Naomi gave the guards one look, and all six of them stopped at the bottom of the steps.
"Nobody enters until we come out."
"Yes, my lady."
Then the four of us climbed the white stone steps together.
The doors were twice as tall as Big Sis, carved with eight figures standing hand in hand. Up close, the shrine felt less like a building and more like something that had grown out of the hill. Old. Patient. Unbothered by people like me.
Inside, the air was cool and smelled of incense and old stone. Light fell from high windows in pale, dusty columns. It was the kind of quiet that made you want to walk on your toes.
So naturally, my new boots squeaked on every single step.
Great. Very dignified, Fabian.
A woman was waiting for us at the end of the hall.
She looked about thirty, in white robes trimmed with pale gold, her dark hair pinned up beneath a thin veil. Her hands were folded in front of her. She had the calmest face I'd ever seen, like nothing in the world had ever made her hurry.
"Welcome to the Shrine of the Eight." She bowed. "I am Odile, keeper of this altar. Dame Naomi. Lady Marika. Lady Hana."
Then she turned to me, and the corner of her mouth lifted.
"And Young Master Fabian. It has been three years since a young man last stood before this altar. We are honored."
Three years.
Somewhere out there, the last boy who'd stood here was probably twenty now, with four wives and a carriage full of guards. I wondered if his boots had squeaked too.
Odile's gaze drifted down to my hip.
"Weapons are customarily left at the door."
Behind me, Marika made a small strangled noise.
"It's a gift," I said. "From my sister."
"I see." Odile glanced at Marika, whose face was quietly turning the color of her hair again. Something that might have been amusement passed over the priestess's face and vanished. "Then perhaps your sister would hold it for you during the rite."
I unbuckled the sword and held it out.
Marika took it like I'd handed her a live snake. Then, when she thought nobody was looking, she hugged it to her chest.
I was looking.
I decided, generously, not to mention it. Today.
The altar stood at the center of a round chamber beneath a high stone dome. A thin white line was painted on the floor in a perfect circle around it.
And around the circle, facing inward, stood the Eight.
"Your sisters will wait beyond the line," Odile said. "Only the one being welcomed may enter the circle."
Hana squeezed my hand once before she let go. Naomi gave me a single nod.
Marika said, "Don't trip."
"Thanks, Sis Marika. Very inspiring."
I stepped over the line.
I'd seen the gods drawn in books since I was little. Seeing them in stone was different. Each statue was taller than Naomi, carved from white marble, and every one of them seemed to be looking straight at me.
Ignar, God of Fire, with a spear wrapped in carved flames.
Nerissa, Goddess of Water, tilting a jar over a stone basin.
Fulgor, God of Lightning, one hand raised to the sky.
Zephyra, Goddess of Wind, her robes and hair swept back as if caught mid-gale.
Terran, God of Earth, holding a sheaf of wheat. The turnip god, I thought, and had to bite my cheek to keep from laughing.
Glacia, Goddess of Ice, crowned in frost.
Aegira, Goddess of Protection, with a shield as tall as she was.
My eyes lingered on Nerissa. Father's goddess. She'd chosen him once, in a circle just like this one. I wondered if he'd been nervous too.
And then there was the eighth.
Elysia, Goddess of Healing, stood a little apart from the others. Her stone was older, grayer, worn smooth at the edges. Unlike the rest, her eyes were closed, and her hands were folded against her chest as if she were praying.
Every child in the kingdom knows why.
Five hundred years ago, healers were as common as any other mage. Then the Demon King came, and his army hunted healers first. It made sense, in a horrible way. Kill one healer, and a hundred soldiers die with him.
Humanity won. Barely. The Demon King was sealed away. But the seal took everything Elysia had, her soul and her power, and she's been holding it shut ever since.
That's why her blessing almost never comes.
Sorry, I thought at her statue. I know you're busy.
Odile knelt and set a silver bowl of water at my feet. She lit a stick of incense, and pale smoke curled up toward the dome. Then she dipped two fingers in the water and touched them to my forehead. It was cold enough to make me flinch.
Her voice filled the chamber, low and steady.
"Eight who watch over us. A son of House Valcrest stands before you at the Welcoming Age. Look upon him. And if he is worthy, choose."
She stepped back beyond the line.
"Close your eyes, Young Master. And pray. Not for what you want." She paused. "For what you need."
What I need.
I closed my eyes.
My first instinct was to pray for fire. Lightning. Something loud and bright that would finally let me stand in the training yard as an equal.
But that wasn't what came.
What came was Naomi at fifteen, sitting at Father's desk long after midnight, signing papers because there was no one else to do it.
Marika practicing in the rain until her palms bled, because she'd decided she had to be good enough to protect all of us.
Hana at ten years old, learning how to make salve, because somebody had to patch up her little brother's scraped knees.
They'd carried this house for ten years. Carried me.
I don't need to be the strongest, I prayed. I don't need lightning. Just... please.
Give me the power to help them. Whatever it is.
I don't want to be the one they leave behind.
Silence.
The incense crackled. Somewhere outside the dome, a bird called once and went quiet.
Nothing happened.
...Okay. Maybe the gods are on a break.
Then came the warmth.
It started in my chest, small and soft, like the first warm sunlight after a long winter. Light pressed against my eyelids. Not the red of fire. Not the white-blue of lightning.
Green and gold. Like sunlight through new leaves.
I opened my eyes.
The light was coming from behind me.
I turned around.
Elysia's statue was glowing.
Not brightly. Not like a bonfire. It glowed the way a single candle does in a dark room: gentle, steady, impossible to look away from. The light gathered in her folded hands and drifted toward me in slow ribbons. When it touched me, I felt...
Held.
That was the only word for it. Like someone very far away, someone very, very tired, had reached across all that distance just to smile at me.
Then the light sank into my chest and was gone.
Clang!
Odile's silver bowl hit the floor. Water spread across the stone.
The calmest woman I'd ever met was staring at me with both hands pressed over her mouth.
"Elysia," she whispered. "Elysia's light. On this altar. Not in my lifetime. Not in my teacher's lifetime..."
I looked down at my hands.
The scrapes on my knuckles, the ones from this morning, the ones Hana had fussed over, were gone. Not faded. Gone. Like they'd never been there at all.
Oh.
Oh, no.
Healing.
My first thought, and I'm not proud of this, was: I asked for something to help them. I kinda assumed it would hit things.
My second thought came when I looked at my sisters.
Hana had both hands over her mouth, eyes huge and already wet.
Marika had dropped the sword. It lay on the floor at her feet, and she hadn't even noticed. Ten minutes ago she'd been hugging it like it was made of glass.
And Naomi.
Naomi was as white as the statues.
In ten years, I had seen Big Sis tired. Furious. Bleeding, once. I had never, ever seen her afraid.
That's when I understood.
A Saint. In a kingdom where men are rare and healers are rarer still, I had just become the most valuable person in the province. Maybe in the entire kingdom. Every noble house would want me. Every faction would want me. And somewhere, sealed away but not gone, there were things that remembered exactly which mages they'd hunted first.
The baroness with the plow-horse daughter had just become the least of our problems.
Naomi moved.
Three long strides took her across the white line. Odile didn't say a word about it.
"Lady Odile."
The priestess flinched. "Dame Naomi, I—"
"Who else saw this?"
"No one. Only those of us in this chamber."
"Then it stays that way." Naomi's voice was perfectly steady. Her hand on her sword hilt was white at the knuckles. "No records. No reports. No one hears of this. Not the temple. Not my guards. Not a single soul."
Odile hesitated.
And then Naomi did something I had never seen her do in my entire life.
She bowed her head.
"Please."
Odile looked at Naomi. Then at me. Then past me, at Elysia's statue. The glow had faded. The goddess's eyes were still closed, her hands still folded, as if nothing had happened at all.
"I have tended this altar for twelve years," Odile said quietly. "I will not be the one who puts her chosen in danger. You have my word, Dame Naomi. Before all eight of them."
Naomi let out a breath I don't think she knew she'd been holding.
"But," Odile added, softer still, "a light like hers was never meant to stay hidden. Not forever."
Nobody answered that.
Hana was already at my side, one palm on my forehead, the other on my cheek. "Are you dizzy? Does anything hurt? Fabian, look at me."
"I'm fine, Sis Hana. Better than fine, actually."
Somehow, that made her look even more worried.
Marika picked up the sword. She wiped the stone dust off with her sleeve and buckled it back onto my belt herself, without a single word.
Her hands were shaking.
"We're leaving," Naomi said. "Now."
The guards straightened the moment we came through the doors.
"Young Master! Congratulations!" The captain was beaming. "Which god—"
"Later," Naomi said. "Mount up."
She said it in the voice that ended conversations. The captain's smile vanished, and she mounted up.
The ride home was nothing like the ride there.
Nobody asked what I'd been hoping for. Nobody mentioned turnips. Hana held my hand the entire way, her thumb rubbing slow circles over my knuckles where the scrapes used to be. Marika stared at the floor, gripping her knees. Naomi watched the window like she expected the street itself to attack us.
When we passed back through town, the waving started again.
"Young Master! What did you get?"
"Was it fire? Tell us!"
Marika reached across me and pulled the curtain shut.
This time, I didn't open it again.
The moment we rolled through the estate gate, Naomi was out of the carriage before it had fully stopped.
"Reading room," she told the head maid. "Nobody comes within twenty paces of the door. Not for tea. Not for letters. Not for anything."
"Y-yes, my lady."
The reading room had been Father's favorite place in the house. Tall shelves, old armchairs, the smell of paper and dust. When I was little, I used to fall asleep on the rug in front of the fireplace while he read.
Now it felt like a war room.
Marika went straight to the windows and drew every curtain. Hana checked the hallway one last time, closed the door, and turned the key. The lock clicked, loud in the silence.
Naomi stood at the cold fireplace with her back to us. She didn't move for a long moment.
I'd never been so aware of my own heartbeat.
Then Big Sis turned around.
"Sit down, Fabian."
I sat.
She looked at me for a long time. Not at the Saint. Not at the miracle. At me. Her little brother. The one she'd been carrying since she was fifteen years old.
"What I'm about to tell you," Naomi said, "you won't like."
She drew a slow breath.
"But you're going to listen to every word."