When Zaruko stepped from his tent that morning, the camp quieted.
It wasn't fear. Not exactly. Not reverence either.
It was the silence of shifting ground — the kind that comes when people no longer see you as flesh, but as something else. Something touched. Marked.
He moved through the camp like a storm just passed. People made way. Some nodded. Others bowed their heads.
A few just stared, eyes lingering on the edge of awe and caution.
His blade hung at his side, wrapped in cloth. The sigil on his arm had faded back to its resting glow, but the memory of its flame remained etched in every heart who had seen it burn.
Maela caught up to him near the water basins.
"They're scared," she said, her voice low.
He didn't stop walking. "Good. Fear keeps people alive."
"Fear also breeds doubt. Rumors are spreading."
He turned to her. "What kind?"
"That you're a god. Or a demon. Or that you made a pact for power."
He raised an eyebrow. "They're not wrong about the last part."
She smirked. "You shouldn't joke. Not now."
He looked past her, toward the trees.
"There's nothing left to joke about. The land's changing. The gods are stirring. We either rise with the flame or get swallowed by shadow."
Later that day, a council was called — the first since the tribe's reformation under Zaruko's leadership.
They gathered in a wide circle beneath the high ridge, where the stone slabs had been scrubbed clean and painted with new symbols: flames, iron, and triangles within circles. Zaruko sat at the center, arms crossed, blade resting on his lap.
Elders, hunters, weavers, warriors — all were present.
Maela stood beside him.
The eldest among them, a thin man named Joron, cleared his throat.
"We speak today not in defiance, but in need of clarity," he said. "We have seen your strength, Zaruko. Your mark. Your fire."
He paused, choosing his next words with care.
"But our people are old. We have seen many rise with power — and fall because of it. We do not know the god who walks with you. We do not know where he comes from. We only know… that you have brought something new into this land. Something that burns."
Murmurs spread.
Zaruko said nothing for a long moment. Then he stood.
"You're right."
The murmurs hushed.
"You don't know Ogou. And maybe that's a blessing. Because where I come from, we've forgotten him too. But he remembers us."
He rolled up his sleeve.
The mark was still there — faded now, but unmistakable.
"This is not a gift. It's a responsibility. I didn't ask for it. I earned it in blood and fire. And when the rot came for us, when the vines and curses reached into our homes, this mark burned them away."
He looked at each face in the crowd.
"Ogou does not ask for worship. He demands work. Order. Protection. He gives fire — but expects you to use it. So if you fear him… Good. But fear him like you fear your blade. Use him like you use your hands."
Silence.
Then Maela stepped forward.
"He is not the end. He's the beginning. What comes next… is up to us."
One by one, heads began to nod.
Not all.
But enough.
That night, as the fires burned low, Zaruko stood alone at the edge of camp, sharpening his blade by moonlight.
The steel caught the glow with every drag of stone across edge.
He wasn't alone for long.
A boy — no more than twelve — approached quietly. He carried a small bundle wrapped in rough cloth.
Zaruko didn't look up.
"You lost?"
The boy shook his head and knelt. He unwrapped the bundle.
Inside was a triangle carved into a flat stone — painted red with crushed berries and soot.
"I made this," the boy said, "for the god."
Zaruko paused.
"Why?"
"Because he saved us. You saved us. My sister still breathes because of the fire."
Zaruko looked at the stone, then at the boy.
"You don't even know his name."
"I don't need to," the boy said. "He chose you. That's enough."
Zaruko nodded slowly.
"Then put it by the fire. Every day."
The boy's eyes lit up, and he ran off, cradling the stone like a sacred scroll.
Zaruko exhaled.
He doesn't need temples, he thought. Just people willing to endure.
But elsewhere, deep in the mosslands, others were not so welcoming.
In a sunken glade surrounded by dead trees and silent pools, six figures gathered around a pool of black water.
They wore bone masks.
Feathers.
Ash.
Each had once been a priest of a different god — long silent, long buried.
But tonight, the pool rippled.
Because something new had stirred the balance.
"He brings a god of war," said one.
"A fire from beyond," said another.
"Unwritten. Unclaimed. Undeclared."
The pool flashed.
A vision rose.
Zaruko's face. The mark. The blade.
"He must be tested," said the third.
"And if he fails?"
"He must be cleansed."
Zaruko dreamed again.
But this time, there was no swamp.
Only metal.
Endless metal.
Rows of swords. Spears. Shields. All glowing faint red. All forged and stacked beneath a massive, shadowed figure.
Ogou.
Not in form — but in presence.
The forge god's hand emerged from the dark, placing a glowing piece of steel into the fire.
Then the whisper:
"You are the weapon."
Zaruko woke with sweat on his brow and sparks in his breath.
The next morning, the scouts returned from the east.
Three villages gone. No survivors.
No signs of battle.
Just silence.
And thorn.
Always thorn.
Zaruko stood with Maela and the other warriors.
The rot was spreading faster now.
The Emissary may have been driven back — but his god had not retreated.
Zaruko looked to the horizon.
The fire within his mark burned warmer.
He drew his blade.
"Time to sharpen again."
He didn't sleep that night.
Instead, he sat beside the fire, stone in one hand, blade in the other, working the edge with slow, rhythmic drags.
The sound became a heartbeat.
The blade, a ritual.
Every warrior had their habits — Zaruko's was preparation. Steel over dreams. Readiness over comfort.
And now, more than ever, he felt the weight of eyes he could not see — not just the tribe's, but the gods'.
Or worse, the ones that thought themselves gods.
He looked to the eastern ridge, beyond which the villages had vanished. Beyond which thorn took root.
"They want to break us before we rise."
He lifted the blade, now gleaming.
"Let them try."