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“Oh, that’s not necessary,” Junyi says quickly, stepping back.

I muffle my laughter with my sleeve.

When at last it is our turn, Junyi rushes up to the god of knowledge’s statue and falls onto the prayer mat, his knees hitting the ground with an earnest thud. Keran and I both watch from the side as he holds the lit incense up over his head, murmuring furiously under his breath.

“Junyi’s praying to the wrong god,” I whisper to Keran. “The god of knowledge hates exams; everyone in the Celestial Realm knows it. He thinks that the eight-legged essay is one of the greatest insults to literature to ever exist, and that repeated, rigorous test-taking narrows the mind instead of broadening it. If it were up to him, he’d probably abolish the entire civil service exam and have the mortals study whatever arcane subject they pleased.”

“Well, we might as well let him think his prayers are being heard,” Keran says. “Sometimes mortals take comfort in the idea itself, so they feel less alone.”

Many feverish prayers later, Junyi rises, brushing the dust from his robes. I expect him to leave, but he ushers us up the mountains, over to the next shrine and the next, praying to almost every god he sees.

“This god looks a little like you, Rujia-Jiejie,” Junyi remarks when we arrive before a smaller bronze statue fringed by bamboos.

I startle and stare. It is me. My features are faintly delineated, the lines worn down by wind, but my hands are clasped gently around a single peony. Though the shrine is less impressive than others I’ve seen, the tiles around it are still littered with fresh offerings, the air fragrant with fallen peaches and smoke and the perfumes of passing worshippers. There is a line here too: an old woman with a stained bandage wound around her eyes, a man wincing as he rests against his wooden cane, a mother struggling to cradle her wailing child while she sets her basket of red dates down. As they stagger up to my shrine, one by one, pleading for relief from their pain, for a remedy that works, for the health of their family, a violent emotion bubbles its way up my chest.

“What’s wrong?” Keran asks me as Junyi joins the worshippers surging forth.

“I . . .” I swallow, shame burning my lungs. “I think . . . being here now, it’s just dawning on me how selfish I’ve been.”

His brows crease. “Selfish? How?”

“Look at all those people, Keran,” I whisper. “These mortals need me. They’ve always needed me, but I . . . I was never focused on answering their prayers. I only used my healing powers on the other gods, because I wanted them to like me. Because all I cared about was getting promoted, and getting their approval . . .”

“That’s how it is,” Keran says. “All the gods competing and conspiring with each other, while the mortals suffer.”

I shake my head. “But it shouldn’t be like this.”

“Maybe, one day,” Keran says slowly, “if you want to, you can do things differently. It’s not too late.”

My gaze lifts to his. One day. That forbidden idea of a future, of days ahead, blazes between us. Had he really meant what he said, then, about defying the Heavens? Everything in his face seems to promise it.

“Aren’t you going to pray to the god of healing too?” Junyi calls over to us.

“Oh.” I blink. “I’m not sure I need to. I’m in perfect health.”

“I will,” Keran says calmly, his eyes still on mine. “She is the only god I worship.”

I am inclined to believe it a jest, but soon I realize he is serious about this too.

Taking the incense, Keran makes his way to the prayer mat, to my statue. The birds in the mountains fall quiet. My own breathing stalls as the Death God kneels as elegantly and deliberately as he would walk through a graveyard of corpses. White smoke dances across his profile, curling around him. Then his palms flatten on the rough stone. His forehead touches the ground. He could be a mortal man, completely at my mercy, except he holds infinity in his hands.

A low shiver races down my spine.

“Even if there is nothing else in the world to cling to,” he whispers in a silver voice designed for me alone to hear, “even if all the gods are gone, and all the stars have fallen, I will always pray to you.”

It should be impossible, I think to myself, my heart aching, to feel so much. It should be impossible for the god of death to willingly kneel before the god of healing. Whatever path fate had laid out for us, surely we have stepped beyond it by now. I can almost feel a new path forming under our feet as we wind our way down the mountain again. But there is something missing. Of all the shrines we’ve passed already, I have seen every god, except one.

“Wait here,” I say with a strike of inspiration when Junyi stops to rest on a wooden bench and unwrap the mung bean buns he’d packed. “I’ll be back soon.” Then, smiling to myself, I slip into the trees.

“Where did you go?” Keran asks.

“I have something to show you,” I tell him, tugging at the end of his sleeve. “Come on. Before Junyi notices we’re gone.”

“What is it?” he asks, but he’s already following close behind, letting me lead him up the uneven stone steps and through the thickets of larches. His footsteps are so quiet that the strewn branches and loose pebbles in our way remain undisturbed.

“A secret,” I reply, glancing back over my shoulder to grin slyly at him. Gold, dappled light falls through the leaves, melting onto the fine threads of his robes and the pale planes of his face. His hair burns orange at the edges as it swishes down to his narrow waist. It is a disorienting sight. He looks as ethereal as someone who has stepped out of an ink painting, yet he also looks more vivid and alive than the greenery stretched around him. As if he exists on an entirely separate plane from this world.

“You’re staring,” he remarks, brows raised.