Rion had always known the goddess was beyond him—beyond all of them. She was flame and silence, storm and shadow. She required nothing, yet he lived every day as if she might notice the smallest gesture.

Where others gave her worship on ritual days, he brought her offerings in secret. A string of beads from a broken necklace, berries gathered from the cliffs, a flask of wine he had bartered away his hunt for—every trinket was laid at her altar like a prayer unspoken. She never reached for them, never smiled, never acknowledged him. But the silence was enough. He had not been born to be noticed by a goddess; he had been born to worship her.

When the woman came, everything broke.

Seraya. A stranger. A foreigner. A woman who should have been cut down the moment she crossed into their valley. Rion’s hand had twitched toward his blade that first day, every instinct sharpened by years of unspoken devotion. He would have killed her quickly—mercifully—before her presence could soil the tribe. That, he believed, was what the goddess would want. That was the law written in the bones of their people.

But Varrek had stopped him.

And when Varrek spoke against the goddess on the day of gathering, when his words cut through the tribe like a spear, Rion’s blood turned to ice.

He had expected hesitation, maybe confusion. Not betrayal. Not a leader daring to look at their goddess and call her into question. And not the others—men who had slaughtered their sisters, abandoned wives, burned villages in her name—turning to this stranger woman like she was some kind of salvation.

Rion’s heart pounded with disgust. With grief. With rage.

And yet—when the goddess did not speak, when she stood there silent and radiant as the sun, he understood. She was testing them. She had always tested them. Mortals failed. Mortals betrayed. But he—he would not.

Without a word, Rion tore himself from the crowd. He felt their stares, but they were ash compared to the fire in his chest. He climbed the steps to her altar and fell hard to his knees, pressing his forehead to the cold stone at her feet. His hands shook, not with fear, but with reverence.

“Please…” His voice cracked, thick with desperation. “My Goddess, I don’t share their opinions. I only want to serve you.”

His breath hitched, his body bowing lower, as if he could fold himself into the earth for her.

“I don’t need safety, I don’t need mercy. I live for you. If they turn away, then I will be the last. I will be the only one. My life, my blood, my breath—everything is yours. Please, see me. Please know that I am yours.”

The silence deepened.

Rion felt her gaze burn down on him, though she had not moved. And where others trembled beneath her quiet, he trembled with ecstasy. She did not strike him down. She did not banish him. She allowed him to kneel.

That was enough. That was everything.