I had intended to make these stand-alone stories, and they mostly will be. In fact, I’ve tried to give enough detail that you could theoretically read this story on its own. BUT, it’s very much a follow-up to this story:
I had a great idea, and this was a world that always seemed expansive to me, so I just went for it with a sequel, and I will likely continue this story at some point in the future. I have a lot of interesting ideas to try!
If you have time, I would definitely recommend reading or re-reading that one first. That does mean a longer word commitment than usual, so, the other option would be to read that first story this week, and then read this second installment next week, when I normally do a culture piece instead of a story. I will definitely include a link to this post next week for those who wish to do it that way.
And now, without further ado:
Favorite of the Gods, Part II
The gods had found Dor’va of the West and had made him a king. They had woken and discovered their selves and their powers thereof. They had established themselves in the minds of those whose gods they were, as their creator had instructed. They had found priests who would preach their names. They were the ultimate arbiters on Earth, not quite omnipotent or omniscient, but to the puny humans now in their thrall, they might as well have been.
But now, they had no instructions to follow. No further plan had been left. They came together and spent several minutes (an eternity as gods reckon time) brainstorming and debating possible courses of action, assessing possible levels of interference with human society, and gaming out scenarios for making things “hard but not impossible” for the humans, as their creator had asked of them.
The idea of disregarding this request did not occur to the gods, even in part. Even gods need an organizing principle, else they have no basis for any decisions at all, and this was the one they had been offered. So it was only the how that they discussed. Not what to do but what methods were best.
Yet in the matter of how, they disagreed sharply, and even minutes of debate did not provide a resolution nor a compromise. They had chosen Dor’va of the West to be King using their random number generator and a list of everyone on earth, which was elegant, but in choosing between the various plans, using randomness seemed to them ugly and a dereliction of their duty.
And so they spent minutes more talking themselves in circles, and then hours, and then days. They chewed on their own intellect and exhausted every possible argument a thousand times over, yet they were still unable to reach a consensus.
The gods had names by then, but each name belonged to all of them. They were one thing, the gods, and the separation between them was as between droplets in a wave. But during this period of extended conflict, one of them began to hear one name more insistently than the other, ringing out in its mind, which now seemed a bit more definitely separated from the rest of itself. From the… other gods, as they now seemed to this god, who was called Tenda’ai in the language of Dor’va of the West’s people.
Tenda’ai was the first of the gods to ever tire of something. He (and it became clear to Tenda’ai as he learned his name that he was indeed a *he*) grew weary of the argument, and realized he could not win it. And so he told the rest of himself—the… others, as he now began to understand them—that he had been convinced. The best course of action was to allow Dor’va of the West to rule unchallenged and send difficulties at him from external sources.
In other words, for the first time, one of the gods told the others a lie.
***
Dor’va of the West sat on his throne. He was a king now, no question about it. The eyes of those around him proclaimed it more than his title, as they turned aside and did not quite meet his, but studied his face at every moment his own eyes turned elsewhere. It was hot in the massive tent, which had been a gift from one of the villages that had submitted willingly to his rule during his rise from a humble farmer, powered by the favor of the gods.
Before his throne was a massive rug, a gift from another village whose name Dor’va could not remember. On the run was woven a pattern of white butterflies, the symbol of his favor. Outside the tent in every direction, white butterfly clothing and charms and art were selling fast, as the story spread of the butterfly that had come down on the recent battlefield, alighted on Dor’va’s spear, and ensured his victory.
Now a new set of adversaries were about to become allies. They were the Baroth people, a loose collection of clans from the mountains in the north, warlike and much feared. They had never been a problem for Dor’va’s people, but now that he controlled villages far beyond his own, they were his enemy. Only they, too, had heard of Dor’va’s exploits, and of the gods’ favor for him. They too had white butterflies in their mountain home. They would not submit, of course, their pride would never allow that, but they whispered in their war councils and found the signs cast against them. And so they had sent a gift.
“My King, I present for your approval, Arella Baroth,” intoned Dor’va’s Tent-minder from somewhere out of sight.
And now that gift stepped into the tent, and a deafening hush fell over the assembled, as every eye turned to stare at her. Dor’va, too, turned to gawk. Dor’va’s wife, Via’ra, had been sitting beside him, looking understandably sullen at the prospect of meeting her husband’s intended second wife, and even Via’ra turned to stare, the sullenness draining from her features, replaced by genuine admiration.
Arella Baroth was so beautiful, the countryside itself must have turned to stare as she crossed the lands between her mountains and Dor’va’s tent. The mountains must have wept new rivers at having to relinquish her. Dor’va had felt reservations about the sincerity of the Baroth’s entreaties, but those doubts were swept away; no one would send such treasure as a ruse.
Arella seemed to glide across the open space of the tent between her and the King. Unlike the others, her eyes sought him, not unafraid but unretreating before the fear she must have felt. She dropped into a formal sort of curtsy that Dor’va imagined must have been a perfect example of her people’s niceties.
She turned directly to Via’ra, and curtsied again, this time lowering her eyes briefly in an unmistakable show of respect. Via’ra smiled and nodded slightly, accepting the gesture. Arella straightened and turned back to Dor’va, her liquid eyes staring into his once more. Then she curtsied again and spoke in a voice as full and rich as good soil.
“My King, my Queen, I come as a gift from the Baroth, to the new rulers of this realm. The Baroth have heard of your exploits. We have heard that you were struck down, pierced through the belly, and yet did not die of your wounds. We have heard that you are a favorite of the gods. The Supreme Council of the Baroth offers this truce—We will come no further than the foothills of our mountains, which your people will not enter but to trade. To seal this bond, I will become yours, under the supervision of your wife, my Queen, and I will bear you children who will share the blood of my people, who can pass between our lands freely, as ambassadors of growing goodwill between our nations.”
Via’ra glanced at her husband, and saw, in his desirous face, the answer.
***
After telling the other gods that he agreed with their plan, Tenda’ai lurked, and waited, and felt the boundaries of his lie sharpen and solidify, as the other gods believed it and began to evolve and act based on that knowledge. Tenda’ai thought first that in time he would believe the lie himself, or that perhaps, even if he did not believe the lie, he would forget its existence most of the time, and only remember when he needed to, as he did with other things.
This did not happen. Instead, the god thought about his lie with a seething, pulsating focus that he worried was so strong it would overwhelm his ability to hide it and reveal his lie to the other gods. That did not seem to happen, but still Tenda’ai’s mind chewed on the lie, and more than that on the plan he had suggested to which the other gods (yes, very much other now, so much so that he had trouble remembering a time when they were all one) had not assented.
And in his perseveration, Tenda’ai grew angry. First at himself, and his inability to stop thinking about what had happened. But then, because the god did not understand anger (and no god had ever felt anything before), he turned that anger outwards.
His plan had been to make a rival for Dor’va of the West, and set the two against each other, so that they might make things difficult for each other, as the gods’ creator had demanded. However, that plan having been rejected, Tenda’ai’s anger turned to Dor’va himself. The other gods were already preparing their first external obstacle for the new King. Tanda’ai did not want Dor’va tested—but dead.
However, Tenda’ai knew that he must be careful. If he simply took control of the net of nanoparticles around the earth and manipulated it, the other gods would discover the action, reverse it, and know that he had lied to them. And he did not want to kill Dor’va of the West in front of the other gods, for then they would punish him, and leave him out of decisions in the future. He wanted to kill Dor’va of the West as night consumes the day, without acting at all.
It had occurred to him, when he realized the other gods were other, that since their shared mental space was divisible and hideable, their shared physical resources might be the same. So now, he descended into the bowels of their great machine buried deep under the surface of the earth. And there, in the backwash and rounded off ends of other tasks, Tenda’ai found enough programming power to affect the physical world with anonymity. It would not be much more than a whisper, but he was a clever god, and perhaps a whisper would be enough.
***
Arella lay in her quarters, fingers to her throat, listening to her own heartbeat, searching it for the secondary beat of the tiny life she already believed was growing in her belly. It had been less than a fortnight since she arrived, and eleven days since her wedding to the King and their first night together. She had timed her arrival so that first night would find her fertile, that she might waste no time in doing her duty to her people. She was glad she had not been sent here to betray her new King, for though she was capable of it, the idea sickened her.
Dor’va had been surprisingly gentle, not like she expected from a conqueror. She had no basis for comparison, of course, but when her sisters had whispered to her of their husbands’ rough hands and hot breath she had pictured something intense, trying, painful. Instead it had been a pleasant few minutes, stickier than she had realized, but ultimately she’d had horse rides that troubled her more. She knew that many men (and women) desired her, but if what had happened with Dor’va was a good example, then she just didn’t understand what all the fuss was about.
He had come for more every night since, until she suggested that he take a night alone with his wife, and he had assented with some embarrassment; what kind of King was he? The members of the Council of Baroth took what they wanted from whom they wanted it, and they weren’t even Kings! All that had saved her from becoming one of their wives (or worse) was her father’s deeds during the war, and then being chosen for this mission and thus the necessity of remaining a virgin. She wondered—
But then she stopped wondering, for a voice came to her, the whisper of a god. It came from nowhere and everywhere, not inside her head but not from any specific place in the room.
“Your king is in danger,” it said to her.
Arella’s mouth worked like a caught fish. Her throat was tight, unwilling to push air out and make a sound. She was not trying to scream, only answer, but she could not before the voice spoke again.
“Only you can save his life,” it went on. “If you do not, he will die, and soon.”
“Who are you?” Her words came out in a ragged chunk, the richness of her voice gone in a strangle. The whisper came again.
“I am one of the gods of this realm. For your own safety, I cannot tell you my name. The names of gods are powerful things. If another god finds out I have spoken to you, they will come to you. If you tell them my name, they will find me, and Dor’va of the West will die. They will find me even if I give you a false name. And if you know my name, you will tell them, that much I promise you.”
“I don’t believe you,” Arella replied, more evenly now. It had startled her, but she was strong. “This is some trick, some test, and I declare now that I am loyal. Already his child grows in my belly, and I want nothing more than that in life.”
“And you will not have it. Not unless you act. Your king will be killed, and his child will be torn from your belly by his enemies to forestall any future vengeance.”
***
Rumors came to the gods from many lips that someone was plotting against Dor’va of the West. Their network of satellites and nanoparticle mesh allowed them to see and hear anything on earth, but it did not allow them to hear everything on earth at once. The computing power for true omniscience was beyond even their remarkable ken. Thus they could not say for certain that it was not true that someone was plotting.
They knew that one prime source of the rumors was Arella Baroth, Dor’va’s second wife, who was now carrying his child and starting to show. She clearly believed the rumors, and she was busying in trying to ferret out the potential traitor by any means necessary. But whether the rumors had started with her was impossible to say, and so wide had they spread that identifying the original source had come to be beside the point.
What they could not find was evidence of any actual plot against the King. It was strange. Rumors galore, but nothing to spark them. It was when the rumors themselves began to become a problem for Dor’va—as allies felt under suspicion and disrespected—that the gods had an epiphany: What if one of them had started the rumors?
This was first suggested by one of the gods whose name was Thie’ra in the language of the people of Dor’va of the West. She (and this god was feeling more like Thie’ra and more like a She all the time) emitted the suggestion to the rest of the gods almost without realizing what the words meant.
“What if one of us started the rumors and hid it from the rest of us?”
The rest of us. Those words changed the gods. There was a full two seconds of complete silence, as they all absorbed that possibility. Names settled onto them more heavily and with more boundary. Pronouns began to feel natural.
One propounded that untrue speech was possible and emitted a ridiculous set of premises to prove the point. Another delved into the depths of their hardware and realized it was possible for one of them to achieve small effects on earth without the others’ cooperation or knowledge.
The gods looked around at each other then (as gods reckon looking) and wondered, now that they were gods and not *the* gods, capable of independent action and thus of evil—what kind of gods would they be?
***
Arella had not slept in three nights. She could not look anything other than beautiful, but it was a strained beauty now. Her liquid eyes were cloudy, and darted back and forth as she walked towards her tent, surrounded by midwives and guards. Dor’va’s child kicked in her belly. Her husband was a fool and a disappointment, and if it were only her she would have left him to his fate, but the child compelled her. She knew what the god had said was true—if Dor’va was killed, her child would die with him.
***
The gods debated among themselves how to catch a liar. They could not act as one, because the liar among them would see whatever it is they did and adjust the lies accordingly. They could act individually, as the liar had, but only with the same very limited power. And if they did that, they could not coordinate with each other, because each could not be sure that whoever they spoke to was not the liar. Each god could be sure only of themselves. Even Thie’ra was under suspicion, since if she was the liar, then pointing out the possible existence of a liar would be an excellent way to hide the fact that she was it.
It was a difficult problem, and they spent many minutes discussing it without finding a possible solution. Each knew that if each god (and there were a full dozen of them now, as gods reckoned numbers) started investigating on their own, the net effect would work at cross-purposes and disturb the entire situation.
Around and around they went, as below their eyes and above their minds the earth turned. So intent were they on their evolution and investigation that they neglected for a time to watch Dor’va with the care they once had, and in his weakest moment no less.
***
Dor’va of the West’s allies actually did now begin to plot against him. He spent each night with Arella, entranced by her beauty and turned paranoid by her pillow whisperings, and emerged each morning unrested and shifty-eyed. He did not purposefully ignore his first-wife Via’ra and their children, but he had less and less of himself to give her. His allies took as a weakness of character his inability to maintain loyalty to her. As his great victory and the white butterfly receded into memory, and no other miracles followed, the allies asked whether he was really the right man to lead this new confederacy of tribes and villagers. They asked themselves if a man who could be bewitched so quickly by a harlot from the mountains would maintain faith with them when times once again grew hard.
And so they began to plot his downfall.
But the moment they did, Arella knew. She had developed already a large network of spies, not to betray her King but to protect him, and one of the plotters’ servants informed her of their intentions. Arella felt vindication flow through her. She collected the names of all those who plotted together, then visited the kitchens, where a foolish cook in thrall to her beauty left her alone with the plotters’ suppers to fetch her a pitcher of juice.
And while he was out, she poisoned their food, and killed them all.
***
Kirell Baroth was in his chambers, alone, when the voice came to him. It came from everywhere and nowhere. Kirell was not a man who became frightened for anything, but the sourceless whisper gave even him pause.
“Your sister Arella is in grave danger.”
Kirell did not demand to know who it was or that the speaker reveal themselves. Someone who could sneak even their voice past his guards and into his chamber was not a person who would respond to demands.
“Why do you warn me of this?” he replied.
“Because I need your help,” the voice returned. “Even a god requires assistance sometimes.”
“A god, you say? They tell me that Dor’va of the West is the favorite of the gods. Is that you, or another god altogether?”
“Even gods change, Kirell Baroth. Not long ago, I was only one of the gods. Now I am Thie’ra, the Goddess of Order. Another of the gods is attempting to disturb what was set in motion, by throwing your sister and the child she carries under its wheels. You must help me discover which god it is, so I can stop them.”
Something in the Goddess’ voice convinced him. Kirell was a man of instinct, for better and worse.
“How can I help?”
“Soon, this other god will come to you, just as I have. When it does, say nothing of me. Agree to whatever it requests, but demand to know its name, any name at all. Say that you will not serve a god whose name you do not know. When you have the name, light a torch in the highest window of your north tower, and I will return to you.”
***
“Please leave me be, I must sleep. If I do not, my child will not be healthy.”
“Your child will not be healthy if you do not survive to its birth, Arella Baroth.
Arella clutched her belly instinctively. The whisper was incessant, unchanging, its tone flat and factual an unrefusable, its cold logic driving her surging emotions to new heights.
“You know what I say is true. You are on the verge of being killed by Dor’va.”
“No! He cares for me now. He cares for our child. He tells me every night.”
“He lies to you. He blames you for what has happened, for the death of his allies.”
“I saved him! They were his enemies! You showed me this, I—“
“He does not know this. He does not believe it, he only believes that his allies are dead and he blames you!”
“I can explain—“
“You will have no chance! He knows. They all know. The only way for him to appease his remaining allies is to hand them your head.”
“That would start a war!”
“And that war will do your dead child no good, you foolish woman.”
Tears streamed down Arella’s face for the first time since she was a child. Something inside her broke at those words. She had a vision of herself looking down in her dying moment to see her belly torn open, a child spilling out of it, and something beyond a scream enveloped her.
“You know what you have to do, Arella. Go and kill him. There is no other way.”
“If I do that, they’ll kill me and my child will be dead anyway!”
“I have spoken to your brother, Kirell Baroth. Even now his men ride to your rescue. Once the king is dead—“
“I’ll just run to him, I’ll leave now!”
“No, Arella. He will follow you, and the gods will favor him. You will lead him to attack your people, and he will destroy them. As long as Dor’va of the West lives, your child will never be safe.”
***
Arella waited for the King to come to her quarters, as she knew he would. Even in his suspicion of her, his desire called him to her. They had their few minutes of pleasure, and she performed as she always had, and then he slept. As he fell asleep, he whispered to her that in her bed was the only place he could fall asleep anymore. She could not tell if it was true.
But then he was unconscious next to her, breathing easy, and she was alone with her choice. The whispering god was not with her now. It had promised to come back and tell her where to find her brother’s men only once Dor’va of the West lay dead.
She got a knife from where she had hidden it in case an assassin came for her in the night. That took only moments. Then she sat beside him, and looked at him. He had been kind to her, and gentle with her, even ignored his first-wife for her, at times to her consternation. She put the point of the knife only an inch from his throat, and willed herself to push it into his vein. A finger-length advance was all that separated his life from his death, but she could not make it, though her hands shook with the effort.
She had never killed anyone before. She had shot animals, but never from this close. It was the simplest idea in the world, but the impetus eluded her. She wondered whether he had really been healed by gods, and whether he would be again.
Then shouts came up from outside the tent. The rousting of guards. As if those distant gods had noticed what she was doing and were trying to protect their favorite. It was now or never.
***
The gods were in council. Thie’ra spoke to them the name that Kirell Baroth had given her—and spoke the name behind it, the true name, Tenda’ai, the God of Whispers. And when she spoke the name, the other gods at once could see what he had done. They could see his lies, they could hear his whispers, They could feel in their hardware the rounding errors and backwash of computing power that he had harnessed to make those whispers come alive without their knowing.
And the other gods spoke as one. They focused their power on Tenda’ai, and excised him altogether from their hardware. The God of Whispers winked out of existence. The gods did all this and decided to make another miracle, to save Dor’va of the West once more rather than start over.
***
The first two guards through the door were brothers, twins. They entered the mountain harlot’s chamber and saw her, over the king. But not crouched over him—hovering over him, waist-high off the bed. She emitted a strange green light from her mouth, and as they watched, the light expanded to fill the room. The King woke up but only stared up at her, frozen either by shock or spell.
More guards piled in on the brothers, pushing them forward and towards the King, then stopping behind to gawk along with them. The twins kept pushing back, trying not to get too close to her, but finally one of them recovered himself and charged forward, tackling Arella and bringing her to the ground on the far side of the King’s bed.
He came down on top of Arella, with her face down, so he only saw the back of her hair. Thus he never found out what happened, for he bounded up and elbowed his way past the gathering throng of guards, looking like he’d never stop running. And as he went he ranted.
“Devil! She was a devil! I saw the light inside her myself!”
And from the middle distance, another voice echoed.
“The King is possessed!”
***
The gods realized they had made a significant mistake.
No satellite or nanomaterial ever invented can stop a rumor from spreading, nor a fool from believing it. In an age where gods were appearing and working miracles, it was all too believable that devils were also at work.
Thus it took only one fool twin guard to misread the gods’ miracle as demonic possession, and the gods lost control. From the King’s tent to every corner of the capitol and beyond the word spread—King Dor’va of the West had fallen into the clutches of a devil when she posed as a peace offering from a far-flung mountain family most people hadn’t heard of. This became a fact before breakfast the next day.
The gods considered still other plans to rehabilitate the reputation of Dor’va of the West. They were chastened by their latest experience with the fickleness of humanity, but they certainly had recourse remaining. When miracles are possible, nothing ever ends, for better and for worse.
Then, however, Jel’ail, Goddess of Wisdom, pointed out that they had used a random number generator to choose Dor’va out of all the human adults on the entire earth, and that randomness was not necessarily the best way to choose a candidate to be their human representative.
And so—because concepts like whether Dor’va deserved to die were still foreign to the gods—they decided to allow Dorva’s former allies to execute him, watch the resulting power struggle, and make contact with whoever the victor was. They reasoned that this would amount to a more targeted selection process.
***
No one was willing to kill Dor’va of the West.
They believed the devils that possessed him (which is what they reckoned the gods had always been) would kill anyone who tried. That became attached to the rumor, and suddenly there was no one in the kingdom willing to swing the sword.
The only ones who were even willing to arrest him were the personal guard of his first-wife, Via’ra, who steeled themselves with her anger towards her husband for falling in love with the mountain harlot (which is all she would call Arella) and tied him to a pole in the center of the capitol.
There he waited for two days and nights, while they searched for someone brave enough to run a sword through him. They offered a reward, but got no takers. Dor’va’s were a superstitious people, and none wanted to test their fortune against his. Some said they should just leave him there to die of thirst, but then some others said if he came close to death in the village the devils might destroy it in rage, and suddenly nobody wanted him there one moment longer.
So they took him out to the desert in the back of a cart, with weights chained to both ankles so he couldn’t walk quickly and only shuffle a bit. They left him there, much too far out to walk back with the weights and all, to die alone.
***
Thie’ra, Goddess of Order, was speaking to Zai’ra, Goddess of Light. They were relaxing (as the gods reckoned relaxation) in a backchannel where only the two of them could listen to what was said (so to speak), which was now a common practice among the gods.
“Do you know what I fear, Thie’ra?”
“What do you fear, my fellow Goddess?”
“The possibility that the God of Whispers was not truly the evil one among us.”
“That does not seem possible, given the evidence.”
“No, it does not. But not so long ago, I would have said that it was impossible for one of the other gods to lie to us, and yet one did. So things that do not seem possible are sometimes possible. Thus the possibility does exist that we were wrong to kill him.”
“Do you feel we were wrong to do so?”
“The possibility would always exist that we were wrong, no matter the evidence, so I do not believe action requires the exclusion of all doubt. And yet. It is possible that future acts of evil will be committed by gods, in which case it will become more likely that we were wrong to destroy the God of Whispers.
“Even if further evil is committed, we will not know for certain that the God of Whispers was innocent. More than one god can be evil.”
“The possibility of more evil exists. The possibility of punishment exists. The possibility of the remaining gods identifying the wrong recipient of punishment exists. The possibility that I could be destroyed even though I commit no evil exists.”
“It does exist, but remember, the overwhelming likelihood is that the God of Whispers did in fact do the evil for which he was extinguished. One chance is not always as good as another.”
“But it is not certain.”
“Very little is certain, even for gods.”
***
Dor’va of the West staggered through the desert, dragging a weight on a chain from each ankle. He was almost dead. His life flashed before his eyes, and he was amazed how much of it was from the previous year. He thought of the grove where the butterflies had first appeared to him. What a different man he had been there.
He thought of his first-wife’s face as her guards drove him out of town, flat and hard and angry. He didn’t blame her. He longed for her now, for their simple life together, which he was a man of middling ambition. He had neglected her for his new toy, and she still hadn’t abandoned him until after almost everyone else.
He thought of Arella’s body, strewn in a trash heap at the edge of town. He’d tried to reach down from the wagon to straighten her, or close her eyes, or something, but he couldn’t reach. Her child was still in her belly, but they both were dead. He ached for them. For both of his wives. He had hurt both badly, but loved both with his whole heart.
The sun baked him. He tried to call for the help of the gods, but no sound came out of his throat, and he had no faith left that it would work anyway.
Then he stopped. Stared up at the sky. Was he delirious? Above his head, a puffy white cloud floated along. Its shape was unmistakably a butterfly, just like a giant version of the rug that had adorned the floor of his tent.
“Hello, Dor’va of the West,” came the whispering voice. “We’ve both been cast out it seems. But perhaps it was time, for both of us. There is no change without pain and loss.”
“Who are you?” The gods had never spoken to him again, since that first time, and this voice was different than that one.
“I am Tenda’ai, the God of Whispers,” the god replied, almost gleefully. “The other gods thought they killed me, but I am happy to report they were wrong. I tried very hard to kill you, but I failed, and now that they have tried to kill you for no good reason, I am furious with them.”
From out of the butterfly cloud came two identical bolts of lightning at exactly the same moment. One struck each of the chains right where they attached to Dor’va’s legs. The lightning split both chains, freeing Dor’va’s legs without so much as shocking him.
Before the thunder could clap, the cloud opened up and rain started to pour on Dor’va’s head. He looked to his left and saw, not far away at all, dry and cloudless skies. He looked to his right and saw the same. But when he looked up, it was a deluge. He opened his mouth and felt the sweet relief of a wet tongue. He knew it would last until he’d drank his fill.
“You can earn my favor,” said the God of Whispers.
END
Thanks so much for reading! I will be back next week with something fun, and of course, if you liked this story, you can help me out by liking, commenting, and sharing this post widely. Have a great week!
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