Each person was a star in a constellation. A prick of silver-spun light. Their own shine, glittering in a blanket of dark velvet, and together, they were part of a whole.
Itri could trace their lines to each other.
Not in the way Taniyn's arrows found their target true and sharp, heightening all that resided in the swirling nebulas of a human mind. Not in the way Nieba was who created life, but in a simple, watchful way. Itri simply looked at people, and wondered if they knew how much the lines between them glittered in her imagination, palpable even when they couldn't feel the brush of stars against their skin.
Such was the way she regarded the two girls of Thule.
Beauties in their own right, one created out of soft silks and satin, while the other had a quality to her that made Itri think Evîn would have been quite taken by her. There was something about her that belonged to the earth, roots and foliage dancing invisible amongst her steps as she had followed Itri out of her village.
The girls had been living in villages on the opposite sides of Thule.
Ah, Itri was running ahead of herself again, she thought, as she watched the two Anunnaki, flanked by fallen ruins of a long-forgotten temple. A temple to Evîn, she realized absent-mindedly, willing that star-drop sadness that slid into her mind at once to go away.
Yes, because Itri was, once again, distracted, and she should recount how she had brought the two girls together in the heart of Thule, shouldn't she?
It was quite an easy tale. Easier than she had imagined, easier than, she hoped, her fellow gods were experiencing with their Anunnaki. Their choices were limited, after all. Caidil's words had been a haunting song of death and life, life and death, and in it, the cadence of his voice had been unmistakable; only those of spring.
Only those of spring.
Standing between the cusps of life and death.
Strong as a growing tree, outliving the sapling, yet not nearly the ancient wisdom of a lifelong oak.
Only those of spring.
Thule was greying at its temples, Itri had realized upon her travels through the province. The Anunnaki she saw, their mismatched eyes greeting her in their splendid starshine, were weathered. Worn. Due to be claimed by Caidil, escorted by Nieba.
There were two Anunnaki for her to come and claim for their Selection.
Selection? Itri remembered asking Zilar, and he had grinned, that simple smile of him, that smile that told her, oh, little star, don't you always know why I do what I do?
Selection, he had said. Simple, and effective. We can't call it the Offering, now can we?
Finding Livia had been easy. The village of Hrisar hummed with praise for their Anunnaki, for the girl with the siren voice, the right-hand of their jarl, godseed.
Convincing her had been even easier. It could hardly be considered such, as the head of the Thuarin household practically preened when he and his daughter were told of the reason for Itri's visit. (That was, of course, after every single person in the house had sunk down to their knee, bowing to the goddess of stars and dreams.) Zilar had told her to wear her diadem. Itri had protested, but only lightly, because when he slipped it over her star-touched hair and the constellations within shone even brighter, she couldn't quite keep up her pretence. With the phases of the moon, circling her head, Itri had made the house of Thuarin glow, and she was sure that in her argent light, Livia had gleaned an opportunity for herself.
Akaris Thuarin stood in the door of his home as she left with her Anunnaki, and when Itri watched the girl as everyone in Hrisar threw open their doors and windows to watch the goddess and acolyte, she was surprised to see Livia smiling. Smiling, as she took in the attention of the crowd, a peacock strutting beneath admiring eyes, her feathers ruffled as she straightened her back and held her chin up high.
She was a girl who had already made herself a goddess within her own mind.
Children ran through the streets. Itri's gown was water, brushing against her ankles, sea-foam lapping against the seams. When she held up her hand and flicked her wrist, stardust fell from the sky like glittering rain. The children shrieked in joy, catching dust into their palms, little bits of crushed diamonds.
Hrisar fell into a state of celebration that evening, as Itri took Livia's hands and moved them across winds and nightsong.
Gautsdalr was unlike Livia's village. Hrisar had been lively, the streets bustling, homes perched between swaying trees. Gautsdalr was a thing made of stone, practically carved into the mountainside, where time seemed to slow as Itri and the Anunnaki moved through the meandering streets.
They found Arevik Nishthaavaan by herself, shrouded in solitude as she tended to the flowers that grew against the side of her home. Her movements were calm and contained, as if she had spun a house of glass around herself that she had found a home in. She noticed their presence quickly, eyes widening as they fell upon Itri, even more so when she caught sight of the Anunnaki beside her.
The girl was a pretty thing. There was something delicate about her, a stained-glass smile that, were the right star to shine its light onto it, might drown the world in a sea of burning colours.
Itri decided, in that moment, though she had not yet spoken, she quite liked her already.
And now they sat amongst the ruins. As with Livia before, Arevik had needed no convincing to agree to the Selection. Promises had been made, stories spun of words soaked in moonlight. A Selection for godhood. All they could want for in the palace in Limuria. Other Anunnaki to compete against. To be with.
''Pack lightly,'' she had told them, and they had obliged, both only carrying one bag. Livia's in her hand, Arevik's tied to her back, the mismatched gazes of the girls in a constant silent battle as they stared at each other across the night's chilly distance.
Itri knew she should bring them to Limuria. They had left Gautsdalr, and yet something within her told her to wait just a few moments longer, to see if the seconds could carve the truth out of them.
That recognition in their eyes. The nerves in Arevik's fingers, playing with her long, dark braid. The betrayal in Livia's gaze, hand tightly gripped around the leather of her bag.
What words were they swallowing, their sounds cutting their throat with their knive-sharp edges?
What were they holding back because of her presence?
Another second passed. Another moment of silence.
Itri stood then, skirts swishing dramatically as she approached them, one hand held out to each. ''Ah, I apologize, I was waiting for the stars to whisper their secrets. It seems that tonight, they are remaining rather privy. Perhaps they will be louder in Limuria. They do shine brightest about our palace. Now, shall we?''
There was loudness to be found in silence. Contrary to what people believed, it wasn't a simple muting of sound. It hissed like a dying star. It trembled like the last breath of the living, forcing out of lungs that caved in, brittle rib-bones no longer a strong mountainside but an avalanche instead.
After a lifetime of sounds echoing in his ears, Ward Zaletris had grown fond of the silence. He found solace in it after a long day of labour. Duties. Slavery.
It was far superior to the crunch of bones breaking underneath his fists. The pleading of those who owed House Evora their livelihood, sometimes even their lives. When the sun dipped below the horizon, swathing the streets of Cannae in shades that seemed to fracture off jewels, Ward was a tall wraith amongst fixtures of light. Even with his head bent low, hands tucked into his pockets, he knew when people were looking at him. Their gazes burnt, but with a different ferocity, as they did in the Pit.
There, they gleamed with a scarlet thirst, their voices a crescendo to the heightening violence that seemed to capture them in a horrific trance. To the patrons of the pit, Ward was no human. He was a beast, fangs growing in place of his teeth, a snarl caught in his throat as blood splattered onto the permanently stained grounds. He was another spectacle, a curiosity of the gods' creation, but the kind that captured your attention from a distance, lest you came to close and found yourself at the end of a piercing claw.
Here, in the winding streets that led to his home, the people stared because they knew what he was. Ward, dog of House Evora. Ward, marked and marred. All they saw was a criminal, an Anunnaki hewn from pain and suffering, who would carve a river out of blood to run through the streets.
They saw the Ward he had been forced to become, and he could not blame them for it. So he simply pulled his collar up higher, and quickened his steps. The sound of his boots against cobblestone was a constant thrum of sound weaving through the thump of those he passed. Quickening, a skittering in their pace, before he could sense them once more slowing when he had reached the end of the street where his rented room was waiting.
A figure stepped out of the shadows once he came closer.
No, that wasn't quite it, was it? She didn't step out of them. She banished them, light flooding the space where she stood, revealing a beautiful woman with dark skin and hair as black as an endless night. Her eyes were amber stones, and her smile felt like warmth. He thought she could cure a land of winter with that smile.
And yet he maintained his distance, gaze narrowed as he regarded the woman, trying to find a hint of who she was and what she wanted from him, simply from the way she looked at him. It didn't faze her. She smiled, and breathed his name like a prayer.
''Ward.''
That wasn't out of the ordinary. Everyone in Cannae knew who he was. Ward the Dog. No, what struck him like lightning through a gunmetal sky, like the sound of lovers in sudden embrace upon reunion in the streets, was the complete absence of sound.
The absence of a thread of life, unfurling from her chest, falling into his awaiting hands.
There was nothing.
Again, ''Ward, oh, I'm so sorry for how long it's taken me to come to you. I've heard all your prayers, believe me when I say I have. And I've tried to answer them in my own ways.''
It only took the fraction of a second for Ward to realize. For him to close the distance between them and press the goddess into the wall, hands like iron, sealed around her wrists as he held her there. His face didn't betray any of his emotions, not a gush of wind of the storm that he felt ravaging his insides.
Sorrow wrought havoc upon Nieba's lovely face.
His contorted into a snarl, a thing of silent warning, of the Ward who did what he was told, who was marked and marred and knew he was nothing but an instrument of havoc.
And yet she didn't flinch. The goddess stared at him, softness like dewdrops on her skin, dawn in that unwavering gaze as she met his.
Nieba. NiebaNiebaNiebaNieba.
How long had waited to be heard by the goddess? Had he ever dreamed he would hear her say his name?
Too late.
Too fucking late.
''Forgive me,'' Nieba whispered, as if she heard the voices that warred for dominance in his head. And perhaps the goddess, though her voice dripped with honey, sweet as a peach, did indeed wish for his forgiveness, yet did not appreciate being pressed into the wall as Ward had. Because one moment, his hands didn't falter, and the next, they burned as if a fire had been lit against his palms, forcing him to wrench them away.
His hands seemed to reek of blood, shadows dancing on his skin to form the illusion of it, mingling with the lines of his tattoos.
They seemed carved into him, sinew and flesh and bone and ruin.
The goddess stared, a silent question forming on her lips. His gaze was a blade, daring her to, urging her to cut herself on him.
She didn't ask.
Instead, his voice, not matching the betrayal he thought he had buried long ago. It was an ember, igniting with the hiss of a flame. ''Why are you here.'' It wasn't a question. It was a simple weaving of words.
''For you. For the godhood you could achieve.''
Ward stared at her. A laugh broke free from his lips, short and rough, it might as well have been a bark. It contorted the tattoos that ran down his face, claw marks crafted into letters. It bounced from the cobblestones, into the evening solitude.
It didn't reflect on Nieba's face. ''I do not jest, Ward. You and your fellow Anunnaki have the chance to step into godhood. To erase all the pain, yours and others. In Limuria, they await you to join them in this trial.'' The sun rose in her smile when her lips quirked slightly, gaze traveling to the end of the street where two figured stood. A man and a woman, mismatched eyes clear even in the shadows.
''They await you now. Will you not come, and answer your own prayers?''
Ward the Dog had buried his prayers with the dead long ago.