“Blessed Ashana, I beseech you. Guide your ephemeral daughter.”

Kneeling, Melanna let the intoxicating scent of incense fill her lungs.

No answer came.

“Blessed Ashana, I beseech you. Guide your ephemeral daughter.”

She opened her eyes into the inner sanctum’s gloom. Cracks of moonlight roused the incense-fog to iridescence. All else was darkness, cold and silent. The outer sanctum was but paces away, through six veils of silk and one of cotton. It felt distant as the moon herself.

Melanna closed her eyes once more. Midnight was come and the moon in the sky. If ever there was a time for Ashana to answer, it was now.

“Blessed Ashana, I beseech you. Guide your ephemeral daughter.”

“She will not come.”

Melanna caught her breath upon hearing the deep voice. The familiar voice. She opened her eyes. The antlered knight stood before her. He was mantled in armour of silver scales and folds of dark cloth that glittered with the light of captive stars. Behind, swathed in iridescent fog, skeletal trees reached towards a distant moon. Of the tent, there was no sign. Autumn leaves crackled beneath Melanna’s knees.

“Why won’t she come? Who are you?”

Green eyes blazed like fire beneath the helm. “A poor Huntsman and steward to a goddess. I offer advice. Sometimes, she is pleased to take it.”

Melanna bowed her head. She dared not rise. The goddess’s presence was a comfort; the Huntsman was anything but.

“I wish to speak with the goddess.”

“And I told you, she will not come.” His tone was not unkind, but nor was it friendly.

“Why? She has never forsaken me before.”

“She feels your heart quicken to the tempo of war and wishes no encouragement.”

Bitterness soured Melanna’s throat. “I need no encouragement, only her blessing.”

“She will not give it.”

“She must. War is the way of my people. We count our losses in the tally of our dead, and our victories in the bodies of the foe. If I cannot fight, the Golden Court will never accept me. The rule of Saran will die with my father.”

The Huntsman drew closer. He towered over her, his cloak blotting out the moon. “She knows all this. She believes herself aloof from war. She wishes to remain so.”

Bitterness blossomed into anger. “She was pleased to help my forefathers carve an empire from the anarchy of the Sceadotha’s fall!”

“That was not her.”

“It was Ashana! The legends all agree!”

“Ashana is but a name, and a duty to the heavens. My goddess is not the first to bear it. She will not be the last.”

“That doesn’t make any sense!”

“Does shared title grant shared purpose to all emperors?” Amusement rumbled beneath the words. “Or to all princessas?”