I paused. Stared down at the child. Blinked. The child stared back. Blinked. Maintained an impassive face as it passed gas in my presence, at the very foot of my throne room stairs.

I sighed. "No chosen ones, no special blessings, and no human sacrifices. Gave up on the first three centuries ago tomorrow, never gave the second, and the third I claimed to have given up for Lent but my followers never believed me."

The child sat there, chubby cheeks giving it a toad like appearance, but failed to laugh at my joke.

My robes rustled as I turned my back on the infant human and settled into my throne. I hadn't had an audience in decades, mainly due to conceding my seat in the pantheon to my protégé and sequestering myself in the abandoned temple on the edge of civilization. If the records were to be believed, my primordial predecessor had erected the place as a summer palace millennia ago, back when the surrounding bodies of water were more freshwater lakes and less rancid swamps. How someone had navigated the quagmire to leave this child here, and why, was beyond me.

"Well, do you do anything?" I asked, fluttering my fingers at the child.

He sniffed, an annoying clearing of snot rather than a quest for pity. Unfortunate. I'd rather have exterminated him for vain attempts at my sympathy than merely being a nuisance. But he was much too young to be of any use to me, and I'd given up the office politics long ago. My bones grated as I pushed off my throne. A short audience, and I would've enjoyed a longer seat, but with the child incapable of conversation I found myself skipping the formalities. The sooner the child was dead, the faster I could go back to enjoying my twilight centuries. Maybe a decade in the swamps would do me good.

As I made my way down the steps, the child turned and crawled away. I froze. On the child's back was a note, written on thick parchment with crimson ink. I'd recognize that handwriting anywhere, even without the skull signet sealed in violet wax. Knees creaking, I hurried down the steps and snatched the paper off the child's back, snapping the purple seal in the process.

"My dearest Charax," the note read, "I trust you've been savoring your isolation. Toying with the other gods just hasn't been the same since you left."

Of course not. You always had a bone to pick with me and invented one when you did not.

"The decades have been kind to me, my dear, and my followers have flourished with the recent bountiful crops. War is a wonderful field to harvest, and my silos are full to bursting."

I'll bet they are. And I bet your blood-drunkeness had nothing to do with this missive.

"As a token of our former friendship,"

Ha.

"please accept this human child. I found him orphaned on the battlefield, and I couldn't bring myself to put him down. I hear 'orphaned by war' is an excellent origin story for villains these days. You always did have a flair for training the best."

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Uh oh.

"All my love. I look forward to seeing what you do with this one in the next three decades. Yours forever, Malia."

That gods-damned woman. It'd not even been a millennium yet and she was already meddling. She'd promised me at least that much time to myself.

I glared over the note at the child, who was happily crawling across dirt-stained bricks. The thing didn't even have the presence of mind to be terrified by the dark, damp moss clinging to the temple pillars or the nauseating aura of death permeating the heavy, stagnant air. I crumpled the note and threw it in a patch of sitting water on the temple floor.

Fool woman. I wasn't going to be raising her next war lieutenant. I'd done quite enough of that over the centuries, and I was retired, gods damn it.

"What are you..." I nearly tripped over my robes in my haste to catch the child before it pitched face first into a brazier. The hanging fire pit, suspended to a tripod of iron bars by thick chains, was unlit, its ashes aeons-cold, but the rim had a nasty edge and who knew what had once burned in its flame.

The child looked back at me, comfortable in my arms, and clapped. Stupid imp had the most self-satisfied smile on its face. I put him down with a grunt, grumbling to myself about my aging bones.

Unfazed by his near brush with death, the child immediately beelined for the next hanging brazier. He got as far as pushing against the metal pan and nearly bashing his brains out before I caught the backswing. Hands on my knees, I fought to catch my breathe and shot the infant my most withering glare. In my heyday, I'd burned prime warriors to piles of ash, but I was severely out of practice as the child merely sat and clapped, that stupid grin on its face. Its. I would not see the child as more than a thing. Damned fool war goddess would not...

I sighed deeply as the child made for the third brazier. This time I let him get all the way over, dig his hands around in the ash, maybe sample a bit and see if it killed him. Alas, he only smeared it across his face, streaking dark stains on his skin. As he laughed and clapped, he choked on the cloud of dust he kicked up.

Just my luck it wasn't enough to kill him, for he sneezed and went right back to work, arms, head, and shoulders disappearing into the bowl.

"That's enough," I said, stalking over to yank the child out of the ashes. He spluttered happy slobber and flung ash in my face, giggling like a devil as I coughed and fanned the cloud away. As I carried him back to my throne by his arm, I griped to myself. A deity of my age should be beyond such complaining, but I was old, on my own, and entitled to a bit of aged crotchety attitude every now and then.

The child did have an eye for trouble though. And a keen propensity for getting into trouble. If I could properly cultivate that instinct, I could...

No, no, no. I'd laid down those reins long ago. I was retired. I was...

Giving in.

"I don't know what I'm going to feed you," I told the child. "And I can't really tell you why I'm going to do this. It's not because of her, oh no." I scowled at the note, and then nearly dropped the child.

Not only had the parchment failed to properly disintegrate in the water, it had uncrumpled itself to reveal another note on the back, one I was certain hadn't been there before. I set the child down and retrieved the letter, shaking droplets off the paper.

"I knew you'd come around. Since I also know you haven't given your surrounding grounds a proper scouting in decades, I've compiled a list of game you can sustainably farm for the child until he's of age to reintegrate into society. Graves and kisses, Malia."

"I haven't come around to anything," I told the note. It didn't say anything back.

"I could still kill you," I said to the child.

He licked his hands and dribbled ashy spit down his chin. Sighing, I made my way back to my throne and settled in. I guess I was going to have a proper audience today.

"So, child. What shall I call you?"