Saia stopped in front of the herbalist’s shop and rested a bit. Most days, she could walk up there without breaking a sweat, even if it was one of the last buildings on the road before the path that led to the temple. This time, she was tired from carrying her heavy bag, filled with two vials of venom and three snakes she had to deliver to Lihana’s house. She put down the bucket she was holding to wipe away the sweat from her hand: it was empty, but she planned to fill it with seafood for the snakes later at the market.

Inside, Nikem was serving a customer. Saia nodded at him and stood back, pretending not to listen as the woman described her issues when eating certain foods. Nothing serious clearly, or Koidan would have already healed her.

Nikem gave the patient a mixture of herbs to boil in water and a stone to put on her belly while she slept. Saia recognized its pink color: her grandma used to keep one of those in her hands every time she wasn't tending to her flowers, cooking or playing cards with her friends. When she saw that Saia or one of her siblings was sad or upset, she told them to keep it in their palms. Just holding it for some seconds could make her feel better. Saia wondered whether it followed the same principle she used to put Koidan to sleep.

The customer paid and left. Saia stepped back to avoid the opening door in the narrow space of the shop, then approached the herbalist.

“Hi,” Nikem greeted her with a big smile. “How are the snakes today?”

“Nervous as always. Guess they're not fans of this whole fishing thing."

She opened her bag to look for the vials. She’d left Koidan home, both for a lack of space and for fear that the blue light would have been visible when she opened the bag. At that moment, the mighty god of the village was hidden in a woolen blanket under her bed, asleep.

Nikem carefully took a vial, holding it against the light that came through the window.

“Transparent with a hint of yellow. Extremely healthy, as usual.”

He rummaged through the bag of coins at his side and took out six vissins. Saia was about to take them, when a scream made her freeze.

“Fire! There’s a fire!”

She looked at Nikem: for a second, they had the same alarmed expression. Then, he relaxed and gently put the money on the palm of her reaching hand.

“A lot of scary things happening these days, uh?” He put the vial of venom on an empty stand on the shelf behind him. “And Koidan is slower than usual at solving them.”

Saia produced a stiff smile.

“Yeah. Right.”

She left and immediately looked for the column of smoke that would have betrayed Koidan’s state to the monks. The sky was still clear, but a small crowd was gathering at the post office’s square down the street.

She needed to go back and wake up Koidan before the fire could spread, but it would take her a while to reach her house and nobody was trying to stop the flames. She had to tell them to do something, throw some water around, call for help, or the monks would have seen the fire and known that Koidan wasn't protecting the village anymore.

She ran towards the crowd, bucket clanging at her side. She immediately recognized the teacher, his wife and their two kids, all of them with curly white hair that was immediately recognizable in the mostly dark-haired crowd. They were the closest to the door, watching a window on the first floor: a trail of smoke was coming out of the cracks around the wooden frame, while only the tips of the flames were visible through the darkened glass.

Saia slowed down as she approached the crowd.

“What happened?” she asked to no one in particular.

The old woman who sold fabrics at the market turned to look at her.

“I heard it was a candle.”

Saia thanked her. She made her way towards the house and the family in front of it. One of the kids was crying, his mother gently stroking his head.

“Don't worry,” she murmured. “Everything will be fine.”

Her husband was talking with a neighbor about the incident, stopping every few words to look at the house or yell to his other kid to stop tugging at his hand. Saia looked at the rest of the crowd: some of them were chatting in a low voice, others stared at the flames with their hands clasped behind their backs. As if they were in a temple, looking at their god's statue, waiting for it to talk.

Saia stepped into the empty half-circle in front of the house, both hands closed on the bucket's handle.

“Listen up,” she shouted.

Everybody looked at her.

“We can't just wait until Koidan stops the fire.” She remembered Dan's visit. “What if he wants to test us? See if we're able to take care of this on our own?”

They stared at her for some instants, then looked at each other. Saia heard them murmuring, but nobody addressed her directly.

“Why us, then?” the teacher asked.

Saia turned to look at him. The chatter died again.

“We go to the temple every fifthday,” he continued, gesturing at his family. “Everybody has seen us there. We pray before every meal. I've always thanked Koidan when he's helped me. He saved my life.”

He pulled up a pant leg, showing a long scar so faint it was almost invisible on his white skin.

“I cut it on a rock while I was swimming. I'd have drowned if Koidan hadn't saved me.”

He let the cloth fall back.

“You said it's a test. What if he wants to test my faith in him? That I won't do anything even if my house is burning, because I trust he'll save me?”

He crossed his arms and stared at her as if waiting for an answer. Saia clutched the bucket tighter, then glanced at the fire.

“Things are changing,” she said. “Koidan is slower at answering our prayers. Haven't you noticed?"

She ignored the man in front of her and looked at the crowd while she spoke. She knew encouraging them to openly discuss the situation was worse than letting the doubts in their minds fester alone. But she could think about that later, after the fire was extinguished.

“He's not answering my prayers,” a woman said.

“My niece sprained her ankle,” said an old man. “She can't work now. Won't be able to for a while.”

Indistinct murmurs reported similar incidents, nothing either Saia or the monks could have noticed. A man was going on about how he had to swim for, he swore, towerlengths to catch his boat after a strong wind had brought it offshore.

“Why didn't you tie it then, you drunkard?” a woman shouted.

That was the problem, Saia thought. Not people relying on Koidan, but depending on him too much. She had to convince them to act as if they had to face all of the consequences of their mistakes, as bad as they could be. They had to think like she did when fishing for snakes in a cave that was outside of any god's territory.

But first, there was a fire to tame.

“Take the buckets,” she shouted, raising her own. “Form a line. We'll talk to Koidan later.”

They started moving towards their houses, hesitantly. Saia sighed and ran up to the nearest fountain, hoping they would follow her example. When she returned, clothes splashed with the water that had escaped the bucket, she saw the flames clearly through the window on the first floor. Multiple trails of gray smoke were ascending where the monks could see them. There was no time to go back home.

She kicked the door to open it completely and ran through the rooms until she found a staircase. At the top, there was a corridor full of smoke. She stepped back and coughed the stink away, then took a deep breath and held it while she ran towards the room on fire. She saw a glimpse of the bedroom while she emptied the bucket on the curtains in flames, then retracted as quickly as possible. She ran down the stairs, fearing how big the fire could get before she was back.

Someone bumped into her. The buckets collided with a clang.

“Second door to the left,” Saia said, pressing her back against the wall to let the other person through.

The people outside were reluctantly forming a line, even if there weren't enough buckets to make it effective. Saia joined them, transporting empty buckets in one direction and full ones in the other before handing them to the next person. Everybody was shouting to hurry up. A couple of people ran away to look for help.

Only a handful remained at a safe distance from the house. Mainly old people, but Saia recognized the herbalist, with a deep frown on his face. The teacher left the kids with his wife and started walking towards the line with deliberate slowness, as if they only had to be grateful to receive his help. Saia gritted her teeth, but kept focused on the task at hand. She could feel the line getting tighter every step less she had to make to reach the people next to her. The buckets moved faster in both directions. There was no way the monks hadn't notice what was happening, but she had to keep going in the off chance they could tame the fire. She was too tired to run home, or even think about something that wasn't going back and forth and hope for the best.

They continued for two hours, or so it seemed to her tired arms. Some buckets were heavier than others, full of sand instead of water. The line slowly shifted towards the house while the people closest to the fire joined the opposite end, coughing. Saia found herself back inside, pouring water directly onto the flames. She took one of the spare shirts from her bag and bound it around her neck, to protect her nose and mouth from the smoke.

They put out the flames one by one until the last one was extinguished. Shelves and books were completely burnt, the floor threatened to collapse, but at least the other rooms were safe. Saia joined the people downstairs and shouted the news to the rest of the line. The ones who were still carrying a bucket put it down to cheer with the others. Saia looked at the pail she was clutching in her hand: it was too old to be hers, but there was no hope to find it amongst the others, so she hooked it over her elbow.

People were congratulating each other and cheering, but given enough time they’d have started to remember the conversation they were having earlier, when they openly admitted that Koidan wasn't helping them anymore and the god hadn't done anything to prove them wrong. She had to say something, but she was tired and the words refused to come. She needed to talk to Koidan, first.

“Everyone,” she called. “Tell people to go to the temple on thirdday at five. If there's a lot of us, maybe Koidan will answer our questions.”

The ones who were listening to her nodded in agreement. When she turned to leave, she found someone looking at her: a young woman about her age, curly black hair down to her shoulders, wearing an orange shirt and bronze bracelets on her dark brown skin. The woman smiled at her and Saia hesitantly smiled back, trying to remember who she was.

“I just wanted to thank you,” she said. “If it weren't for you, the post office would have burned down.”

“Don’t thank me, I couldn’t have done it alone.”

She nodded to the woman and started to leave, thinking that she could ask Koidan who that stranger was. She stopped after two steps, so abruptly that the bucket bumped against her leg. Asking Koidan to do something she could do herself was exactly the kind of attitude she was trying to fight.

She turned towards the woman.

“I fear I have forgotten your name.”

She smiled.

“Ailima, but everyone calls me Aili.”

Saia tried to memorize her face.

“I’m Saia. See you on thirdday.”

And she headed home.