“Left... near the ift waters,” the devotee said.
His partner interrupted. “The flock has gathered on the right near the first tree,” he said. Maybe Regi looked surprised, but he held up his wrist. “Cameras,” he explained.
Regi offered the cocky grin of his youth before he strode through the doors. “Great goddess, please do not let me die like this,” he whispered. If the frim did not react to him, he would call himself arrogant and return to his crew to return to Coalition space. He hoped that if he was not exalted, that the animals would still recognize the blessings of the goddess upon him.
With his grin still in place, he strode into the sanctuary.
He remembered the growing season gods’ temple from when he’d walked at his mother's side. Everywhere had been noise. Animals called and sang and chittered and chirped. Birds circled overhead and large animals meandered through the space. His mother would wander to the nearest tree and raise her hand so that a dafs croana could slide off the branch and down onto her arm. His mother would pull it close and kiss the nose between its wide unblinking eyes as she explained that devotion to the animals was devotion to the gods. Regi still hated dafs croana because part of him still hated the Lady of childbirth.
She had stolen Regi's mother more surely than death could have. Regi had friends who had suffered the death of a parent, and they lived with the sure knowledge that their parent had loved them, but that the gods had given their parent no choice by retrieving them from this existence. Regi lived with the fact that his mother had a choice and she had chosen Otutha over him.
His fathers had been equally frustrated, but they had each other. Regi could not count how many times as a child he had come into the main room to find his mother with her midwifery bag next to the divan where she had passed out after some difficult labor and delivery. Knowing better than to wake his mother, he would sneak into his parents’ room and find his fathers in each other's arms. Maybe if Regi had possessed a sibling, he could've found similar comfort in knowing someone else shared his experiences, but his mother was far too busy delivering others’ children to have another of her own.
Regi shoved those old resentments aside. If he wished to think impious thoughts, the sanctuary of the cold weather gods was the least safe place in the universe in which to have them.
He walked across the mossy grass, and the uncanny stillness continued. Regi slapped his feet against the ground to try and generate some noise, but the silence seemed to absorb it. The flock of frim stood near a large tree. One of the males combed his bill through his feathers, but the others all watched Regi with the suspicion and bubbling violence that only a frim could project. Perhaps there were far more dangerous animals in this menagerie, but Regi was not sure any had more aggressive temperaments. Regi took a step closer and waited to see how the frim would react, but they continued to stare. They did not see him as flock. They did not want him in their sanctuary at all, although something held them back from attacking.
“You should come out now.”
Regi whirled around to find Newr standing near the exit.
“I thought...” Regi didn’t know how to finish his statement. He’d thought Poque had chosen him.
Sympathy colored Newr’s expression. “None of us understand the gods. There is no shame in being like every other Kowri who ever lived.”
Regi nodded and turned away from the suspicious gazes of the frim. He took a step and froze when a dop waddled out from under an arched tree root. The creature was no bigger than a large hand and it moved slowly, but no ift posed the danger of this small, clumsy creature with its poisoned gray and white quills.
“Regi, do not move,” Newr said, stress making his voice higher.
Regi did not require any warning. He held his breath and waited for the dop to leave. Even if Poque had touched Regi, the creature might accidentally kill him with a brush of those poisoned spines.
The dop stopped between Regi and Newr and sat up. Tiny paws held a blade of grass and the pink nose twitched until it turned toward Regi. Then he began lumbering forward. Regi took a step backward, but Newr raised a hand and shouted. “No! Behind you!”
Regi looked over his shoulder to see two more dop. One more step and he would have impaled his own foot on one. A fourth slipped out from under the leaf litter and started shuffling toward him. Regi held his breath until spots formed in his vision, but then biology forced him to breathe again, even as one of the dop clambered up his foot and started to tug on his pants.
“Lady Divashi,” Newr whispered. He sounded equally awed and horrified.
Lady Divashi, the goddess of poison and disorder. Regi was an exalted, but he had named the wrong goddess. He hadn’t been chosen by a goddess the Kowri no longer pledged—he was the chosen of a goddess they all avoided.
