Amara watched the strange little man stack straw into the over-sized bronze brazier. He reminded her of an insect; his arms and legs seemed too thin, his head moving side to side without pause and the way he worked without a second thought – almost as if out of instinct. The man had come that morning. He brought with him a bundle of straw and little else. No one else visited these temples and no one else brought offerings to the gods or goddesses these temples were once meant to honor. Amara, herself, was little more than left over relic in her old age. Yet, here was this man with his trembling hands and mumbled words stacking the straw into the brazier as if to build a tiny shrine of the cast away grasses.
Amara moved closer, shoving back the hood on her robes to reveal a once beautiful face now ruined by age and scarred by someone else’s hatred. She gave a small piece of rubble a kick to get the man’s attention. The broken stone clattered across the floor with enough of an echo to not be easily ignored. The man looked up from his work at stacking the straw and gave only the barest flinch at the sight of her, his eyes immediately dropping to her feet as he stood with his hands clasped in front.
Amara did not blame him for flinching. After what was done to her, she was so far from recognizing herself that she didn’t even bother to look. She knew that the healing was harsh and in many ways incomplete. Since the death of her goddess, many things in Amara’s life had become harsh. Her outward scars were the least of her burdens anymore.
“I am sorry you have come to see the Temple in such a state,” Amara began. Her words seemed dry in her mouth and she wondered when the last time she had spoken more than a silent prayer was, “The Mirandines used to be so beautiful. But that was so long ago…”
The man shrugged, “Miranda doesn’t need a temple.”
“But the Temple needs Miranda,” Amara said quietly, glancing at the ruinous demise that surrounded them. The stones were gouged from too many battles fought in such a once holy place and anything that might have remained had been looted long ago. Amara only guessed that the bronze brazier had been too heavy to be carried off. All that remained of the marble altar glittered like broken stars across the center of floor in the dimming light of day.
The man kept his eyes down, one hand pinching at the other as if to give courage, “They say all of the gods and goddesses of Valorn are dead.”
Amara swallowed hard against the lump in her throat, the threat of tears and the emptiness she felt inside every time she tried to recall her goddess, “Yes. They are dead. All of them.”
“But…” He finally lifted his eyes to meet Amara’s. They were brown and dull, and everything she expected from a disheveled man that wore little more than rags and uselessly stacked useless straw in a useless brazier meant to honor a dead goddess. After a moment, she realized those eyes were much younger than she first realized, “Nothing can kill a god.”
“They can kill each other,” Amara replied. “And that is what they did. Oh, and their heroes… Each fought for their own righteous reasons until none remained,” she lowered herself to a sitting position upon one of the steps, the tattered edge of her robe pooling at her feet, “I was young then and I would have never believed there would be day that I did not feel Miranda in this Temple,” Amara raised a hand to touch the toughened scars that streaked her face in so many jagged lines, speaking now so low as if she had forgotten the man was still there, “Her healing was gone when I needed it most.”
“Are you sure?” The man pressed, now standing over Amara as she sat crumbling on the steps, “All of them?” He seemed incredulous, as if what he had been told all of his life simply could not be true.
Amara’s heart ached with emptiness and her eyes closed against the memories that remained, as if to keep them inside of her just a little while longer, “Yes. I am sure. Most of the clerics went mad when it happened. When the gods died, those that were not killed in the Last War took their own life and the monuments gifted to us by the gods and goddesses had all sundered. No one comes back from Cory’s Plane now.”
“Then why are you here?”
Because I am as foolish as you. Amara looked across the temple arches to where she could see Sunrifter setting in the mountains. It hasn’t been as bright as when she was young and if she fooled herself into looking close enough, perhaps she could see its light dimming a little more each day. Or maybe it was her eyes that were getting old or maybe she was as mad as any other cleric and just too much of a coward to seek the end. Sunrifter was too bright to look into, she remembered. This Temple was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen. The red ruby veins in the rock and walls were gone now, looted along with everything else. Cut out of the rock like her vanity; with only jagged scars remaining where beauty once lay.
“Because who else.” Amara finally answered.
The man nodded as though that were all the answer that was needed. Amara liked this man, in spite of her first impression of him.
“What’s your name?” Amara asked as she struggled to rise to her feet and the man reached out a hand that was surprisingly stronger than the earlier trembling would have implied.
“I am Halen, Your Holiness. From south of Dundee.”
“I am not a ‘holiness,’ just call me Amara, please, “Amara said, “What are you doing here, Halen?”
“I thought Miranda would like her fires lit again,” He answered plainly, but his face became more animated than Amara had seen before.
Amara couldn’t help but give a laugh, hollow as it was, at the thought of Miranda’s smile suddenly piercing the gloom of her life again, “You certainly have enough straw.”
Halen returned a smile that made him seem practically young and naïve under all the filthy rags and too skinny limbs, “It is a good start, I think.”
Amara knew Miranda was dead, as certain as she knew her bones would break against the stone of the walls. But what harm could a fire do? Halen seemed kind and genuine, and in truth Amara deeply envied his devotion to the idea.
“There is more wood to the south of the Temple, if you do not mind chopping. It will last longer than your straw,” Amara motioned with one hand toward the southern entrance. Her hand hung motionless in the air, however, when she saw Halen kneeling before her.
“Will you give your blessings?” he said, without ever raising his eyes.
Amara sighed as sort of surrender, trying to speak the familiar words that no longer carried meaning throughout the land, “May Miranda smile on you, Halen. Go with the blessings of the gods.”
Halen practically bounded up and out toward the southern exit of the Temple, “Thank you, Amara!”