The Priest Who Kept a Dead God

Makio was closing the medicine hall when another student came in shaking. He had already spent the day mixing herbs, checking pulses, and writing prayers for a god who had been silent for four hundred years. The work kept people calm, but it also kept his own fear buried. A dead god, a temple school, and sick kids with problems hospitals could not name were already enough trouble. Then the small clues started piling up. A key in the wrong bag. A ticket hidden in his meeting satchel. A shell casing nobody wanted to lose. His apprentice, Rina, began seeing the pattern before he did, and Makio had to face the fact that the student he taught might be the one person who could finally outrun him.