The faith of your followers is strong, she thought. So strong. Why will you not hear my whispers, Lion? I know you yet live.

Stalling, she was stalling. Mari politely excused herself from conversation and climbed the stairs into the wide attic. Three men and two women gathered in attendance, sitting in a circle in the pale light. A single feather lay before each of them, and a sixth feather awaited her joining the circle. Of the five present, only one she recognized, a handsome man named Amhir. He was one of the leaders of the struggling resistance, and sometimes appeared at her father’s house in need of orders. Of the others, one stood out by his garb. He wore gilded armor, a bearskin cloak, and a necklace of teeth, all of which would have him executed if seen wearing it in public. A paladin of Endarius, come to perform the bloodletting ceremony.

Though Mari’s family had been there for only three months, it had been two years since the island’s invasion, and she had missed much of the brief war. Near the end of the first year, the paladins and priests of Endarius had gathered in a deep forest known as the Mane, in southern Thanet, for a doomed final stand against the imperial army. The loss had devastated their numbers and, combined with their god’s death during the invasion, had led to a near complete dissolution of their ranks. What few remained went into hiding, but with the planned execution tomorrow, several had returned to Vallessau for one last battle.

“What is she doing here?” an older woman asked. Her face was like leather, her dark hair tied back into a ponytail. “To invite a foreigner is an insult to our god.”

“The Coin says she attends, so she attends,” Amhir said.

The paladin drew a knife from his hip, and he watched Mari as he carefully sharpened it with flint from his pocket. His head was completely shaven, and tattooed across and above his forehead were rainbow feathers.

“There is danger in this ceremony to the unbelievers,” he said softly.

“I fear no danger.”

“But do you believe?”

Mari sat in the circle and smoothed out her skirt.

“I have walked your streets, heard your prayers, and felt the faith of your island settle upon me like a cloak,” she said. “Yes, paladin, I believe. The Lion lingers, angry and eager to hunt.”

“You believe he exists, but that is not belief in him. The difference may seem small, but it is a canyon. I pray you are not swallowed within.”

“Not a believer, yet still to attend our most sacred rite,” the first woman protested. “I do not understand why we must allow this.”

“Because I come to offer myself to Endarius so he might live again.”

The circle fell silent.

“Impossible,” the third man said, but there was a hint of hope within his whisper.