Northern Ashwan's slum spread up against the boundary of the killing Jaisal desert like a gangrened sore. Crusted mud walls sloped into one another in exhausted resignation. Alleys were swathed in a thin layer of sand, ash, and old goat bones tossed away. Patchwork shelters burst from wood debris and ragged fabric, and their roofs puffed smoke out into the atmosphere with every inhale. No birds were singing here—just the buzzing of insects and the grunting of people coming to life in another day of a life that had lost hope.
Ashwan's city proper shone way to the south, beyond sandstone gates and merchant plazas. But here, in the forgotten quarter, all men, women, and children toiled like dust beneath its heel. They were the hands that scrubbed its drains, swabbed its stables, and hoisted its marble aspirations for a single copper a day.
A Marwadi turban fluttered in the morning wind.
The old man wore it well, bandaging it thick enough to conceal the scar that ran across his left eye. Sixty winters had weathered his bones into fragile tools, but his attitude was still proud. His attire was plain, his movements deliberate—like a man accustomed to donning many masks. The heat did not seem to bother him, even as others hackled from the desert air.
Beside him sat his youngest son, hunched on a broken crate, one knee drawn to his chest. Shaurya Jaydev wore rags better than a prince wore silk. His shoulders were broad, but his tunic hung loose, its edges torn to blend in. His once-proud hair lay flattened with oil and dust. Nothing about him suggested strength, but his eyes carried the vigilance of a soldier too long at war.
On the corner of the room—a solitary mud-brick hut occupied by six families—a small boy lay huddled under a frayed shawl. He stirred occasionally and mumbled during his sleep. Beside him, Mira applied a damp cloth to his forehead.
She was just fifteen, a thin wisp of a girl with sun-darkened skin and fingers that were never still. Her brown hair, pulled into a sloppy knot, kept slipping into her eyes, which were large and soft. Not stunning, not gorgeous. Just. kind. The kind of kind that gave strangers food before taking their names.
They had first seen her three days before on the steps of Ashwan city, where she had given them water without hesitation.
"I know your eyes," she had whispered to the boy, kneeling beside him. "You're not from here. You still look up."
She had not asked them why they did not have bedding, coin, or a name. She just fed them.
"Why are you helping us?" Shaurya had asked her that night.
She had shrugged. "Because no one helped me when I needed it. And you looked like someone who could do something good—if you lived long enough."
Now, morning had returned, with its heat and its sorrow.
"How long must we remain here?" complained the voice of a boy. Udai Kesari, royal bloodline or not, now occupied a roughhandmade rope cot only barely strong enough to support his weight. His fingers played with the loose ends of the weave as he glared at the cracked ceiling.
Shaurya did not lift his eyes. He sat honing a snapped fragment of iron on the doorstep of stone. "Once we can meet Rasmika."
"That's what you said yesterday."
"That's what I meant yesterday."
The old man laughed softly.
Mira gazed over at them with a gentle smile, then back over to the pot on the hearth, stirring its contents with a stick. There was the smell of lentils and rock salt in the air. Not much, but it was warm.
Outside, the desert winds picked up once more, whistling ominously. Inside, four fugitives sat in silence—three bound by blood, one bound by choice—waiting for the city of Ashwan to forget them.
But it never would.
Ashwan's slums awakened not to the birdsong, but to the clank of metal, the wheeze of dust-stuffed lungs, and the thud of bare feet on hot ground. The twisted alleys, like arthritic veins, were covered in tin-surfaced hovels and walls pieced together from stone, splintered wood, and shattered hopes. Morning sun peered through openings in worn-out cloth roofs, illuminating empty bowls and shattered earthen pots that had not seen a full meal for days.
The only sellers who dared to peddle their wares in this sector of the city did so with one eye on the horizon, dreading at all times who would come for "their cut."
The old man in the marwadi turban, still creaky in his joints after a night on the hard ground, perched on a turned-over crate just beyond the hut. His single visible eye roved the alley with a hunter's stealth. Next to him sat Shaurya Jaydev, tattered vest stuck to another dry morning's sweat, his face hidden under his matted hair. He'd seen the signs already—fresh bruises on the fruit seller's boy, missing girls on the row along the well, a desperate quiet that hadn't been there yesterday either.
"They're not picking up anymore," he muttered.
The old man didn't turn to him, but his jaw clenched.
Deeper within the hut, Udai squirmed on the low rope bed, his voice still drowsy. "How long will we have to be here?"
Shaurya did not look back. "As soon as we can see Rasmika."
It was an answer Udai had heard three times before. Yet, it was important. He knew that the name Rasmika Bhujraj equaled safety—equaled hope. But the slum was getting to him. The air here stuck to your skin, and the looks of strangers weighed on him like a second shirt.
He glanced at the little girl stirring a clay pot over a tiny fire. Mira.
She was humming softly—something old, perhaps something her mother used to sing. Her hands, browned by sun and soot, moved gently. She wore a dress faded to a nondescript beige, with patches near the hem. She'd arrived two nights ago, following Shaurya and the old man from the market when Udai had fallen from a faint. She hadn't asked who they were, or why they were hiding. She had only said, "I'll help."
And she had.
Mira smiled at Udai now as she poured a small amount of gruel into a wooden bowl. "Eat before it gets colder. It's not good, but it's warm."
Before he could take it, the silence outside broke with a shout.
"Oi! Come out, old man!"
Shaurya was already standing. Outside, three men occupied the narrow alleyway, their short sticks in hand and curved knives at their belts. They had dusty sashes with the jagged mark of one of the low street gangs—the Bhairav Teeth. The leader, a thin thug with a scar on the side of his nose, sneered.
"We warned the street. No coin, no peace."
The old man did not stir. "We paid three days ago."
"That purchased you three days."
A shout rang from two houses away—someone pulled out into the lane.
Shaurya curled his fists, but did not move. They weren't yet prepared for exposure.
One of the goons spotted Mira from the open door. "What's this? Girl like her's worth a sack of coin. Let's take her instead."
Mira's grin faltered. Udai's bowl slipped from his grasp.
The man lunged.
Before he could reach the doorway, Udai crashed into him shoulder-first, tackling the thug into the alley's dirt. The two others rushed forward, but Udai twisted, swinging a broken leg of a stool he'd grabbed from the floor. One caught it across the jaw, yelping as blood spattered against a wall. The third thug grabbed Mira's wrist.
Let me go!" she screamed, panic crossing her otherwise gentle eyes.
The man pulled her, wrenching her arm behind her back. In desperation, Mira picked up a piece of broken pot on the ground and thrust it into his face.
He screamed.
The alley came to a standstill.
He stumbled back, cradling his eye—his screams transformed to gurgles as red flowed through his fingers.
Shaurya emerged then, slow and deliberate.
"You chose the wrong house," he said coldly.
The two other goons had already begun dragging away their friend, their eyes wide with terror. Blood dripped behind them as they disappeared into the labyrinth.
Mira shook. Udai stood next to her, his breathing strained, a bruise already beginning to form on his shoulder.
The old man looked at them both. Then at Shaurya.
"They're not going to let this pass."
Shaurya nodded. "No. But perhaps… perhaps it's time we stop hiding."
The blood was already dry on the shattered clay, but the air in Ashwan's northern slum still hung thick with what had occurred.
No one asked questions. Not the city guards. Not the city enforcers. Not the men who had disappeared into the alleyways wounded. The slum had learned to know a long time ago—silence was preferable to justice.
Mira sat quietly within, attempting not to jump at each footstep outside. Udai sat next to her, a sling now supporting his arm, which had swollen from the impact he'd received. His chest still heaved with silent anger.
Shaurya stood just outside the creaking door, observing the fading light dissolve across the broken rooftops. His hands were at his side—too tense for ease. In his right, his fingers rode lightly along the hilt of his sword. The same sword he'd never drawn since coming here.
The old man sat again, same crate, same silence. But this time, when he spoke, his voice contained iron.
"If you go, there's no going back."
Shaurya didn't respond.
"They attempted to abduct a child," he said. "They've abducted others. And nobody stops them because we all pretend that it isn't our issue."
He turned around. The serenity in his tone now cut more deeply than any warning.
"I'm through pretending."
Without another word, he unwrapped the blade and strapped it to his hip. The steel glinted at the last of the sun—a cold flash like moonlight on water. A few heads looked up as he walked through the crowded alleys, but most remained bowed. Fear had blinded these people. Shaurya wasn't going to be.
He walked north, through the charred cars and closed houses, where even the shadows cringed. Through the shrine where elderly women prayed softly to stone gods too broken to listen.
He stood before a half-ruined granary at the slum's edge. Its roof tilted drunkenly like a smile of a drunk, and a shattered banner of the Bhairav Teeth flapped from the millpost. The flicker of torches inside. The rattle of stolen coin. Twisted laughter tainted with cruelty.
A den of vermin.
Shaurya unsheathed his blade. The steel whispered like an unspoken truth.
He moved forward, slow and deliberate.
It was time to remind Ashwan's trash that monsters don't dominate the darkness.