The air within the ravine glowed dimly with heat, although the sun had long since fallen below the ash-gray cliffs. Under a thornbark and dying fig canopy, the clearing was a jagged pit of ancient stone and fresh sweat—cleared days before by Shaurya himself with vines and rage.
Steel rang, then ceased.
"Again," Shaurya said.
Udai Kesari panted in wheezing gulps. His arms throbbed, tunic dripping with sweat, curls stuck to his forehead. He ground his teeth, tightened his hold on the training sword, and stepped forward.
Shaurya parried with effortless ease. His light, crescent-shaped sword sang as it repelled the prince's attacks. He moved with elegance—but never extravagance. Every riposte held weight. A lesson. A warning.
"You're wavering again," Shaurya told him. "Your elbow stiffens just before you strike."
Udai withdrew, anger seething. "It's difficult to swing uninhibited when I know you'll parry every damn stroke."
"Then swing without expecting it. Someday, you will be correct. That is the point."
They stood still. Birds flapped in the canopy overhead, scattering at the tension still between their blades.
Shaurya stepped back, wiping the sweat from his brow with a cloth he pulled from his belt. His breath was steady. Udai tossed his sword onto the flat rock they'd been sparring around and collapsed onto a nearby boulder.
"You're holding back," Udai muttered. "You didn't push me this hard since 2 months of training."
"I wasn't planning a rescue mission then."
Udai glanced up. "So… it's time?"
Shaurya's face grew darker, shadows creeping under his eyes.
"I noticed the blood sigils," he replied. "What Dhairyaveer employed in the fortress—those weren't ordinary escape sigils. I've researched what I could since then. The inscriptions correspond to an old Vanadevata manuscript—'Parivahan Mantra'. A method of spiritual transference."
"Transference?" Udai sat up straighter.
Shaurya nodded. "Not travel—displacement. The body and spirit are separated, then transferred together along a bound path. I've never seen it used before, not like that. It's not teleportation—it's worse. Blood-forged. Experimental."
"How do we track him, then?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out. He didn't leave any aura residue. No root signature. The only thing left was a trail of liquid mana and a broken mirror shard.
Udai blinked. "Mirror?"
Shaurya shifted, looking out towards the cracked line of stone rising at the clearing's edge.
"There's a spirit method unique to Mithra bloodlines," he whispered. "It employs reflective surfaces as short-term spirit portals. Pair that with Parivahan Mantra… and you have a ghost trail. One that shatters after being used once. Which means—"
"We don't know where he took her," Udai concluded, darkly.
Silence.
Then Shaurya sat next to him, and—for once—he appeared older than he ever had. Older than a general. Older than a hero.
A father.
"I failed her, Udai," he breathed. "I should have been stronger. But now… now I can't just charge into a Mithra fortress without knowing what they've become."
Udai did not speak. Wind danced through the thornbark overhead. The smell of soil and crushed roots clung to the air.
"I need someone who isn't branded yet," Shaurya went on. "Someone Dhairyaveer doesn't anticipate. Someone still bearing the name of the throne, but not of its foes."
"You mean me," Udai spoke softly.
Shaurya stared at him.
"I mean the man who will walk willingly into fire to rescue a child he's never met."
Udai's throat tightened. He wanted to say no. That he wasn't ready. That he was still a prince without a throne, a fighter without discipline, a boy with a sword he could barely lift.
But he remembered the girl in the slums who whispered of women burning from the inside.
He recalled Rasmika's ice-wrapped look which branded him as useless.
He recalled Shaurya fending off ten soldiers bound to the spirits when wounded just to preserve another.
"I'll go," Udai announced. "Wherever it is. I'll go."
Shaurya gestured.
"Yes, good." he said. "For if we don't stop him, whatever Dhairyaveer constructs will not burn only Ashwan. It will consume the roots of this nation itself."
He rose again, offering his hand.
"Now take up your blade."
Udai stood up. His muscles cried out. His doubts cried out even louder.
But he raised the sword.
And this time, he didn't hesitate.
The sun was fading to death behind Ashwan's rugged western peaks. Red and bronze seeped across the sky like ink spilled in water.
Udai hobbled back to the camp, arms throbbing, tunic sticking to him like wet bark. He was a bruised mango.
The camp itself was humble—half-concealed in a thorn-tree gulch, its canvas tents dusty brown, its hearth a low smolder of flame and root-oil. Two sentries nodded as he went by, their eyes revealing smirks at his pitiful condition.
"Laugh now," he growled. "I'll be laughing when I can lift my own arms again."
He paused near the cooking fire, sniffing the air. Something sharp and herbal was simmering in the small clay pot. Not the usual gourd gruel.
"You're late."
The voice belonged to a boulder just at the fire's rear, where a girl-cross-legged sat, a hunchbacked dagger leaning in her lap. Her hair she had roped back into a messy knot, its loose strands falling across her brow. Her cool, calm eyes flicked up at him with as much heat as an interrogation.
"Mira," Udai stood up. "Cooking?"
She arched an eyebrow. "I do lots of things. Cooking is one of them but not now . This is medicinal broth. I figured you'd slink back like a dying mule."
"Kind of you to consider me."
"I didn't. Shaurya requested me to. Said you'd require nursing after he shattered your ego."
Udai flinched. "He shattered more than that.
Mira slid the dagger into her boot and stood. Her frame was lean, not slight, and she moved like someone who didn't waste energy—not even when mocking someone. She poured the steaming broth into a wooden bowl and thrust it into his hands.
"You're lucky," she said. "I make a mean leaf-stew."
Udai sniffed it. "This smells like boiled regret."
"It is regret. Regret that you rushed in without taking a breath. I saw you."
"You were spying on me?"
She cocked her head. "I was bored."
Udai drank regardless, and coughed immediately. "That's. certainly medicine."
Mira grinned. "You're welcome."
They sat there, a moment of silence held between them, the fire crackling around them like an old shawl. A handful of insects buzzed close by, but they were no match for the smoke. Shaurya's voice came from deeper in the gulch, shouting orders at a sentry, most likely.
The camp was thick with tension and silent movement.
Mira's voice sliced through the air.
"He's changed," she whispered.
Udai shook his head, looking up. "Shaurya?
She nodded. "The man I recall never said much. Fought like wind, disappeared like fog. Now he remains in one place. Has plans. Concerns."
"He's a father," Udai said.
Mira did not respond at once. She gazed at the flames, eyes dancing like reflected stone.
"You love her?" she asked at last.
"Who?"
"His daughter. The one Dhairyaveer abducted.
Udai paused. Then, "I don't know her. But… I care that he hurts. I care that she's alone. That's enough, isn't it?"
Mira looked at him then. For an instant, there was no sneer in her eyes. Just quiet. Comprehension.
Then—
"You've got something in your teeth."
Udai opened his eyes. "What?"
She nodded at the inside of his mouth. "There. Leaf bit. Right in the front. You look like you're sprouting."
He fumbled for his reflection in the bowl and cursed under his breath. Mira was already walking away.
"I'll try not to die tomorrow," he called after her.
"Good," she called back. "I'd hate to waste a perfectly good insult on a corpse."
He grinned.
Somehow, under all the thorns, something warm had taken root.
Night fell fast across the borderlands east of Ashwan. Stars in the heavens were cold, cutting things—like eyes with someone to misstep.
Shaurya moved low beside a gully, his gaze reaching across the fractured hills where thornroot crunched against basalt. It was here again—the scent of sweat, of iron, and of old, stale blood's rot. Two nights he had followed it on rumor from a smuggler unaware that he'd been talking to death.
A second base.
Another slaver haven.
This one wasn't tucked away in a ruin or manor. No gilded gates or banners. Just a cave concealed behind a veil of thorned vines, midway up a rocky bluff. Easy to overlook. Unless you were searching for spirits.
Shaurya stroked the vine-wall and spoke softly to the ghost within. It unfolded for him like a living curtain, showing the way in.
Dark. Quiet.
He went in.
Within, the air shifted. Chilly, wet, and motionless. The cave curved downward, dimly lit by sputtering oil-lamps. He listened to voices—soft, wicked laughter. Chains rattling.
And then, a scream.
Shaurya struck like wind on rock.
He materialized among them—seven slavers, club and knife in hand, holding around a half-conscious woman. Another two were pulling bodies into a pit behind metal bars. They did not even get time to take a breath.
Vines burst out of cracks in the cave.
They impaled throats, wrapped wrists, pulled down limbs on sharp stone. Shaurya proceeded slowly, silently, allowing roots and moss to work. Two men attempted to flee—he tossed a handful of thorns and they collapsed, screaming. Another brandished a flame-torch.
Shaurya took it in his hand. It flickered and extinguished.
By the end of it, the only ones remaining were the prisoners.
Six of them. Starved. Their eyes were sunken. Bones visible.
"Who are you?" one of them whispered.
Shaurya's voice was low. "Nobody. Just someone who's done with letting monsters spawn in darkness."
He snapped the last cage apart with a jerk of his wrist. "Come. There's heat outside."
The survivors clung to each other, following him to the entrance of the cave. As they went, one quaked and asked, "Will… the others return? There were men… discussing Ashwan. About… higher orders."
Shaurya glanced back, his eyes cold as obsidian.
"No," he replied. "Not if I get to them first."
Outside, the wind screamed like the cry of the damned.