Herald stepped out of Croaker’s hut with the folded map tucked beneath his clothes. Warm desert air replaced the cool scent of herbs and wet earth behind him, and Fancy was waiting near the doorway with her attention fixed on his face.
"What did he say?" she asked as the leaves above Croaker’s garden shifted in the wind. Herald adjusted the edge of the map beneath his clothes before answering.
"He said I’m stable." The words were easier to give her than everything Croaker had refused to explain, and Fancy’s shoulders lowered slightly before she reached for his hand.
"Then let’s go home." Herald looked down at their joined hands as the word settled somewhere uncomfortable in his chest. Home. He let her lead him away from the garden without asking what that was supposed to feel like.
The wind had softened by the time Croaker’s oasis disappeared behind them. Loose sand gradually gave way to stone roads, while the emptiness of the outer settlement faded beneath temple bells ringing somewhere ahead.
Weathered white-stone shrines dedicated to Lord Vishnu lined the roadside. Fresh marigolds rested at the feet of old idols, incense drifted from clay holders, and an elderly priest beneath a banyan tree scattered grain for pigeons while reciting Sanskrit verses.
Children chased one another around a small lake nearby, their laughter carrying between the bells and the slap of sandals against stone. After the dead settlement where Herald had awakened, the ordinary noise of Vishishtarajya felt almost strange.
A sharp crack broke across the courtyard, and Herald turned toward the temple steps. A woman had collapsed beside one of the shrines, striking the green bangles around her wrists against the stone hard enough to shatter several of them.
Green fragments scattered between her fingers as thin trails of blood crossed her palms. She struck the step again, shoulders shaking with each breath. "He promised he’d return. He said this would be his last raid."
People nearby lowered their heads, and the priest stopped scattering grain. Even the pigeons shifted away from the sudden sound, but no one stepped toward her.
Fancy released Herald’s hand and crossed the courtyard. She caught the woman’s wrists before they could strike the stone again. "Please. You’ll hurt yourself."
The woman looked at her for only a moment before folding against Fancy. Fancy did not tell her to calm down or promise anything would be all right; she stayed where she was until the sobs weakened enough for the woman to breathe without choking on them.
Herald watched from a short distance while Fancy opened the pouch at her waist and pulled out a clean strip of cloth. She wrapped the cuts carefully, working around the broken bangles still clinging to one wrist.
"I’m sorry," the woman whispered, wiping her face with the heel of her palm. Fancy tightened the knot in the cloth and shook her head.
"You have nothing to apologize for." Her hands remained around the woman’s wrist for another moment before the woman’s gaze drifted back toward Vishnu’s weathered face.
"He always came back before," she said. "Every time." Fancy’s fingers stopped for half a breath, then finished securing the bandage.
The woman eventually brought her palms together before the shrine and resumed her prayer. Fancy rose and returned to Herald while the priest began scattering grain again and the courtyard slowly found its old rhythm around the blood-marked steps.
Herald looked down at the pieces of green glass. "What raid was she talking about?" Fancy followed his gaze before answering.
"Outside the Divine Wall. Ashuras attacked a few days ago." She adjusted the pouch against her waist while Herald looked back toward the woman.
"And her husband?" he asked. Fancy let the bells fill the space between them for a moment before replying, "He never came home."
She started walking again, and Herald followed without pressing her. Before the shrine disappeared behind the surrounding buildings, he glanced back once.
The priest had resumed feeding the pigeons, children still ran beneath the banyan tree, and incense continued climbing into the afternoon sky. The woman remained before Vishnu with bandaged hands pressed together, while the blood and broken glass stayed where they had fallen.
As the temples gave way to residential streets, Herald watched women sweep sand from their doorsteps even while the wind carried more toward them. Children returned from a communal well with clay pots balanced between them, and a blacksmith worked outside his shop while neighbours stopped long enough to exchange a few words.
Nothing looked prosperous. Clay walls had been patched instead of replaced, timber reinforced where it had begun to bend, and nearly everything Herald passed bore some mark of repair.
People still filled the streets anyway, and smoke rose from cooking fires behind the houses. Fancy eventually stopped before a two-story sandstone home with copper ornaments around the entrance and a small prayer bell shifting beside the doorway.
Herald looked from the bell to Fancy. "This is...?" Fancy rested one hand against the door before answering.
"Our home." She opened it and stepped inside, leaving Herald standing there for half a second longer than he meant to.
Cushions surrounded a low wooden table, while scrolls occupied one side of the room and clay jars filled with grain lined the wall beside a modest kitchen. Four doors branched from the hallway, each ordinary enough that Herald disliked how much they seemed to expect from him.
Fancy pointed them out while setting her pouch near the kitchen. "That’s yours. Mine is beside it. The third is Erudite’s, and the last belongs to Peril."
Herald looked toward the final door. "Where is he?" Fancy glanced that way before answering.
"He left early this morning. He had something to take care of, but he should be back later." Herald’s attention returned to the first door, the one she had called his.
He had a room here, and people expected him to return to it. After waking alone in the desert, that certainty felt stranger than it should have.
Footsteps sounded farther down the hallway before Herald reached the door. A young man appeared carrying several rolled scrolls beneath one arm, his robes neatly arranged despite the ink stains along one sleeve.
The moment he saw Herald, the scrolls shifted in his grip. He crossed the room without fixing them and pulled Herald into a tight embrace.
"You idiot. We’ve been worried sick." His arms tightened once while Herald stood stiff between them, trying to decide what his own hands were supposed to do.
Another stranger was holding him like someone he had known for years. After a moment, Herald awkwardly returned the embrace anyway.
The young man stepped back but kept one hand on Herald’s shoulder. Herald looked at him, then at the scrolls beneath his other arm. "Erudite?"
His eyebrows rose immediately. "You remember me?" The hope arrived too quickly for Herald to miss it.
"She told me your name." Herald glanced toward Fancy, and Erudite’s hand loosened from his shoulder.
"Oh." He shifted the scrolls higher beneath his arm before recovering. "Well, remembering my name without remembering me is still more than I expected."
Herald rubbed the back of his neck. "I’m sorry." Erudite’s expression tightened just enough to stop him from adding anything else.
"Don’t apologize for something you didn’t choose." He said it lightly, though his eyes stayed on Herald for another second before he nodded toward the hallway.
Fancy moved toward the kitchen while Erudite pointed toward Herald’s room. "Go get some rest. You look like you fought the desert and lost."
"I woke up in it." Herald looked down at himself as Erudite followed his gaze.
"That explains the sand." Herald finally noticed how much of the desert had followed him inside, caught in the folds of his clothes and around his sandals.
Erudite pointed toward the first door again. "Your room is there." Herald started toward it, then stopped with his hand near the frame.
"You really know me?" he asked. Erudite adjusted the scrolls beneath his arm before answering.
"Yes. I do." He waited, already looking as though he knew the next question.
"For how long?" Herald asked, and Erudite’s mouth curved slightly.
"Long enough." The answer told Herald almost nothing, which seemed to be becoming a habit among everyone he met.
"You aren’t going to tell me anything either." Herald let his hand fall from the doorframe while Erudite shrugged one shoulder.
"At least not tonight." He shifted the scrolls again, and Herald gave him a flat look.
"At least you’re honest about it." Erudite smiled faintly. "One of my better qualities."
"Debatable," Fancy called from the kitchen without turning around. Erudite looked toward her and replied, "Nobody asked you," while her laugh carried back into the room.
Herald stayed beside the hallway for a moment, listening to them. Their exchange moved too easily to need explanation, the kind of argument that had probably happened in different forms more times than either of them could count.
For Fancy and Erudite, this was home. Herald opened his door and stepped into a room that apparently belonged to him too.
A sturdy wooden bed stood against one wall, with a writing desk beside it and a small bookshelf crowded with scrolls. Sunlight entered through a narrow window, while an attached washroom occupied the far corner.
Nothing inside looked prepared for a guest. A robe hung beside the bed, several scrolls lay open on the desk beside a cup and a stack of notes, and the blanket had been folded as though whoever slept there had simply stepped out and was expected back.
Herald crossed to the desk and picked up one of the open scrolls. The letters curved across the parchment in neat lines, and recognition came before memory.
The handwriting belonged to him, though he could not remember writing a single word. His thumb stopped against the edge of the parchment as the question formed on its own: How do I know that?
He studied the shape of the letters and could almost feel how his hand would move to make them. The motion felt familiar even though the thoughts on the page belonged to a life he could not reach.
Herald placed the scroll exactly where he had found it and went into the washroom. Cool water carried the dust and sand from his skin, and by the time he finished, steam had fogged the mirror.
He wiped the glass with his palm and studied the man staring back at him. Faded black hair clung wetly around his face, sky-blue eyes returned his stare, and nothing about the reflection offered a single memory in return.
His gaze dropped to his damp wrist, where the faint mark remained. Croaker’s warning returned with it: Not everyone who recognizes it will react the way I did.
Herald pulled the cloth back over the mark and raised his eyes to the mirror again. Something shifted behind his reflection, and the muscles across his shoulders tightened before he turned.
Nothing stood behind him except damp stone and a thin line of water crawling toward the drain. Herald remained facing the empty room for another breath before slowly looking back at the mirror.
A tall figure stood behind his reflection now, its body swallowed in black smoke. Two hollow eyes stared through the darkness where its face should have been.
Herald spun around so fast that water flicked from his hair onto the wall. The washroom was empty, and the only sound left was the slow drip of water against stone.