Leaving was a bit more challenging than I expected.  Manere wasn’t quite willing to let me go.  I thought that leaving first thing in the morning without saying goodbye would be enough of a hint, but she was a god, and gods didn’t do subtle.

Which was why she had teleported herself into the carriage with me and seemed to be set on staying there until the border.

“Are you sure everything is taken care of?” she asked for the fourth time.

Yes, I was keeping track.

“It is,” I replied.  I didn’t need to keep the peevishness out of my voice with gods, but habit made me do it anyway.  “The city council knows what to do.  Just leave it to them and don’t interfere.”

I’d worked out an arrangement with the city council on her behalf and she’d tried to make those negotiations difficult, stretching my stay for another day, but I finally rammed the agreement through and told her the terms were final.  The council would take over tearing apart everything Hidere had touched.  They’d already confiscated all his businesses and property and would handle the investigation to find out how far it went.  I informed the council chairman of the murdered god and secured his silence.  He’d fabricate a crime serious enough to merit the level of retribution that Manere had taken.  Once the preliminary investigation was done - enough to find or create hard evidence of treason and heresy - they’d transport Hidere to the capital and the queen would control his fate from there.

The city would eagerly turn their anger from Manere to Hidere and everything would mostly go back to normal.

And control of the harbor would be divided up among the city’s remaining noble houses.  They were already circling, as word of Hidere’s arrest had spread fast.

“Besides,” I sighed, “I really need to be by Queen Misht’s side.  She’ll need my help.  We got lucky with Hidere.  He was floundering.  Scared.  We might have cannier opponents in the future.  Someone that knows the gods are capable of far more than just controlling the weather.”

“I like controlling the weather.”

I quickly changed the topic to what we’d discussed prior to me leaving.  I didn’t want her to demonstrate her point by summoning a rainstorm or something.  I’d given Manere some things I wanted her to take care of.  She readily agreed, as they aligned nicely with her own urge to protect the city and the people contained within her territory.  

I was concerned there were still foreign agents embedded in the city.  Possibly even mages.  Smuggling a mage into our kingdom wasn’t terribly difficult, as long as they had good self-control to keep their magic hidden away inside them.  Getting them out after they’d used it, however, was significantly more challenging.  If the mage intended to live past her attack on the Beloved, she would have needed people to shield and smuggle her back out.  Mages light up like a beacon on a god’s awareness when they use magic, but that can be mitigated with enough other people around to act as a buffer.  Smother the traces of magic underneath the weight of all those mortal minds.

I’d asked Manere to keep a close eye on who was entering or leaving through the harbor.  She couldn’t learn a lot simply by skimming someone’s mind, but she could gather up their names, where they were from, and possibly where they were going and whether they had abnormal anxieties about being found out.  What a god could learn from a casual glance all depended on an individual’s self-control.

She’d send the reports to me.  I didn’t want her to stop anyone suspicious.  I merely wanted to know who they were.  At this point, it was better if our adversary believed their team had gotten out undiscovered.

Also I didn’t trust that Manere wouldn’t start sinking ships again.  This was not something I would tell her.  Thankfully, as Beloved, I was fully immune from having my mind read by a god in any capacity.

“I still don’t like you leaving,” she sniffed.  “It’s dangerous in the capital.”

“I’ll be fine,” I promised.  “I’ll have the queen’s own guard protecting me.”

“But not a god.”

I couldn’t argue with that.  The capital city was without a god and had been without one for some time now.  The temple received volunteers still, but the queen had instructed the priests to turn them all away until they understood why the first few attempts had failed.  Queen Misht wasn’t willing to recklessly throw her subjects to the knife.

I was only brought to the brink of death.  The gods did die and if they didn’t ascend, well… then they remained dead.

The priests were more than happy to churn through bodies in the hopes sheer tenacity would solve the problem, but the queen had so many reasons to disagree.  Mostly she didn’t want the populace to know this was an on-going problem.  Let them think that the temple was still searching for the right person.  Otherwise, the whispers that the gods had forsaken the capital and Queen Misht’s reign was a curse might get worse than they already were.

I appreciated this decision on a personal level.  The last person they’d tried to ascend was the former Beloved.  A desperate move, but the temple had reached that point.  When that failed, the queen banned further attempts and sent word to my family to request a new Beloved.

Sometimes I felt the senior priests watching me and I wondered if they were contemplating trying again.  I was grateful for the presence of the queen’s own guard.

“Come back and visit me,” Manere said, leaning forward in her seat in the carriage.

We must be nearing the border.  She had only a few minutes left.

“I will,” I said.

It wasn’t an empty promise.  The city of Manere was quite important, after all, and likely the queen would need to send me here again sometime.  But Manere took that as a promise especially for her and her face glowed with delight.  Then she raised a hand and took off her blindfold.  Dangerous, doing so outside of the handful of rooms that were entirely her own in the temple.  At least the carriage’s curtains were drawn.

“I’ll wait for you,” Manere promised, her amber eyes shining like stars.  Her face was so close to mine.

Then she was gone, and I was left breathless and alone.