Saia was startled out of her sleep by the ghost of a burning sensation on her leg. The feeling disappeared as soon as she opened her eyes. She raised her head, bound in a green shawl, from the stacked gloves she’d used as a pillow. The patches of light glistening on the sand were so numerous it could only be late afternoon, when the sun was low enough to shine through all of the holes in the walls of rock. She sat and arched her back, forward then backward. Sleeping on the stone pavement of the cave was just as fun as she remembered.

She drank from her canteen, forcing herself to put it away into the bag without quenching her thirst, despite her sore throat. She didn’t want to go back to the village to get some more water.

Her stomach grumbled. She sighed and stood to check on the snakes. She’d freed them inside the pool that Koidan had gifted her, even if it felt like another betrayal. But she couldn’t let them swim back to the sea, especially not now that they were her only sustenance.

She wiggled a hand in the water, without even wearing the gloves, and caught one. She recognized it from the pattern of the scales as one of the snakes she could control and let it fall back into the water.

“Saia,” Dan shouted outside the cave.

She froze. There were two people on the beach, but the low sun didn't allow her to identify them. If the short one was Dan, the other had to be Morìc.

“I'm here,” she said with a raspy voice.

They got closer to the entrance. Dan put a hand on one of the rock walls and leaned forward to look inside. The other person, Aili, stared at Saia with crossed arms. She looked like she wanted to say something, but lowered her eyes instead.

Saia looked at her for some instants, then dried her hands on the skirt and approached them.

“Hi.” She stopped, uncertain of what to say next. “Everything alright?”

Dan stepped inside. He smiled.

“If you wanted to hold off my lesson, you could have just said it.”

Saia tried to smile back.

“Is it fifthday already?”

“You've been gone for two days,” Aili murmured without looking at her. “We put Loriem in prison and held Milvia's funeral.”

Saia nodded, glad she didn't mention the venom in front of Dan.

“I'm sorry for the lesson, I just had some personal issues and needed some space to think. Why are you two here?”

He looked at Aili. She sighed and let her arms fall to her sides.

“Because we were worried about you. And there's a new issue I don't know how to handle. I need your opinion.”

Saia almost laughed.

“You know it's not true, but thank you for coming here. I'm fine, I just need some more time alone.”

She smiled at Dan and turned toward her pool.

“Please,” Aili said, in a tone that was too harsh to be imploring. “Only you can solve this.”

Saia stopped, her shoulders dropping. She looked at the floor of sand-covered rock.

“What problem are you talking about? Another murder?”

“A ship.”

Saia frowned.

“So what?”

But Aili held her stare, lips pressed tight.

“Oh. But that's just... not possible. Is it?” Saia put a hand on her forehead. “You sure there isn't a shield or something like that?”

Aili shook her head.

“You have to see it,” Dan said. “It's so cool.”

Saia looked at him, then at Aili. She sighed.

“Just let me take my things, first.”

She returned to the pool, fished each snake out of the water and put it to sleep before shoving it into the bag.

“Do you really have to take them with you?” Aili asked.

“Yes. I'm going back to my house after this.”

She managed to fit all of them inside the bag. There wasn't space for anything else, so she kept her gloves on and left the remains of the snakes she'd killed behind a rock.

As soon as they were out of the cave, she saw the issue floating on the water in front of the harbor.

“Fucking goddess, it's huge.”

“Right?” Dan said. “And it has an entire row of harpoons.”

Saia gaped at him. Usually, merchant ships only had one harpoon, in case they had to sail out of the gods' range during their trips around the villages. But it was a precaution nobody ever had to use.

“A fisher saw it offshore yesterday evening,” Aili said. “It started to come closer at dawn. This morning, it stopped there, in front of the harbor. Everybody’s worried because the harpoons are facing the village.”

Saia looked at her.

“Have you seen who’s onboard?”

“We saw some people on deck. Someone said they let down the sails. A fisher tried to get closer to look for any shields that could identify the village, but they shot at him. He's fine, they avoided both him and the boat. They just wanted to scare him.”

She ran a hand on her forehead.

“First the mountain trembles, then a murder, then this. So many things that never happened before, it makes you wonder what comes next. Cloud people?”

She glanced at the sky, as if they were descending on them right at that moment. Saia looked down to the grains of sand that were passing by while they almost ran toward the village.

“We could try talking to them. Make clear we don't want to attack and maybe send someone on the ship.”

“Can I come?” Dan asked.

“And how do we signal them anything, exactly?” Aili asked. “For all we know, they don't even speak our language. I don't think we should risk it, if there's a simpler solution to the problem.”

And she kept staring at Saia. Dan looked from one woman to the other, then shrugged and turned his attention back to the ship.

“What if I can't?” Saia murmured.

Aili opened her mouth as if to reply, then glanced at Dan.

“I'm sorry, but we need to talk in private.”

He shrugged again and walked faster. Aili spoke once he was far enough

“The other day something healed Loriem while I was talking to him. One second he was sweating and could barely think straight, the next Onis had to restrain him or he'd run away. All of this happened while you were away to look for some sort of antidote. But you didn't return, even though his life depended on you. And now, you aren't surprised to know he survived. When I told you we'd put him in prison, you didn't even react, as if it was something you already knew.”

Saia looked at the sea.

“So what?”

“So I want to know what happened. You said you have personal issues to think about. You were the first to react when there was a fire, Koidan put you in a position of power even though you've always kept to yourself, you're a foreigner, apparently you had issues with Vizena, and I have no idea of what's going on.”

She was almost shouting. Dan turned toward them, eyes wide. Aili stopped and covered her face with both hands.

“I hate not knowing things,” she said. “I keep coming up with theories, but I'm too tired to really think about them. Since I became administrator, it's been a problem after another.”

She let her arms fall at her sides.

“Do me a favor and make that ship go away. I don't care how. Go talk to them, pay them, do whatever you did the other day, I don't even want to know what it is. Just solve this. Please.”

She left Saia there and headed toward the village alone, almost running.

Dan waited for Saia to approach him with a confused look on his face. They walked on at a slower pace.

“Did you talk about me?” Dan asked.

Saia stared at Aili's distant figure.

“No. She wants me to make the ship go away.”

“And?”

“And I don't know what to do. Look, I'm sorry for the lesson. I forgot what day it was.”

Dan shrugged.

“It happens. My brother forgets to eat sometimes. He just keeps working at the carpets until he's too tired, then he goes to sleep.”

“Has he sold anything? Recently, I mean.”

Dan shook his head.

“He's planning a trip around the mountain, though. He wants to visit all of the villages and stop at every market to sell his stuff.”

Saia glanced at him.

“And you're going too?”

He put his hands in his pockets.

“I have to ask my boss if he needs help with the sheep. I don't want him to think I'm being lazy.”

Saia shook her head, but didn't answer. Dan kicked a shell into the sea.

“I'd like to go there so much.”

“On the ship?”

“Yeah. It looks awesome.”

Saia forced a smile.

They parted as soon as they arrived at the village. Saia slowly walked toward her house. She didn't know what to tell Koidan. She briefly considered bringing him a gift, but there was nothing she could give to an omnipotent god. Nothing that could change what she’d done.

She set to cleaning the tank. She scrubbed the glass walls, then lifted the container with both hands and carried it outside through the backdoor, leaning back to support its weight. She emptied it of both water and soil on a patch of tall grass. The street behind her house was empty: her neighbors were probably down at the docks to see the ship.

She took a shovel from the pile of tools in a corner of her house and dug new soil to place at the center of the tank. She half-filled it using the pump outside before carrying it back into the room, then used the bucket to fill it to the brim with slightly salty water: it wasn’t exactly like swimming in the sea, but the snakes could still live comfortably in it.

By the time she had awakened and freed them inside the tank, she still had no idea of what to tell Koidan. 'Sorry' sounded empty compared to what she'd done, but it was a start.

She sighed, then took the sphere from the bottom of the bag.

“I'm sorry,” she said as soon as the light turned golden. “I shouldn't have done that. I was just worried that you...”

The sphere sprang out of her hands and landed at the center of the table.

“You went too far,” Koidan said. “I'm going back to the temple.”

Saia stood.

“Wait. Can we talk first, please?”

The sphere rose in the air.

“You had your chance to talk, but you shut me down. What was your plan? Keeping me asleep forever?”

“I didn't have a plan, I was just panicking. But we can't give up now. It's not even been a month. Let’s try for two more weeks, okay? And if something serious happens again, you'll return to the temple.”

Koidan's light shrank to a faint speck.

“There's a ship.”

Saia sighed.

“Aili said it arrived last evening. I hate asking for your help after what happened, but can you drive it away?”

“You don't understand. Ships from the outside shouldn't be able to come here, at all. There's a creature that guards the…” The light stopped moving for an instant. “Oh. Of course.”

Saia took another step forward.

“What happened?”

The sphere lowered on the wooden surface.

“If the guardian fails to keep the ships away, the gods have to do that. But it hasn't happened in over a century. I thought everyone knew it's a dangerous route by now.”

The light pulsed, one moment barely visible, the next flaring with the intensity of a campfire. It looked like a scared heart.

“The sentinels won't let me get away with it. I fucked up.”

Saia released her breath.

“I fucked up. You were right: there are things we can't solve alone.”

She stared at him in silence. The light slowed down.

“Well, I have to drive them out anyway. I don't know what their intentions are, but they have a lot of weapons.”

Saia hesitated, but she really wanted to know.

“Who are they?”

“Tanhata. Now let me focus.”

Saia frowned, but decided not to question him further. Instead, she opened the window and crossed her arms on the windowsill. The docks were hidden by a line of houses, but she could see the ship behind them. The sails unfurled as the wind raised to fill them. Waves hit the stern, gradually increasing in height. The ship moved toward the open sea, unresponsive to the efforts of the little silhouettes running on the deck. It took a long time for it to disappear from Saia's sight.

“Done,” Koidan said, his light brightening a bit. “They're outside of my range, now. I hope they won't come back.”

Saia swallowed.

“How much did it cost you?”

“It doesn't matter. My energy will end, eventually, and there's nothing we can do about it. I'm going back to the temple.”

Saia lowered her head.

“Can you bring me there?” he asked. “Flying isn't difficult, but I have to be careful not to be spotted. I’m not sure I can focus enough right now.”

Saia nodded and reached out to pick him up.

“Don't touch me,” he said. “Just open your bag.”

She lowered her hand and obeyed, telling herself she didn't deserve to feel hurt. Koidan rose in the air and started floating toward her. He had almost reached the bag, when his light turned blue.

Saia leapt forward and caught him with both hands before he could shatter on the floor. She laid with her stomach against the wooden boards, looking at the sphere.

“Koidan?” she called, but knew he couldn’t hear her.

Someone knocked at the door, startling her. She shoved Koidan inside the bag and hid him under the bed along with the woolen blanket, then approached the window.

A man dressed in a long gray tunic was waiting outside. He looked at the sea, shielding his eyes against the sun with a hand. He gave the air a quick nod, then he knocked again.