The wind carries more than silence. It carries the cries of the forgotten.
"Can you hear the cry…?"
It was faint at first, like a whisper wandering through a dying forest. But it grew louder, echoing over the barren hills and scorched northern plains.
People were dying.
The skies had turned ash grey, and the cold wind carried the stench of burnt wood, blood, and dreams turned to dust. Once-fertile fields now lay torn by claws and flame. Where children had once run barefoot and men had toiled beneath the sun with songs on their lips, only bones and silence remained. The woman mumbled in poetic tone. Her sorrow can be heard from those line.
Beneath an old tree, stripped bare by infernal winds, sat a woman in her fifties. Her once-ebony hair had faded to streaks of grey. Her face, pale as parchment, sagged with exhaustion and grief. Crimson eyes—bloodshot from weeping—stared ahead, blank and haunted. She had no tears left. Her husband was gone. Her son… gone. Her grandson—barely five—his laughter still echoed in her ears, now drowned by the memory of that night.
The devils had come like a storm—merciless, swift. She alone had survived.
She did not consider it mercy.
If the gods had not forbidden it, she might have ended her life long ago. But some part of her still clung to one last ember of desire—to see the goddess with her own eyes, just once, before she too turned to dust.
Around her, the last survivors of their villages had gathered before the towering Dragon Gate—the final barrier before the palace walls. Hungry. Tired. Broken. Nearly two hundred of them. Children with swollen bellies. Mothers with cracked lips. Elders coughing blood into their hands. They had walked for days, fleeing the devil scourge. Not for salvation—but for mercy.
But the Dragon Gate remained closed. Unmoved.
Then came the news.
No one would be allowed to pass.
Silence spread like fog.
A voice cracked through it—raw and shaking. "We've come this far… just to die of starving?"
It came from a gaunt man clutching his ribs, as if trying to hold himself together.
A child whimpered beside him, "Mom… I'm hungry. Will I die?"
His mother, barely able to sit upright, pulled him into her lap and cradled his bony frame with trembling arms.
"No, darling," she said softly, forcing a smile through her cracked lips. "Believe in God. A miracle will happen. I believe it."
"How long will it take, Mom?"
She hesitated. Her eyes lifted toward the sky. Toward the unmoving Dragon Gate.
"Very soon, son," she whispered. "Very soon…"
But even she didn't believe it.
As night fell, the stars blinked above like distant watchers—unmoved by the suffering below. Villagers curled up near fires made from broken carts. Hunger gnawed at them like rats. The old woman beneath the tree hadn't moved for hours.
Then… before dawn cracked, the wind shifted.
Soft. Sudden.
A presence swept over them like a hush of breath.
From beyond the sealed gate, a figure stepped into the moonlight.
Clad in flowing white, her gown shimmered like mist kissed by silver starlight. Her face was veiled. Her steps were silent upon the dust. She carried no weapon, yet the air bent around her with power. Graceful. Fierce. Divine.
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
A young girl was the first to rise. She rubbed her eyes, blinked hard.
"Wake up! Wake up!" she cried, running through clusters of half-asleep villagers. "The goddess! The goddess has heard us!"
Her knees hit the earth in a prayerful bow, hands clasped tightly, eyes wide with awe.
The boy clung to his mother. "Mom… did I die? Is this heaven?"
His mother's heart stilled. Then pounded.
"No, my love," she breathed. "No… you're alive. Oh Goddess… please… save my son."
One by one, the villagers rose or dropped to their knees. Heads bowed low. Eyes wide with stunned reverence. Hope—foreign, almost forgotten—glimmered in their hollow gazes.
A miracle.
A miracle in flesh.
The village elder, a stooped man of seventy with shaking knees and reddened eyes, slowly stepped forward. The villagers parted for him like water before a boat. He reached the veiled woman and fell prostrate before her, forehead pressed to the earth.
"Goddess," his voice trembled, "what sin have we committed to suffer such cruelty? We have lost our homes, our children, our dignity. If our sins are too great… then punish me instead. Please… spare the young. Spare them…"
His voice broke. He could not go on.
The veiled woman said nothing.
But she nodded once. Slowly.
At her gesture, a procession emerged behind her—temple maids clad in white and silver, bearing baskets and bundles. And with them… food.
Real food.
Steaming bread. Dried fruits. Cooked grains wrapped in leaves. Bowls of stew, hot and fragrant. Fresh water in silver jugs.
A collective gasp tore through the villagers.
She had prepared for this.
Because she had known.
Ruby had known.
She had foreseen that King Arthro and Shithal would seal the gates, turning their backs on the poor. Cold-blooded. Power-hungry. Merciless.
But she—Ruby—had gathered food in secret. She had emptied temple stores with care, commanded the priestesses in silence, and stored it all for this moment.
Now, she stood beneath the waking sky. Veiled. Divine. Defiant.
A temple maid knelt before the little boy and offered a warm bowl of porridge and a thick slice of bread.
The boy stared. Then looked up at the goddess.
"Mom… look! She gave us food. She knew… she knew we were hungry!"
His mother choked a sob, holding the bowl to her lips.
Around them, chaos turned to joy.
People wept as they ate, mouths too dry to chew. Mothers fed their children first. Elders bowed and trembled. Prayers spilled from grateful lips. One voice shouted—hoarse, but sure—
"Long live the goddess!"
Then another echoed it.
"Long live the goddess!"
A tide of voices rose to the heavens. The broken, beaten villagers stood—not in despair, but in worship. In reverence. In hope.
The woman beneath the tree rose at last. Her knees shook. Her eyes locked on the veiled figure.
"You heard us…" she whispered. "You truly heard us…"
The goddess did not speak. But from beneath her veil, a single tear fell.
And the wind—so long burdened by silence—carried a song again.
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