Night bunched tight under the rafters. The wayhouse's beam smelled like smoke and old stories. Tea steamed; Ketu sulked because he liked being right and had been right too often. Gita salted rice one pinch too much and then fixed it with a finger of water because aunties are alchemists.
Sagar sat where reports go to die, trident within reach, helm at his side, cup in his hand. He looked older than morning and exactly as stubborn. "There will be papers," he said to the table. "People will want signatures. They will bring contracts for the boy."
"Let them," Mira said. "I've been looking for a new kind of kindling."
Gita placed a folded square of oil-paper by Arya's bowl. "Keeper sent another note," she said. "Because she heard men clearing their throats to say important things."
Arya opened it. Two lines only:
When they offer neatness, ask where they hid the mess.
When they offer safety, ask who buys the lock.
He smiled—tired, grateful. "She knows."
"Yes," Yeshe said. "Because she has swept temple floors after banquets."
The door opened without gossip. Harish stepped inside, map roll under his arm, hat in his hands. Behind him: a scribe in neat gray, hair oiled, pen tucked behind his ear; and a woman in the red-bordered shawl of a district adjudicator, face polite and mild the way a river is mild just before a floodplain.
"Captain," the adjudicator said. "Road-keeper. Keeper's niece. Monk. Friends. Boy." Each title applied with care and without flattery. "May we sit? I dislike reading while standing."
"Read what?" Mira asked.
"Terms," the scribe said, almost apologetically. "We drafted something after the map failed to eat. One must draft when one fails; it makes failure narrative."
Ketu coughed a laugh and then pretended he'd swallowed wrong.
They sat. The adjudicator unfolded the paper. It smelled faintly of lampblack and good intentions.
"Clause one," she read. "The storm-bearer will avoid all known hinges within six miles of any settlement, shrine, bridge, well, school, or field currently under use—"
"That is everywhere," Mira said.
"Not quite," the scribe said. "There are cliffs."
"Clause two," she continued, unbothered. "He will notify either the captain or the road-keeper—" she nodded at Ketu— "before attempting any circle larger than a cooking pot."
Ketu raised a hand. "I prefer being named in clauses. It makes me feel included."
"Clause three," she read. "In exchange, road movement orders will avoid pushing miles into loops where children sleep, and Guards will refrain from sealing in sanctums, wells, and fields under harvest."
Sagar nodded once. "We already agreed to that."
"Yes," the adjudicator said. "But papers are how agreements are remembered when men who said them have been reassigned to posts with poor tea."
"Clause four," she said, and now her voice softened. "Any map-based intervention must include a sworn statement of who will pay if the mile eats names."
Gita's eyebrows lifted. "Who wrote that?"
The scribe raised a hand shyly. "My aunt sells thread," he said. "She taught me where costs sit."
Harish looked at Arya and did not look away. "Sign," he said, without triumph. "Then I won't be sent to glue your mistakes to villages."
Arya placed his palm over his bowl and set a tiny circle in the rice steam—breath, habit, line. He heard Aama Gita's two questions and asked them aloud. "Where do you hide the mess? Who buys the lock?"
The adjudicator didn't flinch. "We hide mess in witnesses," she said. "We buy locks with names. We write down who is responsible and who pays if they are wrong. It is not neat. It is honest enough to make life bearable."
Sagar grunted, which in his language meant she is correct.
Ketu leaned back, horn bumping the wall. "I like clause four. It makes thieves cry."
Mira eyed the paper as if it might try to open a seam. "And where does it say he gets to act when you take too long thinking?"
The scribe colored. "Clause five," he said, pointing. "If harm is imminent and circles small, the storm-bearer may proceed without notice. Afterwards, he must tell a bored priest."
Yeshe's mouth curved. "I volunteer to be bored."
The adjudicator slid the paper across to Arya. The pen after it. "Sign or don't," she said. "But tonight an army clerk is waiting to type a story. You might prefer to choose your role."
He took the pen. It felt heavier than a trident and lighter than a vow. "I will not let a village be a price," he said.
"Good," she said. "Write that."
He signed Arya, then under it, in smaller script, added: No village a price. Breath before ink.
Sagar signed with a tidy hand a teacher would approve. Ketu drew a spiral instead of a name; the scribe sighed and wrote witnessed beside it. Gita stamped with a thumbprint in lamp soot, which is a kind of seal older than courts. Yeshe drew a line and wrote bored above it in beautiful letters.
Harish did not sign. He looked at clause four until it began to look back. "I will carry this," he said at last, and meant more than paper.
The adjudicator folded the terms and tucked them into her satchel with the care of a woman who knows fire and rain are impatient readers. "Now," she said lightly, "eat."
They did. Rice, dal, pickle enough to make pride cry. Laughter in the wrong places because everyone had chosen to be alive in a night that didn't want to be thanked.
The door creaked. A child stood there—the flute boy—hatless, hair wild with sleep, eyes large with a message he had not wanted to carry. "They're here," he whispered. "On the road by the prayer wall."
"Who?" Sagar asked, already standing.
"The ones with—" the boy gestured a circle with his finger, searching for the right insult—"the eyes."
Red, Arya thought. He put his palm to the lintel and felt the storm lean toward the road the way a river leans into spring. The watcher had stopped watching.
"Terms are nice," Mira said, rising, staff in hand. "Fists are persuasive."
"Yes," Yeshe said, pushing to her feet. "Take your small circles and make a big choice."
They stepped into the night.
Prayer flags crossed the road ahead. Under them stood two figures—cloaked, still. A third sat on the prayer wall, legs swinging like a student waiting for class to begin. One lifted a hand in greeting; a red eye caught the lamplight.
"Little bearer," the wall-sitter said pleasantly. "We've graded your work."
Ketu raised his horn halfway. "I don't like their school," he said.
Sagar set his trident where stone meets dust. "Terms apply in both directions," he said, voice quiet.
The red-eyed watcher smiled as if pleased the captain had done his homework. "We brought ours," he said, and a scroll slid from his sleeve, ink black as a mouth.
"Don't read it," Gita hissed.
Arya set a breath-ring at his feet and another at the wall's base. "No storm that turns a village into a price," he said. "No lock bought with someone else's name."
The watcher loosened the scroll. Ink moved.
"Small circles," Yeshe said.
"Small fists," Mira added, grinning.
Ketu sighed like a man who has never in his life wanted a neat solution. "Roads open," he told the horn, and blew a note that meant come stand behind me to everyone who didn't know they understood.
The night leaned in to listen.