The ones Freyr truly blamed for the mishap, though, were the very same deities that gave their blessings to engage the two toddlers. He had his whole life twisted and decided upon based on, what he came to believe, was just a whim of theirs.

Lucretia sat upon her wooden moon—which shone a pale yellow glow upon the altar below that she shared with her older sister and younger brother. She was the first to arrive to watch over the engagement ceremony being held at their main temple. Usually, Lucretia just let small pieces of her divinity watch over the different temples that worshiped her, while she went about in her mortal form as a traveling merchant—yet this ceremony was to engage two children who were born under her mother’s star sign, so she decided that she should at least make an effort and show up in person.

The gods had been abuzz over who would feel compelled to answer the prayers of the children’s parents, so Lucretia couldn’t ignore the ceremony even if she wanted to. The various deities' interest had grown even more after one of the deities of flame—who the mortals mistakenly referred to collectively as Brandr, even though there were separate deities—had become compelled to gift the blessing to control fire to the groom. Especially since it was before he had even turned three years old.

Lucretia glanced over at the seat reserved for the group that made up Brandr. The one who had blessed the groom was swaying back and forth, mindlessly dancing their fingers through the air as if they were drawing something. The flame deity’s eyes were also lit up with excitement as they looked down upon their Favored One.

Lucretia could understand very easily the look that was plastered upon the flame deity’s face. Like most deities, Lucretia also couldn’t hold back her excitement when she felt the pull of a mortal that was just. . .meant to be. . . Usually the pull wouldn’t start tugging until the mortal’s innate magic started to form around the age of six, but sometimes just a single glance at a child that was meant to be one of her Favored would send her rushing to give the mortal one of her blessings.

There used to even be fights among deities during the ages where mortals didn’t contain enough innate magic to support more than one deity’s blessing—even if more than one deity felt the pull. The mortals now had stronger magical bloodlines, so the disagreements between deities had mostly ended. Now they usually just discussed who had first dibs, and who would have to potentially wait until the Favored One was old enough, or strong enough, to support more blessings.

Lucretia was propping her head up on her hand and swinging her feet, waiting for the ceremony to begin, when suddenly she felt it. It was very slight, but she felt the pull of an unfamiliar Favored One. She glanced up and looked out towards the entrance of her and her siblings’ temple. There she saw a maid hurrying in with a small toddler. Instantly, the toddler’s name popped into her head.

“Freyr, huh?” A male voice next to her made her jump. Like always, her younger brother Sláine had quietly arrived at some point and was munching on some fruit offerings. When he noticed Lucretia’s curious eyes, Sláine continued speaking in the quiet voice for which he was known for among the other deities. “Pay attention sister. You aren’t the only one who has noticed him. Although I am curious why he was the one to show up instead of his sister. I thought we were to bless the union of the only heir of Silvius to the female heir of Frotleikr.”

As her brother looked down, questioningly, at the scene the mortals were acting out before him, Lucretia tried to place the odd feeling she had gotten. There was something Sláine had softly said, in the quiet voice of his, that she felt like she should have picked up on. There was more to it than just Sláine noticing the same mortal as her. They had both shared plenty of Favored Ones before, but it seemed like he was trying to warn her of something with this young new mortal. Lucretia didn’t have a lot of time to figure it out, though, as the bells of their temple started to ring, signaling other bells throughout the rest of the kingdom to echo their indication of the start of the engagement ceremony.

The first part was simply the exchanging of gifts between the two families, so Lucretia had intended to just tune it out, since it wasn’t anything the mortals needed a deity for. However, Lucretia ended up deciding to make note of what presents had been chosen to be given to her newest Favored One—just to ease her boredom a bit. She concluded that, even though she hadn’t claimed him yet, if she didn’t like the items chosen for her soon-to-be ward, she was going to curse the Silvius family with a few years of poor wealth. Perhaps it would be a bit cruel—since the gifts weren’t supposed to matter when it came to the deities—but she was bored and needed an excuse to actually pay attention; she already missed being in her mortal form and on the move after all.

Lucretia watched as the envoy presented the first gift, and she immediately wanted to roll her eyes. The envoy had started with the bland gift of an olive branch. She knew it was supposed to be an arranged marriage to form alliances, but what would a two-year-old do with an olive branch? One strike against the envoys.

The next gift brought out was a vase with a floral motif; along with an arrangement inside that had somehow survived the trip. It was okay, she guessed. She decided, however, that she needed a better view of the arrangement to know the true value of the gift.

The goddess of wealth rose from her seat upon her designated moon, then floated down closer to get a better look. She cocked her head as she observed the arrangement. There were the obvious flowers—roses, tulips and lilies—then there were also clovers and sprigs of mistletoe, and all of it intertwined with ivy.

It didn’t make sense—or look that attractive—having them all put together, but considering the different meanings they each bore, Lucretia decided the individual parts seemed to have enough thought behind them for her to not give the gift a full strike. She returned to her wooden moon, then shared a look with her brother, who had opted to stay atop his own pale green glowing wooden moon. She shrugged at him.

Lucretia didn’t have much hope for the rest of the gifts, but she concluded she would at least try to give them the benefit of the doubt and continued to watch before making any final decisions.

Next, the envoys presented a book from the small pile of gifts. This time Sláine was the one who seemed to become curious. Lucretia’s eyes were drawn to the movement beside her as he gently stood and went to look more closely at its cover. She wasn’t sure what book was offered; but, whatever book it was, had sent her brother returning with a content look on his face, so she assumed that it was the first point that went to the envoys.

When it came time to bestow the traditional half-gift—the other half of which would be gifted to the bride after marriage—the envoys presented an elaborately decorated saddle. It seemed to Lucretia that they had plans to reserve a bloodline of equines from which the bride could choose his own mare or stallion from once the wedding came around. Considering the current value of horses and other equine creatures, Lucretia had to give another point to the group of envoys.

Lucretia glared ever so slightly and really focused on the envoys. She had at some point actually started to feel a bit invested in the gift giving without realizing it. There was one last gift, and she was intrigued by what it might be. This one would truly determine if she’d decide to curse the Silvius bloodline with a hint of poor fortune for the next few years, after all.

When the envoy presented the final gift, Lucretia quickly stood up—and she wasn’t the only one who was surprised. The part of the temple where the deities all sat had been relatively quiet only a moment before, but it was now filled with the murmurs of the various deities who had decided to come watch the ceremony. Even the usually laidback Sláine looked surprised—as he should, considering the item that had been revealed. It was a wooden staff that had been imbued with the blessings of their mother, Celeste—the goddess in charge of innate magic. A staff imbued with her magic would multiply the user’s magic capacity every time they used it.

Every deity present knew just how powerful of an item that staff was for a mortal to hold. They also knew that Celeste was the type to limit the number of users of such an item to only one living mortal at a time. This meant that whoever became a guardian deity of the young child, who was still peacefully unaware and asleep in his father’s arm, wouldn’t have to worry about how strong of a blessing they gifted the child. Depending on who became his guardian, the child could have the whole world at the tips of his fingertips.

The Silvius family probably couldn’t even comprehend the power they had just seemed to nonchalantly gift to a mere two-year-old. Lucretia wondered if it was because her mother’s staff probably looked like only a black wooden staff to the mortals. They probably had picked it up and thought it would be a decent beginner’s staff, should the bride need a way to channel their magic when they were old enough to learn.

If on the off chance the other kingdom did understand, then that would just show how confident they were that they would get their hands on a powerful bride for their heir. The number of deities that could instill that kind of confidence could be counted on one hand, and no matter which deity gave them that confidence, it could spell trouble.

Lucretia started to hope that it was the former, and that this was just a case of the envoys not knowing what they held in their hands. If not, this engagement ceremony was destined to get loud by the time the ritual portion finished—and they hadn’t even gotten to that part yet.

Lucretia was so preoccupied by her worries that she really did end up zoning out for the rest of the initial ceremony. Not that it really mattered; the start was usually just a show for the mortals as they made a display of their political strengths and illustrated what each family could bring to the union. Since the deities weren’t required or called upon until the ritual itself began, Lucretia usually just skipped the start of other engagement ceremonies—even if she was planning on showing up to directly bless a couple. This ceremony, on the other hand, had actually become even more eventful than she had expected, so she was now glad she had decided to show up for the full event.

Lucretia’s focus on the ceremony itself only returned when she realized that the priestess had finally begun the process of setting out the ritual items that the families had selected and prepared.

Her worries—due to her mother’s staff appearing—about the ceremony, and the potential unexpected events, weren’t over though, as she glanced at the wooden moon that was placed between her and Sláine’s moons. The runes that would have glowed a pale purple hadn’t lit up a single time in the past few centuries. Lucretia couldn’t remember the last time their older sister had joined them in overseeing an engagement ritual, and she assumed—and hoped—this would be yet another instance where it would just be her and Sláine overseeing the occasion.

Ianthe had tucked herself away long ago, hiding deep within her personal temple run by the witch tribes. She seemed to only emerge when something truly eventful was about to happen— but even then, she sometimes didn’t even actually leave her temple. She usually chose to send a messenger, or even just a small part of her divinity at most. As Lucretia thought about it, maybe it was a good thing she didn’t see the purple moon’s runes lighting up.

As it was, more deities had been slowly arriving after the news of Celeste’s staff returning had spread through the lands—almost as if the expansive network of gossip was pulling them in like a fisherman reeling in a net of fish. Despite the temple slowly getting a tad brighter, Lucretia could tell that most of the mortals were too focused on the actions of the priestess drawing a circle of light in the air to notice the additional glow of the carved stars lighting up one by one. One pair of mortal eyes that did seem to notice, though. Inside the priestess’s circle were two chairs that were placed right beside the altar: one for the groom, and one for the bride. Sitting upon the bride’s chair was Freyr, who had woken up from being put down a moment ago.

Lucretia had noticed the child glancing around and looking upward for a while now, but he had apparently finished looking around now, and had grown still; like it was the calm before the storm. Instead of crying, though— as Lucertia had observed other toddlers doing when they woke up at the start of the ritual—Freyr was instead staring towards the three wooden moons like he was entranced. It was almost like he could see Lucretia and Sláine sitting atop them.

The goddess then realized that his focus was actually on the unlit moon between the two siblings, and she shrugged the eerie feeling off—although she was a bit jealous that the moon Freyr had decided to stare at and zone out to was her sister’s and not hers. He was just a young child, though, so she decided to forgive him. Lucretia was a forgiving goddess, after all. Well, at least she tried to be forgiving. She wasn’t as good at it as her brother, but she definitely wasn’t as unforgiving as her older sister could be.