Ujjayini, two days later
Bhaskaracharya found Eshaan in the observatory's lower courtyard exactly where he'd expected to find him, the logbook was untouched beside him, his eyes fixed on nothing in particular the way they had been for most of the past two days.
"You've made yourself easy to find lately," Bhaskaracharya said, settling onto the stone bench.
"That's unlike you as well."
"I didn't see much point hiding, Acharya. You said two days. It's been two days."
Bhaskaracharya didn't answer immediately, and Eshaan felt his stomach tighten at the delay, certain for one terrible moment that the silence meant the answer he'd been dreading.
"I've spoken with the king's envoy again this morning," Bhaskaracharya said finally. "And with Lilavati, and with my own conscience longer than either of those conversations combined." He paused. "You'll travel to the camp near the Mahi crossing. Under guard, with proper escort, and with conditions I intend to lay out clearly before you agree to any of them."
Relief moved through Eshaan so quickly it left him briefly unsteady. "Thank you, Acharya."
"Don't thank me yet. Listen first." Bhaskaracharya's voice had gone firm, "You travel with a royal escort the entire distance, and you do not leave their sight for any reason, at any point, regardless of what you believe you've spotted or what you think you understand better than a trained soldier standing beside you. You are twelve years old, Eshaan, not a commander, and I need you to hold that distinction clearly in your mind the entire journey, however much your instincts might argue otherwise once you're actually there."
"I understand, Acharya."
"You will also understand this. If the prisoner is not Kripa, you will not argue with the soldiers, you will not delay the return journey demanding further searches or further questions, and you will come home with me exactly as quickly as the road allows."
Eshaan swallowed hard. "And if it is him?"
Bhaskaracharya's expression softened, just slightly, the sternness of a moment ago giving way to the quiet worry he had been carrying since the first dispatch arrived. "Then we will decide what comes next, together. One thing at a time, Eshaan."
"When do we leave?"
"Tomorrow, at first light. I'm accompanying you myself, whatever the king's envoy suggested about the journey being unnecessary for an old astronomer to make personally."
Something almost wry entered Bhaskaracharya's voice despite everything. "I did not raise you through a full year to hand him over to strangers in this time of war."
"You didn't need to come, Acharya. The palace granary calculations still need finishing."
"The granary will still be there when I return, Eshaan, half finished or not. This will not wait the same way."Bhaskaracharya rose from the bench, brushing dust from his robes with more care than the gesture strictly required. "Go pack what you need. Lightly. Harigupta's men won't tolerate any delay to their original schedule as the envoy is mostly reinforcements that his majesty had asked for."
Eshaan spent the remainder of that afternoon preparing for his journey to the west with an envoy of soldiers, a thing he was going to experience for the first time in his two lives. Devendra found him folding a spare set of clothes, and sat with him a while without saying much, the two of them working through the quiet, familiar motions of packing in place of the conversation neither quite knew how to start properly.
"You'll write," Devendra said finally, "once you know."
"I'd just take the fastest route back to tell you whatever I get to know." Eshaan promised instead.
Devendra nodded, and didn't ask anything further, and Eshaan finished packing with a silent mind that was soothing rather than the dread he was experiencing for days.
Ujjayini, the following morning
The escort waiting at the gate consisted of six soldiers, plainly outfitted, their commander a quiet, weathered man named Harigupta who greeted Bhaskaracharya with proper respect and Eshaan with the careful, assessing look of a man who had clearly been briefed on exactly how unusual this particular assignment actually was.
"Acharya. Young sir." Harigupta bowed to both in turn. "His Majesty's orders are plain enough. The main envoy has already left via main route, we in turn will ride hard, avoid the main roads where the fighting's thickest, and we bring you both back the moment your business at the camp is finished."
"Understood, Commander," Bhaskaracharya said. "How long do you estimate?"
"Five days if the weather holds and the roads stay clear of anything worse than mud. Longer if either of those things goes against us." Harigupta's eyes moved briefly to Eshaan, "The boy rides well enough to keep pace, Acharya? I ask only because a slow rider on this route becomes a danger to everyone travelling with him, not just to himself."
"He rides well enough," Bhaskaracharya assured, and despite everything sitting heavy in his chest that morning, Eshaan felt a small flicker of pride at his Acharya's confidence in him.
They set out as the sun cleared the eastern wall, Ujjayini's gates opening just wide enough to let the small column through before closing again behind them, the city shrinking slowly at their backs as the road wound west through fields still recovering from a season of war disrupting whatever harvest they might otherwise have brought in properly.
On the road west, the first day
The pace Harigupta set was harder than Eshaan had expected, faster than any riding he'd done since the long journey west with Kripa an year ago, and by midday his legs had already begun protesting in ways that reminded him, uncomfortably, how much of that earlier journey he'd made on foot rather than horseback.
"You're doing better than most boys your age would manage," one of the soldiers riding beside him offered, noticing Eshaan shifting in his saddle for what was probably the tenth time that hour.
"First hard ride's always the worst of it. Your body learns the rhythm eventually, if you give it a few days."
"How many days have you been riding like this?"
"Long enough that I've stopped noticing the fatigue," the soldier said, something like a smile crossing his weathered face. "You'll get there. Commander wouldn't have brought you along at all if he thought you'd slow us down past what the mission could afford."
They stopped only twice that first day, brief pauses to water the horses and eat something quick before pressing on, Harigupta clearly determined to make the most of the daylight while the weather still held in their favour. By the time they finally made camp that evening, Eshaan's whole body ached in ways he hadn't fully anticipated, though he said nothing about it, unwilling to be the reason the column's pace slowed even slightly.
Bhaskaracharya noticed anyway, settling beside him near the fire with a small jar of something that smelled faintly of mustard oil and crushed herbs.
"For the soreness," he said, handing it over without further explanation. "Lilavati packed it before we left. She said you'd be too stubborn to ask for it yourself, and I find myself unable to argue with her assessment."
Eshaan accepted it gratefully, and said nothing about the small, unexpected warmth that settled in his chest at the thought of Lilavati preparing for a soreness she'd correctly predicted he wouldn't admit to.
On the road west, the second day
The countryside changed noticeably by the second day, villages growing sparser, fields giving way to stretches of land left fallow, either abandoned by farmers who'd fled the fighting further west or simply too close to the contested border for anyone to risk working them properly this season.
Eshaan rode near the middle of the column, exactly where Harigupta had positioned him, flanked by two soldiers whose names he'd learned the previous evening but whose faces he still found himself studying more than talking to, uncertain how to fill the long silences of hard riding with anything that felt appropriate given where they were headed.
Bhaskaracharya rode beside him for a stretch that afternoon, breaking one of the longer silences himself.
"You've been quieter than usual," Bhaskaracharya observed.
"I keep thinking about what I'll say to him. If it's really him." Eshaan kept his eyes on the road ahead. "First he vanished, then didn't reply to my letters, then we get news of a man described as him, and now I am riding towards him not knowing whether I should be relieved or afraid of what I'll actually find when I get there."
"Perhaps both, Eshaan. There's no rule that says relief and fear can't arrive in the same breath. I've felt both together more times in my life than I could properly count for you."
"Did it ever get easier? Sitting with both at once?"
Bhaskaracharya considered the question in his mind before answering it honestly. "No, not easier exactly. More like familiar. A man learns to recognize the shape of his own fear well enough that it stops surprising him even when it doesn't stop hurting. That's the most honest answer I can give you."
They rode in silence again after that, the road stretching further west beneath a sky that showed signs of a downpour that would slow them considerably if it caught them before they reached whatever shelter Harigupta had planned for the night.
On the road west, that evening
They made camp in the ruins of what had once been a small waystation, its roof long since collapsed but its walls still sound enough to break the worst of the wind, Harigupta's men worked with the efficient and practiced motion, that they have done this before as many times as they could remember.
Eshaan sat near the small fire the soldiers had permitted despite the risk, close enough to the light that he could still make out the worn staff resting across his lap, carried the entire journey though he'd said nothing to anyone about why.
Harigupta settled across from him eventually, offering nothing more than a nod before speaking.
"You've kept that thing close the whole ride," Harigupta said, nodding at the staff. "Mind if I ask why?"
"It belonged to someone important to me. Or I believe it did." Eshaan turned it over once in his hands. "I'm hoping to find out for certain in a few days."
Harigupta stared at the fire and then at Eshaan, his expression grew gentler. "The old prisoner at the camp. That's who you are hoping this belongs to."
"You've heard about him."
"Everyone in his majesty's camp has heard something about him by now, one version or another." Harigupta poked at the fire absently. "Word among the men is he hasn't said much of anything since they brought him in, beyond that one line about waiting to be found. Doesn't eat much either, from what I've heard, though he doesn't complain about it."
The more Eshaan heard of this old prisoner, the more he was becoming sure of the fact that this old prisoner must be Acharya Kripa.
"Is he well treated?"
"As well as any prisoner in a war camp gets treated, which isn't the same as comfortable, but isn't cruelty either. His Majesty's given clear instruction he's not to be harmed."
Harigupta's tone gentled further. "Whatever you find when we arrive, young sir, I'd rather you hear that much now than walk in expecting the worst simply because nobody told you otherwise along the way."
"Thank you, Commander."
Harigupta nodded once and returned his attention to the fire, and Eshaan sat a while longer in the flickering light, the staff still resting across his lap, watching the last of the flames burn down as the camp settled slowly into an uneasy rest around him.
Bhaskaracharya found him there later, long after most of the camp had gone quiet, and sat down without a word, the two of them watching the embers together in a silence that had grown, over three days of hard travel, into something companionable rather than heavy.
"Three more days," Bhaskaracharya said finally.
"Three more days," Eshaan agreed.
"Whatever we find at the end of them, Eshaan, I want you to remember something before we arrive." Bhaskaracharya's voice had gone quiet.
"You have handled every difficult thing this year has placed in front of you with more steadiness than I had any right to expect from someone your age. Whatever waits for us at that camp, I have no doubt you'll handle that with the same steadiness, however it turns out."
"You sound like you're preparing me for bad news, Acharya."
"I'm preparing you for any news," Bhaskaracharya corrected gently. "Good or bad. A mind braced only for disaster handles good fortune poorly when it actually arrives, Eshaan, same as a mind that expects only good handles disaster badly. I would rather you walk into that camp ready for either possibility than certain of only one."
Eshaan nodded slowly, turning the staff over once more in his hands, the worn wood familiar now after so many days in his care.
"Get some sleep," Bhaskaracharya said, rising finally. "Harigupta means to push us harder tomorrow, given how well the weather's held."
Eshaan lay awake a while after Acharya had gone, staring up at a sky thick with more stars than Ujjayini's lamplight ever let him see properly, and found himself, for the first time since the whole business had begun, simply hoping that the road ahead would finally give him an answer that he'd be satisfied with.