Aria went on ahead. Even if she decided to run, she did not expect to get far. As they walked, she tried not to gape. The audience hall could fit two farmlands, at least. Ahead of her was Evera’s throne. It was made solely of white lilies and large enough to hold five men. Aria wondered if it was comfortable; she would never have an answer.

Here and there, lilies of all colors grew from the tiled floor. The altar before the throne, where supplicants placed their gifts, was a burning red bed of roses.

They walked past the throne. Behind it, another archway left into a corridor, and a third archway led from the corridor to a relatively small room. Relatively small, because it could only hold one square dining table and two serving tables along the wall. Compared to the audience hall, it felt intimate. As they entered the room, Aria realized that even the archways were decorated. Lilies grew along them, white and camouflaged by the similarly colored walls.

“Do you love my flowers?” Evera’s tone was casual. As she spoke, she pulled out a seat for herself and gestured for Aria to do the same.

“They need no water,” Aria said. “They live only on the light of your beauty.”

The goddess paused and her grin grew wide, almost bashful. “I see I have an admirer.”

Aria felt more embarrassed. The words had come unbidden, one of the endless facts she had learned about Evera. That knowledge was to have won her a place in the goddess’ service, but Evera’s scouts had not been impressed. Ten-year old girls who knew Evera’s hymns littered the streets. Only one in a ten-thousand could earn the honor of sweeping floors in her temples.

Seeing Evera’s expectant expression, however, she smiled back and nodded. A moment later, Evera’s eyes swept over the back of Aria’s hand. There, a lion’s teeth stood out, Garo’s symbol, printed on her hand before she had begun service in his palace.

Aria felt shame. “I learned to serve you. But, I did not impress the scouts. They didn’t choose anyone from my village.”

Evera waved it away. “They choose so few. I am always honored by the number who wish the serve me. I wish I could take them all, but if they can only share my joy in their daily lives, that honors me too.”

Aria nodded vigorously. “Of course. My parents forced me to serve in Garo’s temple, but I never forgot you. I still know all your hymns.”

Evera smiled. “Well, I hope you did not hum them in his temples. That would have terribly rude.”

“Of course not -”

Evera laughed. “Relax, child, I am teasing. You are a goddess now. It does not matter who you served as a mortal. Now, people will pray to you and you will have to do right by them.”

The wall across from the archway was pure glass. Through it, she could see a meadow filled with green and dotted with wildflowers. A fountain stood in it, as well, and tightly grown trees interlocked their branches and seemed to form a maze. As she watched, a rabbit hopped in sight of the window, stopped, stared at them, and then hopped back out of sight.

Evera waved a hand and flowers sprang from the table before them. They grew, budded, and opened before transforming into crystal plates loaded with fruit and condiments. Another wave brought crystal glasses and a pitcher of wine.

“Please, help yourself,” Evera said. “The fruit is fresh. The wine, I buy from Garo. I would rather not, but he does it well and I would rather spend my time on my people.”

She poured a glass for herself, but Aria did not move. All she could see was the cup in the prince’s hand, his eyes losing their luster, and her life dissolving around her.

She reached for a pear to give her hands a task. Dew clung to its skin in tiny spots. When she bit into it, disappointment filled her. It turned out, fruit from a god’s table tastes just the same as it does anywhere else. The thought felt sacrilegious; Evera had grown these. But her tongue would not bow to her sensibilities.

_________________________________

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“Now,”

Evera tapped a spoon on the edge of her bowl, dumping a thick sauce onto her berries. She followed that with a spoonful of sugar using the same teaspoon. Then, she began mashing the mixture into a paste. Aria watched her in fascination. If you had asked before this moment, she would have said that no, gods did not mash their fruit and drown them in sugar.

“You must be wondering why I asked for you, so I will not keep you in suspense.” She took a spoonful of her pudding, made a face, and added more sugar. “It is traditional - and safe,” she gestured with her teaspoon, “to obtain permission before visiting another’s territory. I would have forgiven it, but I realized that without warning, you will wander into more dangerous places.” She took another spoonful, made another face, and added even more sugar. “And without training, oh, you will not survive even a week. Is this your first day?”

Aria decided that this was no trick. Evera truly did not recognize her.

“First day?”

“Were you a goddess before today?”

“No, Your Eminence - I mean - “

Evera frowned at the slip but laughed it off a moment later. “Then, I will teach you. It will be lovely to have a sister. It has been so long.”

Aria felt conflicted. She had to leave Evera’s palace as quickly as possible. Whatever oddity kept her identity hidden - and it could be that Evera was simply poor with faces - she could not depend on it.

“I have to be somewhere.”

“Child, you have nowhere to be until you have my permission to stand in my territory, and you do not have it. You have even odds of finding another deity who will help rather than exploit you, and you look as if you crawled out of a swamp. You will stay, bathe, wash your hair, and wear something that does not stink. And when I have filled your head with what is necessary for survival, you will thank me and run off. Do you understand?”

She had an accent when she was stern; something rough and rural.

Aria sat without a response. She weighed her chances of escape and found them slim. As Evera had said, escape meant nothing if she had nowhere to go.

“How long is this training?”

“As long as your memory is short. It will not take more than a day if you are attentive, but I will keep you long enough to see my teaching sink in. And believe me, you will thank me when you do not end up like Garo.”

The memory spoiled what remained of her appetite.

“Has he been freed?”

“Freed?!” Evera laughed so hard, her face nearly collided with the table. “Freed?! You jest! He will spend the next thousand years on that stake. After that, when he has lost all his adherents, and mortals only remember him as, ‘that weak god who offended the most powerful deity in the universe, Tivelo might remember to exact a high price in exchange for freeing him. You see, Garo is fortunate. His crime was mild. Without instruction, he would be just like you are, destined for death the first time you face Tivelo..”

Aria stared down at her plate. “Did he really poison the Black God’s son?”

Evera pretended to choke on her porridge, washed it down with a sip of wine, and then shook her head.

“Lesson number one: His name is Tevilo. You may call him that. It is a name, a title, and the highest and most respectful form of address. If you care to remember, it means ‘Lord’ in whatever language he spoke before we were born. ‘Black God’ is what terrified mortals named him after he covered the world in darkness, flushed fifty deities out of hiding, and killed them on the streets of Itempoti like powerless cattle. He does not seem fond of it, so avoiding it would be in your best interest.

“We will follow that with lesson number two: his son is the greatest, most important, and most precious person in your life. He is before your lovers, your children, your parents. Any one of those people, you are prepared to sacrifice to him in an instant if he desires it. You worship him. If he urinates in a cup and asks you to drink it, you will do so joyfully and instantly. Every whim of his, no matter how fleeting, is your heart’s greatest desire. Is this sinking in?”

Aria nodded that it was. “His father will hurt you if you cross him?”

“Inaccurate. If you happen to be standing beside a tree, and the tree falls by itself and spills dust on Achi’s least favorite pet rabbit, you have committed a crime by failing to protect him from emotional distress. Garo did not poison Achi. He hosted a party at which the prince was harmed. That is why he is being punished.”

Aria was suddenly intensely grateful for Evera’s instruction. The world of gods reminded her of her village’s yearly deer hunt, where nine-year-old boys attempted to hunt deer in a forest filled with snakes and spike-laden pits. One boy died every year, proving himself unworthy to be chosen by Garo’s scouts the next year, and his parents consoled themselves with the hope of seeing him in Garo’s paradise. Having met Garo, however, Aria hoped to never see his interpretation of paradise.

Evera was still speaking. “We do not call him the prince because his father is a king. It is a reminder that your life, your status, and your continued ability to breathe without feeling your lungs pierced by a million needles are dependent upon his happiness. Remember that every time you see him and you might live to see your first century. Oh, dear, I have one more supplicant. Eat, then Shemula will find you a bath. And, do consider this your home. I have so much space.”

Evera was out of her seat in a blink and gone before Aria could thank her. The resulting silence was eerie with all the warnings still playing in her head. For several minutes, she replayed her last conversation with the prince, cringing at every temper-filled moment and almost dying of relief that his father had been absent.