Morning came without ceremony.
No alarms. No omens. No tremors from beneath the Harichandana Tree.
That, more than anything else, unsettled Arkam.
Jaswant noticed it too—the way silence felt thicker now, as if the world were listening rather than sleeping.
They sat at the low wooden table in the inner hall, steam rising gently from untouched cups of tea. Light filtered through the cracked stone windows, catching dust motes that drifted like suspended thoughts.
"You didn't sleep," Arkam said at last.
Jaswant shook his head. "I didn't need to."
That earned him a sharp glance.
"Be careful with sentences like that," Arkam replied. "They sound like awakenings, even when they aren't."
Jaswant almost smiled.
Almost.
"I wasn't restless," he explained. "My mind was… quiet. Like it had found a place to sit."
Arkam leaned back slightly.
"That's worse."
---
After a while,
Jaswant found his mother in the courtyard, tending to the old clay lamps. She always did this in the mornings—cleaning soot, replacing wicks, grounding herself in small, repeatable motions.
She looked up before he spoke.
"You're carrying something heavy," she said calmly.
Not are you, not what happened.
You are carrying something.
Jaswant sat beside her, the stone cool beneath him.
"I think," he said slowly, choosing each word with care, "something important has started. And I don't know where it ends."
She studied his face—not his posture, not his pendant, not the air around him.
Just his eyes.
"Are you afraid?" she asked.
He considered the question honestly.
"No."
That made her pause.
Not alarmed. Not relieved.
Just attentive.
"Then tell me," she said. "From the beginning. Without making it sound bigger than it is."
So he did.
He spoke of the stillness.
Of the hunters.
Of the moment where nothing happened—and how that nothing had changed everything.
He did not mention the entity beneath the Heart-Root.
Some things, he felt, were not meant to be named aloud yet.
When he finished, his mother placed a lamp back in its niche and wiped her hands on a cloth.
"You didn't fight," she said. "You didn't run. And you didn't try to become something else."
She looked at him again, more carefully now.
"That means whatever is watching you can't predict you easily."
Jaswant frowned slightly. "That doesn't sound reassuring."
She smiled faintly.
"It isn't. But it is important."
She reached out and touched his chest lightly—just above the pendant.
"Listen to me," she said softly. "If something ancient is paying attention, the worst thing you can do is hurry. Don't try to grow faster. Don't try to understand everything."
She met his gaze.
"Stay human first."
From the archway, Arkam watched in silence.
For the first time since he had met the woman, he inclined his head in respect.
---
Elsewhere,
Far beyond the mansion, beyond soil and stone and roots—
A presence unfolded itself into motion.
Not traveling through space.
Through focus.
No aura flared. No system activated.
A single directive echoed quietly:
Confirm deviation.
Observe without interference.
Withdraw if observed.
The Observer did not look like a person when it arrived.
It looked like absence arranged correctly.
---
The Day After Tomorrow—
That evening, Arkam finally spoke of what he had been avoiding.
"The second phase," he said, standing near the veranda. "It was never meant to happen so soon."
Jaswant didn't look away from the darkening sky.
"It's not an awakening," he said.
"No," Arkam agreed. "It's worse. It's exposure."
He turned to face him.
"Two days from now, something will test you again. Not your power. Not your will."
"What, then?"
Arkam hesitated.
"Your consistency."
Jaswant closed his fingers around the pendant. It was warm—steady, unchanging.
"Good," he said quietly. "I don't plan to be anyone else."
Deep beneath the Harichandana Tree, roots shifted almost imperceptibly.
The entity beneath the Heart-Root did not intervene.
It observed.
And somewhere between root and mind, seed and thought—
Something ancient adjusted its expectations.
---
To be continued…