The sky had turned from midnight blue to pink when she jolted, sputtering, into consciousness. There was no rocking of the sea beneath her, merely fine golden sand. Her head throbbed and her eyes stung, but nothing hurt as much as the circular wounds at her throat and crown, burning with saltwater and running tiny rivers of crimson down her neck. She glanced, panicked, at her surroundings - and within moments realized she was not still at home. The jungle did not rush onto the beach to meet her. There was no hum of insects, no symphony of bird calls.

There was no feverish group of Council members. No witnesses. Not even Nekane.

Nekane. Her heart lurched in her chest. The last thing she had seen was Nekane, dragged into the sea alongside her. Swarmed by the Council. Her blood staining the water a dark, thick red.

A sob rose in her throat, but she swallowed it quickly, looking around as if guilty of something worth punishing. To mourn the damned was a sin. Before, Spirit would have known - It was all-encompassing, thriving in the depths of the jungle.

Here, in the After, she wasn’t so sure.

She stood, her whole body sore. Before her lay a sea of another kind, golden waves sweeping out as endlessly as the dark blue counterpart from whence she came. A breeze swept in behind her, but the air in front lay still and thick and already warm despite having been touched by only the first dusky vermilion rays of sun. A sense of unease crept upon her. Was this the Heaven she had been promised?

The black mare abruptly pivoted to face the ocean. In the distance, she could see the tall spectres of nearby land masses. She had been told there would be islands, separated by broad expanses of water but still within reach. She had been told that they were different, and that if her purity and devotion were true she would awaken in the bosom of the Spirit.

But here… she broke into a trot, pausing at the top of the first dune. Not a speck of green in sight. She lifted her dark muzzle and flared her nostrils. Spirit’s scent was there, far and faint. For the first time in her life she did not feel Its holy presence.

Had she been abandoned?

No. She shook her head, red droplets from her crown hitting the hot sand. God would not abandon her like this. God had made her of Its own image, dark and quiet as the shadows in the underbrush. She had been made, the Council said, to save them. She was Elaheh, a goddess among mortals. Spirit would not bring her one step closer in order to shun her away in a Godless prison.

The Council had told her many things. They had not always been correct.

She could only pray they had been right about this.