Saia looked at the line of white stones a few steps in front of her. There was a stretch of green grass before the beginning of the next border.

“Go,” Vizena said inside her head. “Or have you changed your mind?”

Saia gripped the strap of her bag.

“No.”

“Then do it already. Stop wasting my time.”

She stepped forward, putting one foot on the other side of the line. She intentionally dragged the other one on the ground, hitting a white stone and making it roll a bit forward. Enough to put it just out of the goddess’s reach.

She kept going for a bit, half-expecting to be stopped or to hear again Vizena’s voice. When it was clear it wouldn’t happen, she stopped in front of the border of the neighboring village and looked back.

There wasn't anyone, obviously. Vizena hadn't let her inform her family of her exile. She could only hope she wouldn’t tell them that she had died in some horrible way, or worse, that she'd taken her own life. That thought alone was enough to make her consider going back and face whatever consequences Vizena would have inflicted her. But maybe it was better than having them forever wondering where she was. At least they could get the closure she'd been denied.

She turned again to look at Tilau, the village she was supposed to enter. The sensible choice would have been finding shelter there, see how things worked, and gradually start her new life. But there would be new rules to learn, new people to meet. A new god to obey.

She turned right, where the clearing of grass continued up to the forest. She entered it, paying attention not to step beyond the wavering lines of white stones on either side, and sat with her back against a big rock. The foliage sheltered her head from the morning sun. She stayed there, eyes closed, trying to clear her mind of all worries. She had a lot of them, even if they didn't hurt anymore. She felt numb.

She fell asleep at least three times before evening, gradually lowering herself until her back was on the ground and her head resting on her bag. She only had her fishing gear, some tools for cooking, a handful of vissins and a change of clothes.

She survived alone for three days straight. She slept on the soft grass until dawn, then went toward the beach, always careful not to cross any border, and stood with her boots in the water, looking for sea snakes near the surface. She only found one the first night and managed to make it last three days, even though it never filled her stomach completely.

Water was an entirely different problem. Her canteen only lasted one a day and a half. She tried to build a tool for purifying water the way her dad had taught her to do, in case her boat got stranded at sea. She took a bowl of seawater and put it on scorching hot stones to make it boil, while one of her shirts tied to two twigs gathered the vapor. She only managed to squeeze out a thin line of water and some drops from the cloth, never enough to last the day. In the end, she was forced to put her things back into the bag and stagger toward the line of stones that enclosed Tilau.

She took a deep breath before crossing it. She made two steps forward before hearing a masculine voice inside her head.

“Welcome to Tilau. I’m Dore. Can I ask your name and why are you entering my territory?”

“Saia. Need to stay here for a while.” Her voice was creaky because of the thirst and the silence she’d kept for three days.

“Are you from Suimer?”

She nodded.

“Incredible. I rarely see visitors from there and they’re always the same faces. How is it going down there?”

Saia shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She only wanted to find something to drink, maybe eat, and know whether she could sleep on a bed or find a good spot on the ground somewhere.

“Fine,” she lied. For all she knew, he could be on Vizena’s side.

The god waited a bit before answering, probably expecting Saia to elaborate. But she just kept staring at the field of grass in front of her and the houses on the other side.

“Do you need something here or are you just passing by?”

“I need water, food and somewhere to sleep. I can pay,” she added, mentally counting the money she had on her. Enough for a few days, if rooms weren't too expensive.

“If this is all you need, there won't be any need to pay. We have a shelter for people like you. There are some rules you'll have to respect, though.”

“Like what?”

“You'll have to work, first of all. You'll get a salary, even if it won't be much. You'll be inserted in the turns to prepare the food and clean, but they won't be considered part of your job. You'll share a room with six other women, and the space assigned to you includes…”

He went on for a bit. Saia felt the fatigue grow on her shoulders.

“Fine. Where do I have to go?”

She wondered whether she'd been too disrespectful, despite trying to keep her tone neutral. Vizena would have ranted in her ears for an hour just for a smidge of disrespect, actual or perceived.

“I didn’t finish, but it’s alright, I can tell you more tomorrow. Go straight ahead until you see the square, then take the third street to the right and knock at the house with the blue door.”

Saia followed his directions. The houses were built closer than the ones in Suimer, and most of them had at least three floors, sometimes more. The shelter was pressed on one side by the clock tower and the warehouse of a cloth merchant on the other. She knocked at the blue door and an old woman welcomed her inside, saying that Dore had already told everyone of her arrival. She showed her the room she'd had to share.

She lasted one week in that village. The work was mostly related to cleaning or transporting things around with a cart. She couldn't stand to have so many people always around her, with all she had lost. There was no time to grieve. If she stopped for a second, someone asked her what was wrong. With six other people in her room, her only moment alone was at night in bed, provided she didn’t make a sound. And the next day she had to get up early to work, carrying materials or helping people, with no choice on how many breaks she had or for how long, lest she didn’t want to hear Dore talking to her. She took it as a sign he was always observing them to some extent.

She started to explore the borders of the village, at first in hope of seeing someone from Suimer on the other side of the white line, then to look for a way to escape that constant observation. But most of Tilau bordered with the external forest, a place where no human had been before. It continued toward the horizon on an endless strip of earth that narrowed down near the mountain to the point Tilau was the only village it bordered with. And even then, it didn’t occupy the whole border: there were two harbors, one on either side of the forest, where ships constantly arrived from the other villages and turned around to go back, as there was no channel crossing the forest to connect them. She often had to help charge Tilaus’s ships, the only ones who could voyage all around the mountain and end up in their village, even if in a different harbor.

She had briefly considered risking her luck into the forest, but Dore stopped anyone that got too close to that side of the border.

To the west of the southern harbor, there was a small stretch of beach with more forest behind it. She knew that the merchants only crossed it after hiring guides. Not a place she wanted to visit alone.

Beyond the beach, there was a tall rock formation that looked like an old piece of mountain. It didn't allow her to see what was beyond, but she found herself drawn to it more and more, until she took into consideration the idea of climbing it.

It was dangerous, of course: if she fell, there wouldn't be a god to save her. There wouldn't be anyone at all, if by some stroke of bad luck she fell into the sea. But the top was flat and empty, except for some trees. A good place to rest, away from both gods and animals. From there, she could see where to go next.

She used all of her money, both her savings and the meager pay from the shelter, to buy water and food, a torch, a knife, and warm clothes. There wasn't enough for a rope, but she didn't actually know how to use it in a way that would have saved her from a fall without getting in the way.

She left on fifthday, at dawn. Dore asked her repeatedly where she was going, but he didn't use his powers to stop her, so she ignored him and kept going. The cracks in the stone she had seen from afar became shelves of rock on which she could lean without fear of slipping. It was a long climb, an even more tiresome one, but she found herself at the top before sunset. And when she looked down on the other side, there was the longest beach she'd ever seen.

She stared at it for the rest of the morning. Unfortunately, it was cut in half by the line of stones of another village.

It was late afternoon when she sighed and started the descent. The cave wasn't visible from above, so she was surprised to find that the wall of rock didn't continue until the bottom. She was forced to climb back up for a bit and find another path of shelves before touching the sand with her bare feet.

The cave was bright and beautiful, and her first thought was that a god had created it. But nobody invaded her mind when she peeked inside, so she gathered her courage and entered. When she looked into the pools and saw a sea snake dart from a cluster of algae to the next, she knew she'd found her new home.

This time, she managed to resist for two weeks. She rationed the water in her three canteens and kept the most durable food aside, fishing the snakes instead. She found a place to sleep on the sand outside, sheltered from the wind by a smaller rock resting on the side of the bigger one that contained the cave. There was no protection against the snakes that could slither outside the water, but most of the time she felt too exhausted to care.

So exhausted, in fact, that when a sea snake she hadn't seen approach bit her ankle, it took her a long instant to register what had happened. The fear that sliced her chest was more painful than the bite itself. She left her bag at the cave and ran away, screaming for help in the middle of the night, the flaming torch swinging left and right in her hand while she stumbled on the sand.

She sighted movement in the distance, but kept her eyes peeled on the ground, looking for the line of stones. The bite started to pulse, and the sensation traveled along her left leg until she could barely bend it. The run began a staggering march, and she realized she wouldn't have made it in time. Maybe it was better to die that way than having her life saved by a god.

She fell on her knees on something hard and sharper than the sand below. Somebody pulled her inside the border, and she felt her leg slowly gaining sensitivity again. She laid there, the right side of her face resting on the sand, waiting for the inevitable sound of a booming voice in her mind.

“Are you alright?” asked a high pitched voice somewhere above her.

Saia rolled on her side and propped herself up on one elbow: she saw a boy, barely more than a teen, or so it seemed at the light of the torch that was now burning on the sand. She turned to examine her leg: there was no trace of the bite anymore. She could bend the knee and rotate the ankle without pain.

“What's your name? I'm Dan, by the way.”

Saia looked at the buildings, then at the mountain behind them, searching for the temple. She had no idea why the god wasn't talking to her. He had to be aware of her presence, or he wouldn't have healed her.

“Saia,” she answered, realizing only at that moment that the boy had asked her something.

“Hello,” said a solemn voice inside her head.

There he was.

“I’m Koidan, the god of Lausune. Do you feel pain anywhere?”

Saia moved her leg a bit more and shook her head.

“Good. Dan, could you tell them not to worry? I fear that if I did it, they would be even more scared.”

Saia blinked, looking up at the temple. Vizena and Dore only spoke to the person they wanted to address, without letting anybody nearby listen. Koidan talked as if he was physically there, his voice echoing in the head of everyone who was close enough.

Dan nodded, then smiled at her and turned to leave. Saia looked behind him to see who Koidan was talking about, and saw two groups of people in front of the houses that were closest to the beach, doors open and lights flickering inside.

“Do you need a place to stay?” he asked.

“No,” Saia answered immediately, recoiling a bit. “I already have one.”

“The cave? It's dangerous, you could get bitten again.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“I won't force you to stay if you don't want to, but at least take these with you.”

Saia looked around and saw a bundle of cloth glide in her direction, brought by a strong wind that made her hair fly away from her face. She caught it into her arms.

“If you ever change your mind, you can come back. I can find a place for you.”

“Thank you for the cloth,” Saia said, and crossed the line of stones again.

She lived in the cave for another week, hiding every time she saw someone on the beach. They were mostly families or groups of teens relaxing and swimming in the sea. The boy, Dan, came closer a couple of times, always stopping right before the line of stones, and called her. Saia always stayed hidden inside the cave, gritting her teeth against the discomfort of hearing someone scream her name without answering. She made her wonder how things would have been if she entered that village. But there was a god there, and she was done with them spying on her and talking inside her mind.

Then the water ended, and she remembered she had used all of her vissins. Not a problem, since the wells were free for everyone to use, but she also wanted a pillow and some straw on which to sleep, and she might as well sell her snakes and buy everything she needed in one visit to the village.

She stood, begrudgingly walking all the way toward the border. The people scattered on the beach, three families and a group of young adults, stared at her and talked in voices that became quieter and quieter the more she came closer. She looked at her clothes, but she had washed them too when she'd gone bathing in the sea during the night; she didn't look any different than them, so they must have known about her from someone else. The boy.

She stopped and took a deep breath before crossing the line. She expected Koidan to address her immediately, always ready to intrude like all the gods. But the silence continued all the way into the village. She was sure he was looking at her, perceiving and examining every step. It made his silence even creepier.

“I'm just going to the market to sell sea snakes,” she said out loud. “I don't want anything from you. I won't cause problems, so please leave me alone.”

The answer came after several steps.

“Sorry, were you talking to me?”

Saia nodded.

“Don't worry, I see that you can survive on your own. It's impressive, actually. Usually people start to give signs of anxiety when they think that I'm not paying attention to them.”

Saia thought about her native village.

“They do?”

“Yeah, they're always worried that something bad will happen and I won't be there to save them. As if I had ever abandoned someone.”

His words turned slightly bitter toward the end.

“You don't have to worry about that with me.”

“It's not a worry, but I'll leave you be if that's what you want. Call me if you need me.”

She gave him a nod of acknowledgment and kept walking toward the center of the village. The market was so small it could be entirely contained by the square. She looked for the fish stands, pleased to see that they didn’t have sea snakes. She haggled with the young man behind the stand, trying to pose as a traveling merchant and not a woman who lived in a cave and was becoming increasingly desperate for a gulp of water. She managed to sell them for a good price, even if lower than the one she'd have obtained at home. They were probably a more common food there than she'd initially thought.

She found the pillow and a sack of straw, then filled the three canteens she’d bought with clean water. She was heading back, when she saw the boy walking from stand to stand. She started to retreat, but he saw her before she could disappear behind a house.

“How's it going at the cave? I've never been there.”

Saia slowed down, allowing him to approach her.

“It's a nice place, even if a bit more dangerous than living in a village.”

“Why don't you come to live here?”

Saia gave him a short laugh.

“No, sorry, I've already tried a shelter but I can't stand it.”

“A shelter? No, I'm talking about a house.”

Saia looked at him: evidently he didn't know how those things worked.

“I don't have enough money to buy a house.”

Dan shrugged.

“We didn't either, but Koidan built one for us.”

Saia stopped.

“He... Built one?”

“Yep. He built all of them.”

“You don't have builders? Carpenters?”

“We do, but they're usually for fixing stuff or expanding it, for people who can pay them. We can't.”

Saia thought about owning her own house. In Suimer, one had to pay for both the terrain and the builders, and there was a good chance Vizena wouldn't have given her permission, because she didn't want a particular spot to be disrupted by a new house. As a consequence, families tended to live together in the same house for generations, expanding them only when it was absolutely necessary. She'd been happy to the point of tears when her sister moved to her boyfriend's house, leaving the small room they shared all for her. A whole house, even if small...

She steeled herself, controlling her expression. The god was surely listening in, and she didn't want him to see the surprise on her face. Maybe he was the one to send Dan to talk to her, and it was all some sort of complicated trap. She did her best to look a bit bored.

“Well, good for you, but I already have a place to live.”

Dan shrugged, then produced a little smile.

“If you need something, ask about me. I know how to do a lot of stuff, or the people who could do it better than me. Usually I ask for money, but I can help you for free, for now.”

He looked a bit uncertain, as if caught between the desire of genuinely offering help and the need to earn vissins.

“I'll keep that in mind,” Saia said. “Now excuse me, but I have to go.”

It was an absolute lie, knowing she was about to spend the rest of the day mostly sleeping and dreaming about an impossible revenge.

“Okay. See you around.”

Dan walked away, leaving her free to return to her cave. She dragged the sack of straws for a bit, then put it on her shoulders, while the pillow hung halfway out of her bag. She knew it was a ridiculous scene and that she was probably leaving a trail of straw behind her, but Koidan didn't comment, so she left the village without ever looking back.

Her improvised bed wasn't as comfortable as she'd hoped, the straw not enough to protect her by the hard rock surface immediately under the sand. She found herself thinking about the house more and more, both her family’s and the one Dan's words had evoked in her mind. They started to fuse into one entity in her sleepy thoughts. But when she thought about actually talking to the god about it, about asking him for that, she saw herself begging at the feet of Vizena’s statue and heard her cruel laugh. She was done relying on gods, or even people if she could help it. There was just the cave for her, from that moment on.

Or at least, there was for three days, then the water finished again. She headed toward the village, thinking about trying one more time that trick about purifying water. She just needed to buy the right materials, and she could have kissed goodbye to Lausune forever.

She looked at the line of houses in the distance while she crossed the beach, trying to avoid people's eyes. She had the feeling that something was missing. Maybe they had cut a tree near the stretch of forest to the right, where the border made a wide curve.

She had to get closer, deviating from the road she had to follow to get to the village square, to realize that there was a new house, small, with the lower portion of the walls in stone and the rest made of wood. It hadn't been built inside the village's border, but right on top of it.

“Do you like it?”

She jumped a bit. She looked from the temple to the house, not wanting to admit that she was admiring it, but incapable to lie.

“You can come live here, if you want,” Koidan continued. “Don't worry if you don't, I'm sure someone else will use it eventually.”

Saia touched the door. It wasn’t closed, but she didn't open it.

“Did you listen to my conversation with Dan?”

“When? On the beach?”

“At the market. He told me about the house you built for him.”

“Have you any idea of how many conversations are going on in the market? If I listened to them all, I'd be gone insane a long time ago.”

Saia thought about Vizena, how she always seemed to be everywhere, listening and talking to everyone at once. Even Dore was on the nosy side. That meant that either Koidan was a good liar, or he was a very different kind of god.

Still, she shook her head and retracted her hand from the door.

“Thank you, but I can't. I don't want to live inside a god's territory.”

“Maybe there's a solution to that. Come inside.”

She opened the door and made a step forward. There was a bed in the corner, some tools on the opposite one, a table and a chair against the wall at her right.

She looked down, at the stone floor: a white line cut the room in half across the length. The bed was on the other side of it, while chair and table stood on top.

“This is the border. I have no power whatsoever over what happens on the other side of the house. It also means that I won't be able to fix it in case something breaks, or to…”

Saia crossed the room. His voice abruptly stopped as soon as her head was on the other side of the line. She looked at the bed in silence for a moment, then stepped back.

“As I was saying…” Koidan started.

“Thank you. I will… I'll live here for now.”

“Oh. Good. I hoped to convince you.”

“Why do you care so much?”

“It's my job, so to speak. And you have no idea how close you got that night.”

“But keep out of my head, please? And don't spy on me.”

“I don't spy people. I just check out from time to time that they're not in danger.”

“Well, don't do that with me. I'll scream if I need help.”

“Is this how you talk to gods, usually?”

His tone wasn’t of accusation, as she would expect from Vizena or Dore. He sounded genuinely curious.

“I'm not a very religious person. Things at my village are a lot different.”

“Why?”

Saia shook her head.

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“Well, I won't bother you further, so come to the temple if you need to talk.”

“Sure, I'll come visit you sometimes,” she said, more out of curiosity to see a new temple than anything else.

He didn't answer, and Saia took it for a sign he wasn't paying attention to her anymore. She crossed the line to make sure of that. She knew her pillow and improvised mattress were still in the cave, but the bed was too inviting after weeks of sleeping on the ground. She let herself fall face down on the sheet and breathed in the smell of clean cloth until she was asleep.