Not the kind that warms or cooks, but the kind that devours—fast, hungry, red.
It rolled over the hills in plumes of smoke, turning wheatfields to ash and bone. The olive groves burned. The riverbanks ran black. And behind it came the soldiers, armored in iron and blood.
Arepo had seen war before. In his youth, he marched in a battle whose name had long since faded from common speech. He’d buried friends in unnamed soil. He thought, perhaps foolishly, that he’d left it behind.
But war does not leave behind those who feed the earth. It returns when the earth is ready.
And now it had come for his sons.
The first skirmish ended quickly. The raiders passed through, taking goats and grain and whatever copper could be pried from doors. Arepo’s eldest stood guard with a rusted spear. The youngest lit fires to look like sentry lines from afar.
They defended not just their home, but the temple.
“Why bother?” a neighbor shouted as they fled. “Save yourselves! It's only stones!”
But Arepo stood firm. “We’ve buried more than prayers there.”
The god did not speak, but the altar pulsed faintly—like a breath held.
Then came the true army.
No stragglers. No scouts. Just force.
Arepo sent his wife and youngest away in the night, with packs of dried roots and whispered prayers. His eldest stayed behind. “This is my land too,” the boy said.
And Arepo, though his chest clenched with fear, nodded. “Then we’ll face it together.”
They set fire to the remaining fields—better ashes than spoils. They laid traps in the gullies. They hid beneath the roots of the old fig stump, sharpened blades strapped to trembling hands.
But war doesn’t care for cleverness.
It came loud. It came fast. It came with a roar.
And by the time the smoke cleared, the wheat was gone, the fields were black, and Arepo stumbled, bleeding, toward the only thing left unbroken.
The temple.
He crawled on hands and knees, one palm pressed against the wound in his gut. His blood painted a line through the dust.
The god cried out before he reached the altar. “Stop! Please—stay where it’s safe. I’ll hide you. I’ll veil the temple in fog. I’ll—”
“You can’t,” Arepo whispered, dragging himself through the grass. “You said so yourself.”
The god’s voice was raw now—wind howling through broken reeds. “I couldn’t protect them. I couldn’t protect *you*. I’ve done *nothing*. All these years, I—”
Arepo collapsed beside the stones. His lips were cracked and pale. Still, he smiled.
“Shush,” he said gently. “Tell me again.”
The god was silent.
“Please,” Arepo whispered. “One last time.”
So the god leaned close, cradling his head in hands made of wind and earth and memory, and it whispered:
“I am the god of fallen leaves,” it said, and the scent of autumn drifted on the breeze.
“I am the worms that churn beneath the earth,” and the soil trembled softly.
“I am the line where forest meets field.”
“The breath of frost before snow.”
“The skin of an apple as it yields beneath your teeth.”
“The god of a dozen different nothings—of passing moments, fleeting change, bloom before rot.”
“I am the change in the air—” The god’s voice broke. “—before it’s gone.”
Arepo’s breath came slow, shallow. His eyes closed, his smile soft.
“All of them,” he murmured, “so beautiful.”
And then, without ceremony or storm, Arepo—the sower, the husband, the builder of temples—returned home.
Not to a heaven. Not to glory.
But to his god.
Years passed.
The war moved on. The village was reclaimed, then forgotten, then remembered only in maps too faded to read.
But the temple remained.
Sora found it by accident.
She had come from across the wine-dark sea, searching for stories, for bones, for lost things. She found a ring of stones choked with vines, its roof fallen in.
Inside, the bones of a man lay undisturbed, curled beneath the remnants of twigs and dust.
She knelt, brushing leaves from the altar, and whispered, “Oh, poor god. With no one left to bury your last priest.”
Then she paused. Her people honored their dead differently.
“Or... is this how it’s done here?”
The stones shifted. A voice, ancient and quiet, stirred from within.
“His name was Arepo,” it said. “He was a sower.”
Sora startled. She had heard tales of gods, but never their voices.
“How can I honor him?” she asked.
“Bury him,” the god said. “Beneath my altar.”
She nodded, leaving and returning with tools. She gathered the bones with reverence, wrapping them in a length of undyed wool.
As she began to dig, the god hesitated.
“Wait,” it said.
She looked up.
“I cannot do anything for you,” the god said. “I am not a god of fortune or power. I cannot grant wishes or offer protection. I am not... useful.”
Sora sat back on her heels, dust smudging her cheeks. She looked at the altar—weathered, cracked, but standing.
The god continued, its voice trembling like a breeze on the edge of winter.
“When the Storm came, I could not save his wheat. When the Harvest failed, I could not feed him. When War came... I held him as he died. That is all I could do.”
Sora looked at the bones.
Then at the altar.
Then at the air, which now smelled faintly of leaves.
“I think,” she said quietly, “you are the god of something very useful.”
The god was silent.
“What?” it asked, finally.
Sora lifted the skull and placed it gently on the cloth.
