Page 40 of Flame and Sparrow

I needed to actuallyseethe source of the laughter, I decided.

Carefully, I crept toward the sound, darting from tree to tree until I caught several unusual scents—something that reminded me of a stinging, wintry wind mingling with the aroma of metal and spice.

Following the strange smells brought me to a small area surrounded by trees with drooping branches covered in pink blossoms. The laughter had stopped. The only sounds now were my own breathing along with an odd humming in the air. The hum of magical energy, I thought; it sounded like bees buzzing in a far-off hive.

I leaned against a stone column wrapped in vines, and I stared.

A short distance away, two ethereal beings lounged in hammocks that appeared to have been spun from pure light. Or perhaps it was their bodies bleeding that glow; whatever the source, it took my eyes a moment to adjust and make sense of what I was seeing.

The being closest to me appeared to be a male. His skin was ivory, his lean but muscular arms covered in faint markings in various shades of blue, the half-unbuttoned shirt he wore revealing similar markings upon his chest. His silvery-blond hair fell in straight, jagged layers just past his sharp chin. He was eating what smelled like some sort of fruit, tossing the dark pieces of it into his mouth between sips from a pewter goblet clasped delicately in his hand.

Stretched out in the hammock perpendicular to his own was a female with deep brown skin. A brush of gold paint covered her closed eyelids, and thin coins of what looked like actual gold decorated the scarf tied around her head, jingling a bit with every swing of the hammock—swings that made no sense, as there was no breeze, and she herself was perfectly still. Above her decorative scarf, her dark hair gathered in a thick poof, and her head reclined against a pillow of pink flowers.

They were both undeniably divine, just like their surroundings, and—just as before—I was torn between a desire to stare and shrink away.

Well, I hadn’t come here with any plans toshrink.

I took a deep breath and crept quietly forward, keeping close to the various columns and trees spread throughout the space. I got close enough to study the details of the god and goddess, and I was gathering my courage to move closer when I accidentally stepped on a twig hiding beneath a pile of fallen flower petals.

I cringed at the sound, freezing where I stood.

The goddess spoke without opening her eyes. “Valas, do you smell something?”

The god beside her stopped mid-sip, lowering the goblet slowly as he breathed in a deep breath. His nose wrinkled in disgust. “Something from the mortal realm.”

I pressed against the nearest tree, trying to decide whether to fully reveal myself or not. They clearly knew I was here. I didn’t want them to think I’d been spying...but Ialsodidn’t particularly want to speak with anyone else until I’d spoken with the God of Fire; he was the one I’d made my deal with, after all.

The blond-haired god tilted his inhumanly beautiful face in my direction. His eyes were a pale, alluring yet unsettling shade of purple; just like the sky above us, I couldn’t decide on a name for their true color.

“What a shame she’s insisting on creeping about instead of coming to say hello,” he said. “I’d love to meet her.”

This last sentence dripped with such mockery and vitriol that I’m not ashamed to say it frightened me.

I stood up straighter anyway, stepping from the safety of my tree and marching toward them as adamantly as I’d marched into the river of fire that had brought me here.

I was standing between them for several moments before I realized what I was doing, that I had no real plan, and I needed to say something, anything—

“You are in the presence of the Marr,” drawled the pale god. “Why do you not bow? Do you not possess any sense of decorum?”

And so the acting begins.

I lowered my gaze. “Forgive me,” I said quietly. “I knew I was in the presence of gods, but I was overwhelmed by your power and beauty, and I was simply trying to find the right words to use, the right names to greet you by.”

The god snorted disdainfully at this, not moving from his reclined position on the hammock.

The goddess, however, sat up, her amber-colored eyes fixing on me. She wore an ivory gown that pooled like rich layers of cream at her feet. Her lips curved in a smile—not a particularly kind one, but it was better than the scowl I’d been expecting.

“I am Mairu, Goddess of Change and Control,” she said, her voice smooth and quiet, but with a promise of power, like a river gathering speed before it turned to rapids.

I’d suspected that was who she was, but a shiver still skipped across my skin at the proper introduction.

The Serpent Goddess, humans sometimes called her, as she often took the form of a serpentine dragon when she visited the mortal realm. They worshipped her out of fear as much as reverence, for she was known to be as cunning and violent as she was beautiful, capable of shifting into different forms with far more precision than any other deity. It was said she could split into various forms at the same time, even, and that some of these splintered pieces of her had posed as humans in various capacities throughout her history. Mortal rulers loved slapping her symbol onto things, too; they called her the Marr of both Control and Command, and liked to claim that she had granted them divine providence to wield these things themselves.

“And this handsome bastard,” she offered with a wave toward her companion, “is Valas, God of Ice, Winter, Rebirth, and Getting on My Fucking Nerves.”

The God of Ice yawned. “And I take all of these duties equally seriously.”

I waited for either of them to elaborate. When they didn’t, I broke the silence myself. “My name is—”

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