where Madhav, ill for days, decides to visit the city once more for medicine—and Zooni warns him quietly: “If you go down as the man you were, you won’t come back the same”? The chapter opens with breath and weight, in the hush before departure, when the body begins to fail and the city—once fled—summons the past in its narrow lanes.

The cough had worsened during the night.

It was not loud. Not the rattle of the chest that warns others to step back. But deeper. Muffled. The kind that moves slowly upward from the ribs and dies just behind the tongue. Madhav had been swallowing it for two days now, and the taste of copper had begun to return. Not strong, not constant—just enough to remind him of childhood winters and damp corners.

The others had noticed.

But no one spoke.

Only Zooni had moved differently—placing water nearer to his mat, tucking boiled walnut shells beneath his pillow, crushing tulsi leaves in the folds of his shawl. He had said nothing in return. He had not wanted her to look at him like that—not like a friend, not like a sister, not like a girl who had watched someone else disappear into the earth days before and now feared watching again.

But this morning, he could not rise.

The sun had reached the ledge outside the cave, casting its pale light against the opposite wall, and he was still lying down, breath shallow, mouth dry. His blanket was soaked beneath his arms. His temples pulsed.

Usman knelt beside him, poured a little water into a clay cup, and lifted his head.

Madhav drank.

His hands trembled as he did.

Layaq paced outside, jaw clenched, muttering something about herbs, about moonwort, about how the potter’s store had none left and the leaves they had were too dry.

Zooni sat beside the fire.

Still.

She did not move until the others had stepped outside to speak in hushed tones. Then she rose, walked across the cave, and sat quietly beside Madhav.

He looked at her without turning his head.

“Not yet,” he said.

“You can’t wait longer.”

He coughed again. This time, it left a trace of red on his lip.

“I can go,” he whispered. “The Hakeem near Bohri Kadal. He helped once. Before…”

Zooni didn’t respond.

She picked up a clean cloth and wiped his mouth.

“You’ll go alone?” she asked.

“I know the streets.”

“They know you too.”

His lips twitched, not in a smile, but in acknowledgment.

She folded the cloth.

“Then go as someone else,” she said. “Wrap your voice. Let your back bend. Let your footsteps be unsure. Don’t carry the shadow of the man you were.”

He blinked.

“I can’t pretend to be old.”

“You don’t have to,” she said. “You already are.”

He let out a dry laugh, which ended in another cough.

She held his hand.

Not tightly.

Just enough to let him feel the weight of the moment.

“You’ll be followed,” she added.

“I won’t lead them here.”

She nodded.

“I know.”

He closed his eyes.

She remained beside him until the cough quieted.

And when the time came, she packed his satchel herself.

No extra weight.

No memory he couldn’t afford to carry.

Only what might keep him alive, and only what would not betray the path back.

where Madhav, wrapped in a coarse shawl, begins his descent into the city at dusk—passing familiar trees, a half-collapsed temple wall, and the scent of dried blood along the canal—the city recognizing him even when he tries not to be recognized?

Madhav left the cave just as dusk began to gather along the high ridges, draping the slopes in a veil of soft shadow that blurred the edges of rock and sky. The light was no longer golden. It had turned into that silver-blue hue that arrives before full night, when the air becomes colder than it should be and birds lower their wings without warning. He walked slowly, his shawl pulled tightly around his chest, the cloth knotted loosely at the throat in a way that concealed most of his face except the brow and one eye. His back, already curved by fatigue, needed no acting. He leaned on a staff not for disguise, but because his knees were no longer dependable.

Each step down the slope reminded him of the time before the cave. Before Dei’d. Before they had become names without titles. His boots struck gravel patches that had once known his feet as a boy running barefoot behind his father through the terraced fields near Mattan. Now they responded with a dull ache that echoed upward through his thighs and into his ribs. But he did not complain. He moved like someone who knew he had to walk past a threshold of memory to find what the body still needed to survive.

The temple wall he passed near the second bend had half-collapsed. What once was a place where bells rang at dawn was now covered in moss and creeping grass. He paused for a breath, not because he needed to, but because the sight took something from him. In a crevice between two stones, he spotted a string of old beads—cracked, their red lacquer faded to a dull ochre. Someone had tucked them there long ago, perhaps a woman in need, perhaps a man seeking pardon. The beads remained, untouched by time in the way only forgotten things are.

Farther down, the canal ran thin beneath a crumbling footbridge. The water was shallow this time of year, but the scent rising from it was sharper than he remembered—metallic and stale, like dried blood and rusted iron. His steps slowed as he crossed the wooden slats, some loose underfoot. Beneath him, fish darted in the shadows, too small to catch, too quick to be trapped. The sound of his staff tapping the planks echoed faintly, but not enough to give him away. He was just another old man now, bent and passing, like hundreds before him.

When he reached the outskirts of the city, the sounds changed. The rustle of wind through trees was replaced by hushed muttering behind doors, by the distant clang of metal against metal, by a child’s crying cut short mid-note. Smoke from tandoors curled around street corners. Lamp oil burned low in wall sconces. The alleys had not changed, but the air within them felt tighter. As though the buildings leaned closer now, pressing inwards with suspicion.

Madhav kept his head low.

He passed a man selling boiled lentils at the corner of Bohri Kadal. The scent hit him unexpectedly, stirring a hunger that had little to do with food. He didn’t stop. He turned quickly into the next lane, narrower and lined with bricked-over windows. The Hakeem’s house sat midway down, marked by a green wooden door with a brass lion-head knocker, one eye missing. It had always been like that.

He paused before the threshold, steadying his breath.

Then he raised his hand and knocked—twice, softly, with the rhythm he had learned long ago: one, then two close together.

The door opened not fully, but just enough for a voice to emerge from behind it.

“Come for oil or for leaves?”

Madhav did not answer directly.

He leaned in and whispered, “Came for silence. Left with breath last time.”

There was a pause.

Then the door opened wider.

The Hakeem stood in the shadow, older than Madhav remembered, his beard now streaked with white and his eyes sharper, not with cruelty, but with years of discerning who came to be healed and who came to vanish.

Without a word, he stepped aside.

Madhav entered.

The door closed behind him.

And the city, with all its watchers, turned its gaze elsewhere.

where inside the Hakeem’s dim, herb-scented chamber, Madhav is treated—but not before the Hakeem begins asking questions he’d rather not answer, forcing him to confront not only his illness, but the memory of why he first learned to distrust healing offered too easily?

The inside of the Hakeem’s home smelled as it always had—of dried orange peel, camphor, clove, and crushed bark left too long on oiled shelves. It was not an unpleasant scent, but it was thick, and it clung to the air like incense in a forgotten shrine. The walls were lined with shelves made from old walnut wood, each slightly bowed at the center under the weight of clay jars and glass vials filled with powders, roots, and liquids of varying hues: amber, green, a translucent brown that resembled river water at dusk. Some jars had labels in old calligraphy, curling around their edges, while others bore no markings at all, as if only the Hakeem knew their story.

A single lamp burned in the corner—its flame low and steady, casting a circle of golden light that swayed gently with the movement of breath. The room was not large. It was the size of a courtyard kitchen, with low wooden beams crossing overhead, and a patchwork rug stretched over most of the floor, faded in the middle from the passage of many feet. A small copper brazier glowed near the center, its embers still warm, sending up the faint scent of sandalwood ash.

The Hakeem motioned toward a low stool near the brazier.

Madhav obeyed.

He sat slowly, pressing one hand against his side as he lowered himself, the cough tightening across his ribs with the movement. His shawl slid down one shoulder. The Hakeem, without speaking, pulled a stool in front of him, sat facing him, and placed a lacquered tray between them.

From a drawer beneath the shelf, the Hakeem drew out a linen pouch and poured a mixture of dried herbs into a small brass bowl. The leaves crackled as they fell, and the sound filled the space like dry firewood snapping before a flame. He added a spoonful of honey—dark and slow-moving—and a pinch of something powdered, which turned the mixture a pale grey when stirred.

Madhav watched his hands.

The Hakeem did not look up.

Instead, he spoke, his voice even, quiet.

“You shouldn’t have come through the old canal lane. That side has watchers now.”

Madhav said nothing.

The Hakeem dipped his fingers into the mixture and began forming small pills, rolling them slowly on the surface of the brass tray.

“You were followed, I assume.”

Still no answer.

“I ask because you don’t look like someone who came for cure alone.”

Madhav coughed once, a deep rattle that turned his face slightly red. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “I came because I remembered your hands more than I remembered your face.”

At this, the Hakeem looked up.

His eyes were still as sharp as before—perhaps sharper.

“And do you remember,” he asked, “that the last time you came here, you left without paying?”

Madhav nodded.

“I had nothing left but the shoes I wore.”

“You could’ve offered truth,” the Hakeem said. “But you offered silence.”

Madhav’s fingers closed around the edge of his shawl.

“I wasn’t ready for truth.”

“No one is,” the Hakeem replied. “But you come back because the silence has rotted inside you.”

He handed Madhav a cup of steaming liquid, prepared not from a pitcher, but from the corner of the room where the herbs steeped in a kettle atop a slow flame. The cup smelled bitter, musky, edged with a scent that reminded him of roots pulled too early from frozen earth.

“Drink slowly. Let it coat your mouth before you swallow.”

Madhav obeyed.

The first sip stung his tongue. The second numbed it.

As he drank, the heat reached down into his chest, loosening something that had settled there. The cough came again, but this time it brought with it a slick warmth, and a clarity that hurt.

The Hakeem reached for a jar of sesame oil and dipped his thumb into it.

Without asking, he pressed that thumb to the hollow just beneath Madhav’s collarbone and held it there.

“Breathe.”

Madhav inhaled.

And for the first time in days, the air reached the bottom of his lungs.

It did not soothe.

It burned.

But it reached.

The Hakeem’s voice softened.

“You won’t be followed tonight. But if you wait till morning, the streets will change again.”

“I’ll leave before sunrise.”

“Good,” the Hakeem said.

He stood and walked toward the shelf, retrieving a roll of cloth, inside which were dried herbs packed in linen, enough for two more steepings.

He handed them to Madhav.

“For the road. Don’t stop more than once between here and the foothill.”

Madhav took them with both hands.

He did not say thank you.

The Hakeem did not expect it.

Outside, the moon had begun to rise—half-full, pale as smoke, caught between clouds.

Inside, Madhav stood slowly, pulled the shawl once more over his head, and turned toward the door.

The city had not called him by name.

But it had seen him.

And for now, it would let him pass.

The scene moves with the realism of memory, the silence of hunted men, and the weight of a city that listens even when it pretends not to.

The sky above the city was charcoal grey by the time Madhav slipped out of the Hakeem’s lane, his shawl pulled low over his brow, the edge tucked in such a way that his mouth remained hidden, even as he breathed heavily beneath the wool. The warmth of the potion still burned in his throat and stomach, spreading outward in uneven waves—comforting in parts, disorienting in others. His chest no longer clenched with every breath, but his legs felt heavy, like someone had stitched bricks into his knees while he sat.

He took the long route back—not through the main bazaar where curfew lamps flickered beneath hanging tarps, but along the broken aqueduct, its edges lined with wild grass and the charred remains of some past fire. There was no foot traffic here, only the memory of movement. Once, carts had passed through carrying rice and shawls. Now it was a path of ghosts.

He walked with care.

His footfalls were quiet, placed toe-first, like they had been trained to disappear.

The shrine came into view just as the moon broke through a ragged seam of clouds, spilling its silver light across the jagged stones. It was no longer a place of prayer. The dome had collapsed years ago during the floods. The minaret had fallen sideways, its bricks now used by neighbors to patch roofs and build hearths. But the niche in the inner wall still stood. Cracked, soot-stained, barely a shadow of its former beauty—but upright.

He stepped inside.

Not to pray.

But to pause.

The wind had picked up again, carrying with it the scent of something acrid—burned cloth, perhaps, or the sharp bitterness of gun oil. He pressed his back to the wall and slid down slowly, sitting on the cold floor, drawing his knees toward his chest. His breath came shallow. The potion’s fire had faded now, leaving behind a damp ache just beneath his ribs.

He closed his eyes.

And then he heard them.

Footsteps.

Two pairs.

Booted. Light.

Coming from the lane behind the shrine, not yet visible, but close enough for their voices to ride the wind.

He held his breath.

Flattened against the stone.

The men spoke softly, but not softly enough.

“…still no sign near Saraf Kadal. Last check at Safa Kadal bridge was clean.”

The other voice was older, rougher.

“Too smart to stay in the waterline zone. The informer said the Pandit moved uphill—probably hiding in the old caves.”

A pause.

“You sure it’s the same one?”

“They called him Madhav Bisht in the older file. But that’s not his real name. Lower-caste pandit. Good with mimicry. Disguises as a fakir, sometimes a grain merchant. Has friends in Mattan but hasn’t been back in years.”

Madhav’s heart didn’t race.

It slowed.

It slowed the way a man’s heart does when he finally hears confirmation of a thing he has feared quietly for weeks—that the world has not forgotten, and neither has the enemy.

One of the voices sighed.

“The girl, too. Not the sufi woman. The girl with her. They say she’s younger than the others. Could be taken in. Might talk.”

Madhav’s fingers clenched.

Not out of rage.

But calculation.

The patrol moved on.

Their boots scraped once more across the gravel and faded into the wind.

He remained where he was.

For minutes.

Until the ache in his back forced him upright.

When he emerged from the shrine, the moonlight had dimmed again, tucked behind another cloud. The wind carried dust and rumor in equal measure. He walked faster now—not hurried, but precise. The potion in his veins had cooled.

His fear had not.

He had been seen.

Not by eyes.

But by names.

And when they speak your name aloud, it means they are drawing maps with your breath.

where Madhav finally reaches the cave just before dawn, weakened but alert, and where Zooni, already waiting near the fire, sees in his face that something has followed him—not in footsteps, but in knowledge?

The first blush of dawn had not yet touched the ridges when Madhav reached the narrow path that led upward toward the cave. The slope was steep and uneven, carved not by builders but by repetition—by feet that had carried grain, water, wounded friends, and old secrets up and down its curves. It was still too dark to see clearly, but his feet remembered the bends. The cold had sharpened, and his breath came in bursts—short, fogged, but determined.

Each step cost him.

The ache in his chest had returned, not violent but heavy, like a stone wrapped in wet cloth pressing down from inside his ribs. His legs burned, not from speed, but from restraint. He could have rushed. His heart wanted him to. But he knew better. Speed made sound. And sound, in a world like theirs, could summon death.

By the time he reached the final bend, the sky had begun to shift—a thin wash of silver along the eastern rim, just enough to separate the mountains from the air. The cave mouth, still tucked beneath the overhang, looked exactly as he had left it. Quiet. Small. Undisturbed.

But he knew before entering that Zooni was already awake.

He felt it in the stillness.

In the breath of the fire that hadn’t been rebuilt, just sustained—banked gently through the night with the discipline of someone who knew she was waiting for a man who might return broken, or not at all.

He ducked beneath the curtain.

The warmth struck his face first. Then the scent of charred lentil and rose ash.

Zooni sat by the hearth.

She didn’t look up right away.

She was feeding the fire with the smallest pieces of wood—twigs that burned fast but quiet, enough to keep the coals alive without sending up smoke. Her shawl was wrapped tightly around her, but her face was uncovered, pale in the low light, her hair still damp at the ends as if she’d washed it in the dark hours.

When he stepped inside, she lifted her eyes.

She said nothing.

But her gaze traveled over him like a hand.

Not checking for wounds. Not asking for news.

Reading.

His shoulders.

His stance.

His silence.

She rose slowly and walked toward him.

Her hands reached first—not for his face or chest—but for the satchel.

He let her take it.

She opened it by the fire, checked the herbs, the poultice, the cloth-wrapped pills. She moved efficiently, with practiced calm, as if treating him was not care but responsibility. When she finished, she returned the satchel to its place and brought a bowl of warm water to him.

“Sit,” she said.

He obeyed.

His knees buckled slightly as he lowered himself onto the stone bench. The heat from the fire met his spine, and for a moment he closed his eyes—not in pain, but in something close to gratitude, though he couldn’t name it.

She dipped a cloth in the water, wrung it out, and pressed it to his neck.

He flinched, not from the touch, but from what he needed to say.

“They’re watching the shrines again,” he said softly.

She didn’t stop.

She kept pressing the cloth gently along his jaw.

“They used my name.”

Now her hand paused.

Just for a breath.

Then she continued.

“They know about the cave?”

“No,” he said. “Not yet. But they know someone’s gone uphill. They know the old name—Madhav Bisht. They’ve matched it to the face.”

She placed the cloth back in the bowl.

Her face did not change.

But the silence around her deepened.

“Zooni,” he said, more slowly now, “they mentioned the girl.”

She froze.

This time entirely.

Her hands stopped moving. Her eyes did not blink.

“They think she might be used,” he continued. “As leverage. Or to find you. Or me.”

Zooni sat down beside him.

Not close.

Not far.

“I see,” she said.

There was no panic in her voice.

Only adjustment.

As if she were rearranging weight in her hands.

She reached for a second cloth, dipped it in the water, and wrung it out again.

“Then we don’t let her go down the hill anymore.”

“No,” he agreed. “Not ever.”

She looked at the fire.

Its light caught in her eyes, turning them almost gold for a moment.

“Did you come back alone?” she asked.

“I was followed partway,” he said. “But I lost them near the broken aqueduct.”

She exhaled.

“You should rest.”

“So should you.”

But neither of them moved.

They remained there for several minutes.

Two shadows breathing in time with the fire.

And in the hush between sentences, both knew the truth without saying it aloud:

The city had remembered them.

And memory, once awakened, never sleeps again.

where Ameena, still unaware of the danger, begins to draw shapes in the soot with her fingers—and Zooni, watching her from a distance, begins to wonder how long they can keep her safe before the world outside finds its way back into the cave?

Ameena was awake before they realized.

She had not stirred when Madhav returned, nor when Zooni fed the fire, nor even when their voices broke the hush of dawn with words about watchers and danger. She had stayed curled beneath the woolen blanket Zooni had laid over her the night before, her face half-buried in the fold of her elbow, her breathing so soft that one could mistake her for still asleep.

But her eyes were open.

Quietly, she had watched the shapes of their shadows moving against the cave wall. Watched Zooni’s back as she poured water. Watched the way Madhav sank into himself as if carrying a boulder beneath his shawl. And when their voices faded into silence, when the fire settled into its low crackle and the scent of mint leaves curled again into the air, she shifted beneath the blanket and sat up.

She said nothing.

She stepped out barefoot, her feet brushing the stone with a child’s weightless grace, and walked to the far side of the hearth where soot had collected in the corner—a soft pile of ash that no one had swept. Her fingers, small and cracked at the knuckles, reached down and began to draw.

At first it was lines.

Then circles.

Then two dots placed inside the circle—eyes, maybe, or stars.

She pressed her finger down harder, dragging it slowly through the soot until the shape thickened and took on the faint outline of a face. Not detailed. Not precise. Just enough to hold something familiar.

Zooni saw her and didn’t interrupt.

She simply watched, her lips parted just slightly, as if tasting something sharp in the back of her throat. She had seen this before—how children who had no paper and no ink still found ways to write, as if silence had to escape the body through marks. As if survival needed drawing.

Ameena looked up only once.

Their eyes met.

Zooni didn’t speak. She didn’t smile.

She only nodded—soft, small.

And that was enough for Ameena to keep going.

Madhav watched too, though from the corner, his body half-wrapped in a blanket now, his eyes rimmed with fatigue. The image in soot made him uneasy—not because it was a child’s drawing, but because it was a face. A face made in dust. In silence. In the place where ghosts gathered.

He leaned toward Zooni.

“She understands something,” he murmured.

Zooni didn’t look at him.

“She’s always understood,” she replied.

“She heard us?”

“She hears everything.”

Madhav exhaled slowly.

“She’ll have to be moved.”

Zooni shook her head.

“Not yet.”

He looked at her.

“She’s a child.”

“She’s not,” Zooni said, her voice barely above the fire’s crackle. “Not anymore.”

Ameena kept drawing.

Now she had added a second figure beside the first.

This one taller, with arms stretched outward like wings.

The face was featureless, but the posture—open, curved—spoke of something that was not fear. A figure of watching. Of guarding. Of standing still.

Zooni rose, slowly, walked over to the corner, and crouched beside her.

She didn’t ask what the drawings meant.

She knew not to ask.

Instead, she picked up a bit of charcoal from the nearby firewood pile, rubbed it between her fingers until it stained her thumb black, and pressed her thumb gently beside the second figure.

Ameena looked at it.

Then nodded.

She reached for Zooni’s hand and pressed her own small palm beside the thumbprint.

Two marks.

Two witnesses.

Two lives pressed into soot that would be gone by nightfall.

Madhav watched from across the cave.

He wrapped the blanket tighter around his shoulders.

He did not fear the soot or the marks.

He feared the day when even soot would not be safe.

And outside, the sun crept higher over the mountain ridge, painting light into the mouth of the cave like a question not yet asked.

where Layaq returns from the outer ridge with word from a potter boy—confirmation that the inspector has increased patrols—and they all realize: the city is no longer searching at random. It’s narrowing in?

Layaq returned just after midday.

The sun, now arched high over the Zabarwan ridge, filtered through the sparse canopy above the cave trail in fractured sheets, casting crooked lines of warmth and light onto the path like scattered threads on cold stone. His arrival was not marked by sound or shout. It was the smell of sweat and dust that reached them first—a sharpness that arrived before footsteps, before shadow. Then the light shifted near the cave entrance. And Zooni, who had been kneeling beside Ameena at the far end, glanced toward it, her body tightening slightly, though her hands did not stop folding the linen.

Layaq stepped in.

His face was dark with dust. His brows glistened with sweat. His shoulders, broad and usually square, now sagged slightly—as though the weight he carried was not in his pack, but in his chest.

He did not speak.

He nodded once at Zooni, then looked to Madhav, who had been lying on his mat, eyes closed, not asleep but conserving breath.

Zooni stood first.

She poured water into the iron bowl near the fire and dipped a cloth into it. When she brought it to him, Layaq took it without ceremony and pressed it hard to the back of his neck. He wiped once across his forehead, once under his jaw, and let the cloth fall to his side.

“They’ve doubled the watch at Habba Kadal,” he said.

His voice was hoarse. Dry.

“No more decoys?” Madhav asked from the mat.

“None. They’re not casting wide nets anymore.”

Zooni stood still.

She didn’t blink.

She didn’t move to sit.

“Then?” she asked.

“They’re naming us,” Layaq said. “Not just describing. Naming.”

He pulled a small folded paper from his satchel.

The parchment was coarse. Crumpled.

He handed it to Zooni.

She unfolded it.

There, scrawled in dark charcoal ink—likely copied in haste from an official noticeboard—were four names. Three written in block lettering, underlined in red.

Usman Chash

Madhav Bisht

Layaq Singh

And a fourth.

Just two words:

The Girl

Zooni stared at that last phrase for a long time.

It wasn’t a name.

But it was worse.

A name would’ve meant they had tracked her identity.

A title like this meant something else.

It meant she had become a symbol.

A tool.

An object of leverage.

She folded the paper slowly, her fingers tightening at the corners, not to crumple but to smooth.

“Where did this come from?” she asked.

“The potter’s boy,” Layaq replied. “He trades in the lower market now. Told me he saw the inspector himself pin it to the timber post near the shrine gate.”

“The same inspector?”

“The same,” Layaq said. “Taller now. Leaner. Still walks like he owns the sky.”

Madhav sat up, coughing once, then pressing a hand to his ribs.

“He never stops,” he said. “He doesn’t forget.”

Zooni looked at Layaq.

“Did you speak to the boy?”

Layaq nodded.

“He said they plan a raid in two days. Not here yet. But in the slope below. They think someone’s feeding us. That grain’s been going missing. That rice disappeared from the storehouse last week.”

“That was ours,” Madhav murmured.

Zooni ignored the comment.

“Did the boy say if the inspector’s staying in town?”

“No,” Layaq said. “But the constables follow him like dogs now. Armed. No more batons. Rifles.”

Zooni walked to the fire and added a single log.

The flames rose with a soft hiss.

Ameena, sitting at the far end, clutched her knees tighter, her face half-hidden behind the edge of her shawl. She said nothing. But her eyes were wide, alert, fixed on the grownups the way a child stares at a shifting sky.

Zooni noticed.

She turned and walked over.

Knelt.

Tucked the girl’s shawl higher over her head.

“It’s alright,” she whispered. “We were already being watched. This just means they’ve said it out loud.”

Ameena didn’t blink.

But her hand reached forward—slowly—and gripped the corner of Zooni’s sleeve.

Zooni let it stay there.

Behind them, Layaq poured the rest of the water over his face and muttered, “We’ll need a second exit now.”

Madhav nodded, his breath short.

“The upper ridge,” he said. “The goat path past the shrine.”

Zooni stood.

She looked at both of them.

“We’re not running,” she said. “Not yet.”

They didn’t argue.

But the air inside the cave had changed.

It had become heavier.

Not with fear.

But with the knowledge that the veil was thinning.

The world outside was pressing its face against the glass again.

where Usman, returning late from a solo grain run, brings word that a new officer—unlike the others—has been assigned to the mountains, and that he asks fewer questions, but listens longer, making him more dangerous than any before?

Usman returned just as the sky began to fade from gold to steel. The last light of day had slipped behind the higher ridges, casting the slope into the shadowed half of evening—when shapes become outlines, and every sound feels closer than it is. The wind had dropped, and with its retreat came a strange hush over the trees, as though even the branches had leaned inward to hear something they were not meant to.

His boots were coated with fine dust. Not the dry yellow of market paths, but the darker ash-grey of highland routes—soot and sediment mixed into powder from the old burned grain fields. He’d crossed far, farther than usual, and the wear was visible on him. His shawl was stained at the hem, his fingers cold despite the pace of his walk, and his face was drawn—more by what he had not said yet than what he had seen.

Zooni was stirring lentils over the fire when she heard the soft shift of gravel beyond the mouth of the cave. She didn’t look up. She didn’t need to. She knew the sound of his gait—heavy heel, careful toe, always slightly uneven, like he walked half in shadow and half in warning.

He ducked beneath the curtain, let the cold cling to him for a breath longer than usual, then entered.

Madhav looked up from his mat.

Layaq, seated by the clay wall, lowered the rope he was coiling.

Only Ameena, sitting beside Zooni with a bit of charcoal and a broken clay shard in her lap, did not react. But her fingers paused mid-sketch, her knuckles tightening just slightly.

Usman said nothing as he entered.

He dropped the satchel at his side, not carelessly, but like a man who knew the contents were not fragile.

He moved to the fire, let the heat touch his fingers, and only then said, “The grain is safe.”

He paused.

Zooni stirred once more, then tapped the ladle lightly against the edge of the pot.

“That’s not what’s written on your face,” she said.

Usman gave a short breath—half a laugh, half an exhale of weariness.

“No,” he said. “There’s more.”

He crouched, resting his elbows on his knees, eyes catching the firelight in a way that made the fatigue beneath them more visible.

“There’s a new officer,” he said, “from Jammu.”

Zooni didn’t speak, but her body stilled.

Madhav sat upright now, blanket falling to his lap.

“Another inspector?” he asked.

“No,” Usman said. “Worse. Not a screamer. Not a uniform-flaunter. This one listens. Watches. Doesn’t bark commands. Lets others do the barking, then waits to see who flinches.”

Layaq spat quietly into the ash beside him.

“The quiet ones are the real predators,” he muttered.

Usman nodded.

“This one’s asking for old records. He’s not interested in just names. He’s looking for the why. The how. He’s asking about patterns—who disappeared where, who gave grain to whom, who stopped visiting town first.”

Zooni finally looked up from the pot.

“Does he know we’re here?”

“Not yet. But he knows the others are desperate. He can smell failure, and he’s patient enough to wait for someone to make a mistake.”

Ameena shifted slightly beside her.

Usman noticed.

He softened his voice.

“He’s not like the rest. Not cruel in the open. But strategic. I watched him from across the well near Rainawari. He listened to a shawl merchant tell a story for fifteen minutes—didn’t interrupt once. Then asked two questions, both of which had nothing to do with the story—but everything to do with who that merchant knew.”

Zooni’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“What else?”

“He carries no badge. No visible title. But they step aside for him.”

Layaq stood now, pacing near the edge of the firelight.

“Then we start scouting again,” he said. “New paths. New eyes in the lower valley. If he’s patient, we have to be ghosts.”

Usman didn’t argue.

But he added, “This one—he isn’t hunting just men. He’s reading something bigger. Looking for symbols. Stories. That’s what worries me.”

Zooni stirred the pot again.

The lentils had thickened, darkened.

She dipped a ladleful into a bowl and placed it before Usman.

As he took it, she said softly, “Then we give him no story to follow.”

Usman met her eyes.

“Stories leave prints even when we whisper,” he replied.

Ameena looked up, meeting Zooni’s gaze.

Zooni brushed a hand gently through her hair.

“Then we learn to walk with wind.”

where that night, as they sleep, Ameena has her first nightmare since arriving—crying out for a name no one recognizes—and Usman, unable to bear her trembling, tells her the one story he had never told anyone: what happened the night he carried two sheep under his arms and leapt the wall like fire chasing fire?

Night held its breath.

The wind had stilled completely. Even the pine needles at the mouth of the cave stood silent, as if wrapped in some invisible stillness that was neither sleep nor waiting. Inside, the fire had faded to a deep glow—no flames now, only coals, flickering softly like the heart of something remembering itself.

Ameena slept closest to the fire. Her small frame curled tightly, her knees tucked to her chest, one hand pressed against her cheek as if guarding something precious in her dream. Zooni lay nearby, wrapped in two shawls, her face turned toward the stone wall, her breathing slow and even. Madhav, deeper into the cave, slept like a man recovering from battle—still, shallow-breathed, one arm resting over his ribs. Layaq, restless as always, had taken post near the entrance, his form hunched and alert, silhouetted against the dying embers.

And then came the sound.

Not loud.

A whimper, barely more than the squeak of stone under foot.

Then a whisper.

But not in Kashmiri.

A broken fragment of a name—twisted, stretched through sleep, spoken as if it were being pulled from the floor of a river.

Zooni stirred.

She turned slowly, opened her eyes, and pushed herself upright with one elbow.

The sound came again.

Ameena’s body had begun to tremble. Her face was contorted—not in pain, but in terror. Her brow furrowed. Her mouth opened.

“No… no…”

Then—more sharply, the word cutting through the hush.

“Basira!”

A name.

Foreign.

And filled with grief.

Zooni moved toward her at once, but before she could reach, Ameena jolted awake. Her body convulsed forward, her eyes wide and unseeing, her arms grasping at the air as though trying to catch someone falling through it.

Zooni knelt beside her.

“It’s alright,” she whispered, placing her hands gently on the girl’s shoulders. “You’re here. In the cave. We’re safe.”

Ameena didn’t respond.

Her lips were still moving, repeating the name.

Basira.

Zooni glanced toward the others. Madhav had turned slightly in his sleep. Layaq was already approaching, crouching low. But it was Usman who reached them first. His footsteps made no sound as he moved from his corner. He knelt opposite Zooni and looked directly into the girl’s eyes.

They weren’t seeing him.

Not yet.

He took one of her hands.

It was trembling violently.

He wrapped it in both of his—rough palms, calloused from rope, cold from night air, now holding something too fragile to bear.

“You saw her again, didn’t you?” he said, softly.

Zooni looked up at him.

“You know the name?”

Usman nodded.

He sat down fully now, folding his legs beneath him.

Then, looking not at Ameena, but into the fire, he began to speak.

“I had just turned sixteen. It was the night of the grain tax. The collector had passed through town with two carts and a full escort. Took everything from the weavers. Left them to starve. But they hadn’t found the sheep—two of them—hidden in the back stall of the old butcher’s shed. My uncle’s shed.”

His voice was calm.

Measured.

But it carried something beneath it.

Something sharp.

“I went in after dusk. Waited for the patrol to pass. Then lifted both sheep—one under each arm. They weren’t small. But I had done it before. I had practiced for weeks. Not for stealing. For running.”

Ameena blinked.

Her breathing was slowing.

But her eyes stayed wide.

“I ran along the canal wall. The guards were still drinking behind the checkpoint. I jumped the stone arch near Badyari Chowk, the sheep bleating under my elbows like devils were in their throats. And I landed in the alley beside her house.”

He paused.

“Basira.”

The name fell from his lips like something wrapped in smoke.

“She was only a year older. But she had already been sold once. Brought back. Bruised. Quiet.”

Zooni watched him now, unmoving.

Ameena’s hand slowly stopped trembling.

“She took the sheep from me without a word. Led them behind the kitchen. She had hidden three girls there. Girls they’d taken from Habba Kadal. One of them had been branded. They couldn’t even cry anymore.”

He drew a breath.

Not deep.

Just enough to continue.

“Basira fed them before herself. Always. She said food wasn’t food unless someone else needed it more.”

Then he looked at Ameena.

Finally.

Fully.

“She told me, if I ever got caught, to run. But if I ever escaped, to tell someone her name. Just once. So she wouldn’t vanish.”

Ameena was crying now.

But the tears came without sound.

They slid down her cheeks slowly, landing on the backs of Usman’s hands.

Zooni placed her other hand over both of theirs.

“I never saw her again,” Usman said.

“But now her name’s been said.”

Ameena nodded.

Not quickly.

But deliberately.

And then, as the fire crackled once more behind them, Zooni lifted the edge of the blanket and wrapped it around the girl’s shoulders.

Not to warm her.

But to gather what had just been placed into the world.

A name.

Remembered.

Returned.

And now, shared.

where the cave wakes fully at dawn, and the four sit together not in mourning but in quiet vigilance, while outside, smoke begins to rise from the lower slope—not from kitchens, but from the torches of approaching patrols?

Dawn did not break; it seeped.

The pale light did not announce itself with brilliance. It crept in slowly through the cracked lip of the cave’s mouth, touching the stone floor like water slipping beneath a door. The fire was little more than a glowing crescent of ash now. Its heat had retreated inward, humming faintly beneath a thin skin of soot. Outside, the world had shifted hue—no longer the black of night, not yet the gold of morning, but that strange grey that made everything seem both near and impossibly far.

Inside the cave, they had not slept again.

Not fully.

Not since Ameena’s cry in the dark.

She now lay curled against Zooni, her breath even but shallow, the kind of breath children learn after fear has entered their bones but not yet found its way out. Zooni hadn’t moved from her side, her hand resting on the girl’s shoulder, her eyes open, fixed on the dying coals. Her face was blank—but not empty. It was the expression of a woman who was no longer expecting safety, only preparing for the next wave.

Usman sat opposite, cross-legged, eyes rimmed with the red of exhaustion, hands blackened from ash and memory. His shawl had slipped from one shoulder, revealing the torn seam of his kameez. He hadn’t noticed. His gaze drifted between the embers and Ameena’s face. A name had been spoken. A name that had lived in silence for years. And now that it was in the air, something had shifted—not just in him, but in the space they occupied.

Madhav was awake, propped up on his elbow, his breath labored but steady. A damp cloth lay folded on his chest. He watched, but said nothing. His cough had softened overnight. The herbs were working. But something darker was rising beneath the improvement—the understanding that rest would not be permitted much longer.

Layaq returned just as the light touched the uppermost edge of the hearthstone.

He did not enter quickly.

He stood outside first, scanning the horizon, then walked in without brushing the dust from his boots. His face was tight, jaw clenched, his left eye twitching faintly at the corner.

“They’ve started burning again,” he said, voice flat.

Zooni looked up.

Usman straightened slightly.

“Where?” she asked.

“Lower slope. South end. Not fields. Not chulhas. The smoke’s too heavy.”

Zooni closed her eyes for a moment.

Then asked, “How far?”

“Two ridges down. Near the fig orchard.”

Usman rubbed a hand across his face.

“That’s a message.”

“No,” Layaq replied. “That’s a beginning.”

He walked to the small shelf and unhooked the bag of dried grain they kept for emergencies. He set it beside the water jug and looked at Zooni.

“You need to pack.”

Madhav coughed and spoke from his corner.

“She’s not leaving without the girl.”

“I know,” Layaq said, his voice sharper than before. “But the girl can’t climb yet. Not fast. And if they’re burning the lower slope, they’ll be here by noon.”

Zooni rose slowly.

She moved like someone carrying more than her own weight.

“I’m not taking her down,” she said. “We’ll go up. The goat trail.”

Usman nodded.

“It’s narrower,” he said. “But hidden.”

“And hard,” Layaq added. “You’d be safer with smoke.”

Zooni turned to him fully.

Her eyes were firelit glass now—reflective but unreadable.

“She survived what men did to her when she was four,” she said. “She’ll survive a mountain.”

Ameena stirred beside her.

But did not wake.

Zooni knelt, adjusted the blanket around the girl, and gently lifted the corner to tuck beneath her chin.

Then she stood, and for a moment, simply listened.

There was no sound outside.

No hoofbeat.

No voice.

But smoke has its own voice—one that speaks through the silence it chokes.

Zooni walked to the clay wall near the back of the cave.

She reached behind the pottery shelf, pulled out a small cloth-wrapped bundle.

Within it: a carved bone whistle, a length of red thread, and a folded note with names scrawled in charcoal—people who owed Dei’d a debt, people who once lived in hollow hills and wore no shoes in winter, people who still remembered what bread made from stolen grain tasted like.

She tucked the bundle into her satchel.

Then turned.

“We leave when she wakes.”

Usman stood.

“I’ll scout the goat trail.”

“I’ll take the rest,” said Layaq.

Madhav didn’t protest.

Zooni knelt once more beside the girl.

Not to wake her.

But to whisper something near her ear.

Something only Ameena would hear.

And outside, beyond the trees, the smoke thickened.

The mountains were no longer watching.

They were preparing to receive.

Next Chapter: Chapter Fifteen: River of Ice