Morning arrived gently, as if nothing had shifted during the night.
Sunlight spilled through the curtains of Eva's room, pale and ordinary, touching the compass where it lay on her bedside table. The needle was still. Quiet. Patient.
Too patient.
Eva dressed slowly, her thoughts tangled with the pull she still felt in her chest. When she stepped into the kitchen, her grandmother was already there, seated at the table with two cups of tea.
She was smiling.
Not the warm, familiar smile Eva had known all her life—but something softer. Distant. As if her thoughts were already elsewhere.
"Sit," her grandmother said.
Eva obeyed.
The old woman reached into her shawl and placed a sealed envelope on the table between them. The paper was thick, the edges worn, as though it had been carried for a very long time.
"I need you to deliver this," her grandmother said.
Eva stared at the letter. "Deliver it… where?"
Her grandmother's eyes lifted. "Lako City."
The name landed heavily in the room.
Eva frowned. "To whom?"
There was a pause.
Her grandmother lifted her teacup, taking a slow sip. "You'll know."
Eva's fingers curled around the edge of the table. "What's inside the letter?"
Another pause—longer this time.
"That," her grandmother said calmly, "is not for you to read."
Eva leaned forward. "Why me? Why now?"
Her grandmother finally looked directly at her, and for just a moment, the stories—those old kingdom tales—felt frighteningly close.
"When you reach Lako City," she said, "you will find your path."
Eva's chest tightened. "My destiny?"
Her grandmother smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.
"Destiny is a word people use when they don't understand direction."
She slid the letter closer.
"Go," she said gently. "And don't look back once the compass agrees."
Eva wanted to argue. To demand answers. But the moment her fingers touched the envelope, the compass on the table shifted—just slightly.
That was answer enough.
Aarvi had never believed in coincidence.
She believed in timing.
The paper slipped out of the box when she least expected it, fluttering to the floor like it had been waiting for her attention all along. Aarvi blinked, then knelt to pick it up.
It was old. Thinner than the letter Eva now carried, but marked with careful handwriting.
One name.
Lako City
Aarvi's heart skipped—not with fear, but recognition.
"That's strange," she murmured.
As if in response, her phone buzzed.
She stared at the screen.
No sender.
No number.
Just a message.
If you wish to understand the box, go to Lako City.
Aarvi laughed once, breathless. "You're not even trying to be subtle, are you?"
The box sat open beside her, its symbols silent but watchful. Aarvi felt it then—a pull, not unlike excitement before a journey. A certainty that staying would feel wrong.
She didn't question it.
She never had, when something felt this clear.
"I guess I'm going," she said lightly, already reaching for her bag.
Parna followed the roots without realizing he had decided to.
They rose subtly from the soil, weaving through the forest floor like veins beneath skin, guiding him toward a tree he had never noticed before—old, wide, its bark carved by time.
And by something else.
Parna stepped closer.
Symbols covered the trunk—etched deep, deliberate. Alphabets mixed with unfamiliar marks, lines crossing lines in patterns that made his head ache if he stared too long.
"Who did this?" he whispered.
The wind stirred then, gentle but insistent.
Parna took out his notebook and carefully copied every symbol, every curve and break. His hands moved instinctively, like he was remembering rather than learning.
When he returned home, he spread the pages across his desk, studying them under the soft glow of a lamp.
Hours passed.
Slowly, meaning emerged—not in full sentences, but fragments. Coordinates. Directions. A name that appeared again and again, hidden between symbols.
Lako.
Parna leaned back, breath uneven.
The room felt smaller.
A strange warmth settled in his chest—not comfort, not fear—but invitation.
"Why does that feel familiar?" he asked the empty room.
Outside, the trees creaked softly, as if pleased.
That evening, Eva packed quietly.
The letter rested in her bag. The compass, warm and steady, pointed firmly east.
Her grandmother watched from the doorway.
"You won't tell me anything else?" Eva asked softly.
Her grandmother shook her head. "Some answers arrive only when you're walking."
Eva nodded. Then, after a moment, she hugged her tightly.
"Be careful," her grandmother whispered.
"I will," Eva replied.
As she stepped outside, the compass shifted once more.
Far away, Aarvi checked the train schedule.
Parna closed his notebook.
And unseen by all of them, the roads toward Lako City began to wake up.