once again. This time she complied, raised her arms and held out her fingers loosely at her master. Their fingertips touched, every finger connecting with the corresponding digit on the opposite side. Ten points of contact.

  For an instant Leroh thought he saw them interlap, flesh merging or appearing to cross impossibly through solid matter.

  He was shivering and his entire body had grown slick with a dense layer of cold sweat. He could not peel his eyes from the odd exchange, from the two predators. He caught a glimpse of thin black tissue bridging the tips of their hands and tried to hold in a grimace.

  It was only a few breaths before they stepped away from each other.

  Then the God whose name Leroh did not know walked over and knelt by his sister. It lowered its face and briefly placed its rosy human lips atop Teela’s dead ones. When it pulled away, the girl’s eyes were open.