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."

JD had a night and a place, but no offering and no partner. He left Aldric's tent with the sun still down. Two days of travel ahead, and a god who wanted something he couldn't name. He rubbed the gold bracelet on his wrist and stopped walking. He was not going to do this alone. He turned toward the road that led to his brother. Marco stood outside a low tavern, boot propped on a barrel, watching the street like he owned it. He and JD had worked together since they were kids. They had never made a big move apart. Marco looked up and grinned. "You have that look. The one you get before you ask me for something." "I need you," JD said. "There's a god at the coast in three days. He blesses one man each generation. I mean to be that man." Marco's grin held, but his eyes went still. "A god." He rolled the word around. "Grandmother spent every Sunday cursing one of those." He pushed off the barrel. "She never said which. Never said what he took from us." He looked at JD. "Maybe I find out at the same coast." "Then come." "I was already coming." Marco clasped JD's forearm. Their bracelets touched. "We don't split up. Not for this." JD felt the weight lift off his chest. With Marco beside him, the room always tilted their way. But they still had nothing to bring. "The scholar's finding out what the god accepts. He said return at daybreak." They went back together as the sky turned grey. Aldric was awake, bent over an open book, a torn fragment pinned flat beside it. He did not greet them. He read to the end of a line, then looked up. "You brought your brother," Aldric said. He studied Marco a moment. "Good. You'll need him." He turned the book so the brothers could see. The page showed a figure and below it a single word in old script. "I found what he takes," Aldric said. "Not gold. Not beasts. He is worshipped for his beauty, so nothing crafted impresses him." He tapped the page. "He accepts one thing. A living offering more beautiful than the last man who tried and failed. Bring a lesser face and he sends you off. Bring nothing living at all and he does not look at you." JD stared at the word. "A person." "A person who wants to be given," Aldric said. "Willing, or the god knows and refuses." He closed the book. "That's the whole of it. The rest is up to you." Marco was quiet. Then he laughed, low. "So we don't buy our way in. We charm our way in." He looked at JD, and the old certainty passed between them. JD's plan was ruined and remade in one breath. He had come for an object to trade. Now he needed a living soul, willing, beautiful enough to move a god. And he had two days to find one.