The number of merchants on the road all going towards Evadia should have been sign enough. Unfortunately, D’Argen had been away for too long. He had his suspicions earlier when he saw the crowds all moving towards Evadia, but then he knew for sure as soon as their small party ended their run at a fork in the road.

To the right, the road led to the city surrounding the castle of Evadia and its five white spires trying to break the sky apart but instead blending in as if they belonged there. To the left, and much closer, was an open field with no trees in sight and only dozens of tall stone columns to indicate a specific area. The caravans and groups of mortals were converging there from all directions.

D’Argen had completely forgotten about the decennial event that happened just outside the city of Evadia. Every ten years, the gods gathered in the field where they first came together after they fell to the mortal realm. In the beginning, it was only to be together. As more and more gods split off and travelled the lands to help the mortals, these gatherings turned into a place to share their stories.

After the gods built their own kingdom and Acela was crowned as Queen of the Gods, the gatherings became an official conference and the columns, along with a large stone platform, were put up to indicate where the event would take place. The conference was still centred around the gods and their stories, no mortals having presented on the stage ever before, but it had visitors coming in from all corners of Trace.

As D’Argen got off the main road and on the wide path leading to the conference, he noticed tents being set up just outside the pillars. A woman was walking around, covered only in feathers with a crown made of them almost as tall as her. She stopped to talk to another woman, this one dressed in a sheer gown that reflected the light where it did not cover her skin and a single metal band resting on her head. A third woman joined the two, her long hair dragging to the ground in hundreds of tiny braids. D’Argen easily recognized all three of them as leaders of their people from the Uni’Ga Empire, the Oltrian northern lands, and the Rube Islands due to their dress.

“Is this why you’ve all been so insistent recently?” D’Argen asked his companions over his shoulder.

“We were actually trying to get you to avoid it,” Lilian answered in a grumble. “I was hoping to get you here and gone before the conference. I know how the crowds get to you.”

“When did it start?”

“Looks like it has not started yet. Not officially at least,” Yaling answered this time. “Tonight? Tomorrow maybe?”

D’Argen let out a frustrated growl. He knew, however, that even if the event itself had not officially opened with Acela’s speech, all of the gods from Evadia would already be here. At least, they should be.

“Find Vain for me,” D’Argen ordered without thinking.

All three of his companions nodded and then left him.

As the God of Discovery, D’Argen used to be a huge fixture during the conference. He was expected to always deliver new discoveries to both the gods and mortals gathered there. In the beginning, that was easy. There was always a new flower, a new animal, a new drop of sand in the oceans that he stumbled upon. As the years turned to centuries and millennia, those discoveries became fewer and fewer.

The last time D’Argen had presented at the conference, he had talked about the discovery of a strain of gold in a mountain chain to the west. This led to three mortal nations claiming rights to that mountain and a war that lasted almost a century over it. Two of those nations no longer existed.

Due to this event, Acela had ordered him to report to her first before any new presentations. D’Argen chose to ignore the conference altogether. He was present for three more after that but did not present once.

The three women D’Argen was looking at earlier split apart and went back to their own small camps outside the conference area. A jewelled caravan passed not that far from him. D’Argen decided to move off the path completely and though it was crowded, he found his feet taking him to the official entrance of the conference field. It was a stone archway, as tall as the columns, decorated with hanging lanterns and gossamer sheets dangling to the ground. Very few of the mortals used it to enter the grounds, slipping in between the columns, but every caravan and cart passed through it.