"Myths are stories created to bring us to the goddess, not the goddess to us, and the truth is far more complicated." - Meru Sesar
When Meru Sesar encounters a "mythical" lisca on her way to marry a prince, she has no idea she's the mortal manifestation of the Goddess T'Giya on a mission to protect her people. The only life she's known is one spent as the full-bodied daughter of a woman who sees nothing of value in an adult firstborn who still shivers at the very thought of mating.
Arriving in the capital, Meru is thrown into the intrigues of court life and befriends the queer prince she's promised to. Together they contend with a demon who haunts Meru's days and nights for a reason she can't fathom while the queen seeks to induct Meru into the life of a lisca rider.
Like Marra, the hero struggling against a power stronger than herself in Nettle and Bone, yet lacking the knowledge of her divinity that Pampa Kampana in Victory City possesses, Meru embarks on an odyssey of discovery as a young woman unaware of the godhood she abandoned for the uncertainties of mortal life.
Content Warning: Fatphobia, diet culture, misogyny, ableism, torture, death by fire, language, narcissism.