The temple shone with a radiance that seemed made of stardust and liquid light, and the sweet scent of ambrosia hung in the air while the murmur of the crystal-clear water in the central fountain filled every corner. My trembling hands held the offering as I bowed, aware of every gesture, every movement, as if he could read my heart through my skin.

He was there like an angry God, submerged in the fountain, barely covered by wet silks that clung to his body like a second skin. Helios. His name said it all. His skin was the golden warmth of sunlight, and with every movement he seemed to radiate a heat almost scorching. His hair, golden as honey, fell over his shoulders, catching the temple’s light, and his eyes… his eyes were like daytime stars: impossible to ignore, burning in their perfection, capable of illuminating every corner of my being.

-“Do not think you can deceive the gaze of a divine being,” he said, his voice a whisper that both caressed and burned—“You are not as innocent as you pretend to be.”

My body shivered under his fire. Every movement I made with the offering seemed amplified by his gaze, every breath weighed and measured, as if his golden heat penetrated beyond my skin, reaching into my deepest thoughts. His divinity was not mercy; it was theater, manipulation, and power concentrated in a man whose perfection was almost unbearable.

-“Your lies, your attempts to hide…” he continued, leaning slightly toward me, the water reflecting his brilliance like a mirror of sun—“Nothing escapes me. You can't fool Heaven's gates.”

The heat he radiated was almost tangible, a fire that both embraced and intimidated me at once. Gold, eternity, light… and deceit.

And in the silence that followed, I realized I would never be a saint or a savior. But neither was him.