The road wound through the dying hills like a scar, pale and cracked beneath his feet. He did not remember when he had last spoken aloud. Words felt like seeds scattered on barren soil—useless, wasted. Silence suited him better now.

He paused at the crest of a ridge. Below lay the ruins of a village, roofs collapsed, fields blackened. Another place touched by the god’s temper. Another reminder of what he had lost.

He descended slowly, boots crunching over brittle earth. The air smelled faintly of smoke, though the fires had long since died. He passed a broken well, a shattered cart, a child’s wooden toy half-buried in dust. All of it abandoned. All of it familiar.

He knelt beside a patch of soil. Dry. Lifeless. He pressed his palm into it anyway, as if some part of him still hoped it might respond. Once, the ground had answered him eagerly. Once, he had coaxed life from the earth with nothing but patience and devotion.

But that was before the god’s wrath. Before the storm that had taken his brother, his crops, his home.

He rose and continued on.

By dusk he reached the far edge of the village, where a single figure sat beside a cold fire pit. A woman, wrapped in a tattered cloak, her face hidden beneath a hood. She did not startle when he approached.

“You’re the wanderer,” she said. Her voice was rough, like someone who had cried too long. “The one who lived.”

He said nothing.

“They say you walk with death at your heels,” she continued. “That the god hunts you still.”

He met her gaze. “Let him hunt.”

A faint smile touched her lips—bitter, weary. “If you keep walking this road, you’ll reach the mountains by dawn. Beyond them lies the old kingdom. They say rebels gather there. People who want the god dead.”

He turned to leave.

“Wait,” she said. “If you find them… tell them we’re still out here. The ones who survived.”

He nodded once. Then he walked on, into the deepening night, the stars cold and sharp above him.

The legend followed him like a shadow. But so did purpose.

And purpose was heavier.