My mind awoke before my body—pain firing through every nerve, refusing to let me move. It was a feeling I had known many times before, but never grown accustomed to.
The ache brought me back to the days when I built the church with my own two hands. Every stone had to be placed and shaped using tools I crafted myself. It was agonizing work. The calluses are still etched into my palms, reminders of the years I gave. The church had no intricate carvings, no grand spires—just simple stone walls. I used to lament its plainness, but I had no power to make it more.
I tried to stand. My body stiffened, then collapsed, threatening to turn to ash with every breath. But I rose slowly, unsteadily.
I looked at the ruins of the church… then down at my hands, coated in ash. The calluses were still there. Proof of the labor I endured. Evidence that the body remembers—even if the land forgets.
I turned and walked away from the place I had once called sacred. It had stood for ten years.
It took me four to build.
I limped down the streets of Sanctbridge. The citizens of the embers were still present, wandering the graveyards that were once their homes. Houses now held only scorched flesh and dying ash.
I looked at each body I found, pausing for a silent prayer. I made small graves wherever I could. At the far end of town, where the smoke thinned and only bones remained, the survivors noticed me.
At first, they thought I was just another ghost.
Then they saw my face.
A steadfast woman, her skin marred with burns, stepped forward to meet me. I brushed past her in silence.
"Don't ignore me, you heathen," she snapped, thrusting a scorched piece of cloth toward me—the insignia I once wore. She ground it into the dirt beneath her heel. "You said you would protect this place. Now look at it. You have no place here."
I kept walking.
Past her. Past the glares. Past the judgment.
I found a small outcrop where wildflowers had survived the fire—delicate and defiant. I knelt before them and picked them with the softest care my trembling hands could manage.
Then, with slow steps, I carried the flowers to the center of the village. I planted their roots in the blackened soil. Afterward, I fell to my knees and began burying the ashes I had gathered while limping through the town.
She shoved me. I fell forward, catching myself in the ash. Her tears hit the ground beside me, mingling with dust and death.
"Give me an answer," she cried. "We all deserve an answer. Why did this happen?"
I remained still for a moment. Then, slowly, I rose to my knees, my back hunched with exhaustion. When I spoke, my voice was ragged—my vocal cords scorched, every word scraping out of a throat blackened by smoke and silence.
"I don't know."
I turned my head toward the group of survivors. My expression betrayed the truth—uncertainty, grief, and something hollowed out inside me.
"I have no clue what happened. Only that it seems the gods…" I stopped, a breath catching in my chest. My eyes burned—not from smoke, but from something deeper. I blinked hard, then went on. "The gods abandoned us. And I—who served them—have no idea what is sacred anymore. I don't even know what a god is supposed to be."
The girl—Clare—stared at me, the fire in her gaze flickering into something more fragile. She sank to her knees.
"What do you mean we were abandoned?" she whispered. "No... no, you abandoned us."
I turned to her fully, ash falling from my shoulders like snowfall.
"But did I, Clare?" My voice cracked with something deeper than fatigue. "I was here. I stayed when the skies burned. I pulled bodies from the fire. I held children already dead. I watched everything we believed in collapse."
My hands curled into fists.
"They took our hearts and left us with what? A village of ash… and a faith worth nothing."
Clare looked at me with grief in her eyes, then turned away. She rose, whispering something barely audible, and disappeared into the smoke.
I stayed there, kneeling, until her footsteps faded.
Then, slowly, I stood and took a deep breath. The smoke-filled air filled my lungs—harsh, but not choking. It felt... cleansing.
And that was when I noticed it.
The smoke that had choked the square only moments ago was thinning. No breeze, no wind—just a quiet withdrawal, as if the fire itself had lost its voice. The ash on the ground, which should have sunk into the earth like blood into cloth, remained where it was, refusing to be buried. It lingered on the surface like a memory that refused to fade.
I didn't know what it meant.
But I followed Clare's path through the haze and walked toward the place she had made her camp.
A crow—its feathers singed, its eyes clouded—rose from the soot. It turned to me, bowed its head once, then beat its wings and took flight.
I didn't see the villager behind me pause. Didn't see her eyes widen.
She stared at the flowers I had planted.
They should have been smothered by ash. Wilted. Crushed.
Instead, they stood tall, vivid, alive, reaching for the sun.
She whispered, "What's happening... this shouldn't be possible."