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INARA SCREAMED AS SKEDI FLEW TOO FAR TO STOP, TOO close to Hseth to survive.

She had to use it, or lose him for nothing.

Gods! she called, using her will and binding it to Skedi’s as he turned to a small point of darkness within Hseth’s flame. I offer my love to you.

She could see the shades of her own intent, her own power. Sky-blue, bright and shining. And with it, the brightness of her love. Her offering. Skedi’s offering.

Aan, Hestra, Lethen. Yusef, Kelt and Osidisen. Gods Sali, Daefer, Faer. Gods of thieves. Gods of the towns and cities, the trees, the waters and the wilds. Come to me! Take the god who has diminished you.

She couldn’t see Skediceth. Not the shape of an antler, nor the curve of a wing. It was too bright. But she heard him.

I love you.

Then she saw the blaze as the flame took him, flaring him into light, then colour, then gone.

Hseth did not even notice him die, but Inara felt her heart explode with him, turning her world into ash, and her will into power.

Gods of Middren, she called with her broken heart, come back and claim your land!

The power was so bright, it flew out of Inara and into the sky, the earth, the air, the water. It tore into the heavens and ripped the storms and skies apart.

First, the river moved. It poured over the dam in a rush of green water, flooding in a wave of water gods.

Hundreds of them. Aan took the lead with Sali of the Gefyrton falls, cloaked in steel and ice.

With them came others, beings of cracked stone and teeth, moss and green and water lilies, snow and ice and deep black power.

Then, from the heavens came the winds, dragging lightning down behind them. The goat god danced down from the storm, breasts bare to the wind and a mask cut to roaring. Others flooded down, howling across the hills as seabirds, rainbows, storms and summer heat.

The earth of the hills cracked, and from their bowels came bones and riders, death and hunters, deer gods, forest gods, gods of shadows and gods of music and song.

The little creatures of broken sandals or silver gossip, the wisps and demons of Lethen, the cracking golden limbs of gods of fortune dressed in cloaks of spices and green leaves.

Inara dragged them all up with her will and Skedi’s offering, and they dived upon Hseth like hounds to their prey, tearing her flame apart. No great power, no great gods, just thousands of little secret faiths, of small shrines and precious prayers.

Wave after wave, the hidden gods of Middren dragged their enemy down into the water, deep into the earth, where she was extinguished in the land she had tried to destroy.

All for the love of a little god of white lies.