Her head snapped toward a sound, a knock. In this room, there were no doors, no windows; nothing to knock on.
At first, she thought she’d imagined it.
She took a slow step back, steadying the crown on her head with one hand, her fingers pressing gently against its side. Then it came again.
Another knock.
Her heart began to pound harder. Dread curled up her spine like a slow, reaching vine.If it were Erevos,she thought,he wouldn’t knock. He would appear just like he did before.
She still wasn’t sure where she was—this place of darkness—and she had planned to ask him when he returned. But she had not expected a knock.
She realized then just how distracted she’d been by the god’s clay, by her grief, by the sting of betrayal. She hadn’t even thought to consider the larger questions. She had forgotten, entirely, that she might no longer be in her village. That this space didn’t belong to the world she once knew.
She hadn’t wondered if gods lived in villages, as humans did, or in temples, or perhaps in the sky.
What if I’m truly in the sky?
The thought tightened something in her gut. She trusted Erevos; she had offered herself freely, but now, standing in a silent room with no doors or windows, no sky above her, and a knock coming from nowhere, Lyssena felt a flicker of doubt rise from beneath her certainty.
Not fear ofhim.But fear of how far from home she had come.
“Are you a human?”
The voice was muffled, echoing from somewhere beyond the shadow-woven walls, and Lyssena tried to remain calm—but she couldn’t. Her chest tightened with fear, her breath shallowed, and dread rose beneath her skin. She was terrified that whoever—or whatever—was speaking would tear through the still walls of her god’s sanctuary while Erevos was away, offdoing whatever divine, unknowable things gods did when they vanished.
Was that another god?Or perhaps something else, something other.She was almost certain it wasn’t human; the voice lacked the warmth, the weight, the shape that human voices carried. It felt wrong, not harsh or cruel, but hollow.
She needed to think—and fast.
Her crown slipped slightly, tilting forward against her brow, and in the moment of movement, she gasped, startled, and muffled it quickly with her own palm as she slapped it over her mouth.
She thought, for half a breath, to will the crown into a weapon, but quickly realized it wouldn’t work. It was too small, and the god’s clay she was given, for all its wonder, had limits. It would not,couldnot, become something so large.
So she turned her gaze outward.
Around her, the bed, far too heavy to lift; the dresser, even heavier. But the chair . . . the chair seemed manageable, light enough to move, and just solid enough to serve.
With trembling hands, she adjusted her crown and walked toward the chair. She wrapped her fingers around its back and held her breath. If the crown could change, perhaps the chair could too.
She closed her eyes and prayed.
Lyssena prayed from the base of her throat, from the hollow of her ribs, from the place inside her that knew how to kneel and beg and believe. She prayed that the chair would become something more.
And again, to her astonishment, it did.
The shape began to shift under her grip, the wooden curves melting into a bat, dark and crude. It was too heavy for her, far heavier than she had expected, but she held on with all the strength her arms could muster. Her knuckles went white, hershoulders tensed, but still she lifted it upright and set it before her.
Her pulse pounded in her ears; she had no idea what was coming.
But at least she would not be empty-handed.
Chapter Eight
The Songbird in the Void
Erevos
Erevos noticed that he was unusually warm.
