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Maybe he was a good man, a noble man. My friends were good. If my friends adored him, he likely was good too. Perhaps Elowen was the disturbed one, not my betrothed.

But even Caz and his comment about that man Alec Gerard being too important to the army to condemn for doing something “unsavory” to Elias’s own sister…

“It’s stuffy in here,” I muttered to my cousin, searching for a distraction to relieve the nausea in my stomach.

Ezra looked up from his book. A strand of his sandy-blond hair fell over his eye as he frowned.

“Do you want to make a run for it? We can go see the temple.” He nodded toward my protector, whose growingly furious words and towering form made the shop owner shrink behind the counter. “Now might be our only chance.”

“He’ll be mad.”

Ezra shrugged. “Probably, but we’ll be safe. It’s not like we’ll get far before he finds us, anyway.”

“Five paces,” he’d said. Five paces from him at all times.

But the pull of the fresh outdoors, the crisp air of the sunny Wymaran winter, the thought of exploring a world kept from me… it called to me. Consumed me.

And I needed to know I could be bold without Gavin there to guard me.

I nodded at Ezra.

We snuck out a side door shielded by a tall display case of leather-bound journals, rolls of blank but yellowed parchment, and antique fountain pens.

Warm sun caressed my bare face and neck.

Ezra grabbed my arm and pulled me to a hard right.

Laughing, I jogged to keep up with his longer strides while taking in the sights.

A vendor selling fresh chocolate pastries out of a small wooden cart.

A pair of musicians whose fiddling duet drew a few passersby into an energized dance.

Preparations for the solstice were all around us here too.

Fire lanterns—blues and oranges and pinks—imitated the dusk of night.

If I hadn’t been told about the spells of protection Simeon had cast over this city, I wouldn’t think it was real.

We crossed the cobblestone street and entered the temple.

Ezra used his full body weight to push open the heavy door.

Before entering, I took a moment to admire the matured, knotted walnut and intricate designs of iron on those heavy doors.

The kind of skill and patience it would take to craft such beauty was unmatched .

In line with the twelve spokes on the temple’s exterior, twelve arches made up the circular interior. Beneath each arch laid an intricate stained-glass depiction of each of Nyrida’s twelve gods.

The cool, pale-blue turquoise of the winter gods faded into violet, misty, viridescent spring.

And then summer carmine—hot and bright—mixed with peach and sunlight so vibrant I could feel it burning on my skin from all the way across the vast hall.

Three autumn gods to my left, crafted out of rich, deeper colors, like cinnamon, grape, and chive green, completed the symmetrical shrine.

A set of benches facing each of the gods occupied the center of the space and left little room for Ezra and I to stand. But we did, slowly turning, taking in the grandiose stained-glass illustrations that refracted the light of the early-winter sun into rainbows on the floor and ceiling.

Finally, I turned toward the shrine to the final, strongest god, which our current month was named for: Nyxar.

His eyes sparkled like amethysts beneath his hooded black cloak, as if he could blink and drown the world in midnight.

The darkness drew me in. My fingers itched to be held by a night that wasn’t evil or scary, but soothing.

A calming darkness I might claim for myself one day, if I could conquer my nightmares.

Phillip and Elowen had spoken little of the gods, but I knew the basics from my books.

Here, it seemed they were legends woven into the fabric of Nyrida’s culture more than they were true idols of worship.

No one else was in the temple, and it felt as if the power of all twelve deities concentrated in the center of the room where we stood. A power lost and seeking a home.

“Do you believe in them?”

I’d been so entranced by the god of pure, tranquil shadows that I hadn’t seen Ezra watching me .

“I don’t know,” I answered, filled with a strange sense of longing, for doubting something so sacred. “I feel like I should. Like maybe if I don’t, I’m betraying them.”

My cousin looked left to the coldest of the gods—Nevelin—the namesake for our first month of a new year. Her eyes were bright diamonds against the pale blue of her skin.

“Do you?”

“Not really,” Ezra replied, no hesitation in his growingly bitter tone. “The idea of them is comforting, but if the gods existed, they would have stopped Molochai a long time ago.”

Instead, the burden of the Selvaren was mine.

As if he sensed the heaviness I felt, Ezra grabbed my hand and squeezed, saying nothing. My cousin’s silent fellowship was comfort on its own.

A minute or so later, we decided to head back to the shop and not risk Gavin’s wrath a moment longer. But when we turned to go, Ezra’s eyes went wide at something behind me.

My body was jerked backwards by a pair of long, chilled hands.

I felt the sharp, cool knife against my throat before a husky, feminine voice snarled, “Empty your pockets if you want to live.”