IN THE BLOOD

There were half a dozen gods alive after Sei’s death. The Wanderer fell first and, after, stories rose and fell of men and women who should have died but did not, the most infamous of these being the Siege of the Dead. The truth was much worse than the fictions created, but the stories revealed another trial for the survivors of the gods’ war, in trying to retain truth. Records were tampered with, eyewitness accounts influenced, the institutions of power engaged in a war to remain relevant—a war that they would soon lose to my brothers and sisters, in more ways than one.

—Qian, The Godless