The opportunity came on a night like any other, except that it wasn't.
The fire in the main room had burned down to coals, and That Man and That Woman were celebrating.
Another child sold.
He heard them through the wall — the clink of the bottle passing back and forth, the voices loosening the way they always did when they drank, That Woman laughing at something That Man said in a tone that had no warmth in it at all. He lay still and listened to it progress. An hour. Then another. Then the voices slowed, blurred at the edges, and finally stopped.
He waited one more hour after the silence.
Then he got up.
He moved through the dark room with the ease of someone who had walked it a thousand times, which he had. He dressed quickly — his own thin layers, the thicker outer wrap on top. He retrieved the bundle from under the blanket corner and secured it across his chest. He put the knife where he could reach it.
Then he went to the storage room.
The three clay jars of lamp oil were exactly where they always were, lined against the left wall. He lifted the first one — heavy, nearly full — and carried it without difficulty to the hallway outside the couple's room. He set it down, pulled the stopper, and began to pour.
He was methodical about it. The floor outside their door first, soaking into the wood. Then the base of the door itself, working the oil into the gap at the bottom. Then the door frame, top to bottom on both sides. He used the entire first jar and half the second, then set what remained aside.
He stood in the hallway for a moment and looked at what he had done.
The wood glistened faintly. The smell of oil was thick enough that he breathed through his mouth.
He felt no hesitation.
These were people who had collected children like livestock and kept them in a cold room until they were old enough to sell. These were people who had hit Meera for crying. These were people who had spoken about throwing children down a hill if they died as casually as discussing the weather.
Kindness to your enemies is cruelty to yourself.
He did not thought it was cruel. He felt it was precise and wanted no further risks in the future.
He went back to the children's room.
Meera was asleep.
She was curled on her side with her dark hair fanned across her face, one small fist tucked under her chin, breathing slow and even. She looked completely peaceful, the way she only ever looked when she was deeply asleep — all the quiet wariness she carried in her waking hours gone, her face soft and unguarded.
He crouched beside her and put one hand gently on her back.
"Meera," he whispered. Barely a sound.
She stirred. Her eyes opened halfway — unfocused, clouded with sleep, not really seeing him.
He turned his back to her and lowered himself so she could reach him.
What happened next required no instruction and no convincing. Meera, half asleep and operating entirely on instinct, registered that it was Aarav and did what she always did when she was tired and he was close — she reached out, wrapped her arms around his neck, and held on. Her legs curled around his sides. Her cheek dropped against the back of his neck with a small contented sound, like a cat settling.
She was asleep again within seconds.
He secured the cloth strips around her carefully, making sure she was held firm without waking her, and stood up.
He looked at the room one last time.
The thin blankets. The cold floor. The two wooden cups in the corner.
He turned away.
He moved through the house quickly. At the storage room he retrieved a small piece of cloth, twisted it into a cord, dipped one end in the remaining oil. At the front door he stopped long enough to take down the small oil lamp from the shelf beside it — still faintly warm from the evening — and open the glass panel.
He stepped outside.
Cold air hit him hard and clean. Above the mountain the sky was wide open, more stars than he had words for, the kind of sky you only saw far from any city. He stood on the step for a moment and breathed it in.
Then he lit the cloth cord from the lamp's wick, walked back inside one last time, crouched in the hallway, and touched the burning end to the oil-soaked floor outside the couple's door.
It caught immediately. Blue-orange flame raced along the grain of the wood and climbed the door frame fast, faster than he had expected. The heat pushed against his face. He straightened and walked back through the main room at a pace that was not quite running.
He stepped outside and pulled the front door shut behind him.
He stood on the step and watched the orange glow pulse through the gap under the door and through the small window above it. He listened. No shouting. No movement. The fire was doing its work and the oil-soaked door frame was doing its.
He turned to the road and started walking.
The dirt track was familiar under his feet — he had walked it more times than he could count, always in darkness, always alone. Tonight he had Meera warm and heavy on his back, her breath slow and even against his neck, entirely unbothered by the orange light beginning to rise behind them.
He had been walking for perhaps twenty minutes, well into the tree line and around the first two bends of the road, when she stirred.
He felt it — the small shift in her weight, the change in her breathing, the way her arms tightened slightly around his neck as consciousness came back to her.
A long pause.
She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked around. Trees. Darkness. Cold air. The road stretching ahead. No room. No house.
He felt her look behind them.
In the distance, above the tree line, the sky was orange.
Another pause, longer this time.
Then, in a small sleep-rough voice close to his ear: "Av?"
"Mm," he said quietly, keeping his eyes on the road.
"Where going?"
"Away," he said.
She considered this seriously for a moment, her chin resting on his shoulder, watching the orange glow in the sky behind them with her pale grey eyes.
"The house is on fire," she observed.
"Yes."
Another pause.
"Av did ?"
He glanced sideways at her. She was watching him with an expression that was not frightened or confused, just very focused in the way she got when she was working something out.
"Yes," he said.
She looked at the orange sky again. Then back at him.
"Okay," she said simply, and put her cheek back down on his shoulder.
He kept walking.
After another minute her voice came again, smaller and slightly muffled against his neck:
"Going far?"
"Yes."
A sleepy sound. Then: "Av carry me?"
"Yes."
"Okay." A pause. "Av strong."
"Go back to sleep, Meera."
A small yawn. Her arms tightened around his neck once more. Her weight settled heavier against his back as sleep pulled her under again.
He walked on through the dark and the cold, the trees closing around the road on both sides, the orange glow behind them slowly fading as the mountain bent away.
He did not look back.
________
He had been walking for close to two hours when the road began to level out.
The steepest part of the descent was behind him. The forest had thickened as they descended — taller trees, older, their trunks wide and dark, the canopy blocking most of the starlight. The road was a pale grey ribbon just visible enough to follow.
Meera had slept through most of the descent, stirring occasionally when the road turned sharply, then settling again without fully waking.
He was calculating how much further to the base of the mountain when he heard it.
A sound from the trees to the right. Low and deliberate — not a snap of a branch but something heavier than that. Weight being shifted, carefully, one slow placement at a time.
He stopped.
Meera stirred. "Av?" she murmured.
"Quiet," he said softly.
She went still immediately.
He stood in the middle of the road and watched the darkness between the trees. For a long moment there was nothing.
Then two points of light appeared between the trunks. Low to the ground. Pale amber, unblinking. Catching what little light reached the forest floor and throwing it back.
Eyes.
Large ones.
They did not move. They simply watched him from the dark with the patience of a predator.
On his back Meera had gone completely rigid. Her arms tightened around his neck. He felt her face turn into his shoulder.
He stood perfectly still and held the creature's gaze and understood with absolute clarity that the fire behind him had been the easy part.