The sound of laughter echoed throughout the open, airy room. The air inside glowed, brightly lit by the midday sun. Only the three looming, shadowy portals blossoming in the corners marred the perfection of the scene around the single, low table set in the middle of the Sanctuary.

They sat at its sides, the four of them. A broad-chested, tanned man, his sandy hair pulled back into a ponytail and a silk jacket thrown carelessly about his shoulders. Close at his side was a flame-haired woman, her eyes dancing with golden sparks and a scowl on her lips.

The two across the table stared right back - both were men, but while one nearabouts glowed from under his white-and-charcoal robes, his hair a bright, colorless silver, the other lounged in the shadows and smirked at his fellows from under a perfectly tousled brown mess.

If someone had walked in, somehow mistaking the room for another, they might at first glance have thought the four ordinary enough. The gods preferred their privacy, after all.

“Really, my dear, you don’t have to make up excuses to get us to come visit,” the mahogany-haired man said, his words sliding across the salt-scented air. “If you wanted to see me, all you had to do was ask.” His smile spread from ear to ear as he leered at the diminutive figure across from him.

The woman - little more than a girl, really - tossed her mane of red waves roughly to the side and offered the speaker a rude gesture in response. The tanned man sitting cross-legged next to her roared with laughter at the affronted expression on his counterpart’s face. His bottle had tipped over in his lap, spilling across his legs and dripping to the reed mats below. He didn’t seem to have noticed.

She glared, her chin lifted stubbornly. “Excuses! What is this? I summon you here to celebrate, and this is the meager thanks you offer me?”

The woman’s snapped words might have been sharp, but there was no malice in the way her arms folded across her chest, or the warm glow in her eyes. Her cheeks were red and flushed, which had something to do with the tight-clasped leather flask on the table in front of her.

“Careful, Solune,” the pale man said, smiling broadly. His silver hair fluttered ever so slightly as he shook his head in mock disapproval. The wine glass in his hand was still raised for a sip, carved crystal glinting impossibly, but his attention was on his tanned companion. “This might not be our cousin’s home, but I daresay she’ll exact her vengeance for disrespect just the same.”

“Godsdamned straight. Listen to Rellan. Stop trying to stir up trouble,” the girl said. She grinned viciously across the table at the dark-haired man, holding the expression until he finally gave in, chuckling into his mug.

“Fine! Far be it for me to fuss, I suppose,” Solune said, watching his companions with a careful, steady gaze and a crooked grin. One eyebrow slowly arched, though, as he glanced around the room.

Smooth wooden floors, fishing nets strung from elegant screens, bits of driftglass glittering from the ceiling on cords, and the doorway leading out to a pier, with the everpresent ocean looming beyond…

”If I might ask, though, while we’re on the subject…Why are we in Efren’s temple, if Shiina called this meeting?” he began, delicately raising a single finger. This was not the place he had expected to be whiling away the day.

“Did you really want to go drink in Shiina’s cave?” the broad-chested man asked dryly, staring at the two sitting on the far side of the table. Solune winced, the upraised finger withdrawing ever so slightly.

Shiina spun on her companion in a flash, teeth bared. “What is that supposed to mean? Is there something wrong with my Sanctuary?”

“Not everyone likes lava as much as you, dear sister. And you have no chairs,” Efren said, stage-whispering across the table.

The muscles in her jaw flexed as she glared at him, matched by the ominous way her fist slowly clenched and relaxed.

He patted her shoulder carefully, unable to keep from chuckling. Solune was openly following suit, a low, rumbling sound drifting over from his side of the table. And even though Rellan had tried to mask his smile with an upraised hand, feigning a cough, Efren could hear the normally polite man struggling not to laugh.

He smiled, watching his Divine sister begin hurling blow after blow at their cousins.

Of course, their comfort wasn’t the only reason the tanned god had insisted on hosting the other three in his Sanctuary.

The entire temple was a flurry of movement, with the water god’s seers racing this way and that. Not that any of them had to actually do anything, Natalin thought sourly. They wouldn’t even get to as peek in, and neither would she. The visiting gods would go about their business and be on their way without so much as a hello to anyone else. They were only a few feet away, hidden behind the Sanctuary’s massive, elegantly carved door, but it might as well have been miles for how close it got her.

Fine. So be it. She gave the door one last baleful glare for good measure, and then trotted back towards her room before anyone could spot her. It wouldn’t do for her to get caught. Not today. The very last thing she needed was Gerd to wander past and see her - she’d spend the rest of the day trapped under a pile of books if the aging diviner had his way.

That wouldn’t do. She had bigger plans.

The door to her room slid shut behind her with barely a sound, ancient and well-oiled. The instant it had closed Natalin was off, stripping away the ridiculous half-sized robes they insisted on dressing her in and leaving them a puddle of blue silk on her floor. The clothes she tore out from the very back of her wardrobe were plain cloth by comparison, rough-woven in browns and greens without any of the temple’s familiar insignia stitched along the collar or hem. But that was the point.

She’d been collecting the clothes for weeks, pilfered from the laundry on chore days, keeping such a chance as today had turned out to be in mind. Their owners would probably never even notice that they’d lost anything, and the stolen garments fit well enough to pass muster. No one out in the antechamber would take any notice of a common-dressed child leaving the temple grounds along with the daily masses.

Probably.

The girl’s mind raced as she pulled the fabric over her head, hands suddenly clumsy with too much adrenaline and excitement, but she schooled her thoughts back to a careful, placid smoothness. She didn’t think that Efren would be listening in on her thoughts - not if he was as far along in his cups as she suspected - but him picking up on her plans would put an end to her big day as quickly as boring old Gerd.

The whole temple was in an uproar. Four gods, in their Sanctuary? The confusion and clamor might have been needless, but she certainly wasn’t going to let such an opportunity pass by without making the most of it.

The door slid open as silently as it had closed a mere minute before. Slowly, carefully, Natalin slipped out into the hall. Her eyes flicked from side to side, one last check for anyone walking the temple, but she was already committed. Down the hallway she went, her heart in her throat and her steps nearly inaudible against the smooth wooden floors.

Even dressed in common garb, there was no way that she could manage to pull off sneaking through the grand floor of the main temple. There were too many seers there, all of whom would recognize her face even with a scarf pinned over her hair to hide the blue streaks and her impossibly sea-green eyes downcast. The temple was designed to corral guests, not give them nooks and crannies to hide in, and that made her options limited.

But there were ways. Natalin stared at the one she’d been eyeing for weeks, trying to calm her breathing. The service exit. It was perfect for all of her needs - unwatched, inconspicuous, and it would deposit her right onto the shoreline, where visitors liked to mingle and set lanterns out to sea.

It was also locked.

You’ve practiced this. It’s just like you’ve done over and over again. Telling herself that didn’t make her feel any better, but there was nothing for it. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, trying not to think how much trouble she was going to be in if a seer came along and caught her.

She could feel it, lurking just under the surface of her skin. The mana waited, always present, always at the ready. Years ago when she had first dipped into her reserves and brought a swift-passing summer rainstorm down over the temple, the well of it had felt like a mere puddle, shallow enough for her to see the bottom. But that was years behind her. She was twelve already, almost fully realized as an Ascended, and things were different.

The well stretched out under her fingertips, seemingly bottomless. Just a finger - that was all. Gerd had lectured her over and over again about the importance of subtlety. Control. Natalin dipped a single finger into it, threading the mana out delicately and carefully. Her eyes slid open a fraction, in time to watch the glimmer of water droplets take form over her waiting palm. The smell of rain flooded the hallway at her casting, but that would fade soon enough once she was gone. She resisted the urge to smile. She hadn't won yet.

Instead, the girl pressed the water into the door, filling the keyhole until it dribbled out onto the floor. A bead of sweat ran down her temple as she molded it, feeling each pin click one after the other. When the last one settled into place, she froze the water with a flick of her fingers. And then she did smile.

Pulling the door open before Gerd could come around the corner, shrieking with horror at her forbidden departure, Natalin whisked the ice key from its perfectly fit home and ran out into the sunlight.