The courtyard blazed with light. For a heartbeat, Arya saw everything in sharp outlines: the cracks in the flagstones, the breath steaming from monks' mouths, the snowflakes hissing into smoke when they touched the altar's glow. Lightning raced from the trident grooves into his veins, wrapping his arm like living rope.
He didn't scream. The sound was caught in his chest, too small against the force filling him.
Symbols carved into the stone centuries ago kindled one by one, blooming across the altar in circles. They climbed into his skin, searing patterns along his forearm, racing up toward his shoulder. The mark in his palm spread into branches of pale blue light. Each pulse matched his heartbeat until it felt like the storm had stolen the rhythm of his life.
"Hold," Yeshe said, her voice even. "Not because I command you. Because you promised yourself you would."
Arya bit down on his own breath and held.
The gate split wide. A flood of hounds spilled through, their bodies slamming into the yard with snarls. Monks met them, staffs striking with deliberate rhythm. Where wood met shadow, sparks flew, ringing like struck bells. The air filled with prayer and bloodless smoke.
Mira darted forward, staff raised. Her breath came hard, but her movements were sharp. She cracked one hound across the jaw, pivoted, and drove the butt of the staff into another's ribs. Fear for her clawed at Arya, but he couldn't turn away. His hand was bound to the altar; the storm demanded his answer.
The question pressed deeper: Where will you keep me? In your hands? In your eyes? In your anger? Choose.
"I…" Arya gasped. His bones felt as if they might split. He wanted to scream no. To tear his hand away. To flee. But Mira's shout anchored him, Yeshe's chant steadied him, and the monks' rhythm carried him like a river.
He slammed his free hand against his chest. "Here! Not everywhere. Just here!"
Something shifted. The lightning's grip loosened from his joints, coiling instead into the center of his chest. His heart raced, but the storm pulsed with it rather than against it. The pain dulled, leaving behind a new weight—immense, but his.
The yard shifted too. Shadows pulled back from the altar as though the vow itself was a shield. The hounds snarled but faltered.
Then another presence entered.
A tall figure stepped through the shattered gate. It moved like smoke stretched into the suggestion of a man. Its face was unfinished, a smear of angles that forgot how to stay in place. The hounds parted around it, bowing as if to their master.
The mark in Arya's palm seared hotter. The figure's attention was a hand pressed against his bones.
"Yeshe," Mira whispered, eyes wide. "What is that?"
"The herald," Yeshe answered, steady though her knuckles whitened on her cane. "A mouth for Narak. A hand of the Rakshasa King."
The herald didn't look at her. Its shifting face turned to Arya. Its voice slid into the courtyard, deep and heavy. "Storm-bearer."
The word wasn't sound. It was command. Arya's knees bent forward as if compelled. His hand twitched away from the altar, reaching toward the figure without his consent. The lightning inside him surged in recognition, as if the herald carried a leash it had always known.
"Do not answer!" Yeshe snapped. "Not with words. Not with your bones."
Arya clenched his teeth until his jaw ached. The herald raised a hand—fingers too long, too many—and Arya felt invisible strings pulling at his arm. His palm tried to turn toward it.
"No," Arya growled. Summoning every ounce of stubbornness, he pressed his hand harder into the altar. Sparks shot between his skin and the stone. The storm bucked, but he forced it into a single thread of light that stretched outward, not toward the herald, but across the air between them.
The thread hummed like a wire strung too tight. The herald's shadow-hand reached—and recoiled with a hiss as the line cut into it. One of its fingers smoked and dissolved.
A shriek rippled through the hounds. They faltered, their bodies trembling as fear shivered down their ranks.
The herald's voice deepened, carrying rage. "Child. You do not know the price of what you clutch."
Arya's chest heaved. "Maybe not. But I know how to shut a door."
The line brightened into a ribbon. The herald pressed again, and the ribbon bit deeper, slicing another piece from its hand. Shadows smoked away.
Yeshe's chant rose above the chaos, threading strength into Arya's trembling body. The monks' staffs struck harder, each blow a bell to reinforce his stand. Mira moved in front of him, staff ready, defiant.
The herald's shape wavered, anger radiating. "This place will not hold you forever." Its voice was promise, not threat. With a final hiss, it stepped backward into the arch of the gate. Its body folded into the thin crack of shadow it had arrived through—and was gone.
The courtyard fell into ragged silence. The only sounds were the panting of monks, the hiss of snow against the altar's fading glow, and Arya's own breath.
Slowly, he pulled his hand free. The mark still blazed faintly on his palm, the veins of his arm lit like threads under the skin. He collapsed to his knees.
Yeshe placed a hand on his shoulder, steadying him. "Sit. Not because you are weak. Because you worked. And work earns rest."
Mira knelt in front of him, eyes sharp with relief and scolding at once. "Next time, warn me before you decide to outstare a shadow with no face."
Arya let out a shaky laugh. "Next time, I'll bring a plan."
"Good," she said. "I like plans that start with not dying."
Tsering, the elder monk, leaned on his staff and looked at the broken gate. His voice was quiet, but certain. "They will be back."
"Yes," Yeshe murmured. "And next time, they will not come alone."