The forest was quiet for a long time.
Chappu was already moving. Both hands lit, soft and steady. He went to Ahaan and started.
Eshani crossed the path and went down on one knee on the other side without speaking. Her hands lit a beat later. The light at her palms reached up and met the light at Chappu's, and the two of them began the slow careful work over Ahaan's ribs and forearms.
The breath in Ahaan's chest evened out.
Alina stood a careful distance away, behind where he lay.
She did not say anything.
She just watched.
After a moment, Vyom came up behind her. He was holding his side.
"…my apologies, Princess. It is all my fa — "
"It is alright, Sir Vyom."
She did not turn.
He lowered his head. Stepped back.
She watched Chappu's hands a while longer.
Then she turned, slightly, toward the broad man with the hat who had come up beside her.
"He saved our lives. How do I thank him."
"There is no need for that, little girl."
Behind her, Vyom straightened sharply.
"Hey. You will speak to her with respect. You know who she is."
The man's mouth opened.
Closed.
Then his hand came up, fast — palm flat at Vyom's chest.
"Shh. Shh."
"*Why are you shh-ing me — *"
"I sense something."
His eyes had moved past Vyom, toward the eastern edge of the path.
"Someone is coming."
—
The grass to the east moved.
Every hunter on the path was on their feet with their sword out before the grass had finished moving.
A horse came through.
A man came down off it.
Long dark coat. Long blue hair pulled back at the nape of his neck. A sword on his left hip. The kind of face hunters learned not to argue with when they saw it on a road.
"Sir Viraj."
Alina's voice. Quiet.
He crossed the path in three steps. His eyes were already on her.
"Princess. Are you hurt."
"I am not hurt."
His shoulders dropped a fraction.
Then his eyes lifted from her.
The whole path. The four bodies of the soldiers. The huge dark mass of the dead beast. The thirty smaller bodies in their wide scatter. The six men around a boy on the leaves with two healers working him.
A long, slow look.
Vyom — somewhere across that look — was beginning to understand he had been seen.
How is he here.
The thought arrived behind Vyom's eyes before the question had reached his face. He turned his head, very slightly, toward the other three hunters.
Eshani had become suddenly interested in a leaf.
Ranjan was studying a tree.
Hardik was looking at the dirt.
When Vyom turned back, Sir Viraj was already looking at him.
The look was cold.
"…Vyom."
"…sir."
"You and I will talk. When we reach the kingdom."
"…yes, sir."
—
Pappu's face — which had been doing several careful things in the last thirty seconds — had finally arrived at the place where the Princess part of Princess had connected to the little girl part of little girl.
He went, fully, to one knee.
"…little girl —"
He stopped.
Closed his eyes.
"…Princess. Princess. Princess, I — "
"Please — "
"I called you little girl, Princess. I am really sorryyy"
"It is alright."
Her voice was warm.
"Your boss saved our lives. You and your friends helped him. That is the only thing on the road that matters right now."
A pause.
"I would like to thank your boss as well. When he is able."
Viraj came up behind her. He bowed.
"Thank you for protecting the Princess."
Pappu, still on his knees, hat against his chest, ears now a slow pink: "It is — it is alright — "
Tappu, dry, from behind him: "Pappu. Why are you blushing."
"…I am not blushing, Tappu."
"You are."
"The boss did the work. You just hit a thing with a pipe — "
A small sound — quiet, real — came from the centre of the path.
Alina had laughed.
She brought her hand to her mouth a beat too late.
Pappu looked up at her.
His face did a small thing he could not control
—
The boys, with one glance at Pappu, rose and went to the dead beast. The work of dismantling began — slow, practiced, the careful sorting that had earned the six of them the coin in their pockets for three years.
Alina watched them for a moment.
Then she turned, slightly, toward Pappu.
"Sir."
"Princess."
"You should come with us. All of you. To Bluemoon."
A pause.
"You and your boss. The five who stood beside him. My father will want to meet the men who protected his daughter on a road he sent her down. He will not forgive me if I let you leave this forest without him having that chance."
Pappu's hat lowered.
"…Princess, that is too much — "
"It is not. Please."
He looked at the boys. Tappu shrugged. Jhappu had already nodded.
Pappu looked back at her.
"…we would be honoured, Princess."
She turned, halfway, to start toward the carriage.
She had not taken the second step.
A voice spoke from the dark beyond the path.
"There is no need for them to come, Princess."
Everyone turned.
He came out of the dark slowly. A long travelling cloak the colour of dust on an evening road. A wooden staff in his right hand. The face beneath the hood old, lined, weathered, and entirely unsurprised by anything on the path.
Sir Viraj went to one knee.
"…Guru Sevenfold."
The old man's mouth lifted, faintly.
"Sir Viraj."
A beat of silence.
Sir Viraj rose.
"Guruji. What are you doing here?"
"I came to collect my disciple."
Sir Viraj's eyes did not move.
But behind them, in the slow careful place an old hunter put pieces together —
That boy.
he is a Sevenfold disciple.
The strongest beast on the Third Layer was killed by a Sevenfold disciple.
The Guru himself has come for him.
He bowed again. A little lower this time.
"…of course."
—
The Guru's eyes moved, then, to Alina.
She bowed — the careful, full bow of a princess raised to know exactly how to acknowledge a Grand Master she had not been formally introduced to.
"Guru Sevenfold."
"Princess."
"Your disciple saved our lives. I do not know how to thank him."
"There is no need for that, Princess. He is a kind boy. He would not ask for thanks."
His eyes stayed on her a beat longer than the conversation needed.
"Voidthread."
Her chin lifted.
"What?"
"You are disciple of Guru Niraav Voidthread, right?"
"Yes…"
"How long."
"A few months, Guruji."
"You have begun your second weave already."
Her eyes widened.
"…how — "
"I have been alive a long time, Princess. I know the shape of a thing when I see it lifting in a young person's hands."
A small pause.
"Walk it gently. The Voidthread does not reward the fast."
"…thank you, Guruji."
A long quiet moment.
Then Viraj cleared his throat, gently.
"Princess. The carriage."
She nodded.
She walked the slow careful walk of a girl who had been on her feet too long, toward the carriage. Two soldiers had come up to open the door.
She had taken three steps.
She had not yet reached it.
And from behind her, the Guru — turning slowly toward the unconscious boy on the leaves — said, as if to himself:
"So. How is Ahaan now."
Alina stopped.
She did not move for one full heartbeat.
Then her shoulders settled. She let out a slow breath. She walked the last few paces.
A soldier helped her up the step.
The door closed.
—
Viraj turned to the Guru.
His eyebrows had risen, very slightly.
He said nothing.
The Guru said nothing.
They looked at each other for one long, careful moment — the look of two men who had read the same page and had decided, at the same beat, not to mention it aloud.
Viraj bowed.
The Guru nodded.
Viraj mounted his horse. The carriages and the riders moved.
—
Across the path, the Guru turned to where Pappu was standing.
"Pappu."
"…YES."
"Take him on your back."
"…YES."
Pappu went to Ahaan. He slid one arm under the shoulders, the other under the knees, and lifted in one careful motion. The boy's head settled against his shoulder.
The Guru watched him.
"And, Pappu."
"…yes, Guruji."
"What did you say to me at that time?"
Pappu went still.
"…a *weird old — *"
He stopped.
Swallowed.
So he was here the whole time.
Which means.
He heard what the boss called him too.
Pappu turned his head, slowly. His eyes met the Guru's.
There was a small, careful fire in them. The kind that did not flare. The kind that waited.
Pappu's eyes lowered, slowly, to the unconscious boy on his shoulder.
Boss.
Boss, when you wake up.
You are in so much trouble.
He cleared his throat.
"…to the horse, Guruji?"
"To the horse, Pappu."
He walked. Very fast. The other five followed him, all very deliberately not looking at Guru Sevenfold, all whistling slightly different tunes.
—
Inside the carriage, Alina sat by the window.
The forest moved past the glass in the slow careful dark of an Endless Night beginning to recede behind her.
She was looking out.
She did not see the trees.
She was thinking about a boy who had walked past her on a road and had not looked at her once.
A boy who had laughed at the dark.
A boy whose eyes were the colour of deep water at midnight.
Her hand lifted, on its own, and rested at her cheek.
The name came up to the inside of her mouth the way names did when they did not yet know they had been spoken.
"…Ahaan."
A small, very private smile lifted the corner of her mouth.
"…I hope we meet again."
She turned her face back to the window.
The dark moved past it.
She did not know it yet — the carriage was still moving, the road was still long, the boy on the other horse was still unconscious somewhere in the dark behind her — but the road she had walked onto this morning was no longer the road she had thought it was.
Roads, sometimes, are like that.
The kind of road a person walked once and learned later they had not walked alone.
To be continued…