This chapter will show Barakiel’s growing unease and longing, his quiet grief, and the first stirrings of destiny as the millet—psheno—reveals its divine trail, urging him back toward the unknown. The tone will be gentle, reverent, and visually lush—ready for both page and screen.

The days passed, but time did not.

It sat still inside Barakiel’s chest like a weight too light to hold, yet too heavy to set down. He moved through his hours like a man wandering inside a story whose ending had been sealed, but whose pages kept turning. He tended the hearth. He fetched water. He prayed. And always—always—he returned to the door to look toward the snow.

Mahira said little. She carried herself with the same grace she always had, but Barakiel noticed her lingering in the corners of rooms, her hands pausing longer on the rim of Nooriyah’s teacup, her silence deeper than before. She did not ask where Nooriyah was. She did not ask what had become of the bear.

But every evening, she lit two lamps instead of one.

As though one was not enough to remember.

Barakiel had not spoken of the forest since the morning they returned.

He had not spoken of the bear’s golden fur, or the look in Nooriyah’s eyes as she stepped away from him. He had not spoken of the voice that sent them out, or the grains that slipped silently from the cloth while they walked. He feared that naming these things would make them smaller, less sacred—like birds pinned beneath glass.

But the silence grew restless.

The morning after the offering, something shifted.

It was not announced by thunder or stars falling from the sky. It arrived quietly—on the breath of dawn, in the way the snow began to glisten with a softness that did not belong to winter. Barakiel, rising before the first call of the rooster, stepped outside as he always did to greet the light. But what greeted him was not the expected numbness of snow-laden air.

It was warmth.

Faint, like a hand held above a dying fire, but present.

He furrowed his brow, stepping beyond the doorframe. The snow, which had blanketed the land in solemn white for months, now bore a sheen—melted at its edges, thinned into translucence near the base of tree trunks. Somewhere in the woods, a bird sang—not the croak of a winter raven, but the high, uncertain whistle of a finch returned too soon.

Barakiel’s breath caught.

The air smelled different. Beneath the scent of wood smoke and frost, there was something new—something green, raw, barely risen. The earth was waking, not with reluctance, but as if summoned.

He stepped farther from the house, toward the path he and Nooriyah had walked only days before. Each footfall stirred the surface of the snow, softened now, as though the ice beneath had loosened its grip.

At the edge of the cedar grove, something stopped him cold.

There, emerging from the half-melted drift, was a sprout Slender Alive.

Psheno

He knelt down slowly.

The seedling swayed slightly in the breeze Its leaves were bright—unfolding like hands in prayer—and its base was wrapped in the earth’s first mud, damp and forgiving. Impossible Yet it stood, clear and strong against the fading snow.

Barakiel did not speak.

But his soul, deep within, whispered:

She passed this way.

Barakiel rose slowly, careful not to crush the fragile stalk with his cloak. His eyes followed the ground ahead, and there—several paces farther—a second plant rose through the melting crust. Then another. And another.

A trail .

Not of footprints, but of green.

Each shoot was spaced just a few strides apart, weaving a narrow path through the receding snow like emerald beacons stitched into the earth. The line was imperfect, but persistent—arching slightly to the east, following the path they had walked.

He took a step forward, and the breeze shifted again—mild, fragrant, almost tender. It carried the scent of thawed bark, soft moss, living root. And in that scent, something awakened in him: an old memory.

His grandfather’s voice, thick with age, once whispering near the fire, “There are seeds that know the voice of the earth. Psheno is among them It remembers paradise. But it only grows where purity has walked. ”

At the time, Barakiel had thought it myth.

Now, he wasn’t sure.

He looked up. The snow was pulling back in strange patterns—thinning in ribbons along the trail of grain, yet remaining untouched elsewhere . The forest, still crowned in frost, held its breath as if in deference.

And overhead, through a break in the clouds, the sun reached down with long, amber fingers.

Spring had not arrived for the village.

It had arrived only here.

Barakiel followed the trail, his steps careful but firm. The psheno sprouts were growing stronger now, taller, some already unfolding into thin golden blades as if racing toward fullness. They gleamed not just with sunlight, but with something deeper—like each leaf carried its own remembering.

He bent toward one and touched it gently. The stem pulsed faintly beneath his fingertips—warm, as if the blood of the earth moved through it .

He had seen many springs in his lifetime. He had tilled hard soil, prayed for rain, planted seed with trembling hope. But he had never seen grain grow without earth being turned, without soil prepared, without time and toil and patience. This… this was something else.

This was not agriculture.

This was answer.

A response from the world itself to a gesture of obedience.

To the offering of Nooriyah.

He stood upright, blinking against the sudden light. The trail curved gently now, leading toward the darker edge of the forest where shadows thickened and trees grew closer together. There, the snow clung stubbornly in deep banks. But even through it, the millet rose.

Where her feet had touched, the ground remembered her.

And the grain obeyed.

The trees here grew taller, their trunks wrapped in thick sheets of bark like ancient Armor. The hush between them deepened, not in menace, but in reverence—as if the forest itself understood that something had passed through it which deserved to be kept sacred

Barakiel moved beneath the branches, following the line of psheno now glowing like lanterns in the dim undercanopy. Occasionally, he paused, overcome by the sheer strangeness of what was unfolding before him. The snow around him melted in soft rings where each sprout emerged, as though the seed warmed the world it touched.

The path did not falter.

Even where the land sloped upward and the trees leaned together like conspirators, the trail held—each plant pushing its way out of the thawing ground, each leaf turned slightly toward the sky.

He could feel it now in his bones.

This was not just a trail.

It was a summons.

He did not know where it led, but he knew he could not turn back.

The forest, once familiar, had become unfamiliar—but not hostile. Instead, it was becoming other, unfolding around him like a dream one had forgotten and now remembered, frame by frame, tree by tree.

Above, the light had changed again.

Not fully spring. Not yet.

But something had begun.

And it could not be undone.

The sound of water reached him first..

A stream—not frozen but whispering softly through ice-laced stones. He crossed a ridge and saw it, cutting through the woods like a silver ribbon. At its edge stood a birch, thin and white, its bark peeling in spirals like shedding skin

Barakiel stepped close.

Across the stream, on the far bank, another patch of psheno stood—clustered now, not as single threads, but as a soft field swaying in the golden breeze.

He crossed carefully, boots wet from the stones, heart filled with something like awe and fear braided together.

The earth on the far side was softer, more alive. Here, spring had truly arrived. Tiny wildflowers bloomed beside the sprouts—bluebells, snowdrops, even one small tulip stubbornly rising from black soil. Birds called overhead with uncertain songs, as if waking early from sleep.

Barakiel fell to his knees.

He reached down and scooped a handful of soil from the base of one sprout. It was rich, fragrant, loose—like garden earth, not tundra. He lifted his face to the sky, where shafts of sunlight filtered through the canopy.

“My Lord,” he whispered, “what do You wish to show me?”

The wind moved gently through the leaves.

And the psheno swayed.

As if listening.

As if answering.

where Barakiel is no longer merely following a trail—he is walking through a living revelation, where nature, memory, and the divine begin to blur into one seamless, sacred reality.

Barakiel remained kneeling by the patch of millet for a long time, his hands buried in the fragrant soil as though he might touch something deeper beneath it—not roots, but reason. The warmth that rose from the earth was not just thermal. It had intention. It clung to his fingers like breath and hummed softly against his palms.

He closed his eyes.

Around him, the forest pulsed—not loudly, not with thunder or spectacle, but with a rhythm so delicate it was almost missed: the drip of thawed ice from branches above; the flutter of birds too new to be brave; the low murmur of wind weaving through pine needles. But beneath all of it was something else—a music without sound—the world speaking in the oldest language it knew.

Welcome.

Remember.

Follow.

Barakiel opened his eyes again.

The psheno in front of him bent gently, not as if touched by wind, but as if bowing. He stood slowly, reverently, and looked ahead. The trail continued—not rigid, not linear, but winding like a thought that grows as it moves forward. And in the distance, through the thinning trees, he saw the snow fade entirely, replaced by a strange, subtle green—new shoots, moss, soft earth.

He stepped forward.

The land no longer felt like forest alone. It was becoming a garden. A sacred corridor sculpted not by hands, but by hope. Where once the trees had stood as guardians of winter’s hush, they now leaned back slightly, letting the light spill through—like elders parting to let a child pass.

Barakiel passed beneath a canopy of slender limbs wrapped in newborn buds. Here, even the air tasted different—sweetened by damp leaves and stirred petals, as if spring had gathered all its earliest fragrances into this single stretch of forest and let them bloom in secret.

His eyes caught movement ahead.

A deer—no, a pair—stood at the edge of the path, watching him. Their coats gleamed in the light, and their breath rose like incense. One of them stepped forward, its hooves careful on the softening ground. It bent toward the millet and nuzzled one of the stalks, not to eat, but as if in recognition.

Then it turned and vanished silently between the trees.

Barakiel smiled faintly. He could not say why. But something inside him softened.

The trail—Nooriyah’s trail—had become more than a line of sprouting grain.

It had become a thread of memory, stitched into the earth by her footsteps, and woven into time by the will of something that had never stopped watching.

And he was no longer just a father searching.

He was a pilgrim being invited forward—step by living step.

where Barakiel journeys deeper into a landscape reshaped by grace—a place where nature no longer behaves as wilderness but as witness, revealing that his daughter’s path has marked the world with something eternal.

He did not know how long he walked.

The sun had climbed higher now, though still pale and hesitant, filtered through the wide branches above. Time in this place did not move as it did in the village—it did not march forward. It unfolded, like a scroll unrolling at its own pace, revealing lines of meaning with every step he took.

Barakiel moved carefully. Not out of fear, but reverence.

The forest floor was soft beneath his boots—softer than it should have been for early spring. It felt alive, like the skin of something sleeping just beneath the surface. Around him, wildflowers had begun to bloom in unlikely places: tucked into tree roots, perched atop stone outcrops, peeking through clusters of psheno as if trying to understand what it meant to grow here

The trail, too, had changed.

No longer merely a line of millet plants, it had become a living ribbon of green—wider now, more confident. Where earlier each stalk stood alone, they now grew in pairs, then clusters, their leaves curling toward one another as though exchanging some sacred language.

Barakiel paused beside a particularly tall stalk, its head crowned in a golden tassel.

He ran his hand across it, and in that moment, he felt it—not warmth, not wind, but something else Recognition. As if the plant knew him. As if it remembered the hands that once carried it, folded gently in linen and prayer.

He breathed deeply, letting the air fill his chest. It smelled like life. Not simply growth, but the kind that follows surrender—the kind that breaks through snow not with force, but with promise.

And it was then he realized: this path was not just Nooriyah’s passage.

It was proof.

Proof that the offering had been accepted.

Proof that the divine does not forget.

The psheno had taken root not just in soil, but in the memory of the world itself. The land had opened, not out of seasonal duty, but as an act of recognition—of a pure soul given in trust, and a father who obeyed without question.

Ahead, the trail curved gently downhill, where light pooled in a small hollow.

Barakiel exhaled.

And stepped forward again—not toward a destination, but toward a deepening.

where Barakiel descends deeper into the hollow—into a place that feels less like forest and more like sanctuary, and where the weight of what he follows begins to reach into his spirit.

The hollow unfolded before him like a basin carved gently into the earth’s side—a cradle of moss, meltwater, and light.

Barakiel stood at its rim, breath caught in his throat. It was not large, but it felt infinite, the way some silences stretch wider than sound can measure. The trees around the hollow stood taller, straighter, their trunks silvered with lichen. And at their feet, the psheno had gathered in abundance—no longer in scattered stalks, but in soft, rippling fields.

It was the first time he had seen millet grow in this way—unplanted, unasked, yet fully flourishing.

The blades swayed without breeze.

Barakiel stepped down the slope, boots pressing into soft mud laced with old pine needles. As he walked between the stalks, he could feel them brushing against his legs, curling faintly around his knees as if welcoming him—not like a stranger, but like one long awaited.

He passed a pool fed by a thin stream of water slipping over stones. Its surface reflected the sky, but the light inside it was warmer, richer—like honey drawn from a place below the sun. Psheno ringed the edges of the pool like sentinels, their roots sunk deep in the impossible warmth of the thawed earth.

Barakiel knelt by the water, cupping it in his hands. It was cold, yes, but alive—fresh in a way no well water ever tasted. He drank, slowly And for a moment, the world narrowed to a single awareness:

He was inside something sacred

This place did not feel like part of the forest he had always known. It felt… preserved As though it had been hidden until now—until someone pure enough, obedient enough, broken enough to be remade had walked here and let it open.

Nooriyah’s passage had not merely awakened the seed.

It had unlocked the land

And now he, her father, was walking through a garden not grown by labor, but by trust. Not by sun and season, but by sacrifice.

The hush was profound—not absent of noise, but full of presence. Even the birds here sang differently: less in chatter, more in intervals. As though time itself had slowed to listen

Barakiel lowered his hands to the ground and pressed his palms flat into the soft soil, closing his eyes.

He did not pray aloud.

He did not need to.

The land was already listening.

where Barakiel, no longer just a father retracing steps, begins to feel the story beneath the story—a deeper logic guiding him through earth, memory, and miracle.

He rose from the hollow slowly, as though waking from a dream that had not yet ended. His hands, wet with soil and spring water, smelled of earth—but not the dull scent of fields and toil. It was richer. Fragrant Alive in a way he couldn’t explain. As if something inside the ground had not only fed the grain, but remembered him.

The psheno around him grew tall now—taller than his waist in places—leaning slightly inward, as though creating a corridor just wide enough for him to pass through. The colour of their leaves had deepened into an emerald tinged with gold at the edges, and the air between them shimmered faintly, like heat on stone. Yet the temperature had not risen.

It was not warmth of weather.

It was warmth of witness.

Barakiel walked slowly through the grain. His fingers traced the tops of the stalks as he moved, and with every touch, he felt a vibration—not a sound, not a voice, but a rhythm. A hum just beneath hearing, like a song the land was singing to itself, too sacred for words.

And all at once, he remembered something:

A story his mother used to tell him when he was a child, whispered under quilts during long northern nights. That in the days when the world was first born, there had been a seed so pure that wherever it fell, the land would awaken—even in stone. It was a gift from the unseen, given only once, carried forward through those who never sought power, only grace.

He had always thought it a tale.

But now—walking through grain that had grown through snow, had bloomed under frost, had pulled life from stillness—he no longer doubted.

He realized, too, that the grain had not fallen randomly.

Nooriyah had carried the bundle. But it had fallen as she walked—not clumsily, but perfectly spaced. As though the earth itself had reached up to her and drawn the seed down, one by one, asking to be remembered.

And so the psheno had bloomed.

Not for food.

But for testimony.

This trail—this living, breathing path—was not just proof of her passage.

It was her footprint written in light.

Bringing this chapter to a sacred close—as Barakiel stands on the edge of something more than memory, more than miracle. He stands before a threshold drawn in green, leading into the unknown.

The trail began to climb again, gently at first, then steeper—curving around a cluster of moss-covered rocks that jutted from the earth like forgotten bones. Trees parted slowly as he ascended, and above the rise, the light grew stranger—not brighter, not darker, but different, as though it had passed through something unseen before reaching the forest floor.

Barakiel paused at the crest.

And there it was.

Below him lay a valley unlike any he had seen before. Not carved by water, not hollowed by glacier, but shaped, as if by hand. The trees circled it like a ring of sentries. At the center, a narrow stream ran clear and quiet, and beside it, the psheno stood in wide, ordered rows—a field now, no longer a trail. Full-grown. Rooted. Flourishing.

It looked not like something that had merely sprouted.

It looked like something planted on purpose.

Barakiel stepped forward.

The soil beneath his boots was no longer frozen. It welcomed his step with a softness that felt almost human. He could hear the bees now—small, golden-winged, humming in circles above the flowering heads of grain. And further still, a pair of cranes moved slowly through the field, unbothered by his presence, their white feathers stained faintly with the golden dust of psheno pollen.

He moved down into the valley.

And though he had not planned to fall to his knees again, he did.

Not out of fatigue.

But out of recognition.

This place—this field, this living memory—had not grown for him, and yet it had waited for him.

Nooriyah had passed here.

Not just in body, but in spirit.

Her walk had changed the land. Her presence had stirred the deep places of the earth. And the seed she carried—sacred, ancient, pure—had awakened something sleeping beneath centuries of cold.

Barakiel bowed his head, pressing his forehead to the soil.

And for the first time since he had watched his daughter disappear into the snow, he did not feel sorrow.

He felt awe.

Above him, a wind moved gently through the grain.

And the psheno whispered in reply.

Next Chapter: Chapter 4: Among the Shenai Tribe