She slowed down when Dore’s temple entered her domain. The monks were huddled near the statue, with Dore's sleeping sphere on top of its pedestal. They were discussing a message from the mountain that told them to be on the lookout for a woman that looked just like Saia, and not to alert the gods for any reason, since they could all be compromised.

Saia left them wondering what ‘compromised’ might mean in that situation and ran past the temple toward the northern docks. There were already people gathering to look at the mysterious line in the sky.

She slowed down, examining each boat with her powers. Her viss exploded all around her with relief as soon as she found Dan and Morìc sitting in the same boat they'd used, battered but alive. She was about to call out to them from afar, making the air tremble like deities did to produce sound, then thought better of it: she still wanted them to consider her the usual Saia, the fisher without the powers of a goddess.

So she walked down the stairs that led to the docks and approached the boat with a smile.

“Everything alright?” she asked.

Dan was sitting in front of his brother, pressing a clean cloth to one of his eyes. He perked up as soon as he heard Saia's voice. He briefly smiled back, then his expression became pained.

“We've lost the sphere.”

“We haven't lost it,” his brother added, wincing for the pain. “We were attacked.”

Saia felt the panic buzz all along her body at the idea of Zeles being lost somewhere at the bottom of the sea. Still, she forced herself to squat down and look at the boys closely. Their clothes were wet with seawater.

“What happened, exactly?”

Morìc’s eye was a bit swollen and purplish. Saia wanted to fix it, accelerating the recovery with her viss, but held back. Aili could heal him once he returned to Lausune.

“We did everything you asked,” Dan said. “We found the sphere inside Vizena's statue, even if didn't look like Vizena at all.”

“She looked like Koidan,” Morìc specified. “And she didn't say anything when we entered.”

Saia nodded to let them know that she was aware of that and gestured for Dan to continue.

“We returned to the boat and let it float to open sea by loosening the rope.”

He pointed at it: the extremity was still knotted around the dock's pole.

“You kept the sphere hidden, right?” Saia asked.

Dan nodded vigorously.

“Yes, the whole time. We got as far as we could and waited. At some point there was a trembling.”

“We only guessed it was a trembling,” Morìc said, taking the cloth from his brother's hands and pressing it onto his eye. “We saw everyone run out of their houses, then the trees started swaying and there were some waves, which was weird since the sea was completely calm.”

“Something hit you?” Saia asked.

“Not the tremor,” Morìc said.

“It was a man,” Dan continued in his place. “We were waiting as you told us, two hours or so, when a boat started to come toward us too fast, even if there was just one man rowing.”

“Someone we know?”

Morìc shook his head.

“A monk. He told us to give him the sphere even if we were keeping it hidden. When we refused, he shoved me and I hit the border of the boat with my eye.”

“I was scared, so I gave him the sphere,” Dan said.

His face was ridden with guilt. Saia wanted to hug him, but she didn't know how to hide the fact her body was made of stone.

“It doesn't matter,” she said instead. “You did the right thing. What did the man look like?”

“Tall, brown curly hair, a beard, light-brown skin,” Dan said, looking at his brother as if to ask for more details.

“Strong,” he added, touching the cloth to his eye again. “He looked melanchonic and scared of himself. He didn't seem to want to hurt us, but then he did anyway.”

If Dan's description had evoked the image of a bunch of possible culprits she'd seen and sometimes interacted with whilst living on the mountain, Morìc's narrowed it down to one.

She stood, expecting pain for maintaining the squat for so long and finding only the frantic buzzing of her viss.

“Where did he go?”

Dan pointed at the line in the sky. Saia nodded.

“Thank you for helping me so much. I'm sorry for this mess, the only reason I asked for your help was that I was fairly sure nobody would have hurt you.”

She gripped the rope and started unknotting it.

“Go home, now. Koidan will take care of you. I need to deal with that…”

Thief? Traitor? She didn’t know which suited him best.

She waited until they were safely on the dock, then carefully stepped onto the boat herself. It sunk a bit more than it should have for carrying a person of her frame. She looked at the boys, but they didn't seem to have noticed: Dan was fussing around his brother as if to prevent other fears from taking hold, while Morìc's sane eye was fixed on the stairs of the harbor. It darted on Saia when she gave a push to the dock with the row to free the boat from its hold.

“We'll need answers,” he said, matter-of-factly.

Saia was reminded of what she'd told Zeles the night when the earth had trembled for the first time. She nodded, then started rowing.

The further she went, the more she was aware of the subtle flow of energy that connected her to the mountain. She couldn’t go too far, or the tremor would have resumed. Unless she got Zeles back.

The black line that connected sea and sky split in two as she approached, with horizontal pieces connecting the two main ones. It was a ladder made of shorter ones, each equipped with its own set of metal steps and handles to the sides. The pieces were connected by short but thick chains that made the whole structure sway in the wind. She couldn’t see the top of it, hidden by the clouds.

At the base of the ladder there were a boat, a man, and a dove. The animal was patiently perched on a step while the man fumbled with a piece of recycled paper. The boat was completely at the mercy of the waves, its only anchor a piece of rope tied to a swinging portion of the ladder.

Saia stopped rowing and relied on the waves to propel her instead, stirred by a wind she created. She'd expected to feel the link to the mountain dwindle with the distance, but after a certain point it had only become stronger. Despite that, the mountain was almost outside of her domain, the only exception a piece of it that extended underwater. If she went further than that, she knew the earth would have trembled.

She forced herself to stop, despite the man being still quite distant. He probably couldn't even distinguish her, except for her silhouette standing on a boat.

On the contrary, she was observing him from the edge of her domain and could see every crease in his expression. It was riddled with guilt, but also with a measure of hope she'd rarely seen on him.

“So you hit kids, now,” she said.

Rabam jumped, almost letting the paper fall. He looked around, apparently unaware that the voice was just a trembling in the air some arms away from him. He finally found the figure in the distance and narrowed his eyes.

“Who are you?”

“You recognize my voice, don't you? Or have you forgotten it along with human decency?”

She couldn't reach him in any way if not with sound. She tried to send a gust of wind his way, but she only managed to create some useless waves.

“Saia?” he finally said, his eyes opening wide, then narrowing again on her distant figure.

“Yes. Why are you doing all of this? How did you know about Zeles?”

“It's my revenge,” he answered without hesitation. He patted the small bag that was hanging at his side, bulging with the sphere it contained. “He has ruined my life, so I'll ruin his.”

“Giving him to cloud people?”

“Yes. They offered me free passage to one of the big cities beyond the sea in exchange for a god.”

Saia remembered his words about a worst punishment than death for Vizena: what was worse than falling in the hands of the very people who constantly attacked the mountain, who surely saw the gods as the only obstacle to obtain what they wanted?

She tried to calm her viss, to transform the buzzing into slower waves like the ones that wobbled all around her.

“They offered you? How?”

He glanced at the dove, then at the piece of paper in his hands. He sighed.

“I don't have time for this. Just let me go. I promise you won’t have to see or hear from me anymore.”

“You hurt my friends. You knew of my plans. You betrayed my trust, and now you won't tell me why?”

His shoulders slumped.

“I didn't want to hurt the boys, but Zeles let Milvia die. I'll never forgive him for that.”

Saia looked at him in confusion, then realized he couldn't see her expression.

“You were a monk,” she slowly said, recalling all of their interactions. “A sentinel, if what you told me is true.”

“It is.”

“Then how did you know Milvia?”

He propped an elbow on one of the steps to stabilize himself.

“I was sent to Lausune for a mission. I met Mili and fell in love with her. I tried to forget her as best as I could, but after two months I was still thinking about her. My priors didn’t give me permission to participate in routine checks or missions, so I had to find a way to see her again without them noticing.”

“The paths,” Saia said.

He nodded.

“I studied my dad's books and found a hidden way to reach Lausune. Zeles believed I was just a merchant passing by, so I could meet Mili again without him suspecting a thing. I courted her and she became my girlfriend.”

“Did she know you were a monk?”

“Not at the beginning. I eventually told her everything during our strolls outside of Koidan’s territory. I visited as much as I could. My absence was noticed and reported to the priors one time too many, and one day I found them waiting for me as I returned from Lausune.”

“And they imprisoned and sent you to Namuri in exile,” Saia said. “Ebus told me. How did you leave?”

His guilt resurfaced at the mention of his brother. It got worse when he resumed speaking.

“It was my grandma. She'd known the person who is now Sulris, Namuri’s deity. She told me to ask them for a favor that they owed her. When I was still in prison, she brought me the notes necessary to calculate a hidden path from Namuri to the mountain, and promised me she'd have communicated the position of the sentinels with a mirror every time it changed.”

Saia thought about the old woman and her silences.

“She wanted to keep the family whole,” Rabam continued. “Her, me, Ebus, our mom and our dads. I wasn't keen on returning on the mountain immediately, though. I hated the monks for getting rid of me. I also met Mili at the market during one of her trips with her uncle in the nearby villages. She managed to find me a job and came visiting every time she could.”

Saia knew what came next and closed her eyes, even if that didn't change her view of Rabam’s sorrowful expression.

“Then I received her uncle’s letter telling me she'd been killed. I couldn't wrap my head around how it was possible, since there was a god that should have prevented stuff like that from ever happening. Then I realized.” He looked down at the bag that contained Zeles. “He either wanted that to happen, or didn’t care enough to save her. Either way, it was all his fault. I went back to the mountain some days after that and learned that he was dying and had disappeared.”

“So this whole time you only wanted to take revenge on him.”

“Yes, but I didn't know how. I knew, or rather, hoped he'd be eventually found out and brought back by the monks, but I also knew they'd just have cracked him and carried on as usual. It didn't feel enough. I wanted to hurt him and also strike them for preventing me to be with Mili with their pointless rules.”

Saia remembered the sorrow she’d felt in his viss. Everything he was saying sounded intimately familiar: a prohibited love, the exile from his family, revenge on the god that ruined his life.

“Cloud people gave me a solution. I had stopped boiling my water, both because starting a fire each time was quite dangerous and I didn't care much about being poisoned after Mili's death. I started to drink the water of the lake. After the first rain, I had a vision.”

Saia remembered what she saw at night in the forest. The message wasn't for her, but Rabam: they were telling him what to do once he had Zeles's sphere.

“I saw the cities beyond the sea, as big as the ones in the myths. A voice told me they could bring me there, in exchange for a sphere. I could obtain my revenge, escape my exile and start a new life somewhere better.”

“That still doesn't explain how you knew that those two boys had Zeles.”

“This morning I saw you with my binoculars coming up the mountain with a sphere in your hand. I thought it was Zeles, so I rushed down the mountain to intercept you, but you were already surrounded by sentinels. I took advantage of the confusion to enter the village, but no one was allowed inside the temple except for the priors. I heard that they had cracked Zeles, so I left, thinking that my plan was ruined and I had to steal another god before the cloud people that proposed me the deal left. I was confused when the earth trembled, because if there were ten gods around the mountain and nine were enough to prevent that, cracking one shouldn't have made a difference.”

The dove gently cooed and Rabam pet its head with a finger.

“Then I realized that you didn't hold a grudge against Zeles, but Vizena. So I checked what was going on in Suimer. I saw the whole population on the shore, as if they were alerted before the trembling started. And there was a boat floating in the middle of the sea, still connected to the docks by a rope. It didn't make sense for it to be there, especially since the two people on board didn't seem to be doing anything except for waiting. Or, I thought, keeping a fugitive god far enough from the mountain it couldn't prevent its trembling.”

He extracted a long piece of hematite from his bag and wrote something on the paper.

“So I ran down the mountain and attacked them. I'm not proud of it, and there was a good chance I had gotten it all wrong, but I was desperate. Sorry for everything. At least we both got what we wanted, in the end.”

He produced a tentative smile, then resumed writing. Saia only observed him, reflecting on his words. The message he was scribbling with such urgency was surely the confirmation cloud people needed to retreat the ladder, with Rabam perched on it. At that point, he'd be too far for anyone to reach. She wondered what they'd have done once Zeles was in their hands.

Not much, she realized.

“Well, since you're so determined to bring Zeles with you, you should know that he's dying.”

Rabam had extracted a short piece of string to tie the rolled-up message to the dove's leg. He lowered his hands, frowning.

“Do you think you can reach the cities beyond the sea before your friends find out?” Saia asked. “How are they going to react when they realize the god you're giving them has barely enough viss to survive the next few hours?”

“You're lying. My grandma asked the scholars: Zeles should have five years of viss left, a lot more if no one awakens him.”

“The monks' calculations are wrong, that's the whole reason why they didn't know he was already dying in the first place.”

His eyes narrowed again, this time with distrust.

“And how do you know that?”

Saia focused on his bag before answering, wishing she could consult Zeles before explaining more.

“He's my friend. I've helped him hide his condition to the monks and he's helped me deal with Vizena. That's why he has almost nothing left.”

He stared at her distant figure, apparently unable to answer. So she kept going, telling him of how she'd crossed into Vizena's territory, of the fight that ensued, of all the viss he had to use to oppose Vizena and create an opportunity for Saia.

“Or did you really think I had accomplished all of that alone?” she concluded.

Rabam stared a bit more, then lowered his eyes.

“Milvia's death was a mistake he'll never forget,” Saia added, nervous about the fact she couldn't decipher his thoughts anymore. “Vizena's defeat was only possible because of the sacrifice he made to save my people.”

Rabam finally let out a sigh, his body hunching some more.

“If I trust you and it turns out you have lied, I’ll have lost the chance of a lifetime.”

“The chance to get killed, Rabam. You know me: I've never thought for a second about betraying you.”

“You were human, then.”

“I’m human now. Let's not lie anymore about what gods actually are.”

He nodded, then raised his eyes to the sky.

“What should I do, then?”

“Go back to Lausune. My friend Aili is the new Koidan. She knows about you and how you helped me. She'll protect you from the monks.”

He stepped down onto the boat, reluctantly letting go of the ladder.

Saia registered a gust of air somewhere above the point from which she was observing Rabam. It was just at the limit of her domain, so she couldn't stop the object that had caused it.

The harpoon struck the wood of Rabam's boat. He screamed, clutching the ladder with both arms, scaring the dove away.

“I can’t!” he yelled. “They won't let me.”

Saia looked at him swinging left and right. Once again, she was being observed by forces more powerful than her.

The dove came back, circled around the ladder, then perched two steps above Rabam's head. He was silently crying now, clutching the piece of paper in his hand.

Saia looked up: the sky was covered by a carpet of gray clouds. If there was a city up there, she didn't know how to spot it, nor how to send it away. Except maybe for giving its inhabitants what they wanted.

“Send me,” she told Rabam.

He wiped his face dry and breathed deeply.

“What?” he only managed to say.

Saia took out her sphere from her chest and held it high over her head, so that whoever had thrown the harpoon could see it too.

“Write them that Zeles's sphere is almost empty and I'll go instead.”

“That's not fair. All of this is still Zeles's fault. He's responsible for Mili's death.”

“If he is, then I'm responsible too. It was my idea to tell people that he wouldn't be able to pay them attention like before. I helped hide him. And when he learned about Milvia’s death and wanted to go back to the temple to face his fate, I shut him down. You should direct your anger at me, too.”

Rabam rubbed his face.

“I’m so fucking tired. I don't care anymore on whose fault everything is, I just want this mess to be over with.”

“Then do as I say. Write that letter.”

He did. As soon as the roll of paper was secured against its leg, the dove flew away, ascending in a loose spiral across the sky. Saia waited for its return, ready to react at the first sign of danger. She had a lot of questions about these cloud people: how did they know about Rabam, what had happened to him and what he wanted; how they knew so many details about the mountain, gods included; why they wanted a god. Why they never came down to earth.

The dove returned before she could find any answers. It perched on Rabam's extended arm, allowing him to retrieve the answer.

“They ask for your shard, first.”

Saia focused on the sphere between her hands. She had hoped they didn’t know about it, but it was obvious they'd have found a way to protect themselves for her, if they didn't already have one.

She detached a shard like the ones she'd found in the monks' village and let it levitate toward the margin of her territory.

“Get ready to catch it.”

Rabam stretched an arm outward and nodded.

Saia created a wind to give the shard momentum and direction. It was soon out of her control, flying toward the ladder. Rabam bent forward to catch it, then held it out to show that he had it.

He wrapped the shard in the letter and used the string to bundle it tight. The dove flew away again, leaving them to wait. Saia sat down on the boat, in case they decided to test the shard by deactivating her.

She was expecting the dove to return once more. Instead, the ladder started moving toward her. It entered her domain, as if to remark how powerless she once again was, and stopped in front of her boat. Rabam stepped onto it with trembling hands and immediately sat down, head lowered between his knees. Saia knew he needed time to recover, but they were being observed and every passing minute was a higher risk of a new attack.

She put a hand on his shoulder.

“It's not over yet. Listen to me.”

He raised his head and met her eyes for the first time.

“Give me Zeles.”

He obeyed, holding out the bag with the sphere without taking it out. Saia was relieved to see the blue light, even if she knew he had very little viss left. She focused on her own energies and divided them in half, then started pushing them toward Zeles. She thought of her family as she did that, repeating a message for him in her mind: ‘take care of them’. She didn’t know how to make it actually legible, but she hoped he would get the general feeling.

Once the process was complete, she gave the closed bag back to Rabam. Following a sudden impulse, she took the half-shards of the other gods from the cavities inside her body, leaving only Aili’s shard inside.

“Give them to my friend,” she said, handing them over to Rabam.

He counted them under his breath and his eyes widened. Before he could put them away, Saia detached another shard from her own sphere and let it fall on top of the pile.

“And this one. Tell her where I went and that I'll be fine.”

Rabam nodded, too tired, shocked and scared at once to give an answer. Saia very gently squeezed his shoulder, then stepped onto the ladder. It started ascending even before she could figure out how to put on the straps that were hanging at the side. But she didn't need them, after all. Her statue’s hold was impossible to break.

She looked down while they hoisted her, observing Rabam's boat as it sailed toward the harbor. Soon enough she could see both the village where she was born and the one where she had found refuge, then all the remaining ones, sprawled around the giant shape of the mountain. Then, the clouds covered everything, leaving her alone in the middle of the sky.