But of course, the subject of age was trivial when you were talking about a god.

Parvani forced herself to swallow. She dipped her head and body in respect, fanning her crimson bridal gown around her.

“Hades,” she whispered to the river-cold rocks. “I have come to be yours.”

She had grown up with the stories of other nations’ gods, told in excited whispers as if wickedly divine on the tongue. One of them was Hades and the Netherworld, the realm of gamboling spirits and memory. How a bride was routinely given to the cave’s maw, a girl swallowed whole to appease the sovereign of the dead. That was how Hades found the strength to keep the Netherworld in balance; without that power, the bridge between worlds would fade, until the living might as well have been called the dead.

Parvani had never imagined volunteering to become one of those girls. Now as she stood within a cluster of marble pillars, Hades herself before her, she still couldn’t quite believe it.

They kept their veils lowered. They were alone in the open-faced portico, its columns choked with creeping vines and jasmine. Beyond, she again heard the rush of water. It seemed to be everywhere.

She couldn’t stop trembling. When she’d first had this idea, she had been so certain, so determined. Now that it was unfolding before her, she wondered if she could truly accept an existence under the earth, where breath cut off and hearts were still.

She would not let this sacrifice be in vain. For Ranya’s sake.

Her mother had wept when she revealed her plan, because she knew her daughter loved to run and climb, to feel the wind in her hair, to wade through the shoals of the river that cut through their city like a lazy serpent.

Her forehead still felt warm with her mother’s blessing. She allowed that to calm her as Hades stepped closer, lifting her hands. In one rested the seductive curve of a mango. In the other, a knife.

Parvani knew the stories, but it had always been different fruit than this: figs, peaches, pomegranates. Was the god giving her another homage to her home? She forced herself to take up the knife, its bone hilt oddly soft in her grip. Next she took the mango, already smelling its familiar perfume.

The scent was an attack. Summer mangoes in the garden, dropping to the ground as if they were falling stars. Ranya up in the tree among them, grinning down at her from the very center of the universe. She would try to aim for Parvani’s head as she threw them down, her laugh following like a comet’s tail.

Her lips couldn’t determine whether to smile or tremble. Pressing them firmly together, Parvani expertly cut a vibrant orange moon from one side of the mango. Peeling away its skin, she raised the flesh to her lips.