Saia slipped through the doors of the temple. She tried to close them softly behind her, but a small echo escaped and reverberated inside the room, making heads turn along its passage. Saia ignored them, looking past the crowd absorbed in prayer, towards the tall statue of basalt on the other side of the temple. It depicted a man draped in a golden robe, probably another gift from the tailor. The candles and the evening sun cast deep shadows on his face, highlighting the wide, downturned eyes and the chiselled curls on his head.

The prayer ended. A young woman with a green dress and a black braid stepped behind the lectern. She gave the statue an uncertain look, as if asking for permission. The man of basalt lowered his eyes on her and smiled with his lips. The woman smiled back, then grabbed the book on the lectern as if to prevent it from running away and started reading.

Saia felt uncomfortable standing at the back of the crowd, so she headed towards the left side of the temple. The walls of gray marble formed a circle, with round half-columns jutting out at regular intervals. She found a spot between two of the benches that were positioned along the perimeter of the room. She leaned against the wall, listening to the ceremony while she looked out through one of the tall windows of the temple: on that side, they overlooked a gentle slope, the village below, and the sea embracing it. On the opposite, they showed the trees on the flank of the mountain.

Even if she'd arrived late on purpose to avoid most of the ceremony, it dragged on for at least half an hour more. It ended with a speech from Koidan himself, slowly pacing on the marble pedestal to look at everyone in the crowd while he reminded them to be better people.

After the final prayer, most of the assembly started filing out of the temple. Only a few people remained, sitting down on the benches to talk to the god alone. Even if they could get his attention anywhere in the village, the temple had an aura of warmth that made people feel heard and accepted, with the candles on the windowsills and the blue carpet on the stone floor.

“Everything alright, old man?” Saia whispered.

“You sound too complacent for someone that arrived so late.”

His voice was deep, clear, not old at all. But she liked to make fun of him, especially since everybody else was so serious and formal when talking to him.

“Oh, sorry. I'll offer you some snake skins as a sign of my devotion.”

He made an exaggeratedly disgusted sound. Saia smiled.

“Love the shawl,” he said.

It was orange, with stylized yellow fish sewn here and there. She’d wrapped it around her forehead to prevent the strands of coily hair from falling on her eyes while she worked.

“Thank you. I like your dress too, is it new?”

The statue raised an arm, showing how large the sleeve was.

“A gift from the tailor, for healing his hand.”

“I know I shouldn't pry, but…”

“He stabbed it with a pair of scissors. Slammed his hand down on the sofa without realizing they were upright between two pillows.”

His voice sounded so annoyed Saia had to stifle a laugh.

“I wish people were more careful,” Koidan continued. “Sometimes it feels like I care for their safety more than they do.”

He had expressed similar complaints in the past, but his voice had never sounded that bitter. Saia moved away from the wall and looked at the statue, trying to decipher his neutral expression.

“Is everything alright?”

“Yes, don't worry. I'm just tired.”

Saia wondered whether gods could actually get tired or it was just his way of avoiding the question. She knew asking would have been useless: she'd asked a lot of questions in the last two years, never getting an answer in return.

“What about you?” he asked. “You’re fishing tonight?”

“I’m actually going right now. Just need to bring Lihana her order, first.”

She tapped the bag hanging diagonally from her shoulder. It contained almost everything she needed for fishing, with the addition of two dead snakes carefully wrapped in multiple layers of paper.

“They're pretty big. I’m sure they'll become an excellent soup.” The statue turned its head towards the opposite window. “More problems. Sorry, we'll talk next time. Focusing on so many conversations at once makes it difficult to deal with other stuff.”

Saia nodded. She took an instant to appreciate the calming atmosphere of the temple before abandoning it for the warm spring evening outside.

The sunset was slowly approaching, and with it dinner time. She went down the road that connected the temple to the village, leaving behind the dark shape of the mountain. The clang of kitchenware from open windows accompanied her walk to Lihana’s house. The shutters, usually open wide during the day, were sealed in the evening.

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She knocked. Lihana opened the door an instant later. A smile unfolded on her round face.

“Saia, hi!”

Saia greeted her and extracted the wrapped sea snakes from her bag. Lihana took them carefully, as if they were still alive. The back of her hands was dotted with clusters of tiny red, black and occasionally white scales. There were more on her temples, on the bridge of her small nose, and at the base of the neck.

“How much do I owe you?”

“Five, this time.” Saia heard voices and clang of kitchenware. “You can pay tomorrow, if you're busy.”

”No, it’s fine. Give me a second, I need to put these down.”

She disappeared into the complete darkness inside the house. Saia waited, looking around the empty street, until Lihana emerged again. Her usually blue eyes glistened of a golden tint in the dark.

“Here,” she said, piling five coins on Saia's open hand. “Were you at the ceremony today? The singer of the first prayer was incredible."

Saia nodded, mentally cursing for being late the only day when the ceremony was interesting. She let Lihana return to her dinner and walked home, towards the outskirts of the village. The houses of the area were all small and fairly recent compared to the rest. Her own was little more than a cube of red-tinted wood with two windows on the front. The line of white stones that divided Koidan's territory from the rest of the mountain stopped against one wall and continued from the opposite one, dividing her house in two. She grabbed the handle of the metal bucket hung next to the door and headed towards the beach on the east side of the village.

The sea was calm, reflected light danced on the water. A family of two dads and two kids was sitting on a rough blanket on the sand, admiring the sunset while they ate. Saia greeted them with a nod and walked on, towards the line of white stones that cut the beach in two. A sign was planted there, showing a stylized eye with a yellow line across it.

“Look,” yelled one of the kids. “She's crossing the line. Why she can and I can't?”

Saia turned her head to see one of the little boys pointing at her.

“Because it's dangerous,” said one of the men, giving Saia an apologetic smile. “If you hurt yourself or the cloud people take you, Koidan can't save you there.”

“Why?”

Saia was already too far to hear the answer. It wouldn't have been a good one anyway: nobody knew why the god's protection stopped at the line of white stones, or why there were some empty spaces between the territory of one god and the village of another. She had asked Koidan, of course, but he hadn't revealed anything.

She approached the cave at the end of the beach. The entrance opened on the outside of a huge rock, half as tall as the clock's tower and several houses large. It was probably part of the mountain once, but now the beach surrounded it on all sides, except from behind, where the forest started. Only a thin strip of sand divided it from the sea.

The inside was almost completely dark. Saia opened the bag as she entered and took out a pair of leather gloves, a box of matches and a stick torch. She put on the gloves and lighted the torch. The fire created glimmers on the little pools of water near the entrance, barely reaching the bigger ones, deeper into the cave. Most of them were connected to the sea through underground tunnels created by the passage of water. Sea snakes travelled through these tunnels to access the pools, where they could mate and eat the little fish that lived between the red and green algae at the bottom.

Saia walked on the thin layer of sand that covered the stone floor, watching her steps carefully: even if her leather boots were enough to protect her from snake bites, she didn't want to fall into a pool by mistake.

She reached one of the biggest ones and kneeled, keeping the torch above the water. She took a string from the bag with her free hand. A piece of dried meat dangled from the opposite side. She lowered it onto the water until it was barely touching the top of the algae. She pinned the string down with a knee, freeing her hand so that she could snatch a snake as soon as it appeared.

The cave was almost silent, except for the splashing of water in the pools and the distant crash of the waves on the rocks. It used to terrify her, back when she still lived there. Now she found it soothing and familiar. It reminded her of the boat, of the days spent at sea with her siblings, of the fish they managed to catch. She never liked fish, their dumb eyes and the slimy texture of their bodies, their smell. Sea snakes, on the contrary, had always fascinated her. Her father was the only one in her family who knew how to catch them without getting bitten, hands bare, without fear.

She missed him so much.

A snake's head peered through the algae. Saia held her breath and remained still as it swam towards the bait. She slowly lowered her free hand and stopped it a bit over the water’s surface, eyes fixed on the black and red scales.

Small waves broke the calm surface of the pool. The floor below Saia quivered, then trembled. She lost her balance and tipped forward, towards the water. She let the torch fall onto the sand and slammed both hands down, gripping the pool's edge. She managed to stop, her face close to the surface of the pool. Remembering the snakes' tendency to bite everything that moved, she pushed herself back, away from the water. She stayed there for a moment, breathing fast, suddenly aware of the stone ceiling above her. She grabbed torch and string and hurried out of the cave.

She stood outside, some steps away from the entrance, waiting for her heart to stop pounding. She looked back towards the village, wondering whether the tremor had reached the houses. The family on the beach was frantically putting away the food, both of the children crying. She walked towards them, anxious to cross the line of white stones and be back under Koidan’s protection. She'd never experienced anything like that. The sacred texts mentioned the earth trembling, cracking, spilling fire, but she always thought those were metaphors or exaggerations. For the first time in her life, she wished she'd paid more attention during the ceremonies.

“Did you feel that?” one of the dads asked her, trying to comfort the youngest kid.

Saia nodded. Her legs were trembling, so she stopped next to the family. They stood, waiting, shooting worried glances at the mountain and Koidan’s temple.

“What happened?” she whispered, hoping he was listening.

His voice boomed in her ears, startling her.

“Stay inside your houses,” he said. “You don't have anything to fear. Pray, rest, don't come to the temple.”

One of the fathers nodded.

“You've heard the god,” he said, taking the eldest kid’s hand. “Let's go home.”

The family walked towards the village. Saia stood alone for an instant, still bewildered, then followed them at a much slower pace.

“Saia,” she heard again, the voice lower and gentler. “Come to the temple tomorrow morning at dawn. I need to talk to you.”

She looked at the family in front of her: the parents were talking to each other and the children weren’t crying anymore. It looked like she'd been the only one to receive that message.

“You’ll have to answer a lot of questions, this time.”

“I will,” he said. “But don’t be late.”