and vines and reeds to dry in the sun, above the humidity of the river. Clutching my spearstaff, I scan the market for the trader’s base.
Spellfire flickers to life above a one-room livestock hut, and in its steady blue-green glow I spot what I’m looking for. My heart sinks as I realize there’s no quick route to reach Quenti—I’ll have to join the thronging masses of people.
A sturdy warmth butts up against my calf, that single touch enough to give me courage. I don’t need to look to know it’s the bindle cat—his familiar burbling, insistent trill floats up to my ears, and I chirp back. His wide, furry face turns up to me and then, purring like an angry stormcloud, he butts against my leg again as I set out.
Though I keep to the edges of the market, avoiding the thickest crowds, riverfolk are still busy lashing their homes to others. I pause only long enough to reach for my chatelaine and draw out a pinch of fireseed.
I cup it in my palm, whispering the invocation against the powder. My breath sends a puff of it floating from my hand, each little grain beginning to glow like a nascent star as it showers to the ground. I raise my cupped hand and anoint the blade of my spearstaff so that it casts its gentle light in a watery pool around my ankles.
Now that I’m illuminated, my people scatter and fall back from me.
All I see are bowed heads and the backs of their colorful market garb as they kneel and touch their heads to the reeds until I’ve passed.
Lady, they whisper respectfully. Beautiful Goddess. Divine One. Blessed Divinity.
I murmur a blessing whenever I see a face lift, wishing just once that I could walk through a crowd without its many eyes following me, hungry for some sign that I am the salvation it desperately needs. Sometimes I think I see doubt there, behind the worship—sometimes I know I do.
All the living gods throughout history, my predecessors, embodied a particular aspect of the divine in answer to the needs of the land. There have been gods of poetry, gods of war, gods of the celestial heavens, and gods of green growing things. Before me, the temple was home to a goddess of healing.
These aspects have always manifested themselves within the living god a year or two after their calling. They say that Satheon, who led our people during my grandparents’ time, was called to the temple as a boy of sixteen and manifested his aspect of farming just a week later.
I have been a goddess for nearly ten years—and still, my people are waiting to see what solace I will bring them.
If I ever do.
Sensing my emotion, the bindle cat gently and carefully dips his head, opens his mouth, and bites me on the ankle. Focusing on that sharp pain, I take a breath, grateful for my one companion.
I found him as a kitten in a sodden bindle sack, wet and half-drowned on the bank of the river, one afternoon a few months after I was first brought to the temple. Scrawny and pathetic as a kitten, he’s a massive, muscled, fire-orange beast as a grown cat.
The bindle cat gives his own blessings in echo of mine—though they sound more like curses—as he trots along beside me, tail upright and round eyes alert. While everyone in my life knows I ought to have manifested my aspect years ago, and has hopes and expectations for me, he has none beyond his next snack. The bindle cat is just a cat. And unlike my servants and guards, he’s allowed to touch me—and I him. Having a solid warmth to stroke and curl up with when I’m lonely makes the rest of it bearable.
I stop to avoid disrupting a procession of food sellers making their way down the reed street in front of me, mobbed by children hoping for a clumsy moment, for a hurried trader to drop some sticky rolls or a pouch of sweets. Another trader trails along in their wake, bearing trays full of charms to ward off pestilence and ill fortune. Such trinkets are often sold and resold without ever receiving a touch of real magic, but I can feel the faint tingle about them that tells me these are genuine, crafted by some local hedge-witch. Perhaps the trader himself, for he also carries a little spellfire lantern with a trail of curious, light-seeking insects buzzing after it.