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I bow my head to the goddesses. “I don’t know if Raven favors me,” I tell them. “I only obey when I’m chosen.”

Aurora laughs a little. “I thought you questioned things more than that,” she says.

I bristle at the casual disdain in her voice and open my mouth, wanting to tell her how much I argue with Raven, how often I question what I’m ordered to do.

But before I can get myself into trouble, Katie leans over to me. “Don’t mind her,” says the Regent of Love. Her Harbinger marking is nearly lost among all the tattoos running up her arms. “The goddess of Knowledge is always like this. And her Regent has about as much charm as personality.”

Technically, Katie is speaking Portuguese to me, but all Harbingers can understand one another, as if I’m still hearing her in English. As always, her presence makes my heart skip a beat, a trait shared by Love’s Harbingers. “I can tell,” I reply.

Katie grins and leans toward my ear. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll live out the rest of his mortal life instead of becoming the god of Knowledge,” she mutters. “Can you imagine how insufferable he’d be, if he actually replaced Aurora?”

The thought gets a laugh out of me. Soren shoots us a glare, and we both quiet. I elbow Katie, who grunts and holds up her hands in innocence.

“You’re searching for Raven, I’m sure,” Scarlet says to me now, nodding around the atrium. “I know you two have much to discuss.” She nods at Katie, who bows her head respectfully. “Leave her to her patron god.”

Their party moves on. As they go, Soren casts me a final, sidelong look.

“Good luck, Harbinger,” he mutters. “You’ll need it.”

My heart hammers as they leave. Maybe I’m not ready for a night like this, to stand before all the gods and their Regents, to be judged before a divine audience. If Laine were here with me, she would make some sort of joke about trying to look important in front of gods, and I could giggle with her, could loop my arm through hers and feel less anxious about this night.

But I’m alone here, and Raven is still nowhere to be seen. I turn away from the crowd and duck under the low, curling branches of the Eternal Tree, into the shelter of its tangled protection.

In here, the light filtering through the canopy of leaves takes on a shimmering, silver hue that gives my green dress an ethereal halo. The sounds of the festivities turn muffled and distant, and mercifully, I lose sight of the dancing guests. My anxiety quiets somewhat, but I’m still dizzy, nausea churning in my stomach. I lean a hand against the trunk and close my eyes, wondering if perhaps this sacred place might soothe my nerves.

Instantly, I jerk my hand away with a gasp.

It is not that the bark is hot, but my body reacts almost like it is a burning stovetop—the instant I’d touched it, I’d felt it notice me, as if it were sentient.

Is that supposed to happen? I look around, wondering if I’m doing something illicit, then turn back to the tree. Tentatively, I reach my hand out again, letting my fingers brush against the trunk.

The sensation is as overwhelming as it was the first time—although now that I anticipate it, I can force myself to keep my hand in place. And through my touch, I once again feel the tree’s acknowledgment—except it was not really the tree itself, but the pulse of the billions of lives in it that had once lived, all threaded together, their energy vibrating and entwining and separating. A million pinpricks of heat dot my hand, souls brushing against my own, all eager to return to the mortal world, rushing at me as if I can weave them back into the tapestry of living energy.

My heart pounds against my ribs. Is this how it feels for other Harbingers, standing before the representation of all mortal life that has ever existed? For a moment, I can only stare at the tree. There is a yearning in me toward the life within it, and in it toward me, as if this tapestry of living energy understands me in a way no one else can, and something about that link brings a lump to my throat.

“I shouldn’t be here,” I confess to it in a whisper. “I never asked to become his Harbinger—let alone his Regent. I still barely believe in him.”

The tree, of course, cannot answer. But when I close my eyes, the sensation of its infinite souls eagerly responding to mine is still there, billions of sparks against the darkness of my mind.

Through the swirl of my emotions, I hear a soft, deep voice behind me.

“Hiding from your own confirmation, my Harbinger?”

Every cell in my body seems to quiver at the sound. My eyes fly open. My hand jerks away from the tree’s trunk. The feeling of all the swirling threads vanishes.

I look behind me. And there, I see him at last, the god of Death, the Raven, making his way toward me.

5

It is impossible to describe the feeling of being in my patron god’s presence.

A shadow curling around my heart, heavy and coaxing. A force around him that seems to diminish everything else. A dual emotion of fear and longing, where I am terrified to meet his eternal gaze and yet want nothing more than to be at his side, to be commanded, courted, and loved.

As always, Raven is impeccably dressed. A black tuxedo shirt and vest, slim trousers and polished boots, a tailored jacket. I don’t know what his eyes might have been like when he was mortal, but as a god, they contain a glint—sharp, curious, lethal—that gives him an uncanny resemblance to his namesake. That gaze is locked on me as he makes his way gracefully over the Eternal Tree’s roots, ducking beneath a gnarled branch to reach me. A glass of sparkling liquid is in his hand.

I bow to him, my heart pounding. Had he heard me confessing my loathing?

“Lord Raven,” I say.