“Narcissi has given Her blessing for this too. Apparently, the goddess likes you.”

Soraya felt her cheeks pinken. “I—I’m honored.”

“Indeed. There is an open part just here.” She gestured toward a small gap in the crook of the main branch and a much smaller branch that looked like it had only recently formed, its tiny leaves already limned with that golden glow. Sure enough, there was moisture there, though only a few drops. “Drink slowly, only a small amount. Any more will make you ill as your body isn’t accustomed to such purity.”

Soraya shimmied along the branch, nearer to Cintra, and then ducked her head toward the moisture, parting her lips and sucking some in. The warmth hit her immediately, a voice echoing in her head. A STORM IS COMING! She flinched back, a small amount of godsblood dribbling down her chin. “Oh Goddess!” she exclaimed.

The world faded around her, the golden sparkles winking out, replaced by a festering storm overhead, the eye of which was about to reach her, the sky blood-red like an open wound.

She looked around herself to find herself standing on a rocky, forlorn shore being pummeled by towering waves that shattered against her armor.

I’m a soldier, she thought, taking several steps back to avoid being knocked off her feet by the force of the incoming tide. Maybe it was a trick of the unnatural darkness, but the waves that swarmed around her feet looked as red as blood. Then she noticed something else:

Every wave was filled to brimming with dead fish and other sea creatures, their limp bodies flung hither and thither, rolled over and spun about as they were tossed onto shore to join other aquatic carrion that was already being pecked at by hundreds upon hundreds of birds. Nearby, a stork jabbed its spearlike beak down to pluck out a fish’s eye, gulping it down in a single swallow.

All along the beach, soldiers appeared, armored and armed and waiting for whatever monster had killed the sea creatures. There were thousands of warriors, and yet somehow, Soraya knew they weren’t nearly enough to repel the enemy.

But then She appeared. Standing more than twelve feet tall and clad in gleaming golden armor, Her golden hair streaming unnaturally behind Her like rays of sunshine, the woman Soraya instinctively knew was the goddess Narcissi strode down the shore. In Her hand, She gripped a sword made of pure gold, as long as a spear and thicker than a log. Only the hand of a goddess could’ve lifted its weight, much less wielded it effectively in battle, but Narcissi made it look as though it was featherlight.