Sera came toward Sephir with a grace that matched everything else about her, and took both of Sephir's hands in her own.
"Welcome," she said, and her voice carried the softness of a light breeze. "I am Sera, goddess of the wind. Now that you stand here, there is a choice in front of you. You may stay in the heavenly realm as you are. Or you may take my place as the goddess of the wind. If you choose the second path, two trials await you. The first is the Trial of Death. The second is another choice." She paused. "And to rise to godhood, you must give up your memories of the mortal realm. You must decide before the Trial of Death begins, though the cleansing itself comes only when the trial is done."
Sephir's hands went cold in hers.
"Hear me carefully, though," Sera went on, "because it is not everything. You will keep what you learned of the mortal realm. Its shape and its seasons, how a harvest fails, how a kingdom rises and falls, what it costs a person to be poor there. And you will keep your duty to the land you came from. A goddess who forgets the world below is no goddess at all. Descarith will remain yours to watch over, and you will feel that watch as a weight for as long as you hold this office."
"Then what is taken?" Sephir asked quietly.
"Something smaller, and far crueller." Sera's grip tightened a little. "The names of the people you loved. Their faces. The particular sound of your father's voice, the weight of a hand you used to hold, whose laugh belonged to whom. You will know that Descarith is yours to guard. You will not remember a single soul in it as your own."
Sephir could not answer at first. She was still stumbling over the earlier part of it, still trying to understand how a mortal woman could possibly become a goddess. Did she deserve anything of the kind?
Sera saw the doubt and moved to meet it. "Do not let it turn you away, my dear," she said. "You have already survived the hardest trial there is. You lived a mortal life, and that is a trial of its own. The Trial of Death will only test whether you can stand as a goddess. As for the cleansing, understand its purpose. It is not a punishment. It exists so that no god can reach down and rearrange the fate of someone she happens to love. Take away the claim, and you can still protect a kingdom. You simply cannot play favourites inside it." She stepped back. "You have one day to decide. You may stay in the palace until then."
Sephir remembered herself and bowed. "I will not keep you waiting, my goddess. I have already left the mortal realm behind. Perhaps leaving those memories behind is the next step, though it hurts more than I can say." She hesitated. "As for taking your place, I don't know that I am worthy of it. I have only ever known how to be mortal. I would not dare compare myself to a deity."
Sera smiled. "You have my blessing. And I will teach you to command the power of the wind myself, so that you can wield it during the Trial. Perhaps that will settle some of your doubts."
Sephir straightened. "Goddess, if you judge me fit for this, then I will face the Trial."
Sera turned to Sraptor. "You will accompany Sephir through the Trial. Go now and make the arrangements. There are matters I must discuss with her before it begins."
Sraptor bowed and left the chamber. As the doors closed behind him, a gentle breeze moved through the room.
The Trial of Death was a tournament, and the gods themselves were its patrons. Each of them put forward a chosen champion, and each champion was assigned a guide, whose task was to steer them through the stages of the trial and supply what knowledge they could. Guides were permitted to fight, but under strict limits. Inside the Trial Domain their powers were cut in half, they could carry only a single weapon from their arsenal, and they were forbidden, absolutely, from answering any of the trial's riddles. The champions had to find their own way through those.
Before the tournament, each god armed their champion with one weapon and spent a month teaching them to use it. Champions also had to choose a weapon for their guide. Only one victor would emerge, and that victor took the place of the god or goddess whose office was at stake. Champions who survived without winning were free to enter future tournaments, though there was nothing more to gain from them beyond the experience of the first. Returning challengers skipped straight to the second phase, to keep things fair.
When Sraptor came back to escort Sephir to her chambers, he stopped in the doorway, thrown by what he found. Sephir came out of the inner chamber with tears running down her face and a grief in her eyes he could not account for. Even the goddess looked touched by some private sorrow. He had expected a plain recitation of the rules and nothing else. What had passed between the two of them in there, to leave them both like this?
He put the question aside, led Sephir to her rooms, and left her alone with it, his own heart heavier than when he had arrived.
Sephir sat in her chambers, and everything came at once. The weight of the choice. The trial waiting at the end of the day. Whatever it was the inner chamber still held. Outside, the wind moved along the walls like it was whispering, and the palace seemed to hold its breath.
She had no idea yet how little of her journey was behind her, or that the trials ahead would test more than her power. They would test what she was made of. With the goddess's blessing on her and Sraptor at her side, Sephir set her shoulders and made ready for what was coming, determined to earn the fate that had come looking for her.