Aria met the girl’s gaze and saw fatal naivete in it. Oh, she knew some of what it meant to serve Garo, but she knew nothing like what she would learn in the coming weeks.

“Let me tell you how I became an attendant. To serve Garo, you only need to have three qualities.”

“I know them,” the girl’s eyes were bright. “Be strong. Be brave. Be victorious.”

Aria shook her head. “No, you don’t know them. You think you know them. But to pass the trials, you need to truly know them. And to work in a big temple like the one here, you need to know them the way you know how to breathe.”

The girl would never make it; few people did. But failure was as much a danger as success.

“My mother was a priestess here in Igbotulo,” Aria said. “My father was a temple guard.” The girl’s eyes widened at the impressive pedigree. “They retired after their marriage and went back to my father’s village. I learned to read using Garo’s Conquests. I could write his name before I could write mine. That is how devoted they were. My first birthday gift was a spear. My second was a bow. As soon as I could draw it, my father took me out every morning and made me practice until I could no longer move. By the time I turned ten, my technique rivaled that of grown men. You cannot become a priestess by accident. You earn it.”

“I practice every day too.” Komichi looked at her mother for confirmation and the woman nodded.

Aria shook her head. They were missing the point.

“I hated fighting,” Aria said. “I hated spears, and with my bow, I could only hit objects, never people. When I turned 11, a year before my trials, I told my parents that I wanted to serve Evera instead.”

The mother began to look uncomfortable, but she had begged for the story. She could not stop it now. The girl looked confused, but she was still listening.

“My father explained to me that in our province, it is still legal for parents to cut the heart out of their apostate child and present it at Garo’s temple. It would have saddened him, he said, but we would meet in the afterlife.”

“Maybe we should stop,” the woman said.

“For my first trial, they drugged ten men - one for each of us - and put us in the ring with the men.” Despite her mother’s protest, Komichi was enthralled. “Any child who killed her opponent was selected. Anyone who failed died. ‘Be strong’ means, ‘Be strong enough to defeat your enemies, whoever they may be.’”

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Aria paused for a breath. A good servant of Garo would take on Tivelo, no matter how strong he appeared.

“I thought I was going to die, but my parents would not let me withdraw. I killed my first living thing there. I shot and shot and shot until they let me leave.”

She could still see the man’s face, the blood staining his clothing, her parents’ proud looks.

“The victors were taken to a bigger city. We were acolytes there for three years. Then, when I was fifteen, we took the second trial. There was a lion in the surrounding forest. We were to hunt it down and kill it. They sent us in one at a time, for a week each. Eighteen people went before me. None of them returned. I sent a letter to my parents begging to go home. They said no. Dying in Garo’s service was a blessing, cowardice a disgrace. So, I killed it.”

“How?” Komichi asked.

“I took food and water with me. Then, I hid in a tree until it found me. It took five days. When it came, I shot an arrow into its eye and waited for it to die. You see, the others were stupid. They thought that courage meant searching for the lion and facing it with a spear.”

That was what a true devotee of Garo would have done. And now, a true devotee would be courageous enough to rob Garo. The thought almost made her giggle. Such irony.

“The priests wanted to disqualify me, but one of them concluded that I had shown courage by facing the lion at all. So, I passed. They were wrong. I was a coward. Courage would have been standing up to my parents and refusing to participate in an insane death ritual.”

She had always been a coward. She had faced the lion because her parents had threatened to sacrifice her. She would rob Garo now because the alternative was death.

“Afterward, they released another lion into the forest and sent the remaining people after it. Three other acolytes survived. Then, they told us that only one person could be chosen and that the person would be chosen at random. That night, I put stinkweed in our water and drank from my own pouch. The next morning, I was the only person not stuck in the toilet, so I was the one chosen.”

Komichi giggled. “You poisoned them?”

“Yes. That was the last trial. ‘Be Victorious’ means ‘Be Victorious’. There are no qualifications. After that, I was sent to my assigned temple in this realm. There, I washed dishes so well that our High Priestess thought I was good enough to wash dishes in the middle realm.” Aria rose. “If you believe your life is worthless, join the trial. You will either die or become a monster. Thank you for the clothes.”

She left their disappointed faces behind her.

The strength to defeat your enemies. The courage to face them in battle. The cunning to attain victory.

She chuckled.

As disgusting as Garo was, his principles were what she now needed to save herself. She would be bold. She would sneak into Garo’s palace, steal a pitcher, learn what had poisoned a god, and prove Tivelo wrong.

And, after that, she would never go near another temple.