The slit in the rock became a passage, the passage a stair cut into the mountain's side. They emerged into night air crisp enough to sting lungs—north of the valley, somewhere along a ridge that rolled toward higher, darker shapes. Bhaktapur lay far behind and below them, its lanterns dim sparks in a bowl of shadow. The storm had spent itself over the city; here, the sky glittered with stars.
Rudra moved like a man who knew every step before he took it. "Keep to the edge of the pines," he said, voice low. "The shadows prefer open ground."
Mira angled closer, gaze cutting sideways. "And what are you?"
"Unpopular," Rudra said dryly. "With the wrong people."
They followed a goat trail that clung to the slope. Needles whispered underfoot. Distant water talked itself down a ravine in a constant silver hiss. The world felt too big after the tunnels, but the mark in Arya's palm steadied again, beating with the earth's slow pulse instead of the panicked drum it had been in the city.
"Why help us?" Arya asked.
Rudra didn't answer immediately. "Your shard didn't fall into that satchel by accident," he said at last. "Someone smuggled it out of a vault that was supposed to be forgotten. Someone risked everything to get it close to where it needed to be."
Mira's breath fogged. "Close to Arya."
"Close to a bearer," Rudra said. "The storm chooses. I just keep it from choosing corpses."
Arya tried to laugh; it came out thin. "Comforting."
They rounded a bend where the trail narrowed to a ledge. The pine forest dropped away to black emptiness, and beyond that, snow like starlight caught on distant peaks. The beauty struck him sideways; it hurt, a little.
"Listen," Rudra said.
At first Arya heard only the wind. Then, under it, a skittering scrape. He looked down. A line of dark shapes flowed along the slope below, keeping pace—a hunting pack with too many joints and not enough flesh.
"Rakshasa-hounds," Rudra said. "They don't belong to the King. They belong to what whispers in his court."
Mira's hand went to the knife at her belt. "How do we kill them?"
"You don't," Rudra said. "You outrun them, or you out-light them."
Arya swallowed. "Out-light?"
Rudra pointed to Arya's wrist, where the prayer beads dulled the glow. "That is an oath, not a toy. It'll answer you—until it eats you. So you learn its language. For tonight: think small."
"Small lightning," Arya said, incredulous.
"Small control," Rudra said. "Call a spark, not a storm."
The pack fanned wider below, testing. One peeled away, claws ticking against rock, began to climb.
Rudra stopped. He faced Arya squarely. "Both hands. Breathe. Feel the mark, not as heat, but as a coil waiting. Tap it. Don't grab."
Arya lifted both hands, palms open. The night pressed on his skin. The mark thrummed, eager, like a stray dog ready to bolt. He breathed in cold, breathed out slower. Coil, not fire. Tap, not tear. He reached for it the way he'd learned to lift an orange from a vendor's cart—quick, precise, without waking the whole street.
A thread of light slid between his fingers, hesitant as a first step.
"Good," Rudra said. "Now hold it."
The hound lunged over the lip of the ledge. Mira swore, blade up.
"Now," Rudra snapped.
Arya flicked his fingers like shaking rain from them.
The thread leapt, snapped into the hound's eyes, and popped. The creature screamed voicelessly and tumbled backward, claws scrabbling uselessly at the bare rock. It fell into the dark, vanished, reformed farther down the slope, staggering.
The rest of the pack checked their climb.
Arya sagged, breath shaking. The small spark had tugged more than it gave; he felt emptied, like running on a bad morning without breakfast. Rudra's hand found his shoulder, steady.
"That," Rudra said, "is the difference between burning and living."
Mira's grin flashed, quick and fierce. "Not bad, storm-boy."
They moved again, faster. The hounds tracked them but kept distance now, wary.
"How far to this place you're taking us?" Mira asked.
"Two days if we're nimble," Rudra said. "Four if the river's high."
"Where?" Arya asked. "What's north?"
Rudra glanced toward the peaks. "A monastery carved from ice." His voice changed, softening on something like memory. "We called it Kharsa. The world calls it a myth."
"And they'll teach me control," Arya said, not a question.
"They'll teach you truth," Rudra said. "Control is a side effect."
They reached a wooden bridge slung across a gorge—planks slick with frost, ropes older than Arya wanted to think about. Wind moaned up from the dark, cold enough to burn the inside of his nose.
"Single file," Rudra said. "Don't look down."
"Classic bad advice," Mira muttered, stepping onto the first plank.
They were halfway across when a horn blew far behind, low and metallic. Not the King's. Something older. The hounds threw back their heads and howled, the sound braiding with the horn into a rope that tugged at Arya's bones.
The ropes creaked. Frost cracked. A shadow spilled over the far end of the bridge like ink tipped from a cup.
Rudra didn't curse; he moved. He drew a short staff from his cloak—plain wood, worn smooth. He hooked it under one of the main ropes and whispered. The staff hummed. The rope tightened, just enough.
"Go," he said.
Mira ran. Arya followed. The shadow surged, reaching. Instinct burned through advice. The coil inside him flared, hungry.
"Small," Rudra barked without looking back. "Or you tear the bridge."
Arya gritted his teeth, grabbed a breath that hurt, and tapped the coil again. A spray of sparks jumped from his palm to the boards in front of the shadow, crackling like firecrackers. The thing recoiled as if the sparks were knives.
They reached the far side. Rudra stepped off last. The shadow poured forward and struck the space where his foot had been like a wave hitting rock. For a heartbeat, Arya saw something under it—teeth, not set in any mouth he recognized.
The horn blew again, closer.
Rudra set the staff across the ropes, braced, and whispered a second time. The ropes thrummed, then snapped in a clean, controlled way that left the bridge's far anchor intact but sent the near side tumbling into the gorge. The shadow lunged for empty air and vanished into the wind.
The horn cut off mid-blast.
The three of them stood breathing hard while the last of the planks swung down and shattered.
"Rest?" Mira asked hopefully.
"Walk," Rudra said. "Rest is for people no one wants to eat."
They trudged into the pines until the gorge was only sound behind them. When they finally stopped, Arya's legs were water and his hands shook not from cold but from the memory of the coil. He flexed his fingers. The beads on his wrist were warm now, as if pleased.
Mira sank onto a boulder and glanced at Rudra. "That horn—who blew it?"
"Not who," Rudra said. "What. A herald. The Rakshasa King has your scent now."
The name landed like a stone. Arya had words for kings of men. He had fewer for kings of things that wore the idea of a man like a cloak.
Rudra crouched, carved a quick circle in the frost with his staff, and pressed his red eye shut. "Sleep in turns. We move before dawn."
Arya lay back on needles that pricked through his hoodie and listened to the wind step between the trees. When sleep came, it came with visions—ice rooms full of bells, a woman with cloth over her eyes pouring water that turned to lightning, a gate etched with a trident that opened when he lifted his hand.
Far below, in a palace of polished stone, a man with a crown of onyx smiled into a bowl of black water. In the reflection, Arya's mark burned. "At last," the Rakshasa King murmured, and shadows leaned in to listen.