Gigantic, savage fish, Vyne had said. Hark had never worshipped the gods, or so he had thought. He couldn’t explain why all of this made him feel ill and angry, as if something were being taken from him. He had always lived in a godless world, and yet . . . everyone he knew had grown up with a lurking pride in their island’s “patron” god. Their remembered might was yours, somehow. Even their horrific nature had a majesty that you could borrow. You got into drunken arguments with folks from other islands about whose god could have beaten the other in a straight fight.
