Manere was one of two important coastal cities within the kingdom.  Naturally, it was a major trade route.  Just this past year it’d experienced a major upheaval in the political balance, as one of the noble families had managed to obtain a monopoly over the port.  The queen, naturally, was displeased by this development but hadn’t managed to find a way to undo it.  These things took time and I didn’t expect her to make any moves for another few years at least.

That Manere’s god was getting involved for some reason was a startling development.  I set my tea down and stared at Misht in shock.

“Wait, Manere’s god is doing this?  She’s been a god for over a hundred years!” I exclaimed.

The older gods were more stable.  They weren’t subject to whims or promises from corrupt nobles or priests.

“Which is why this is so concerning.”

“It’s not just about the harbor,” I mumbled, thinking furiously.  “There’s something else going on that she’s trying to direct our attention to without alerting anyone else.”

“And here I thought you hated being the Beloved,” the queen said lazily.

“You don’t have to like something to be good at it.”

She chuckled and rested her chin on her palm, staring at me intently.

“This is why I wanted you,” she said fondly.  “You were wasting your life before now.”

“I wanted to waste my life away doing nothing in particular,” I muttered, but as usual, the queen ignored my complaint.

“I’ll have my people find you a new maid,” Misht said.  “Someone that actually likes to travel.  Maybe someone with some experience finding local shops to visit…?”

A peace offering.  I scowled at her, refusing to explicitly take it, but I wasn’t going to turn it down either.

“And I should increase the number of soldiers I send with you,” she said thoughtfully.  “Do you want to take Sir Carid?  You should take Sir Carid.”

The queen’s personal champion.  I was immediately wary.

“What kind of trouble are you sending me into?”

“Honestly, I don’t know,” she sighed.  “That’s why I’m worried.  Manere’s involvement was… very unexpected.”

The gods no longer had names and didn’t care to take new ones.  For lack of anything better, they were referred to as the settlement they protected.

“My spies assure me that everything is normal, save for Manere,” she said.

“But for a god to turn against their own people…”

“Exactly.  Something strange is happening.  You leave tomorrow.  Sir Carid has already selected the additional knights to accompany your normal detail.”

As always, none of this was up for discussion.  She might have even had a maid picked out in advance, just in case Ylone left.  Queen Misht was like that.  She had backup plans on top of backup plans.

At least with the queen handling every detail I didn’t have to do anything more than wake up the next morning and get in the carriage.  My new maid introduced herself as Opnie as she climbed into the carriage.  I could only hope she was a good conversationalist.  Reading grew tedious after a while.  Sir Carid also stopped by the open carriage door to introduce himself, although it was quite unnecessary.  As the queen’s champion, I’d seen him plenty of times.  He was at least ten years older than me and his brown hair was streaked with gray.  He wasn’t one for idle conversation, either.  I didn’t think I’d heard him speak more than giving orders in my entire time in the capital.

Queen Misht saw us off.  She was wearing my favorite crown, a small one, but heavily decorated with gold wire and amber such that it fairly glowed in the sunlight.  It contrasted sharply with her braided black hair, which was threaded with gold wire as it always was.  When she really wanted to dress up, she added gems to the braids.  She waved pleasantly as the carriage rattled into motion.

Then we were leaving the capital.  I truly was tired of all this traveling, I thought sadly as I watched the palace walls recede.

It was a few days worth of constant traveling to reach Manere.  We traded off horses when we stopped, as the queen had established agreements along all the major highways.  I barely had any time to rest in the evening.  Everywhere we went, there were gods waiting to see me.  There were usually minor issues to resolve.  Were the crops growing adequately?  What about the bridge that collapsed during the spring - could it be repaired before the winter without their help?  Villages that were just barely large enough to have a god but not big enough to have dedicated priests were especially grateful for my ability to converse with the god at length.  Some of these settlements didn’t even have a temple and the god made their home in the wilderness, declaring a grove sacred and living there.  Other noblewomen might be offended at the thought of having to sit on the grass, but after a day in a carriage it was honestly a relief.

Once I got past the annoyance of being the Beloved, I found some pleasure in helping these small villages.  They had simple problems that could be easily resolved.  The gods had authority over everything in their land, but they weren’t distant like some other kingdoms’ deities were.  Our gods' origins were lost to time, as they had always been a part of us, from before we were keeping a recorded history.  Before we were a kingdom, all the way back to when we were a simple collection of tribes.  When enough of us gathered in one spot and made it our home, we began to feel the need for a god.  

That was where the ritual came into play.  An altar.  A knife.  A willing sacrifice, offering themself up to be bound to the land and to the people that lived there.  Trading their identity, their memories, the whole of who they were for power.  The sort of power that allowed them to control the wind and rain, or to lift things into the air with a thought, or to kill with a glance.

I suppose it made up for the fact that our kingdom had no magic.  It simply wasn’t something that showed up in our bloodline.  While other kingdoms had mages, we had gods, and it had protected us well for a long time.

It made my role as Beloved very important, as we needed to ensure we lived in harmony with all the gods, not just the ones that guarded the cities.  Even if that meant dealing with small problems along the way.

Then, half a day from Manere, we encountered a problem that wasn’t so simple.