The goddess Lycaena fluttered above an accompaniment of her priests. Her skin was black as midnight, her eyes brilliant rainbows of ever-shifting color. Long, flowing silk cascaded down from her arms and waist, its hue a brilliant orange that transitioned to yellow, green, and blue depending on the ruffle of the fabric. The dress billowed outward in all directions, and no matter how hard Cyrus looked, he couldn’t tell where the fabric ended and the goddess’s enormous wings began. She held a rod topped with an enormous ruby in her left hand; in the right, a golden harp whose strings shimmered all colors of the visible spectrum. Cyrus’s heart ached at the sight of her. He’d witnessed Lycaena’s physical form only a few times in his life, and each left him breathless and in awe.

“Be gone, locusts of a foreign land,” Lycaena decreed. She did not shout, nor raise her voice, but all the city heard her words. “We will not break before a wave of hate and steel.”

Fire lashed from the ruby atop her rod in a conical torrent that filled the broken gateway. The screams of the dying combined into a singular wail. The other god of Thanet, Endarius the Lion, charged into the ashen heap left in her attack’s wake. His fur was gold, his claws obsidian, his mane a brilliant collection of feathers that ran the full gamut of the rainbow. Wings stretched from his back, the feathers there several feet long and shifting from a crimson red along the base to pale white at the tip. Those wings beat with his every stride, adding to his speed and power.

Endarius’s paladins joined him in his charge. They did not wield swords and shields like their Lycaenan counterparts, nor did they share their long cloaks of interlocking colors resembling stained glass. Instead their gilded armor bore necklaces of fangs across their arms, and they wielded twin jagged swords to better support their ferocity. They bellowed as they ran, their version of a prayer, and they tore into the ranks of the invaders, the spray of blood and breaking of bones their worship.

In those first few minutes, Cyrus truly believed victory would be theirs. Thanet had never been conquered in all her history. Lycaena and Endarius protected their beloved people. The two divine beings rewarded their faithful subjects with safety and guidance. And as the imperial soldiers rushed through the gate with their swords and spears, the gods filled the courtyard with fire and blood. From such a height, Cyrus could only guess at the identities of the individual defenders, but he swore he saw Rayan fighting alongside his goddess, his sword lit with holy light as he kept his beloved deity safe with his rainbow shield.

You burned our fleets, Cyrus thought, and a vengeful thrill shot through him. But we’ll crush your armies. You’ll never return, never, not after this defeat.