The corridor opened into a vast circular hall, and Herald slowed beside Fancy. After the ancient gatekeepers outside, he had expected solemn halls filled with priests and whispered prayers, but Divyabhawan was crowded enough to feel almost festive.
Families occupied most of the lower floor while attendants checked names and directed young men and women toward different corridors. Parents fixed collars, adjusted shawls and repeated last-minute advice to sons and daughters who looked old enough to be embarrassed by it.
Younger children had come too, though none joined the lines. They crowded around older siblings or wandered between their parents, and one boy kept asking his brother what Pathway he thought he would get until their mother caught his shoulder and told him to stop distracting him.
Herald watched the candidates while people brushed past on either side of him. Most looked around Fancy’s age or slightly older; some could barely keep still, while others remained beside their families and stared toward the inner doors.
Nothing in the hall returned a memory, yet the familiarity from the entrance remained. It was quieter here, more like an instinct arriving a moment before thought, and Herald found himself looking toward one corridor just before an attendant emerged from behind its pillar.
His fingers flexed once at his side. His body seemed to know Divyabhawan, but his mind still gave him nothing.
"Fancy!" someone called through the noise, and three young women began making their way toward them. Fancy turned, and the guarded expression Herald had grown used to loosened before they even reached her.
"Where have you been?" one asked, catching her by the forearm. "You disappeared for an entire week."
Another pinched the edge of Fancy’s saree between two fingers and looked her over. "Forget that. Since when do you dress this nicely?"
Fancy pulled the cloth free and smoothed it back into place. "I always dress nicely," she said, only for all three women to stare at her until she sighed. "Say whatever you’re going to say."
Their laughter drew a few glances from nearby families. Herald barely noticed because he was watching Fancy instead.
Until now, almost everything about her had been tied to his disappearance. She had found him in the desert, worried over his condition, measured nearly every answer she gave him and watched for the next question she did not want to answer.
Around her friends, that carefulness loosened. When one of them reached for the obsidian orchid in her hair, Fancy caught the woman’s wrist, pushed the hand aside and continued talking as though the attempt had hardly interrupted her.
Her friends laughed again, and Fancy tried to hold onto an annoyed expression before a smile betrayed her. Herald’s attention stayed on her longer than he meant it to.
He had known what she looked like since waking in the desert: dark hair, expressive eyes, the obsidian orchid set with turquoise stones. Until now, those had simply been details belonging to the woman who knew him when he did not know himself.
Watching her laugh made him notice something much simpler. Fancy was beautiful, and somehow he had needed this long to realize it.
Herald stared a moment too long, and Fancy caught him. "What?" she asked, turning toward him while one of her friends followed her gaze.
He blinked. "What?"
"You were staring." Fancy raised her eyebrows, and Herald looked away a little too quickly.
"I wasn’t." The denial sounded useless the moment it left him, especially when one of her friends covered a smile.
Fancy kept waiting, so Herald rubbed the side of his neck. "I was just... thinking."
"About?" she asked, folding her arms.
Herald glanced at the three women now watching him and decided there was no safe answer. "Nothing important," he said, turning toward the crowd while Fancy’s expression made it clear she believed none of that.
One of her friends eventually noticed him properly. "Herald?" she said, and the amusement among the three gave way to surprise.
"I heard you disappeared again," one woman said. Another leaned around Fancy and added, "People were searching near the southern dunes."
Fancy stepped in before the questions could multiply. "He’s fine. Mostly," she said, giving Herald a quick look.
"Mostly?" Herald repeated. Fancy folded her arms.
"You woke up in a desert." Her answer left him with little room to argue.
"Fair." Herald nodded, and the women laughed enough to pull some attention away from him.
One of them looked over his clothes. "You look different," she said, and Herald glanced down at himself. The source of this chapter is novelping.com.
"Apparently I used to wear darker clothes." He brushed his fingers over his sleeve before looking toward Fancy.
"You did," she said. Herald hesitated, then asked, "Did they look bad?"
Fancy’s friends exchanged looks she deliberately ignored. "No. They suited you."
Herald found himself more interested in the answer than he would have been a few minutes earlier. "What was I like?"
Fancy studied him before answering. "Cool."
He frowned. "Cool?"
"Quiet. Confident." A slight smile appeared. "Sometimes too confident."
Herald tried to picture the person she described and failed. Like his room and his handwriting, the image belonged to someone everyone else seemed able to reach except him.
"Sounds better than I am now," he said. Fancy answered before he could look away.
"I didn’t say that." Her voice came quickly enough to make him look back, but movement near the entrance interrupted whatever he might have asked next.
People were stepping aside for a man who walked through the crowd without much concern for who stood in his way. A cloth bag hung over one shoulder, and he ate from it as he moved.
An attendant hurried after him. "You’re late!"
The man continued walking. "I arrived."
"Late," the attendant repeated. The man considered that for half a second, nodded once and carried on.
Herald frowned as he watched him pass. A moment earlier the man had been several steps behind the attendant; almost immediately afterward, he was ahead, though Herald had seen no sprint or sudden burst of movement.
"Did you see that?" Herald asked. Fancy followed his gaze.
"Ludicrous?" she said, recognizing him at once.
"How did he move like that?" Herald asked.
"He’s a Siddha." Fancy said it as though that answered everything, but Herald only looked at her. "What’s a Siddha?"
"You’ll find out eventually. After the ritual." Fancy’s calm answer earned a longer stare.
"That’s your answer?" Herald asked, and she gave a small shrug.
"For now." She met his irritation without apology.
Herald exhaled through his nose. "Talking to you is incredibly frustrating."
"Is it?" Fancy asked, that faint amusement returning to her face.
Herald had an answer ready until he looked at her again. Morning light from the high windows caught the turquoise stones in her orchid, and suddenly maintaining his irritation took more effort than it should have.
"...A little," he admitted. Fancy’s smile widened, and Herald looked away before she could say anything about it.
Ludicrous stopped several paces away and looked Herald over while chewing. He pointed at him with what remained in his hand. "You’re alive."
Herald was not sure what response that required. "Apparently."
Ludicrous nodded once. "Good," he said, then walked away without another word.
"That’s a fairly emotional reunion for him." Fancy adjusted the orchid in her hair.
"He knows me too?" Herald asked.
"Most people here do." Fancy’s answer made him glance back toward the crowd.
"That’s becoming increasingly inconvenient." Herald paused before returning to the word she had used earlier. "You said he’s a Siddha. Was I one?"
The teasing left Fancy’s face. "You were," she said, holding his gaze.
Herald waited for more, but Croaker’s voice reached them through the crowd. "There you are," he called as he approached.
Croaker looked less at home inside Divyabhawan than he had among the herbs and water channels of his hut. His eyes passed over Fancy’s friends before settling on Herald.
Herald folded his arms. "I was beginning to think everyone in this building knew more about me than I did."
"They probably do." Croaker stopped in front of him.
"That’s not reassuring." Herald’s mouth tightened.
"It wasn’t meant to be." Croaker gestured toward one of the inner corridors. "Come with me."
Herald stayed where he was for another moment. "Where?"
"To find out whether your body remembers more than your head does." Croaker turned away, and that answer was enough to make Herald follow.
Nearby attendants began calling candidates toward another corridor, and Fancy’s friends moved with the others. Fancy stepped after them while Herald glanced back.
"You’re not coming?" he asked. Fancy paused long enough to answer.
"My ritual is somewhere else. I’ll see you when we’re done." She gave him a small nod and joined her friends.
Herald followed Croaker for several steps before looking back again. Fancy was listening to something one of the women was saying, but just before the crowd closed between them, she glanced over her shoulder and found him almost immediately.
Their eyes met for a moment before someone passed between them. By the time Herald could see across the hall again, she was gone, and he turned forward wondering why he had bothered looking back in the first place.
The noise of the great hall faded as he caught up with Croaker. Families and laughter gave way to the echo of their footsteps while the corridor narrowed around them, its stone walls broken by closed wooden doors and Sanskrit inscriptions.
Croaker offered no explanation for where they were going. Herald waited through several turns before deciding the old man had no intention of volunteering one.
"You enjoy this, don’t you?" Herald asked as their footsteps echoed ahead.
Croaker kept walking. "Enjoy what?"
"Knowing things I don’t." Herald watched the back of his head.
"It has its moments." Croaker did not bother turning around, so Herald’s irritated look went completely to waste.
They eventually stopped before a large wooden door. Croaker knocked once, and a calm voice answered from inside, "Enter."
Croaker pushed the door open and gestured Herald through. "From here on, he’s yours."
Herald looked from the doorway to Croaker. "That’s reassuring."
"It wasn’t meant to be." Croaker had already started walking away.
Herald watched him disappear around the corner, then looked into the unfamiliar chamber beyond the door. He rubbed one hand over his face and muttered, "Wonderful," before stepping inside.