It had been many years since he'd been home. Since he'd sat down with his brother in the evenings.

But yet he walked.

So long ago was the past. So much pain it held.

And so he walked, and walked, and walked into the sunset.

He was a farmer at heart. He had loved his crops, more than he loved his brother, more than he loved his god. He loved his wheat, and his barley, and his orchard, they were all he cared for. Not anymore.

His brother was dead, and so were his crops, everything near and dear to him, gone in the blink of the eyes.

Now he roamed the paths of the world searching for a new home, or companions to aid him in his new calling, he was not sure.

He slowly became a living legend, a passing rumor. Of a man who survived a god's wrath. And now he was going to kill that god.

The road bent westward, curling like an old scar across the land.
He followed it because it was the only thing left that still pointed somewhere.

Nights were the hardest.

When the stars came out, they reminded him of the lanterns he and his brother once hung above the orchard—tiny lights swaying in the summer wind, guiding them home after long days in the fields. Back then, the world had felt small, safe, almost gentle.

Now the sky felt too large.
And he felt too small beneath it.

He camped beside a dying stream, its water thin as a whisper. The earth here was gray, as if the god’s anger had burned the color out of it. He knelt, cupping the water in his hands, watching it slip through his fingers like everything else he’d ever tried to hold.

“Brother,” he murmured, though no one answered.
The silence was familiar.
Almost comforting.

He slept lightly, as wanderers do, and dreamed of the past—
of wheat bending in golden waves,
of laughter shared over cracked wooden tables,
of a god whose voice once sounded like thunder but now echoed only in stories.

When dawn came, he rose with a stiffness that wasn’t just in his bones.
It was in his soul.

He walked again, boots crunching over ash.
By midday, he reached the remnants of a village—charred beams, broken pottery, a single stone well still standing like a stubborn survivor. He paused, scanning the ruins.

Someone had been here recently.

Footprints.
Small ones.
Not a warrior’s stride, not a traveler’s pace.
A child, perhaps.

He felt something stir in him—
not hope, not yet,
but the faint memory of it.

He followed the tracks to the edge of the ruins, where a figure sat on a fallen beam. A girl, no older than twelve, her clothes patched and dusty, her eyes sharp as flint.

“You’re him,” she said without turning.
“The man who lived through the god’s fire.”

He froze. Rumors traveled faster than truth, but hearing them spoken aloud still startled him.

“And if I am?” he asked.

She finally looked at him, unafraid.
“Then you’re the one I’ve been waiting for.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“Because,” she said, standing with a steadiness that didn’t match her size,
“I know where the god is.”

The wind shifted.
The world seemed to hold its breath.

For the first time in years, he felt the road beneath him change direction—
not because he chose it,
but because destiny had finally caught up.