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Ryn grabbed a lead pen resting beside an abandoned organizer’s book.

The pen hovered over the petal as Ryn realized she didn’t know the Per-Siana alphabet.

To save her from Weylin bullying, her mother had homeschooled her, but they hadn’t studied letters much before her mother’s passing.

Ryn had only learned the Adriel alphabet years later from exploring the scriptures with Kai.

She scribbled a quick note on the flower petal in Adriel symbols, and she tossed the lead pen back down.

The petal was delicate in her fingers, and she thought about crushing it in her palm instead.

What if someone saw this note and realized she wrote it?

What if someone learned there was an Adriel—no, two Adriels now—in the palace?

What if her Adriel letters got both her and Matthias in trouble?

Heva appeared ready to explode when Ryn turned around. The guardswoman’s hand was on her sword like she was worried the nobles would rush Ryn and she’d have to draw it. She took Ryn’s arm again, gentler this time, and guided her back to the navy carpet.

Ryn didn’t look at Matthias as they passed. But she dropped the petal to the floor by his feet. She chewed on her lip as she hoped and prayed he’d know enough to grab it before anyone else did.

Ryn’s hand flashed to her chest once they were in the hall.

“What just happened?” Heva asked, stealing a glance back over her shoulder. “What, by the Divinities, just happened ?”

“I don’t know,” Ryn rasped. “But Heva, I can’t be a spy anymore.” She didn’t mention that she expected guards to flood her room tonight, to drag her out to be executed for escaping the Heartstealer trials.

Heva didn’t object. “What did you write on that petal?” she asked as they rushed through the atrium toward Ryn’s rooms.

Ryn swallowed. She hoped all over again that what she wrote would find its way to the right person, and not the wrong one:

I’VE MADE A MISTAKE

TELL KAI TO GET ME OUT OF HERE

A brick.

Ryn spent hours pacing the length of her room before she finally sent Heva away in the evening.

Heva objected, but Ryn argued she wouldn’t sleep if Heva was there.

It wasn’t exactly a lie, but Ryn hadn’t told Heva about her encounter in the garden, about why the King was so interested in her at the Introduction Ceremony.

The less Heva knew now, the better. If Ryn was going to be taken by the Folke, Heva didn’t deserve to be punished alongside her.

Moonlight blossomed over her bedroom floor, and the stars crept from their hiding places.

It was a remarkable show of heavenly lights as the late hours swept in.

Ryn wiggled her way out of the mosaic dress and looked around for a place to put it.

A wardrobe rested at the far side of the room, but assuming she wouldn’t know how to hang such a piece of artwork, she tossed it over the back of the nearest armchair instead.

She had no other clothes apart from the gardening gown she arrived in.

Nothing but a rich white nightdress delivered by an organizer after the Ceremony as a “gift from the King”.

But after how the introductions had gone, Ryn doubted the King had anything to do with the gifts.

Still though, the choice was between a dirty work dress or a silk nightdress.

So, Ryn pulled it on, the thick, shiny silk softly draping over her in a whisper.

She sat before the mirror and slid the silver beads from her hair, pulling off the other jewelry Marcan had insisted she wear as well.

Her makeup hadn’t worn off yet, even after all these hours.

She wondered if she should go find the baths.

But what if the Folke barged into the baths while she was in them?

No bath, then.

Ryn broke into another restless pace. Every time a small noise sounded in the hall, her heart took off and she thought to run for the window.

After the fourth blood-chilling noise from the hallway, Ryn gave up and headed for the window to sit on the sill, just in case. She flicked the lever, thinking.

Escaping the first time hadn’t been easy, but she’d managed. At least she knew her way around the garden now. She wondered if she could find her way to the outer wall again.

It was a crazy thought. The Folke guards were probably on the lookout for her after what had happened. The King would have told them about what she did. She sighed.

“If you go out there tonight, you’ll be caught.” Ryn’s hands tightened on the lever when a voice filled her head. She looked behind her. She glanced out the window, seeing no one. “He’s waiting for you in the garden.”

Ryn shrieked and stumbled backward, her back hitting the cold glass. “Who’s there?” she asked the empty room. She crawled across the floor toward the bed and grabbed a pillow, whirling with it held above her head.

A warm breeze fluttered through the space, ruffling the curtains and making the gems on her mosaic gown tap lightly together on the chair. Ryn’s gaze dragged to the window. It was still shut. She brought a hand over her mouth in horror.

“Don’t be afraid,” the voice said.

“Too late,” Ryn rasped back through her fingers.

She hugged the pillow to herself and backed up against the wall.

The voice didn’t sound like a female. It couldn’t have been her mother’s spirit arriving to look after her.

But she asked anyway, “Are you my mother?” She tried not to sound too hopeful.

“Not your mother. But I do know your mother well.” Another breath of wind followed the voice, and Ryn lowered the pillow slowly. Her hair fluttered at her shoulders.

“What do you mean you know her? My mother is dead,” Ryn stated. But a thought crossed her mind. “Wait… are you a god?” Her mother had known a god. And Ryn had heard of the gods speaking to their most devoted believers. Could it be…

“I am.”

Ryn slammed her mouth shut. A god. A god ?

Speaking to her in clear words. She bit her lower lip, her grip tightening on the pillowcase.

She was far from the devoted spiritual sort.

She hadn’t even heard of Kai speaking to a god this way, and he spent his days studying his religion.

“Which of the Celestial Divinities are you? Or are you something different? My mother didn’t worship the Divinities. ”

“No, she didn’t.”

The room filled with the warm wind gently channelling over the surfaces and brushing along the windows. Even though Ryn’s bedroom was dark, it felt like being in the daylight under the sun. “What do you want with me?” she asked.

“I want you to believe, Adassah,” he said.

“Believe in what?”

“In me.”

Ryn huffed out a strange, coarse laugh. “Are you speaking to me because of what that old woman, Geovani, did? I didn’t ask her for ears to hear the voices of the gods.

I didn’t ask for eyes to see either, she just gave them to me.

” Ryn cursed the moment she met the High Priestess.

Heva never should have brought her to that Abandoned Temple.

Ryn didn’t want religion, and she certainly didn’t want a god.

She was an Adriel by birth and had been tormented for it.

But when the voice didn’t reply, she asked, “Which god are you? Be specific. Give me a name.”

“Which name do you want? I have many.”

Ryn tossed the pillow to the bed and hugged her arms to herself. “One I’ll recognize,” she decided. “One that will make it clear who you are.”

“Brace yourself for the mention of my names. They bear incredible power.”

The wind lifted through the room, and Ryn’s hair blew back. The bedsheets flipped over themselves, mimicking Ryn’s heart doubling over in her chest. She grabbed the bedpost to steady herself.

“I’m called Alpha. I’m the great warrior God known in legends throughout the ages.

I’m the First God. The God once forgotten.

The God Original,” he said. “And I’m the Last God.

Omega.” Then he added, “You can call me El Shaddai, El Tsebaoth, or Paracletus, since those are the names of my three branches. Or you can simply call me, El.”

Ryn pressed her palm against her pounding chest. Her hands trembled, her ears ringing with echoes of the voice even after he finished speaking as if the utterings had brushed along her very bones.

Yes, this had to be a god. But she couldn’t imagine why a god would choose to speak to her . And she had no idea what ‘three branches’ meant.

“El Tsebaoth,” she tried one of the names.

It felt strong on her tongue. “Why did you come here and speak to me?” Ryn asked.

“I’m no one. I’m the least of my family and the least of the religious people.

I’m weak in knowledge of the gods, and I’m not good at practicing religious traditions,” she admitted.

“I came to bring you a gift. Open your wardrobe,” he answered.

For a split second, Ryn thought to refuse and end this conversation. To hide and never come out. But when she looked around at the wind ruffling the room, she rushed for the wardrobe and swung the doors open. She gasped.

A sword hung there, its detailed gold sheath glistening in the moonlight from the windows. A sun rune she didn’t recognize marked the handle. There were no dresses in the wardrobe, no shoes, nothing, apart from this masterful blade hanging on two pegs.

“Wear it tomorrow. And when you’ve decided you will trust me, we’ll speak again.”

Ryn stared at the glittering deadly weapon. “How did you get it in here?” she asked.

The voice—El, or El Tsebaoth, or Paracletus—didn’t answer. Ryn turned around and found the room perfectly still. The breeze was gone, the room was back to being dark and chilly. Ryn was alone.

Something tickled her face. She reached and smeared a finger across her cheekbone, then held it high to see what it was. The moonlight glistened off a layer of gold coloured dust coating her fingertip. It was as though something gilded had swept by and left traces on her flesh.