The rain had not fallen in twenty years.
They said the gods were asleep. Others whispered they were dead. But Liora had always believed something far worse — that they were still awake, trapped in the silence of forgotten names.
She walked alone through the valley of Eltheris, where wind howled like a creature starving for sound. The grass was brittle, the earth grey and hollow. Ruins lay scattered like bones — pillars half-sunk into the dirt, arches that led to nowhere, and statues worn faceless by time.
She carried a candle, though there was no wind to threaten its flame. It flickered weakly in her hand, its light trembling as though it feared the same darkness she did.
At the heart of the valley stood the temple — or what remained of it. Its dome had collapsed decades ago, crushed under the weight of its own forgotten glory. Vines crept along the walls like green veins, desperate for life. The entrance was a gaping wound, black and cold.
Liora hesitated at the threshold. She had not been here since she was a child, when her mother would kneel by the altar and whisper prayers to the god of rain.
"Say his name," her mother had told her. "The sky listens to the faithful."
Liora had repeated it — a name she could no longer recall. It tasted like thunder and salt and the promise of something greater than herself. And when she said it, the clouds came.
Now, as she stood before the same altar, her tongue felt heavy, her mind empty. The name was gone.
She knelt, placed her candle on the cracked marble, and whispered the only thing she had left.
"Forgive me. I forgot you."
Her voice echoed faintly through the broken halls.
For a long moment, there was nothing — only the sound of her own breathing. Then, faintly, the ground trembled. Dust trickled from the ceiling. A deep pulse ran through the stone, like the heartbeat of something ancient remembering how to live.
Liora froze. The flame of her candle stretched tall and blue, flickering wildly.
"Who speaks?" a voice murmured.
It was not a sound, not exactly. It pressed against her skin, crawled through her thoughts, and bloomed behind her eyes.
She gasped, clutching her head. "Who— who's there?"
The voice sighed, like the shifting of an old mountain. "You have forgotten me, yet I remember you."
The candle went out.
Darkness swallowed the room, thick as oil. But in that dark, light began to rise — faint lines of gold forming symbols across the walls, the floor, her hands. They glowed like constellations half-remembered by the sky.
She tried to stand, but her knees gave way. "I… I didn't mean to forget," she whispered.
"Names are fragile things," the voice said. "When mortals forget, gods fade. When gods fade, the world begins to die."
The light pulsed once — and from it, a figure began to form.
It wasn't a man, not exactly. It was a shape woven from light and memory — tall, radiant, shifting between human and divine. His eyes were the colour of rain clouds, his expression unreadable.
Liora's breath caught. "You're real…"
"Once," he said softly. "Now I am little more than a shadow. A remnant of what was worshiped." He stepped closer, each movement stirring the dust like breath. "You spoke to me when you were a child."
"I… I don't remember your name."
He smiled sadly. "Neither do I."
The weight of those words struck her harder than the thunder that never came. A god without a name — that was death in every sense that mattered.
"Then how can you still exist?" she asked.
"Because you remembered enough to come."
Liora lowered her gaze, shame and wonder twisting together in her chest. "I just wanted the rain to return. The crops are dying, the rivers are dust. I thought if I could—"
"Pray?" His voice held a trace of something like amusement, or maybe sorrow. "You sought a god to save you, yet all you found was the echo of your own belief."
She looked up. "Then… what are you now?"
"I am what remains when memory fades — the silence between faith and forgetting."
His form flickered, the light dimming briefly before stabilizing. "But you… you are different. I can feel the old spark in you. It has not died."
She frowned. "You make it sound like I'm part of you."
"You are," he said simply. "Every mortal who spoke my name once carried a fragment of my being. When they forgot, those fragments scattered. But one remained whole — in you."
Her heart pounded. "What does that mean?"
He stepped closer until she could see faint symbols dancing across his skin — the same markings now glowing on hers. "It means," he said, "that my existence depends on your memory."
Liora shook her head. "No. I'm just a woman—"
"You are a vessel of remembrance." His eyes darkened, storm brewing within. "And if you forget me again, I will vanish. Forever."
The air grew heavy, thick with unseen weight. She could barely breathe. "Then tell me your name!" she cried.
The god's expression twisted in anguish. "I cannot. It was taken — unspoken for so long that it has no shape. Only you can return it to me."
"How?"
"Dream of me," he whispered. "In dreams, the forgotten are reborn."
Before she could speak, his light flickered again — fading faster this time. His form cracked like glass, his voice breaking apart.
"Wait—!" she reached for him, but her hand passed through light.
The temple groaned, the ground splitting beneath her. The glow vanished, plunging her into darkness once more. Only the faint echo of his voice remained, soft as rain against stone.
"Remember me… Liora."
And then, silence.
When she woke, dawn had come. She was lying outside the temple, her candle melted to nothing beside her. For a moment, she thought it had all been a dream.
But when she looked at her hands, she saw faint golden markings shimmering beneath her skin — the same symbols that had glowed in the dark.
And somewhere far above her, behind the pale light of morning, thunder rolled for the first time in twenty years.