Since their last visit to the abandoned Hestia Temple, the sisters had decided to return—this time with brooms, buckets of water, clean rags, and a small basket of offerings: fresh bread, honey, and a handful of ripe figs.
They set out at dawn, the mountain path damp with dew, the morning mist clinging to the grass. Pheropyr led the way, the wooden handle of her bucket creaking softly with each step. Pherodaro followed, cradling the basket of offerings, her eyes flickering down occasionally to ensure nothing spilled.
The temple stood as before, silent and ancient, its stone columns casting long shadows in the slanting sunlight. The sisters paused at the entrance, exchanging a glance. Neither spoke, but the unspoken agreement was clear—they would not step inside.
Pheropyr took a deep breath and began sweeping the temple's outer stones, the stiff bristles scraping away layers of dust and dead leaves. Pherodaro knelt, dampening a cloth to wipe the grime from the pillars. Her movements were careful, reverent, as if afraid to disturb something unseen.
The air was still. Only the whisper of the broom and the occasional sigh of wind broke the silence.
Yet they could feel it—**the gaze**.
Not human. Not animal. Something older, heavier, watching from the dark. A presence coiled just beyond sight, patient and calculating, like a predator observing intruders in its domain.
Pheropyr's fingers trembled, but she didn't stop sweeping. She dared not look up, dared not meet whatever lurked in the temple's depths.
Pherodaro placed the offerings on the worn stone steps, murmuring a quiet prayer before stepping back. The bread, the honey, the figs—all untouched. No wind stirred them. No creature approached. They remained as pristine as when they were laid out, as if rejected by an invisible hand.
The sisters worked in silence, cleaning the weeds from the courtyard, scrubbing moss from the pillars, even patching a cracked step with loose stones. But the threshold remained uncrossed.
As the sun dipped low, staining the temple in hues of rust and gold, Pheropyr straightened. "We should go."
Pherodaro nodded. They gathered their tools, cast one last look at the temple, and turned away.
Behind them, the offerings still sat, undisturbed.
As if they had never been there at all.
**"The Morning of Omens"**
By the second week, the aberration came without warning.
Dawn had broken in its usual manner, the sun's first rays scalding the earth as if determined to vaporize the night's lingering dew. But just as the city began stirring under what should have been another sweltering morning—**the mist came alive**.
This was no ordinary fog. It slithered from the ground in undulating waves, a thick, pearlescent shroud that devoured streets whole. With it came an unseasonable wind—sharp as a blade's edge—that howled through alleyways and rattled shutters with a sound like muffled weeping.
**This defied all natural order.**
Pheropyr pushed open the window only to recoil as the invasive cold seized her lungs. Her exhale crystallized midair. Though the sun still hung above, its light diffused into a sickly pallor behind the fog's churning veil. More disturbing still—**fire had lost its warmth**. The hearth flames danced as always, yet their heat stopped at the boundary of perception, as though reality itself had been subtly rewritten.
In the unnaturally silent streets, Hestia's faithful clustered together like sparrows before a storm.
"They say it's worse at Zeus' temple," one devotee muttered through chattering teeth, pulling his cloak tighter. "The sacred flame extinguished itself. New kindling refuses to catch."
"Poseidon's domain fares better," another offered, though her knuckles whitened around her amulet. "At least the sea hasn't frozen."
"Serves them right!" An elder priestess spat. "Yesterday, some drunken hierophant of Zeus marched to Hestia's abandoned shrine. Dared shout that 'demigods deserve no sanctum.' Now look—they've provoked what should've been left sleeping."
The rhythmic thud of armored boots cut through the murmurs.
"Return to your homes! Immediately!" The patrol captain's voice held a tension no citizen dared ignore. "This is no natural weather. Stay indoors!"
The crowd dispersed like scattered leaves. The sisters secured their shop with haste, but as Pherodaro slid the final bolt into place—
The patrol collapsed en masse.
Bodies struck the flagstones in dull succession beyond the thickening mist. No cries preceded their fall. No struggle followed. Just the terrible, methodical percussion of flesh meeting stone.
Above them, the sky darkened exponentially. Clouds congealed like clotting blood, merging with the rising fog until earth and heavens became indistinguishable. The wind died abruptly, yet the cold intensified—a presence rather than an absence, as if the air itself had turned to liquid ice.
Pheropyr's hand froze on the door latch. In the wordless glance exchanged with her sister hung a shared realization.
Pherodoro stiffened suddenly, her fingers tightening around the offering bowl. "Sister... I feel a calling."
Pheropyr needed no explanation. The same pull resonated in her bones. "As do I."
When they stepped outside, their breath caught—the abandoned Hestia Temple atop the hill was glowing. Not with torchlight, but with a deep, pulsing radiance that made the stones themselves seem translucent, as if the mountain's heart had ignited.
Without speaking, they prepared. Pheropyr secured the sacred pithos—the clay jar containing their village's collected black stones—against her hip. The volcanic glass fragments clicked together like whispering teeth as she moved.
The path had repaired itself.
Where yesterday there had been only treacherous scree, now lay smooth stone steps veined with golden deposits that shimmered without light source. The sisters exchanged no words about the miracle—some wonders demanded silent acceptance.
At the halfway point, warmth enveloped them. Not the oppressive heat of the sun, but the embrace of sacred fire —a magic that seeped into marrow. Pherodoro gasped as it kindled forgotten memories: her mother's lullabies, the first time she'd kindled a flame, the scent of festival bread. Tears carved silver trails down her cheeks.
Pheropyr pressed their foreheads together. "Let me do the talk." Her smile held the certainty of one walking into a destined fire.
**The Temple's Trial**
The sisters stood at the threshold of the glowing temple, their shadows stretching long behind them like tattered cloaks. The air hummed with unseen energy, making the fine hairs on Pheropyr's arms stand upright. They bowed deeply, their foreheads nearly brushing the unnaturally warm stone of the doorstep.
"Enter." The voice from within held no warmth, no malice—just the hollow resonance of a bronze bell struck in an empty chamber. It slithered down their spines, awakening some primal instinct to flee.
"Thank you, Heireia." Pheropyr forced the words through numb lips, bowing again before stepping across the boundary. An invisible weight immediately pressed down on her shoulders, compelling her gaze toward the floor. The air smelled of lightning-struck stone and something older—the metallic tang of stars long dead.
The figure before them sat draped in shadows that clung to her form like living things. "Two Hestia Heireia, come at last." Her lips curved in something that wasn't quite a smile. "What brings you here?"
Pheropyr's throat tightened. The pithos at her hip suddenly felt heavier, the black fragments inside clicking like anxious beetles. "We seek knowledge only you possess, divine one."
A sound like dry leaves skittering across stone might have been laughter. "Look at me."
When they raised their eyes, the vision struck like a physical blow—a woman of impossible beauty, her skin shimmering with the faint luminescence of twilight, hues shifting between deepest indigo and the violet of a fresh bruise. But her eyes... They held the absolute stillness of a snake mid-strike, the dilated blackness of a drowning man's last glimpse of the surface. Her onyx cloak drank the temple's glow, leaving only the glint of a silver girdle at her waist.
"And why," she mused, tracing a skeletal finger along her staff of petrified oak, "should I gift you answers?"
The silence stretched. Outside, the sacred firepits roared to life with a single dismissive flick of her wrist, sending Pherodoro stumbling backward. The sudden blaze painted grotesque shadows that writhed across the walls like tortured spirits.
Pheropyr's mind raced. The black stones in their jar seemed to pulse against her thigh, whispering of forgotten oaths. When she finally met those abyssal eyes again, understanding crashed over her—this was no mere test. This was the peeling back of layers, the stripping of pretense until only raw truth remained.
Stepping forward despite every screaming instinct, Pheropyr felt the words tear from her chest: "I am mortal. Fragile as clay. But this stone..." She touched the pithos. "If it brings ruin, let the consequences fall upon my judgment."
The goddess—for surely nothing mortal could contain such terrible grace—tilted her head. "Disappointing." Her gaze shifted to Pherodoro, who flinched as if pierced. "Speak, little spark."
"I..." Pherodoro's voice was the barest whisper. "I wish to thank Prometheus. And Hestia. And—"
A sound like shattering glass cut her off—she laugh. "Adorable. But not enough."
With a wave of her hand, the pithos's contents spilled forth midair—shards of volcanic glass orbiting like a miniature galaxy, some fragments glowing malevolent red while others wept black tears. "These stones remember their molten birth. Do you truly wish to know what sleeps within them?" Her voice dropped to a whisper that vibrated in their bones. "Even if the truth burns your mortal minds to ash?"
Pheropyr didn't need to glance at her sister. The answer passed between them in the shared rhythm of their breathing. "We choose to know."
She smile finally reached her eyes. "Good."
When they emerged hours later, the scroll in Pheropyr's grip radiated unnatural warmth. The path behind them had collapsed into a yawning chasm, yet the temple's light burned steady—a lone star in the swallowing dark.