She had never lied—not to anyone.
And she wouldneverlie to her god.
She wanted to understand him, to learn her place in this strange and shifting place that no longer looked like the room it had once been. She wanted to know what he expected of her,how she might serve him, how she might prove herself worthy of the power she had borrowed and the room she had been given.
“I was scared because someone was waiting outside,” Lyssena answered. And it was the truth. She had been truly, deeply afraid. Afraid that the strange presence beyond the walls would tear through the soft, living shadows and seize her by the throat, would drag her out and devour her while her god was still away, too far to stop it.
She had been afraid that Erevos wouldn’t return in time.
Afraid that she would die in a place she didn’t understand.
Afraid that she had accomplished nothing with the life she was given by the parents who betrayed her.
Lyssena had always been a simple girl with simple dreams and a simple life. She had cooked, cleaned, and completed every chore that was handed to her without complaint. She had shown kindness to others and even met a few people she could call friends. Her world had been small, but it had been hers—until the moment it wasn’t.
Until the moment her family turned their backs on her.
And they had done it at the exact moment she’d felt her happiest. When she thought her life might finally be unfolding into something bright.
Maybe Lyssena hadn’t been so simple after all.
Because now she had a god.
“I hope I have not offended you with my staring . . .” She murmured, her voice quiet with shame, her gaze once more lowered to the floor. She hadn’t meant to—truly hadn’t—, but in her despair, she had forgotten herself. Forgotten the rules. Forgotten the fear of failing again.
She had failed to build the life she wanted, and now, perhaps, she was failing here too.
“What do you mean by offended?” Erevos asked, and Lyssena’s breath caught.
She didn’t know how to answer. She wasn’t sure if he didn’t understand the word, or if he was testing her again, pushing her to confess her faults.
And so—quietly, with trembling hands—she did.
“I dared to lift my gaze to your greatness,” she whispered.
A slight tremor passed through her limbs as she spoke. To lift one’s gaze toward the divine was a punishable sin; she had been taught that since she was old enough to walk. From the earliest moments of her memory, she had been given rules. Never go out after nightfall. Never lie. Always listen to her parents. Never look up without permission. Never question. Never want too much. And never this and never that.
And now, beneath the weight of her god’s presence, Lyssena no longer knew what to do.
Erevos stood, and as he did, Lyssena felt the warmth return.
It wasn’t the first time; it had happened before, once in her real room back in her own world, and again when she had first arrived in this place of living darkness. The temperature here was never truly cold, but never warm either; it hovered somewhere between, a place that had no season. But whenever Erevos drew near to her, something in the air changed, and the warmth blossomed in her chest.
“You may look at me,” Erevos said, and Lyssena’s heart began to pound so hard she thought it might tear through her ribs.
“How could I??—?”
Had she misheard?
Had a god truly justinvitedher to raise her eyes?
“You could then,” Erevos continued, “and you can now.”
Her eyes widened so suddenly, so forcefully, that she thought, for a terrifying moment, this must be the end of her life. Surely no one was meant to survive such a sentence. Erevos hadremembered. He had seen the moment she sinned when she first looked upon him.
And Lyssena broke.
Tears began to fall, one after another, slipping down her cheeks, past her chin, pooling at the base of her throat. Her whole body trembled with the weight of shame, of panic, of holy dread. She shook so violently that anyone watching might have thought her ill, or cursed, but she was not sick. She was terrified.
