The stone stair rose from the terraces like a river frozen mid-cascade. At its crown, the pagoda roof of Changu Narayan thrust into a hard blue sky, its carved struts crowded with gods, monsters, and grinning kinnara whose wings had long since turned the color of old tea. Oil lamps guttered in the breeze along the lower courtyard, casting tire-flash glints over bronze bells lined beneath the eaves.
Arya felt the pull before his boots touched the first step. The mark in his palm warmed, then burned. The storm inside him leaned forward like a dog straining a leash. Closer, it urged. Home.
"Breathe," Yeshe said without facing him. Her cane clicked on stone, click, click, like a metronome. "Do not run to it. Let it come to you."
They climbed. Villagers moved aside with quick bows and careful eyes: a woman balancing a basket of greens, two children dragging a bundle of brush, an old man in a wool cap who pressed his palms together and whispered a prayer as Arya passed. A stone Garuda crouched at the first gate with wings furled and claws sunk into a demon's back; someone had tucked marigolds into the cracks at its feet.
Mira bumped Arya's shoulder with hers. "If a god jumps off a beam, I'm hitting it with my staff."
"Please don't hit any gods," Arya said, breath thin. "I think they hit back."
Inside the main courtyard, the world narrowed to wood and stone and breath. The pagoda's lower roof hung low enough to make the space feel intimate, heavy with incense and ghee smoke. A torana above the inner door bristled with carvings—snake-braided nagas, fierce faces, a tiny figure of Narayan riding Garuda through churning clouds. Bells rang somewhere out of sight: not temple time, not a festival peal. A keeper's rhythm.
A woman in a plain shawl stepped from the shade. Silver hair braided tight, hands stained with lamp oil, she looked like a vendor auntie, except her eyes—clear, assessing, amused. "Pilgrims," she said. "Or trouble?"
"Yes," Yeshe said.
The woman snorted. "Honest. Good. I am Aama Gita. I keep lamps from drowning and pigeons from stealing offerings. And sometimes I teach the stones to remember their job. You brought me a storm." Her gaze flicked to Arya's wrapped hand; the corner of her mouth twitched. "Hide it if you like. The stones can smell it."
"I didn't mean to bring—" Arya started.
"No one ever 'means,' " Aama Gita said. She waved them closer, brisk. "Come. Before soldiers remember they love shrines."
They followed her to the side of the sanctum where a smaller door waited, its lintel so worn by hands that it shone. Inside, cool air and a hush like deep water. The floor dipped slightly in the center where generations had stood. A squat bell hung from a beam, its lip blackened by fingers. Aama Gita took the rope and set the bell talking—one slow note, then another—until the sound filled the stone like breath fills a lung.
"Yes," she murmured to the air. "Wake up."
Arya felt it roll through his bones: not the storm's shove, but something older, denser, content to outlast wind. He pressed his palm against his chest to steady the war between pulls.
"The herald opened a tear in the terraces," he said. "We netted it shut. For now."
"For now is a useful length of time," Aama Gita said. "What you closed was not a door, only a curtain seam. The door is below us, and it answers to what you carry." She fixed Yeshe with a look. "You brought him to the only hinge old enough to hold it."
"Yes," Yeshe said. "He needs a leash."
Aama Gita clicked her tongue. "Everyone wants a leash. Boy—come."
She led Arya to a low stone plinth beside the sanctum wall. Its top was carved with shallow grooves that echoed the trident shape, not unlike the altar at Kharsa, but older, edges softened to a kindness that belied purpose. "Put your hand here. Not to give it away. To tell it where to sit."
Arya hesitated. Mira squeezed his shoulder. "Small steps," she said. "Remember?"
He set his bandaged palm on the stone. The grooves woke with a pale shimmer, and the storm inside him inhaled. He braced for pain. It didn't come. Instead, pressure eased, like a crowded room opening a door.
"Name a boundary," Aama Gita said. "Not 'never.' Never breaks. Choose something you can keep."
Arya swallowed. He thought of the nets in the field, of Mira's hand on his elbow, of Sagar's soldiers touching the lightning lines and staying human. "No storm that harms those I stand beside," he whispered. "Not unless I call it."
The stone warmed under his hand. The shimmer steadied. Aama Gita nodded once. "Better. Not perfect. Perfection belongs to liars. Again."
He added a second line, then a third: No storm on a plea. No storm for pride. Each vow clicked into place like a bead on a string. The pressure eased another notch. He let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding.
Outside, a horn sounded—short, disciplined, far too familiar. Mira stiffened. "Sagar?"
"Or the priests he promised," Yeshe said.
Aama Gita didn't flinch. "Keep your hand where it is, boy. Let the leash learn your wrist."
Boots struck stone in the outer court. Voices barked orders, and the steady thud of poles being set reached them—barricades or ritual standards, Arya couldn't tell. He closed his eyes and focused on the vows threading heat through his palm. The storm hissed, displeased, but it did not buck.
The sanctum door scraped. A man in white priest-robes stepped just within the threshold, ringed by two Trident Guards. He wore his hair in a topknot and a crown of thin copper leaves; charms clacked at his wrist when he moved. His mouth was polite; his eyes were not.
"Mother Yeshe," he said. "Keeper." A fractional bow to Aama Gita. "By writ of His Majesty, the storm-bearer is required for sealing in the capital. The King offers protection in exchange for obedience."
"Protection from what?" Mira said. "You?"
The priest's gaze slid past her as if she were smoke. It fixed on Arya's hand. "From himself," he said. "And from what hunts his scent."
Arya lifted his palm from the stone. The shimmer dimmed but did not vanish. "I'm not going with you," he said, surprised to hear his voice steady. "Not yet."
" 'Not yet' is a child's way to say 'never,' " the priest said, amused. He raised his hand, and the charms on his wrist chimed in a pattern that made Arya's skin crawl. The air in the doorway thickened, as if the sanctum had remembered how to be a well.
Aama Gita rang the bell. Once. Hard. The sound punched a hole through the priest's trick. His mouth tightened.
"Keeper," he said softly. "Do not make me choose between piety and duty."
"You chose long ago," she said. "You only like to pretend otherwise."
Beneath Arya's feet, the stone trembled—the faintest shift, like an animal waking under a blanket. The mark in his palm flared in answer. Gate, the storm whispered again, urgent, afraid, eager. Gate.
The priest heard something in the tremor too. His head tilted; greed flickered across his face before training wiped it clean. He took one slow step deeper into the sanctum. The Guards' boots gritted behind him.
Yeshe's cane struck the floor. "One more step and you trespass."
The priest spread his hands. "Then let us watch from the threshold as the old hinge opens. And when it does, tell me again you do not need a capital."
From somewhere below the sanctum, a bell rang back—deep, slow, and not rung by any hand in the room. The sound crawled through Arya's bones. The floor quivered a second time.
Cracks of ancient dust sifted from the seam around the plinth.
The door beneath Changu Narayan was waking.