“Back before the God Wars,” she said, “priests entered the pool during initiation—they met gods there, learned secrets, changed. Inside, spirit and matter flow more easily from shape to shape. Now the gods are gone, but we still go down. The first time priests dive, we change—we fix the broken bodies we inhabit. These days most changes are small: one priest I know corrected her eyesight; another cleaned up a port wine stain on her cheek. In the past more priests went further, like I did. That’s where the tradition came from, after all. These days full initiates aren’t as common, but there are
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