Helios stood before the crowd gathered at the crossroads, their faces turned toward him with a hunger he recognized. They wanted a temple. They wanted to honor the sun. But their spokesman, a merchant with dust on his sandals, crossed his arms and shook his head. "Show us something," the man said. "Prove the sun god cares enough to answer. Then we'll build." Helios felt the familiar ache rise in his chest. Every morning he drove his chariot across the sky, hauling light to these ungrateful mortals, and still they demanded more. He looked past the merchant to the others behind him. A woman held a child on her hip. An old man leaned on a walking stick. And there, at the edge of the crowd, stood a figure who might have been his farmer, the one who turned his face upward each dawn. But even that one stood silent now, waiting. They had erected a small marker at the crossroads, a slender tower of marble that caught the afternoon light. It was beautiful, but it was not a temple. It was a promise they refused to keep. He stepped down from his chariot and raised his hand. The air grew hot. Light pooled in his palm, golden and thick, until it took shape. A chicken made of pure crystallized sunlight appeared, its body glowing with the same fire that burned in his chariot wheels. The crowd gasped. The creature turned its head, blinking eyes like small suns, and then it strutted forward on bright talons. "This," Helios said, his voice carrying across the crossroads, "is what burns at the center of all things. This is what I give you every day without thanks. Build me a temple with an altar that never goes dark, and I will fill it with light like this." The merchant dropped to his knees. The others followed, one by one, until the whole crowd knelt in the dust. The glowing chicken pecked at the ground near the marble tower, leaving small scorch marks in the earth. The spokesman looked up at Helios with wide eyes. "We will build it," he said. "We will lay the first stone tomorrow." Helios climbed back into his chariot, the reins already warming in his hands. The sun still had miles to travel before dusk. But tomorrow, when he returned, there would be stones and mortar waiting. Finally, his temple would rise.