The shrine to Aphrodite sits on the beach, just above the wash of the tide but close enough for sand to shift beneath Cupid's paws as he approaches. Directly opposite, across the island and nestled in the mountains and pine, lies Freya's own shrine.

Grandiose temples are outside of Cupid's purview in this body, but he has done what he must for their patrons. Aphrodite's shrine is made of layers of driftwood locked together, with seashells and seaglass tucked into every nook and cranny of the wood, and tied to the branches with vine. In the seabreeze, the decorations sway and chime as they clink together, a musical symphony that makes it easy for Cupid to find anytime. A desiccating corpse of a sacrifice lies at the bottom of the shrine. Cupid noses the tufts of fur and sinew into the hungering sea, then turns back to the shrine.

Elbows sink into the sand as he prostrates himself to the shrine of the goddess who bore him. The sound of murmured prayer is lost beneath the sigh of the waves and the wail of a gull high overhead.

Lupercalia. It is too late in the season for the celebration, but spring is the first season since the darkness that enveloped the world worth celebrating. And Cupid is not willing to let the fickle and violent weather of springtime in these far northern islands ruin Skjoldrheim's first festival in so long. The messengers have been sent. Will any come? Their numbers have dwindled greatly following the harsh and long winter. Cupid knows little of what the world of the mainland looks like now.

It will not matter. Come one, come none. Cupid is steadfast in his faith in the wolves brave enough to call this island home, and in the goddesses that have claimed their people as their own to watch over.

Lupercalia, to celebrate the return of the light, and to remind themselves never to forget the darkness they have survived.