JD Valentino's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

JD Valentino would win the god's favor, but first he had to find the god. Only one mortal each generation earned the blessing. The god was said to be the most beautiful man alive, and JD meant to stand before him. There was one problem. No one knew where the god appeared, or when. JD's brother Marco would know how to charm the answer out of someone. But Marco was not here, and one of their matching gold bracelets had been taken. JD wore the one that was left. He rubbed it and told himself he could do this alone. He found the scholar in a tent full of scrolls and pressed maps. Aldric Thornwick did not look up. He was tall, with grey in his hair and a dark green tunic stitched with gold. He held a torn fragment to the lamplight and read it like the rest of the world had stopped. "I need to find the blessed god," JD said. "Where he shows himself. When." Aldric set the fragment down. "Many men want that. Most bring nothing worth my time." JD felt the old sting. Marco would have made the man laugh by now. JD had only the truth. He slid the gold bracelet off his wrist and placed it on the table. "My brother wears the match to this. It was made the same day as his. It's the only thing I have that means anything." Aldric looked at the bracelet, then at JD. Something in his face shifted. "You'd trade that." "For the answer, yes." Aldric did not take it. He pushed it back across the table. "Keep it. A man who leads with his one true thing is easier to trust." He pulled a rolled map from a stack and spread it flat. His finger stopped on a mark near a stretch of coast. "The god shows himself at the turn of each season. One night only. The next turn is three days out." JD's chest tightened. Three days. "You're certain." "I'm certain of the where and the when." Aldric's voice went flat. "I am not certain you'll like the rest. The god does not choose the man who arrives. He chooses the man who arrives with an offering he judges worthy. Come empty-handed and he will not look at you twice." JD picked up the bracelet and closed his fist around it. Three days to reach the coast. Three days to find something worthy of a god who was worshipped for his beauty. He had a place now. He had a night. What he did not have was the offering, and he had no idea what a god like that would even want. "Then I need one more thing from you," JD said. "What does he take?" Aldric rolled the map and held it out. "I’ll have to research that further. Come back at daybreak."