Mira sat inside the tent that had been assigned to the children. It smelled of damp cloth, smoke, and unwashed wood. No one spoke to her much. Only Farman and Aryan ever did.

  Farman talked endlessly—about stupid things, pointless things—stories that went nowhere. She knew he did it on purpose, filling the silence so she wouldn’t have to think. Aryan was different. He never talked too much. He only asked how she was doing, always gently, as if afraid his words might hurt her. Once, he brought her a small bundle of clothes so she could change. It wasn’t much, but she remembered it.

  Changez and Shiva sometimes glanced her way. Their eyes lingered for a second too long, curious but distant. They never spoke to her—and that was fine. Mira preferred it that way.

  Sometimes she tried to talk to the quiet boy everyone called Fatsy. She used his real name—Parm—softly, like it might reach him better. But he always turned away, pretending not to hear, as if she didn’t exist at all.

  She had been assigned to help with cooking. Her tasks were always the same: plucking vegetables, cutting onions. The onions burned her eyes, filling them with tears. In a strange way, she liked that. It made it easier to hide the real ones.

  The tent itself was bare. Old wooden swords lay scattered in one corner for the children to train with. There were piles of worn, rusty clothes that smelled of iron and sweat, and thin mats laid across the dirt floor for sleeping. Sleeping was hard. The ground pressed into her bones, and no matter how tired she was, she always remembered her bed at home—soft, warm, safe. That bed was gone now.

  Sometimes she cried quietly. Sometimes other children snapped at her to stop. Most of the time, though, she was left alone in the tent with Parm, surrounded by silence that felt heavier than noise.

  There were rumors everywhere.

  Some children whispered that there would be war. Others said they were going to move far away. A few claimed they would march on the capital and kill the king. Someone even said commander had gone to bring ten thousand elite men to help them.

  No one really knew what was happening. No one was certain of anything.

  But everyone was preparing.

  Soldiers trained with steel.

  Children trained with wood.

  Mira had learned Parm habits without meaning to. He only ever left when someone told him to. Otherwise, he stayed there, rocking faintly, lips moving as he murmured to himself.

  He was doing that now.

  Mira watched him from across the tent. She had wanted to speak to him today—just a little. Even she was afraid of most people here, and that fear made Parm feel familiar in a way no one else did.

  She drew in a breath—

  —and the tent flap flew open.

  Farman barged in, bald head slick with sweat, his maroon kurta smeared with dirt and horse shit. He started talking the moment he stepped inside.

  “Those damn bastards are shitting too much today,” he said loudly. “And nobody wants to help me tend the horses. Everyone wants to play soldier now.”

  He snorted, amused by his own words, then jabbed a finger toward the corner.

  “Hey, Fatsy. Get up and help me. You’re good for nothing, but today I’ll even take your help.”

  Parm flinched as if struck. His shoulders shook, but he forced himself up, eyes fixed on the ground, hands trembling.

  Before Mira could think, the words escaped her.

  “His name is Parm.”

  Farman stopped mid-step and turned toward her.

  “What?” he said, louder now, surprised more than angry.

  “His name is Parm,” Mira repeated. “Not Fatsy.”

  For a moment, Farman just stared. Then a grin spread across his face.

  “Ohhh,” he said, drawing it out. “What’s this now? Two loners turned into lovers?”

  Mira felt heat rush to her face.

  “You too,” Farman added, pointing at her. “Come help me.”

  He laughed and pushed back out of the tent, as if the exchange meant nothing at all.

  Parm stood frozen where he was.

  Mira didn’t look at him—but her hands were still shaking.

  Parm followed Farman slowly.

  Mira watched him leave the tent, then—without quite meaning to—found herself trailing after him. Farman was already far ahead, heading toward what everyone here called the barn. It barely deserved the name.

  The “barn” was nothing more than a wide patch of ground fenced in with bamboo poles. Inside, more than ten horses shifted and stamped, flies buzzing thick in the air. Huge piles of shit lay everywhere, dark and steaming. From somewhere beyond, Mira could hear distant steel striking steel and men shouting commands.

  Farman waved at them impatiently as they entered.

  “Hurry up.”

  Parm stepped in first. Mira followed.

  Farman clapped his hands once. “Alright. Here you are, my apprentices.”

  He looked at them both, amused.

  “I know you two don’t have tongues to speak,” he said, “but you do have ears to listen.”

  Then, without missing a beat, he pointed at the corner where a large steel bowl sat beside the fence.

  “I already fed the horses,” he continued, “maybe a little too much. Put all the shit in there. Then we’ll carry it to the farmers—they can make good use of it.”

  Parm nodded and went straight to work, lifting the bowl with effort and beginning to shovel.

  Mira stepped forward to help, but Farman stopped her with a raised hand.

  “Don’t,” he said. “I’ve got different work for you.”

  He picked up two rough brushes from the ground and handed one to her.

  “We need to brush the horses. I don’t want your beautiful hands touching horse shit.”

  He smirked.

  “Don’t be afraid. They’re good boys when they don't shit . Just pat them with one hand and brush with the other. Slowly. Don’t rush.”

  He demonstrated, long steady strokes, calm and practiced.

  Then he called out over his shoulder, “Hey, Fatsy—when you’re done with the shit, brush the horses. You know how.”

  This time, Mira spoke.

  “Why do you call him Fatsy?”

  Farman paused and turned.

  “How would you feel,” she continued, heart pounding, “if I called you Baldy?”

  Farman stared at her for a moment—then barked out a short laugh.

  “So you do have a tongue.”

  He shrugged. “He’s fat by choice. I’m not. I’ve got to live this way for another five years. He can lose weight if he works a little.”

  Mira opened her mouth to ask why—

  “Enough talking,” Farman cut in. “We’re not here for stories. Get to work.”

  Mira hesitated at first, hands stiff as she approached the nearest horse. It snorted softly but didn’t move. She placed her hand on its warm side and began brushing, slow and careful.

  Minutes stretched into something longer.

  The smell of the horses—strong, earthy, alive—filled her lungs. The rhythm of brushing steadied her breathing. For the first time since arriving here, her thoughts loosened their grip.

  She forgot her home.

  Forgot her village.

  Forgot her mother.

  There was only the horse beneath her hands—and the simple need to brush it well.

  All three of them brushed the horses in silence for a while, the steady rasp of bristles filling the space. When the last coat shone clean, Farman nodded in approval.

  “Good work,” he said. Then, glancing at Mira, he added, “You’re wasted in the kitchen. Leave that duty. Come work with me instead.”

  Mira didn’t answer right away, but something in her posture straightened.

  Farman pointed at the heavy steel bowl filled with waste. “Let’s get this to the farmers.”

  They lifted it together. It was heavier than Mira expected, the weight pulling hard at her arms, but the load was shared between the three of them. She focused entirely on her grip—on not slipping, not slowing them down.

  By the time they reached the small tent near the fields, their faces were flushed and breathing rough. Inside, shovels leaned against the walls, and sacks of seed lay piled in the corners. Mira’s hands trembled near the end, her strength nearly gone, but they made it.

  Farman set the bowl down with a grunt.

  “Good work, Mira,” he said. Then, after a brief pause, “Good work, Parm.”

  He looked at Mira while saying it. She nodded, quietly pleased.

  “Now,” Farman continued, stretching his arms, “let’s wash. I need to clean my clothes too.”

  They returned to their tents, grabbed fresh garments, and headed toward the river together. As they passed the training grounds, the sound of wooden swords clacking filled the air. Kids practiced in uneven lines, some serious, some clumsy.

  Mira noticed Aryan among them, swinging his sword with focus.

  From farther away came shouting—harsh commands and curses carried on the wind.

  “There’s a bigger training ground deeper in the forest,” Farman said casually. “For real soldiers. They don’t want to scare these pretenders.”

  He gestured toward the kids and the women nearby.

  At the river, small stone pools formed along the edge, fed by slow, clear water.

  Farman glanced at Mira. “We’re washing here. You can join if you want.”

  He shrugged. “Or not. Your choice.”

  Mira hesitated, then said softly, “I’ll stay. That way you won’t bully Parm.”

  Farman snorted. “Bully? If you think this is bullying, you haven’t met men yet.”

  They stepped into the shallow pools. Cool water closed around their legs. Farman began humming an unfamiliar tune, low and careless.

  Parm sat still in the water, arms wrapped around himself, silent as ever.

  The river flowed on.

  The river moved quietly around them, Farman still humming under his breath.

  Mira gathered her courage.

  “You said you have to stay bald for six years,” she asked, breaking the rhythm of his praise for the commander. “Why? Why can’t you grow your hair?”

  Farman stopped humming.

  For a moment, something flickered across his face—embarrassment, maybe. He looked away toward the trees lining the riverbank.

  “You don’t want to hear boring stories,” he muttered.

  “But I do,” Mira said.

  She wasn’t sure why she insisted. The words just slipped out before she could stop them.

  Farman studied her for a long second. Then he sighed.

  “Fine. But you leave the kitchen and help me with the horses from now on.”

  Mira nodded immediately.

  Farman fell quiet again, as if debating whether to speak at all. The river filled the silence.

  “In my family,” he began slowly, “when someone dies, the men shave their heads for a year. One year for each person.”

  He swallowed once.

  “Five of mine died. So I stay like this for Five.”

  The grin he usually wore wasn’t there now.

  Mira stared at him.

  Five.

  Her chest tightened. For a moment, anger rose in her—how could he joke so easily? Laugh so loudly? How could someone lose six family members and still grin like nothing mattered?

  A strange impulse flashed through her—she almost wanted to hit him.

  Then, suddenly, another voice broke the air.

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  “Were they killed in raids?”

  Parm.

  His voice was low and sharp, cutting through the river’s murmur. It was the first time Mira had heard him speak clearly.

  Farman blinked.

  “Well,” he said, surprised, “so you do have a tongue.”

  He almost added something else—almost said “Fatsy”—but caught himself. He glanced at Mira.

  “Parm,” he corrected.

  Then he looked back at the water.

  Suddenly, Farman spoke.

  “No,” he said quietly. “They weren’t killed in raids. No one ever raided our town.”

  Mira looked up at him. The usual grin was gone. For the first time since she had met him, Farman’s face was still—bare, almost fragile.

  “My mother,” he continued, “was an amazing healer. I was ten back then.”

  He hesitated, searching for the right words. “People said she had… powers. Not magic, maybe, but something close enough that they believed in it.”

  He stared at the ground as he spoke.

  “She was known in our town—and all the nearby ones. People came from far away to see her. Because of her, my father and my three older siblings didn’t have to work much. We had a big house. A good one.” His lips twitched, not quite a smile. “People respected us. Admired us.”

  Farman fell silent.

  Mira watched him carefully. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Finally, she said softly, “You don’t have to tell us… if you don’t want to.”

  Farman shook his head. “No. I think I do.” He exhaled slowly. “I’ve held this pain for far too long.”

  He glanced briefly at Parm, then back at the river.

  “The commander always said I should share my story. That pain rots when you keep it locked inside.” His voice tightened. “But I never could.”

  He laughed quietly, without humor.

  “You know, I’m the oldest. I can’t afford to look miserable all the time. Not like…” He stopped himself, then continued, “I have to be cheerful. Loud. Annoying.” He shrugged. “Someone has to be.”

  He finally looked at Mira. “When I talk nonsense—when I joke and ramble—it gives people a break from their pain. Even if it’s just for a moment.”

  Mira felt something shift inside her.

  She remembered all the times she had wanted to snap at him, to tell him to be quiet when he talked too much. And yet—some part of her had always listened. Some part of her had felt lighter, if only briefly.

  Now she understood why.

  Farman went on, his voice steadier now, as if saying the words aloud had loosened something buried deep inside him.

  Farman drew in a long breath before continuing.

  “There was a lord,” he said. “Barmai of Hamira. He ruled fifteen towns and forty villages. Ours was one of them.”

  The river moved softly beside them.

  He came on a winter afternoon with seventy men at his back, their horses lathered and heaving. The lord himself carried his son across the saddle—a boy of five, maybe six, small as a bundle of sticks. Word had reached him about my mother. About her hands, her herbs, the way she could draw fever from a body like drawing poison from a wound.

  He did not announce himself with trumpets. He slid from his horse at our gate, the boy limp in his arms, and he knelt. A lord, kneeling in mud. He begged her.

  My mother took the child without a word. She did not ask for payment or promises. She closed the door of the treatment room and did not open it for three days.

  Farman's voice broke. Mira pressed closer. Parm's arm went around him.

  He continued.

  We brought water to the door. Food. She took none of it. Through the wood we heard her voice, low and steady, reciting verses, coaxing, willing. My father kept us busy—fetching, cleaning—but we all listened for the boy's cry. It never came.

  On the fourth morning, the door opened.

  My mother stood there. She had aged years. Her face was the colour of tallow, her eyes sunken, her hands trembling against the frame. Behind her, the boy lay still on the cot, his face peaceful, his chest unmoving.

  She had failed.

  Lord Barmai entered alone. He did not scream or rage. He gathered his son into his arms and sat on the earthen floor with the boy across his lap, and he wept. Hours. Great, heaving sobs that shook his shoulders and silenced the soldiers in our yard. When he finally emerged, his eyes were red-rimmed, his face stone. He looked at my mother—still standing, barely—and said nothing. He mounted his horse and rode out, his men trailing behind, the small body wrapped in his cloak.

  We thought grief had stolen his words. We thought he would return when the sharpness dulled, to thank her for trying. We were wrong.

  He returned at dusk, three weeks later.

  Not with seventy men. With the whole town.

  Our neighbours. The people whose children we had cooled with wet cloths through fevered nights. The women whose labours my mother had guided, whose bleeding she had stanched, whose dying she had eased into peace. They stood in our yard with torches and kindling and faces I did not recognise.

  Lord Barmai spoke from his horse. My mother was a witch, he said. She had killed his son to harvest his innocence for black power. Her family served her sorcery. The flames would cleanse what the knife could not.

  No one spoke against him.

  Someone laughed. It was the baker's husband. My father had pulled him from his burning oven last spring. He threw a bundle of dry grass at our door and called my mother a demon.

  We tried to run.

  My sister was the first out. She was twelve. They caught her by the hair and beat her. I heard the crack of her nose, the wet sound of her lip splitting. She screamed for our mother. They dragged her back inside and barred the door.

  My father stood in the threshold, palms open. He reminded them—her labour, her mercy, the children she had returned to their arms. Please, he said. At least the children. Let the children live.

  A stone hit his forehead. He fell back.

  They piled fuel against the walls. Dry thornbush, straw, old pallets. The chanting started low, then swelled. Witch. Witch. Burn the witch.

  Smoke came first through the cracks. Then heat. Then fire, singing the thatch.

  We crowded at the back wall. My mother held my sister's bleeding face against her chest. My father worked at the window frame with his bare hands, splintering wood, bloodying his palms. The smoke was in my lungs, my eyes; I could not see, could not breathe. Outside, the voices rose like scripture.

  He stopped.

  His shoulders trembled.

  For a moment it seemed he wouldn’t continue.

  Mira moved without thinking and wrapped her arms around him.

  After a second, Parm did the same.

  Farman’s breath hitched.

  “Let me finish,” he whispered. “I don’t think I’ll ever have the courage to tell this again.”

  Farman’s breathing had grown uneven, but he forced himself to continue.

  “My father broke the back window,” he said. “The small one near the storage room.”

  His voice trembled.

  “The wood was already burning. When he smashed it open, the flames caught his hand. The skin…” He stopped, swallowed. “Half of it burned.”

  He went back inside.

  “When he returned, my mother and my brother were already gone. The smoke had taken them.”

  He stared at the river.

  “I think… that was kinder than what would’ve come next.”

  Mira tightened her hold around him.

  “I was barely conscious,” Farman continued. “My father picked me up. He was crying.” His voice cracked. “I had never seen him cry before.”

  Farman shut his eyes.

  “He pushed me out the window.”

  His fingers trembled in the water.

  “He said one word: Live.”

  “I tried to grab him. Tried to pull him through. But he pulled away.”

  Farman’s jaw tightened.

  “His back was already on fire.”

  The river flowed quietly.

  “I don’t remember what happened after that.”

  He drew in a long breath.

  “I woke up in my uncle’s house. He had shaved my head already. Said it would help me hide and keeps family tradition intact . He kept me indoors. Fed me. Protected me.”

  For a moment, his voice softened.

  “But fear rots people.”

  “One of my cousins told the town I was there. He thought if he confessed first, they would spare them. That if he gave me up, they would forgive.”

  Farman let out a hollow laugh.

  “They killed my uncle anyway.”

  He stared at his hands.

  “My cousin blamed me for it. Said I brought death wherever I went.”

  The water rippled around them.

  “He tried to keep me locked inside. Said when the townspeople came, he would hand me over.”

  Farman’s voice dropped.

  “I remembered my father’s last word.”

  Live.

  “I found a knife.”

  He didn’t look at them as he spoke the next part.

  “I did what I had to.”

  Silence followed.

  “My aunt ran to him. I ran to the forest.”

  He exhaled slowly.

  “I lived there for days. Maybe weeks. I ate what I could find. I didn’t know what was happening in the village.”

  His voice grew distant.

  “Then one day, I saw smoke again. Massive fire. Bigger than before.”

  He swallowed.

  “I came out of hiding.”

  “When I reached the village… there were soldiers. No banners. No insignia.”

  His eyes lifted now.

  “And Commander Fazel was there. On his white horse. Steel armor. Sword on his back.”

  Farman’s lips curved faintly.

  “He came down when he saw me.”

  His voice softened.

  “He hugged me.”

  Softer still:

  “He said, ‘I’m sorry, son. I didn’t mean to attack them. They forced my hand.’”

  Mira felt something cold slide down her spine.

  “I asked him, ‘You killed them? All of them?’”

  Farman looked up at the sky as if replaying it.

  “He looked at me for a long time.”

  “Then he nodded.”

  A strange smile spread across Farman’s face now — broken but sincere.

  “I laughed.”

  Mira’s heart skipped.

  “I hugged him back.”

  “He burned the town that burned my family.”

  Farman’s voice steadied.

  “He saved me.”

  He looked at them both.

  “The Commander is a hero. The best man alive.”

  His eyes were red, but he was smiling.

  Mira felt small beside him. Her own pain suddenly felt childish. Farman had walked through fire and still laughed. In that moment, she saw him taller than any king.

  Farman continued praising Fazel softly—

  And then Parm spoke.

  They both turned.

  Parm’s face was wet. For a second, Mira thought he was crying.

  But when he spoke, his voice was clear.

  “Farman,” he said quietly, “I admire you.”

  A pause.

  “But Fazel is no hero.”

  The words fell like a blade.

  Mira and Farman both stared at him.

  Before either could respond, Parm stood abruptly, water spilling around him. He grabbed his clothes and ran up the riverbank without looking back.

  “Parm!” Mira called.

  “Hey—!” Farman shouted.

  But he didn’t stop.

  He disappeared into the trees.

  The river kept flowing.