The valley unrolled beneath them in steps, a giant's staircase of terraces carved into the mountain's side. Dry winter fields gleamed pale under the sun; irrigation channels lay frozen like veins of glass. Far off, past the last ring of houses and the shoulder of a pine-clad hill, the spire of Changu Narayan speared the sky. Its gilded tip caught the light and flung it back toward them like a challenge.
They followed a footpath beaten hard by hooves and boots. Bells clinked from the necks of distant goats. Women in wool shawls moved between low stone walls, carrying bundles of brushwood; a boy chased a mangy dog, laughing until he spotted the travelers and fell quiet.
Arya kept his hood low. The mark in his palm had begun to throb again, a steady drum he could not silence. The storm's whisper pressed at his ribs: Closer. Not safe. Move.
Mira matched his pace, staff balanced across her shoulders. "You're doing the stare," she said, without looking at him.
"What stare?"
"The one that says you'd rather be struck by lightning than seen by a villager."
Arya tried to smile and failed. "I don't want them to be afraid."
"They're not," she said. "They're careful. There's a difference."
"Careful turns into doors shutting," he muttered.
Ahead, Yeshe tapped her cane against a milestone stone set at the path's bend. Its face had been worn smooth by rain and prayer; someone had tucked marigolds into a crack. "We pass through the village quickly," she said. "No lies. No boasts. The mountain remembers every unnecessary word."
They entered the first lane between houses, and the village folded around them: stacked stone, slate roofs, a flutter of laundry, the metallic ring of a blacksmith at work. A line of prayer flags spanned the lane like a low rainbow. The air carried juniper smoke and the faint sour of fermenting millet. People paused to watch them pass—no jeers, no welcome. Just weighing.
A thin man in a wool cap stood squarely in the path. A copper trident amulet gleamed at his throat. "Pilgrims?" he asked, voice neutral.
"Yes," Yeshe said. "To Changu."
The man's gaze slid to Arya's bandaged hand. "The road is open," he said at last, and stepped aside.
They were almost through when a horn sounded from the ridge above the fields—long, low, not a temple note. Arya flinched. The storm inside him kicked hard against his chest.
Mira's head snapped up. "Don't tell me that's—"
A troop of white-cloaked soldiers appeared at the lane's end, moving in neat columns between the walls. Sunlight caught the runes stitched across their breastplates. At their center walked Captain Sagar, bareheaded, his dark hair neat, his expression carved calm as ever. He carried his trident like a banner that needed no cloth.
Villagers melted into doorways. The lane cleared as if a wind had blown through.
Sagar stopped ten paces away. His eyes went to Yeshe, dipped in courteous respect, then fixed on Arya with the attention of a hunter who never throws his spear twice. "Kharsa's bells reached even here," he said. "I had hoped the monastery's wisdom would incline it to the law."
"Yes," Yeshe said. "And my wisdom inclines me to keep breathing. Your law endangers that."
One corner of Sagar's mouth moved—almost amusement. "Mother, the crown has no quarrel with you. It asks only for the boy." His gaze did not leave Arya. "Storm-bearer, the capital can teach you to live with what you carry. Out here, you will only learn to make graves."
Mira stepped forward before Arya could speak. "We've already seen the kind of graves your law digs."
"Girl," Sagar said, mildly, "you mistake the crown's leash for the Rakshasa's. Which would you prefer?"
"Neither," Arya said. His voice came out steadier than he felt. "I prefer my own feet."
Sagar studied him. "A brave answer. Bravery and foolishness are cousins." He raised two fingers. The soldiers shifted, opening a path that led—not toward the capital's road, but down toward the terraces.
"Walk with me," he said. "If I wished to chain you, there are more efficient places to do it than a lane full of witnesses."
Yeshe inclined her head. "We will walk."
They took the path that skirted the fields. A small shrine sat at the corner where two terraces met, its alcove painted with a flaking image of Garuda crushing a demon underfoot. Someone had left a clay bowl of rice and a garland of corn husks; a child's handprint, long dried, marked the whitewash.
Sagar stopped before it and set the trident upright, tip resting lightly against the earth. "Do you know why we bind the storm in the capital?" he asked Arya.
"Because you like control?" Mira said.
"Because we like cities that are not ash," Sagar replied. "The storm is not a pilgrim's blessing. It is a siege engine. And siege engines belong in armories."
Arya felt heat creep up his neck. "I didn't ask for this."
"No one ever does," Sagar said, almost gently. "And still, it arrives." His gaze cut to Yeshe. "You of all people know what unbound marks invite."
"Yes," Yeshe said. "I also know what kings do with bound ones."
Sagar did not deny it. He looked at Arya again. "The herald has scented you. It will not stop. If you reach Changu without a coffin, the King's priests will come to you instead. And they will not ask. This is the part you do not yet understand: mercy has a timetable. When it expires, only force remains."
Before Arya could answer, the wind shifted—and brought with it a smell like wet copper. The hair on his arms lifted. The storm inside him flared, crowding his lungs.
He turned.
At the far edge of the lowest terrace, a tear in the air had opened—thin as a seam at first, then pulling wider with a sound like cloth ripping underwater. Shadows bled out of it, sliding across the field like spilled ink. Villagers screamed; a goat bolted; the dog that had followed them tucked its tail and vanished beneath a cart.
"Hounds?" Mira whispered.
"No," Yeshe said. "Worse."
The tear bulged. A figure pressed through—tall, wrong, its edges shifting as if it could not decide which shape to keep. The herald stepped into sunlight, and the sunlight flickered.
Sagar swore under his breath. The trident in his hands shivered like a struck tuning fork, runes waking along the haft.
The herald's attention settled on Arya. He felt it land—not on his skin, but inside the bones of his chest. His mark burned so bright he nearly dropped to his knees. The whisper in his head slammed into a single word: Gate.
"Storm-bearer," the herald said. The sound reached them without traveling. "The door opens. Come."
Around them, soldiers shifted into formation. "Form line!" Sagar snapped. The Trident Guard moved like a hinge, shields up, tridents angled, boots digging into terrace earth.
Yeshe set her cane into the soil. "Boy," she said quietly, as if they were alone. "Do not answer it. Not with your mouth. Not with your bones."
Arya swallowed hard. "What if the only way to close it is to… go toward it?"
"Then you will not go alone," Mira said, moving to his side.
Sagar's eyes cut to her, then to Arya. Whatever argument he had prepared died. "If you can do anything besides break, do it fast," he said. "My men will hold the line. Once."
The herald tilted its unfinished head. "Choose."
Arya spread his fingers. Lightning coiled under his skin like breath held too long. He stared past the soldiers, past the rippling air, at the thing that waited where Changu Narayan rose beyond—the old promise Yeshe had named: stones older than kings.
"Not for you," he told the herald, and reached for the storm.
It came.
Not as a spear this time, nor as a chain. As a net—threads of white-blue light flung low and wide. They struck the ground and hummed, lines of power mapping the terrace like fresh-cut irrigation. The first wave of shadow hit the net and recoiled with a hiss. The tear shuddered, narrowing a hair.
Arya's breath tore in and out. The net wanted to snap. He held it, palms burning, ribs singing like bowstrings drawn too tight.
"Again," Yeshe breathed.
He threw another net, then a third, lacing them crisscross until the field looked stitched. The herald's body blurred—anger, or surprise. The tear fought to widen.
Sagar shouted, and the Trident Guard advanced as one, tridents flashing. When their bronze tips touched the glowing lines, the runes along their shafts brightened, as if drinking the storm. For a heartbeat, crown and oath shared the same grid of light.
The tear shrank another finger's width.
Arya sagged, but Mira's hand found his elbow and kept him standing. "Don't you dare stop," she said, breathless. "You started this."
He almost laughed. "I usually do."
The herald raised its too-long hand and pressed it against the invisible mesh. Where shadow met lightning, the air screamed. The nets quivered. One line snapped. Another dimmed.
Arya gritted his teeth, reached deeper—and felt something in the distance respond. Not the herald. Not Sagar's trident. The shrine itself, a hum old as river rock. The storm inside him flared as if a door had been opened in his chest.
"Closer," he whispered.
The nets steadied.
The herald's head tilted again, unreadable. "The gate will open," it said, patient as winter. "And you will come through it."
Then it stepped backward into the seam and was gone. The tear sealed with a sound like breath returning after being held too long.
Silence fell. The only noise was the soft clatter of a dropped shield and the river of Arya's breathing.
Sagar lowered his trident. The runes along it faded, one by one. He regarded Arya for a long moment. "You will reach Changu," he said. "Whether I escort you or chase you, the road is the same."
"Yes," Yeshe said. "But the footsteps differ."
Sagar exhaled. "For today," he said, "we share an enemy." He gestured, and his soldiers pulled back, reforming into their column. "I will not forget what those nets did." His gaze flicked to Mira, then settled once more on Arya. "Nor what they cost you."
He turned away, and the Guard moved with him, white cloaks ghosting between walls until they were gone.
Villagers emerged slowly, faces pale, mouths moving in prayers that had lived a thousand winters. Someone placed a fresh marigold at the shrine's base.
Mira nudged Arya. "Net-boy," she said, voice shaky. "You still with us?"
Arya looked at his hands. The skin along his palms was reddened where the light had bled out, but his fingers still obeyed him. "I think so," he said. He lifted his gaze to the far hill, where the spire burned like a kept promise. "We're close."
"Yes," Yeshe said softly. "And the mountain has run out of places to hide you."