Conrad. Fire — a violent kind of fire, red-orange and fast. Solis frowned again at the empty air behind him and named him in the absence of the god who should have come. *Burning Fury, rank six, Vocation: Berserker.* Conrad looked down at the new mark on his hand — a stylized flame — and laughed once, loud and ugly, and stepped over to stand next to Marcus.

Miles. Stone again. Gurtur sighed. *Earth Shield, rank five.*

Aurora.

Dante had been wondering when Aurora would step up. She had been silent the entire time. Now she walked to the crystal with the same composure she did everything else. Touched it.

Gold. Bright. Solis's own light again — but not as bright as Sophia's, and not as warm.

Solis named her himself. *Dawn Ray, rank seven.* He looked at her with a small flicker of interest as he said it, and Aurora looked back at him with no flicker at all, and Dante had the distinct impression that the only person in the room reading Solis as accurately as he was, was her.

Aurora joined the line.

"Next," said Solis.

---

Arthur went next.

He squared his shoulders — Arthur had always been good at squaring his shoulders — and walked to the crystal and put his palm flat against it without ceremony.

The crystal flushed crimson.

A ring of fire bloomed around Arthur's feet. Not red-orange like Marcus and Conrad's. Deeper. Older. The color of forge embers when the bellows have stopped.

The air folded behind him.

And a god stepped through.

He was the size of Gurtur. Maybe larger. Built like a man who had spent centuries hammering iron and could no longer remember what hands had been before. His beard was *on fire*. Not metaphorically. Actual flame moved through it, the tips brightening and dimming as he breathed. He carried a hammer in one hand whose head was the size of Dante's torso. His eyes were the color of red copper.

He looked around the hall.

His expression went from curious to confused to something Dante couldn't name in roughly three seconds.

"*Solis.*"

The voice was a furnace's voice.

"*Solis.*"

"Brother," Solis said. The smile was slightly tighter now. "The young man you have just claimed —"

"What is happening here."

It was not a question.

Solis stood. The throne creaked under the shift of his weight.

"There has been a complication with a summoning. We are addressing it. Your Burning Edge, brother — the boy in the line behind your latest claim — was named by me in your absence and may need a gentler word from you when we are finished. I trust you are not so out of practice at welcoming new vessels that you require a rehearsal."

The bearded fire-god stared at him.

"You called *across worlds.*"

A long, ringing silence.

Aneos's wings stopped moving.

Gurtur, beside the throne, very slowly closed his eyes.

"*Alone*," the fire-god said. "Without consensus. Without consultation. You have *plucked twenty children from another world* and you are —" he gestured, and the gesture took in the hall, the crystal, Arthur still standing inside his ring of embers, "— *Awakening them.* You are giving them our gifts. Without us. Without —"

"Without the squabbling that would otherwise have delayed the matter by a century, yes," Solis said. The mask was beginning to fray at the edges now. The voice was still warm. The eyes were not. "The world below us has been waiting too long. I have acted. The mistake of pulling more than one is being addressed *as we speak* by giving each of these souls a Blessing of their own. You are welcome to lodge a complaint after the work is done."

"After the —"

"After the work is done."

Two giants. Six meters apart. Looking at each other.

Gurtur said, very quietly, without opening his eyes: "Brother. The boy is waiting."

The fire-god turned his head slowly toward Arthur, who was standing inside a circle of embers and doing his best impression of a person who was not currently being used as the prop in a domestic argument between gods.

The expression softened. Slightly.

"What is your name, child?"

"Arthur." Voice steady. Almost.

"Arthur." The god knelt — the marble groaned — and the embers around Arthur died down. "I am Piras. The Smith of Destiny. God of Fire and Strength. Protector of the Dwarves."

Arthur didn't speak.

"You will carry a piece of my forge inside you for the rest of your life. The Blessing is *Hammerflame*. Rank seven. Vocation: Vanguard. You will be a fire that walks before others into the dark. Carry it well."

He laid one massive hand on Arthur's chest, and Arthur, bracing for impact, did not stagger as much as Dante had expected. When Piras stepped back, Arthur was different. The tunic he was now wearing was darker, layered, lined with what looked like copper threads. He was a head taller. His shoulders had thickened. The hair on the back of his hands, Dante noticed with a small absurd jolt, had gone slightly red.

Arthur looked at his palm. The mark there was a hammer crossed with a flame.

"Thank you," he said. His voice was different too. Lower.

Piras nodded once. Stood. Turned back to Solis.

"We will *speak.*"

He did not, however, leave.

He moved to Gurtur's other side and stood there with his hammer resting on his shoulder. Three gods now, openly waiting. The hall felt different again. Smaller, in spite of the impossible ceiling.

Solis pretended not to notice that, either.

"Next."

---

Serena went next.

Quiet girl. Pale. She had the kind of face that didn't catch in your memory unless you were looking for it. She walked to the crystal with her arms wrapped around herself.

The crystal flushed deep blue. The marble under her feet rippled like water that had been struck.

The air folded.

A woman stepped through.

She was tall — only a little taller than Aneos, which made her smaller than the other gods so far, but she carried herself in a way that made the height irrelevant. Skin of pale blue. Long dark hair that moved as if there were currents in it that no one else could feel. Pointed ears just visible through the strands. Her eyes were two unbroken pools — no white, no iris distinct from pupil, just a depth that you didn't want to look into for too long.

Solis half-rose from the throne.

"Sister. My apologies for the interruption — there has been —"

"No matter. We will speak, all of us, together."

She didn't even look at him as she said it. She was looking at Serena, and her voice was the same voice both times, neither warmer for the girl nor colder for the god — only calm, even, untroubled.

She walked to Serena. Looked at her for a long moment. Laid one cool blue hand on the side of the girl's face. Serena's eyes drifted half-shut, as if she were being shown something kind in a dream.

"My name is Kidora," the goddess said. "The Silent. Goddess of the Tides and of Intelligence. Protector of the Elves. You are mine, child. *Calm Wave,* rank five. Vocation: Healer. You will close more wounds than you ever open, and that is a high thing."

When she stepped back, Serena was different. Taller, like the others. Her hair, which had been a flat brown, was now streaked with something that caught the light like wet sand. She looked like she had stopped *being indoors*.

Kidora turned, finally, toward Solis.

She did not speak.

She just *looked* at him.

It was the worst look Dante had ever seen on a face. Worse than rage. Rage you could meet and answer. This was the face of someone who had already finished being angry and was now in the colder country that came after.

Solis met her eyes for perhaps half a second.

Then looked away.

Kidora drifted to stand with the others. Four gods now. Aneos moved slightly — almost imperceptibly — to give her space.

It was at that moment, as the four gods arranged themselves into a quiet line of accusation around the throne, that Dante noticed the seventh seat.

Six thrones now had owners, or would soon. The central one was Solis. Four were standing in formation at his side. One was small and to Solis's right, still empty — the throne for the goddess who had not yet been called.

And to Solis's *left*, immediately at his elbow, the seventh throne.

Darker stone. Dust on the seat — the only dust anywhere in the hall.

And on the seat, set down with a delicacy that didn't match anything else in the room, lay a mask.

Long-beaked. Bone-white. The kind of mask plague doctors wore in old paintings.

(That mask doesn't belong to the others.)

Dante didn't know how he knew. He just knew.

It was *too clean*. The throne was dusty. The mask was not. As if no one had touched the throne in a long time but someone, someone with great care, had been keeping the mask in good condition all the while.

He looked away before the feeling settled. He didn't want any of the gods to catch him looking.