“I need not your human flesh. I need not the pity of a mortal. I am a god. I will not be mocked!”

His fury was beyond any Mari had experienced in her time as a god-whisperer. In other nations she’d visited, the slain gods were eager to regain a physical form lest they fade away into forgotten memories. Endarius, though? The Lion wasn’t just refusing. He was insulted.

“I offer no mockery!” Mari shouted. Here in this otherworldly place she was a visitor, and her life was far from safe. “I only ask for the strength to defeat your enemies.”

“My strength belongs to the paladins who serve me faithfully,” Endarius said. He paced before her, a towering presence worthy of praise. “But you? You hold no faith. You grant no worship. I see your heart, girl, and it is bleeding.”

Mari pulled her shoulders back, and she remembered the confidence that had brought the Lion to her in the first place.

“And what is it you would rather find in my heart?” she asked the god.

Endarius stepped closer, closer, until his flat nose pressed against her forehead. It burned her skin like fire. His warm breath washed over her, and she smelled the coppery scent of blood from those open jaws.

“RAGE.”

Mari sucked in a sharp breath as if waking from a dream. The fellow worshipers of Endarius surrounded her, nervous and eager. They were watching for signs of a miracle, one she could not offer them. The fire was gone, as was the color of the feathers and the crimson glow of the blood. Faint daylight shone through the dirty window.

“Is that it?” Amhir asked.

Frustrated tears swelled in Mari’s eyes. This was much worse than Endarius’s previous refusal to meet with her. Finally, he had communed, listened to her offer of conjoining… and then found her wanting. The rejection stung a thousand times worse than the previous silence. Battle approached, the life of the goddess Lycaena on the line, and yet she would not be able to help. She did not have her sister’s muscles. She lacked training with a blade or bow. She was a god-whisperer, one of few left from her conquered homeland of Miquo. If no god answered, she was useless in a fight. What was she to do if Thanet’s slain god wanted nothing to do with her?

“Did it work?” the paladin pressed when she did not answer. “Did Endarius speak with you?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, thrusting the feathers into the man’s hands. It was the only answer she could give. “I’m sorry.”

Mari fled down the stairs, her neck flushing from all the eyes watching her. The confidence she’d exuded at the start of the ceremony felt hollow and humiliating.

“I told you,” a woman’s voice followed her down the stairs. “You never should have let a foreigner partake.”