The army crested the ridge at midday, three thousand strong, their armor catching sunlight like scales on some vast metal serpent. Banners snapped in the wind—Calendhaven's sigil, a gauntlet gripping a lightning bolt, visible even from a distance.

Behind the massed infantry, the five Aetherframes plodded forward, their heavy steps trembling the ground, each one a walking fortress armed with rune-etched cannons.

Ebonheim stood alone in the field below. She wore the same long white dress she always did, detached sleeves flowing around her arms.

No armor. No divine aura flared with warning light. Just a goddess waiting in the middle of nowhere.

Grass stretched in every direction, autumn-brown and brittle, whispering secrets to the wind. The valley entrance waited two leagues behind her, the beginning of Eldergrove's protective embrace. The soldiers would see her long before they reached the forest's edge.

She watched them approach. Three thousand lives, each one a story, a family, a collection of hopes and fears and daily routines. People serving a god who promised prosperity in exchange for loyalty. Most probably believed in him. Most probably felt righteous about expanding Calendhaven's domain, bringing order to chaotic frontiers.

That they had been taught to see the Eldergrove not as a sovereign territory but as an unclaimed prize. That their conviction was as manufactured as the peace she had broken in Corinth.

Even knowing this, seeing them as tools of another god's ambition, the weight of what she was about to do settled over her like the suffocating heat of a forge.

She had spent the entire night cycling through the hundreds and hundreds of divine abilities in her repertoire, trying to find another way. Power that could compel them to turn back without injury. Abilities that could disable their equipment without harming their operators. Techniques to create impenetrable barriers that would force them to withdraw.

But against an army of that size, with Aetherframes providing heavy support, any such solution was temporary. She would expend tremendous energy to delay the inevitable, weakening herself for the direct confrontation with Talmaris that would surely follow.

The only way to prevent the battle from spilling into the valley, the only way to protect her people from this conflict, was to end it with one overwhelming, irrevocable stroke.

And there was only one power available to her that could achieve it.

The army halted at the ridge. Waited.

Then he came.

Talmaris descended from the formation like a piece of night given form. His body appeared carved from dark jade—smooth, hard, angular, with facets that caught the light without revealing anything beneath. No features marred that perfect surface except for a single glowing red line where eyes should be.

Four arms unfolded from his torso, each one ending in delicate, multi-jointed fingers that seemed more suited to inscription than combat. His face held no features except a single vertical seam that split open when he focused, revealing an eye made of whirling, rainbow prisms.

He drifted toward her, feet never quite touching the ground, coming to a stop fifty paces away.

"Ebonheim." His voice resonated on multiple frequencies, harmonizing with itself so that his single utterance manifested as the overlapping cadences of several different languages spoken simultaneously. "Your reputation precedes you. Though I confess, I expected something... more."

She didn't respond. Just watched as he studied her with that alien eye, taking her measure.

"You stand alone." The eye closed, the seam sealing shut. His head tilted, the smooth green jade facets catching the light. "No army. No champions. No visible defenses. Either you're supremely confident or supremely foolish."

"It is a negotiation," Ebonheim said, her voice steady despite the pressure of his divinity pressing against hers. "The terms are simple. Return to your domain and leave the Eldergrove untroubled."

Talmaris emitted a sound that might have been a laugh—a complex series of shifting notes. "You offer nothing in exchange. I have prepared. Invested resources. Mobilized my followers. I don't retreat because a neighbor goddess displays unexpected confidence in unorthodox strategies."

"You retreat because the alternative is annihilation."

A beat of silence. Talmaris's four arms folded across his chest in a gesture that was both elegant and unnerving. "Direct. I appreciate efficiency. But threats require credibility. You are of Intermediate divine rank, same as me. Your domain is young, your power untested against equals. This bravado suggests desperation."

"It suggests I am not bound by your conventions."

"So I see. I am aware of your intervention in Corinth. Breaking artifacts, disrupting established faith-bonds, declaring 'protective oversight' instead of rightful conquest." Two of his hands spread in a gesture of dismissal. "Inefficient. Principled. The domain waits for an actual god to claim it properly."

"Corinth is not your concern."

"It is when it borders my potential acquisition." His eye opened again, prisms whirling. "Let's be practical, Ebonheim. I have no desire for unnecessary conflict with another god, especially one of equivalent rank. If you insist on this principled abstention from divine politics, perhaps we can reach an accommodation."

"Accommodation."

"The Eldergrove Valley is extensive. Rich resources. Strategic position between eastern and western kingdoms." He floated slightly closer. "Your presence there is... unusual. A young goddess without traditional divine expansionist policies, yet presiding over a settlement that grows faster than logic dictates."

He extended two hands, palms up, a gesture of offering. "Divide the valley. The lower third—where your city sits—remains yours. The upper two-thirds, including the territory needed to properly annex Corinth, becomes mine. A buffer zone between us. Both our territories expand. Both benefit."

"The Eldergrove is not land to be partitioned."

"Everything is territory, goddess." His tone sharpened. "But you're naive. You think you can maintain this fragile experiment in benevolent rule while the world operates on principles you reject. Your people are prospering, yes. But prosperity attracts attention. I could have taken this valley years ago. I chose not to out of professional courtesy. Now that courtesy has an expiration date."

"Renegotiate your courtesy."

"It has nothing to do with courtesy now. It has to do with practicality." He raised one multi-jointed finger, tapping it against his featureless chin. "You've established a precedent. You acted against another god. That means every border you share is now contestable. I'm simply the first to test the waters."

"I'm aware of your reputation. Millbrook. Three other settlements. Your 'cooperation treaties' that systematically strip away sovereignty until they're just districts of Calendhaven."

"I bring order. Prosperity. Infrastructure." His arms unfolded. "That is what every god owes their followers. Your method seems to be... what, exactly? Making everyone comfortable while they stumble through choices they don't understand?"

"Freedom isn't comfort. It's not order. It's just what it is."

"An indefensible position." Talmaris rose slightly higher, the red line of his eyes intensifying. "This is your final opportunity, Ebonheim. Withdraw your claim over Corinth, acknowledge my right to expand, and accept the territorial partition. In return, I'll guarantee your current domain's integrity for twenty years. After that... your continued independence depends on how quickly you mature into a proper god."

"The valley is not for sale. The terms are unchanged. Return to Calendhaven."

"Such certainty." His whirling eye seemed to focus more intensely. "Based on what? Some unexpected power you've acquired? A hidden advantage you believe gives you leverage over me?"

"Yes."

"I see." He drifted forward until only twenty paces separated them. "But your bluff must have substance, goddess. The Divine Auction is the only means for us to expand our repertoire and regalia. I've had nearly a century of acquisitions to my name. You have not."

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"That is why I offered you the chance to leave." Her hands remained empty, her posture unchanged. "I am bound by different rules than you are, Talmaris. I do not take pleasure in this."

"I find your condescension insulting." The red line of his eyes widened, taking on the aspect of a crack opening in obsidian. "But I am not unreasonable. Name your terms for a peaceful withdrawal. I am prepared to offer you significant remuneration for your noninterference."

Ebonheim looked past him, toward the ranks of soldiers who now stared at her with a mixture of fear and growing hostility. "Leave Corinth and the valley alone for fifty years. Do not approach the border, send envoys, or allow your followers to enter our territory for any reason."

He made a low, resonant sound of contempt. "In exchange for what? Your divine assurance that you'll stay in your isolated valley? You demand I cease all expansionist activities near your domain. That is not negotiation, it's surrender."

"In exchange for your survival."

Talmaris made a sharp, cutting gesture with one hand. "We are done talking. I gave you the opportunity for a peaceful resolution. I made a reasonable offer of partition, an offer many gods would accept without hesitation." His red eye blazed. "Now you have forced my hand."

"Then take it."

The red line of his eyes intensified. "This domain will be mine. Not through partition, but through total conquest. I will annex your territory, relocate your most devout to serve my expansion, and scatter your remaining followers to the winds as a lesson to other young, foolish gods. Now, bring out your army so we can start this properly."

"I am here alone."

"Do you not understand how this works? Gods prove their worthiness through mortal forces first. Armies clash, strategies unfold, resources are spent. Divine battle comes only after those resources are exhausted." One hand gestured toward his waiting army. "To skip that step is... unprecedented. It suggests either arrogance or an inability to field adequate forces."

"I will not spend lives to satisfy tradition."

"Then whose lives will you spend?" The question held genuine curiosity, as if he couldn't comprehend her position. "Mine? Yours? The system exists for a reason. It provides structure, limits escalation, gives mortals purpose in conflicts they cannot otherwise influence."

"It makes them ammunition."

"It makes them participants." His tone shifted, losing its dismissive quality, becoming almost pedagogical. "They serve a higher purpose by contributing to divine ascendancy. In exchange, they receive protection, order, and the comfort of knowing their struggles matter. Who are you to deny them that?"

Ebonheim's hands clenched. "I'm the goddess standing between them and the town they came to conquer. That's all the authority I need."

Talmaris regarded her for a long moment. Then his body language shifted—a subtle relaxation, as if he'd reached a decision.

"Very well. I'll march through you and fight a weakened opponent after. Your exhaustion will make the divine battle brief." He turned, drifting back toward the ridge where his army waited. "I admire your principles somewhat, Ebonheim. But principles without power are just pretty words carved on tombstones."

His arm rose. The signal would come soon. Three thousand soldiers would advance, and she'd have to choose—retreat or commit.

She'd already chosen. Days ago. Alone in her shrine, hand hovering over the confirmation. The choice made when she decided some lives mattered more than others.

"I gave you a chance to turn back."

Her voice stopped him mid-gesture. Something in her tone made his eye split open again, focusing on her with renewed intensity.

"You should have taken it."

The army began to march.

His name was Petren. Twenty-three years old. Third son of a carpenter from Calendhaven's western district. He'd joined Talmaris's expansion forces six months ago because the pay was good and the promise of land grants sounded better than inheriting nothing.

He marched in the center formation, surrounded by friends who'd trained alongside him. Mika on his left, always joking even now. Sera ahead, her crossbow held ready, shoulders squared. Captain Vollen somewhere behind, voice carrying orders that kept them moving in formation.

The lone goddess watched them approach. She looked more human than a goddess. Small in the field, white dress unmoving in the wind. No army, no defenses, no visible power. Just... standing there.

"Is she really a goddess? Gods don't look like us." Mika kept the comment private, just between them. "She looks like some village girl who got lost."

"Shut up," Petren whispered back, but he felt the same doubt. He'd seen other gods—Talmaris, of course, and during the annual Divine Confluence at Calendhaven, several visiting deities. None had looked so... mortal. Most wore forms designed to inspire awe or fear, not this quiet, approachable vulnerability.

"Think she'll run?" Mika asked, keeping pace.

"Where would she run to?" Petren adjusted his shield, felt the comfortable weight of his sword. "We'll be gentle. Talmaris doesn't waste resources on unnecessary killing."

"Generous of him."

They laughed. Nerves, mostly. First real campaign for both of them.

The goddess raised her hands.

Something changed in the air. Not visibly at first. Just a feeling. The kind of shifting pressure one experiences right before a thunderstorm breaks, when the world holds its breath, waiting.

"What's she—" Mika started.

The goddess spoke. Words in a language that predated language, each syllable resonating with something ancient and terrible. The sound didn't travel through air so much as materialize directly inside their skulls.

"Blumenkranz. Frøomvandling av Livsroten."

Petren tried to run. That was the thought. He commanded his legs to turn, to bolt back toward the ridge. But he was already changing before the command could be transmitted.

First the tingling. Starting in fingertips and toes. A pins-and-needles sensation multiplied tenfold. Mika beside him screamed as light crackled across his skin, tracing intricate patterns across the surface of his armor.

"Mika?" Petren tried to reach for his friend, but his fingers were stiffening. Unfurling. He looked down and saw wood emerging from beneath the skin. Not growing on his skin—his skin becoming wood. Grain spreading like cracks in drying mud.

"No." The word came out strangled.

From behind him, Sera shouted something—panic or prayer, impossible to tell. When he tried to look over his shoulder, Petren found his neck was already too stiff. His spine was elongating, the vertebrae grinding together as they realigned into something new.

The goddess stood watching, her face still expressionless. Still mortal-seeming. As if this transformation required no effort, no emotional expenditure, no consequence beyond what her victims experienced.

Armor creaked. Metal strained against flesh that was no longer flesh. Sera's crossbow slipped from rigid fingers, clattering to the ground as her hands fused into bark, fingers stretching into branches.

Mika's scream cut off abruptly. Petren managed one last glance sideways. His friend's head was tilted back, mouth stretched wide. Not a scream now, but something else emerging from that opening. Leaves, bright green, unfurling from a throat that had become a hollow core. Leaves, beautiful and terrible, rustling in a wind that suddenly seemed much colder.

Petren's legs rooted. Literally. Boots tore apart as something new emerged, driving deep into the soil. Roots, twisting through rock and earth, anchoring him where he stood. He felt the distant rumble of the Aetherframes, their operators still advancing, still unaware.

He tried to lift his sword one last time. His fingers were wood now. Twigs. He looked at Captain Vollen—no. Not the captain. A towering oak where the captain had stood moments before. Captain's armor still clinging to its bark in misshapen plates.

Memory flashed. Home. Carpentry. The smell of wood shavings. He'd built a cradle once for his sister's child. That was his life. His name. That had meaning.

What was his name?

Something sprouted from his shoulders. Branches. Reaching. The sky stretched above him, achingly blue. So beautiful. Had he ever noticed how blue the sky was? Something about feeling the sun. Not with skin, but with bark.

With bark.

The sky.

Sun.

Petr—

The transformation rippled outward from the goddess in perfect geometry, sphere of effect encompassing half a league with her at its center.

Soldiers who'd been shouting orders became silent oaks. Warriors' mid-charge stopped, roots sinking deep. The Aetherframe pilots, protected by crystalline shells, felt divine power seep through joints and seals to reach the flesh inside. Their bodies changed while their machines stood frozen, empty metal husks collapsing as the operators transformed within, their burgeoning forms breaking through consoles and controls.

The five war machines, suddenly inert, slumped into positions of abandoned rest. Their cannons went cold. Their lights dimmed.

Three thousand heartbeats. Then silence.

Where Talmaris's army had stood, a forest grew. Young trees, most of them, barely sprouted. But already their roots intertwined, their leaves reached for the light. No battle had been fought. No strategy had failed. Just conversion. Indiscriminate, complete.

Autumn wind rustled through their leaves, carrying whispers that might have been the echo of final screams or just the ordinary sound of branches in the breeze.

Across the newly formed forest, a silence deeper than any silence Ebonheim had ever known.

She remained standing on her patch of untouched grass, looking at what she had done, her divine essence dim but steady, silver light bleeding from wounds that hadn't existed moments before. The power had cost her—not physically, but in ways that registered deeper than flesh. Each transformation had echoed through her awareness, each life extinguished leaving a mark she'd carry forward.

She'd known this would happen. Prepared for it. Accepted it as necessary.

Knowing hadn't prepared her for the weight.

Talmaris stood frozen at the ridge, a statue of dark jade whose red eye had gone utterly dark. The line of light had vanished from between facets. For nearly a minute, he simply observed, processing something beyond his comprehension.

Then, with impossible slowness, he turned.

Not away. Toward her.

He began walking down the ridge, one deliberate step at a time, each footfall sounding unnaturally loud against the suddenly quiet earth. He didn't drift this time. He walked like a mortal, as if rediscovering natural law as a way to anchor himself against the shock.

"That power..." His voice had lost its multi-frequency harmony, reduced to something almost human in its confusion. "...that power is not in the Divine Auction's catalog. It is not a power that can be acquired through Quintessence. Even the few Greater Gods who attend the Sanctum do not possess such... totality."

Ebonheim turned to face him. Her expression held no triumph, no satisfaction, just the hollow certainty of someone who'd crossed a line and couldn't return.

"I told you to turn back."

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