The medical staff finally cleared me for discharge, swapping out the sterile hospital gown for a set of simple, charcoal-grey Meruzhen training clothes that felt surprisingly soft against my skin. Everything still felt entirely surreal, like I was walking through a lucid dream where gravity occasionally forgot to do its job. I was just standing near the doorway, trying to remember how to use my legs properly, when Taara walked in carrying two mugs.
She handed me the hot chocolate without asking. "I remembered."
I took it, the warmth instantly seeping into my cold fingers. "...Already profiling me?"
"Absolutely."
We walked out into the morning light of the Ninth Citadel, the air crisp and carrying the faint scent of pine and ozone. Taara kept pace beside me, occasionally pointing out shortcuts I didn’t even know existed.
"You're meeting the Ninth Citadel's Master today," she said casually, like we were just heading to the cafeteria.
I blinked, suddenly very aware of how rumpled I probably looked. "...Should I bow?"
"Probably don't."
"...Think of him as our Albus Dumbledore."
I actually laughed. "That's oddly specific."
"It helps."
We reached a heavy wooden door at the end of a quiet courtyard. Taara knocked once, and a warm voice called us in. Master Devavratha’s office wasn’t luxurious. It was deeply, comfortably lived in.
Bookshelves bowed under the weight of leather-bound volumes and modern technical manuals. Fiddle-leaf figs and trailing vines softened the corners, their leaves catching the morning sun. Old weapons were mounted on the walls, each with a small brass plaque telling a story rather than a date. A chessboard sat on a low table, mid-game, next to a steaming pot of tea and a stack of family photographs filled with students from different eras.
The old man himself stood by the window, his posture relaxed, his eyes sharp but incredibly kind. He looked up and smiled like he’d been waiting years just to see me walk through the door.
"You're Naomi's nephew," he said, his voice carrying the quiet weight of someone who has spoken truths for centuries. He studied my face for a long moment. "Ayaan Krishna. Son of Aravind and Vaishnavi. You look very much like your mother."
I swallowed, my throat suddenly tight. "Thank you, sir."
He chuckled, pouring another cup of tea. "She was catastrophic, too."
I blinked. "...Catastrophic?"
"The good kind."
He didn't launch into grand speeches or ancient prophecies. Instead, he gave me pieces of them, like handing me puzzle cards from a box I didn’t know existed.
"Your mother once set off a full training alarm just by sneezing near a resonance crystal," he said, eyes twinkling. "Your father got lost in the Archives for three hours because he stopped to read every single stone inscription out loud. And Naomi had to physically drag both of them out of trouble while yelling in three different languages."
I laughed. Actually laughed. For the first time since the car ride, I wasn't hearing about my parents as a tragedy or a duty. I was hearing about them as people. Messy, brilliant, wonderfully reckless people.
I took another sip of tea, the warmth settling deep in my chest. My eyes drifted back to the chessboard, then to the brass plaques on the wall. One of them caught my attention, and a weird, heavy familiarity settled in my stomach.
"...Devavratha," I said slowly. "...Why does that name sound familiar?"
The old man smiled, a quiet, knowing curve of his lips. "Ever heard of Bhishma Pitamaha?"
I froze. The teacup rattled slightly in my hands. "...WHAT?!"
"Weren't you on a bed of arrows?" I blurted out, my brain completely bypassing all filters. "Arjuna shot the ground and water came out? Then you went to Swarga after Kurukshetra?"
He nodded, entirely unfazed. "Mostly correct."
"...You died."
He shrugged. "Briefly."
I stared at him. "...Is that allowed?"
Devavratha laughed so hard he nearly knocked his tea off the table, the sound echoing warmly off the wooden walls. "I like this one," he said, glancing at Taara with genuine amusement. "His humour is exactly like his father's."
His laughter softened into something quieter, something that carried the weight of lifetimes. "The gods gave me another chance. So... I chose to teach."
He set his cup down, his expression turning thoughtful. "Everyone arrives in Meruzhen searching for answers. The ones who stay... learn to ask better questions."
I didn't fully understand it then. I just nodded, tucking the words away somewhere in the back of my mind, knowing they would probably make more sense later.
We stepped back outside, the mountain air hitting my face like a physical reset button. Taara clapped her hands together once, sharply.
"Right. Enough philosophy. Unofficial tour."
I looked at her, genuinely curious. "...There's an official one?"
"Yes."
"...Why aren't we doing that?"
"Because it's boring."
We walked. I didn't just see the Citadel; I lived it. We passed residential courtyards where students hung laundry between stone pillars, played acoustic guitars on balconies, and argued over whose turn it was to water the courtyard plants.
The café smelled like roasted beans and fresh cardamom pastries, packed with students huddled over glowing tablets and paper textbooks. Someone was loudly defending why synth-wave was definitely making a comeback, while another group quietly debated whose turn it was to pay the tab.
In the bookstore, Taara immediately wandered to the art aisle and bought another highlighter. I watched her slide it into her bag next to three identical ones.
"...How many do you own?"
"Enough."
The library was a cathedral of quiet. Spiral staircases wound up through reading nooks carved into the stone, balconies overlooking a sea of paper books and humming digital archives. I got completely derailed by the biology section, tracing my fingers over ancient anatomical sketches that predated modern medicine by centuries. Taara had to physically grab my sleeve and drag me away.
"Later."
Then we hit the makerspace, and I literally stopped walking. Engineering workbenches stretched across the room, covered in drone chassis, half-assembled mechanical prototypes, and sheets of ancient alloys being analyzed with laser spectrometers. Students were welding, coding, soldering, and debating torque ratios like it was the most natural thing in the world.
I whispered it before I could stop myself. "...Can I live here?"
Taara didn't even look up. "...No."
We kept moving, slipping into a soundproof music studio where traditional sitars shared wall space with analog synthesizers. Recording booths lined the far side, and I felt my chest loosen just hearing someone in the next room lay down a drum track. The art district spilled out into an open-air plaza, covered in murals, spinning pottery wheels, and students sketching with charcoal and digital styluses. Meruzhen didn’t just train warriors. It nurtured creators.
The tone shifted subtly as we reached the combat district. The air grew sharper. Large training arenas echoed with the sound of clashing wood and steel, but there was no showing off. Just people practicing sword forms, drilling Krav Maga escapes, drawing heavy composite bows, and running sigil exercises. They were learning. Failing. Trying again.
We walked past the common greens last, where students were lounging under massive banyan trees, playing football, reading comics, and having picnics on woven blankets. One guy was completely asleep on a stone bench, a textbook carefully balanced over his face to block the sun. It felt exactly like a university campus, if that campus existed inside a mountain and ran on ancient energy.
As we passed the main sparring arena, a crack of lightning split the air. A trainee dropped from a high leap, landing with effortless grace, his posture confident, his easy smile unmistakable.
Taara followed my gaze. "Oh. That's Arjun Vidhyadhari."
I stopped walking. The name hit somewhere deep inside me, resonating like a struck chord. "...Arjun?"
He noticed us, jogged over, and wiped sweat from his forehead. He looked at me, really looked at me, and his expression shifted into quiet confusion.
"...Have we... met?"
I frowned, the word pulling at something buried under years of normal life. Then a flash hit me. Not magic. Memory.
Running through pine trees. A swaying rope bridge over icy water. Wooden swords clashing in a makeshift clearing. A lake that reflected the sky like glass. A boy with a scraped knee yelling over his shoulder: "Bet you can't beat me!"
A smile broke across my face before I even realized it was happening. "...Summer camp."
Arjun’s eyes widened, his confident posture melting into pure, unfiltered joy. "...No way. You remember?"
We both laughed at the exact same time, the tension snapping like a dry twig. It was instant. Comfortable. Like nine years of distance had just evaporated into the mountain air.
Taara looked back and forth between us, completely bewildered. "...Wait. You two actually know each other?"
Arjun grinned, bumping his shoulder against mine. "Apparently."
Neither of us knew the full story. We just remembered a summer camp, a mountain retreat, and a promise to spar again someday. The truth was buried somewhere in my childhood, safely hidden by Naomi and the Protocol, but in that moment, it didn't matter.
The three of us kept walking, falling into a rhythm that felt impossibly natural. Taara was the organized one, keeping track of routes and schedules. Arjun was confidently chaotic, pointing out shortcuts and cracking terrible jokes. I was just creative chaos, asking a hundred questions and mentally composing a soundtrack for the whole place.
We ended up on a wide stone terrace overlooking the valley as the sun began to dip below the peaks. The mountains glowed burnt orange, training slowly winding down, and lights flickered on across the Citadel like scattered stars finding their places in the sky.
I leaned against the railing, the hot chocolate mug still warming my hands. "I don't think I'll ever get used to this view."
Arjun smiled, resting his arms beside mine. "You don't."
Taara stepped up on my other side, watching the lights multiply across the valley. "You just stop noticing it every day. Then one evening... it surprises you all over again."
We sat in comfortable silence as the sky deepened into twilight. The grief in my chest hadn't disappeared. It probably never would. But for the first time since Naomi was taken from me, I wasn't just surviving.
I was beginning to belong.
ns216.73.216.248da2
and then Add to home screen.