You said no because you weren’t done with the human world and its half-broken things, its yearnings, its small comforts. You couldn’t say goodbye to your mother, her skin growing age-mottled, or your sister, her eyes already bracketed with lines. You couldn’t bear the thought of giving up your best friend.

They are only three, the god had said.

And you had laughed at its answer, your voice a moment’s distance from breaking. Only three, you repeated, as if galaxies could be built on home-cooked food and long nights watching the world through a glazing of sweet smoke.

The plane is silent for the longest time.

You eat a first-class meal despite your economy seating, the stewardess frowning as she doles out chimichurri butter on your plate. You know what she is thinking: a clerical error, certainly. But she gives you what the plane wants. The food is exquisite, the slivers of lobster meat only slightly overdone, the accompanying vegetables beautifully caramelized.

An apology, you wonder as you soak your bread in the dredges of your repast, your eyes skipping up to your reflection. She regards you without interest.

It is only when you’re on the verge of looking away that she mouths the words:

I’m sorry. We only wish to be loved.

You nod.

One day, you tell your gods, you’ll be theirs and theirs alone. When your mother is gone, when your sister is someone else, when your best friend is replete with children, too busy to realize you’re missing, you’ll consecrate yourself to them. One day, but not yet.

A whisper: Will you love us as much as them?

More, you say.

The plane doesn’t ask if you’re lying.

the games we play

The Dog-King is not quite what Yavena expects.

He is physically imposing, of course, military upbringing exposed in the thickness of his musculature, the midnight fur sliced close to his hide.

The other Ovia in Yavena’s court speak of the Dog-King as a monster among Gaks, a fearsome legend. But where Yavena anticipated the flatness of a killer’s regard, there is a penetrating curiosity instead. A scholarliness amplified by his chosen garb—the earthy, flowing raiment of an academic—and the small amber glasses crouched precariously atop his muzzle.

Nothing Hahvak prepared her for.

“Ah.” His voice is warm and younger than the striations of white in his pelt suggest, boyishly pleased. The Dog-King slinks away from a desk piled high with official-looking documentation. “Yavena, was it? We’re charmed.”

Yavena traps fist against open palm, bows almost low enough to tempt accusations of impudence. Beside him, her sponsor—Hahvak, the little Gak with a wailing laugh—crumples into an exaggerated kowtow.