Over the next five days, Sidharth came to learn again what it means to be alive.
Not live, exactly-that would take time. But alive. Present. Human.
For the first two days, he was barely able to walk. His feet were too damaged, his body too depleted. Madhubala changed his bandages twice daily and made fresh poultices, besides forcing him to drink her bitter teas. She worked with the efficiency of one who had done this a thousand times, her hands sure and steady.
"You heal fast," she said on the second evening as she examined his feet. "Faster than you should. The cuts were bone-deep yesterday. Today they're already closing."
Sidharth wiggled his toes experimentally. They still hurt, but distantly. "The brand isn't just taking," he said, thinking out loud. "It's. changing things."
"Consuming life force tends to have side effects," Madhubala agreed. "Though usually those effects involve dying faster, not healing better. This is." She frowned. "Unusual."
It was the shard's doing, he suspected. The way it pulsed stronger when she changed his bandages. The way warmth spread from his pocket whenever pain spiked. But he didn't say that aloud. Didn't want to explain what he didn't understand.
By the third day, he could walk with a crutch. Madhubala immediately put him to work.
"The garden needs weeding," she said, handing him a small spade. "The thornvines keep growing where they shouldn't. And the rain barrel needs repairing—there's a crack letting water leak."
Sidharth stared at the spade. "I'm not exactly—"
"You're not exactly a gardener? A carpenter? A useful human being?" Madhubala's eyes glinted with amusement. "Then you'll learn. I didn't pull you from death so you could lie around being decorative. Work is good for healing. Keeps your mind occupied."
She was right, though he wouldn't admit it. Working in the garden, even a simple weeding, gave him purpose. Something to focus on besides the brand burning in his shoulder or the months ticking down like a death clock.
The thornvines, though. Those were a problem.
They grew everywhere. Up the sides of Madhubala's house. Around her well. Through the gaps in her fence. Black stems, silver flowers, beautiful and invasive. He tried pulling them up, but they grew back overnight. Faster than any natural plant should.
"They like you," Madhubala observed on the fourth morning, watching him wrestle with a particularly stubborn vine. "They literally lean toward you when you get close. It's disturbing."
Sidharth hesitated. It was true—when he approached, the vines would move, reach. Not threatening, just. aware. "I don't know why."
"It's the crystal. Has to be." She knelt beside him, peering closely at a thornvine. "These shouldn't even be able to grow in this season. It's nearly winter. But they're thriving. And they only started appearing after you arrived."
"I'm sorry. I'll—"
"Don't apologize." Madhubala reached out and stroked one of the silver flowers delicately. "They're beautiful. Strange, but beautiful. And they don't seem harmful. Just. present." She glanced at him. "Like you."
There was something in her tone that made Sidharth's chest tighten. Not attraction-not yet. But recognition. The beginning of connection.
He changed the subject quickly. "You said the Duke's men come through here?"
Madhubala's face hardened. "Every few weeks. They collect 'taxes' that are barely different from robbery. Duke Rael controls this entire border region. Technically we're under the rule of King Devrath, but out here? The Duke is law."
"And he's—?"
"Corrupt. Cruel. His soldiers do what they want with impunity." She stood, brushing dirt from her apron. "Most villages just endure it. Pay what we must, hide what we can, survive. It's not noble, but it's survival."
"Has he always controlled this region?"
"For about a decade. He was appointed after the Border Wars ended. Supposed to protect frontier settlements from bandits and beasts." She laughed bitterly. "Instead, he became the biggest bandit of all."
Sidharth filed that information away. His knight training—former knight training—screamed at him. Corrupt officials. Oppressed villagers. This was exactly the kind of situation he'd been taught to handle.
Except he wasn't a knight anymore; he was a dying exile with no authority and no future.
"Tell me," Madhubala said suddenly. "Your sword. Why do you only have the hilt?
Sidharth glanced at his hands, marked by garden dirt. "I buried the blade. Before I walked into exile. Only kept the hilt."
"Why?"
"Because." He searched for words. "Because I didn't trust myself. I was angry. At the King, at the system, at everything. If I'd kept the whole sword, I might have used it. Might have tried to fight my way out or take someone down with me. The hilt is a reminder."
"Of what?
"That I chose restraint. That even in my worst moment, I didn't give in to rage." He met her eyes. "A weapon is only as dangerous as the hand that holds it. I needed to prove to myself that I could hold violence without using it."
Madhubala studied him for a long moment. "That's either very wise or very foolish."
Probably both.
She laughed—a real laugh, bright and unexpected. It transformed her face, made her look younger. "You know what? I like you, Sidharth of no-house. You're strange and doomed and you make thorns grow on my walls. But I like you."
Something warm bloomed in Sidharth's chest. "I like you too, Madhubala who-fears-no-kings."
The moment stretched between them, fragile and new.
Then a bell rang from the village center. Sharp, urgent. Three times.
Madhubala's face fell at once. "Inside. Now."
"What—?"
"The Duke's men. They're early." She grabbed his arm, pulled him toward the house. "They can't see you. If they find out I'm harboring a Forsaken—
She didn't finish the sentence. Didn't need to.
Sidharth limped inside, adrenaline cutting through his healing pain. Outside the window, he saw other villagers emerge from their homes, faces tight with fear and resignation.
And riding down the main road a dozen mounted soldiers in the Duke's colors—black and gold. At their head rode a man in ornate armor, a captain's plume on his helmet.
"The barn," Madhubala whispered urgently. "There's a space under the floorboards. You can hide there until—"
"No."
She turned to him, eyes wide. "What?"
"How many times has this village endured them?" Sidharth asked in a quiet tone. "How many times have you hidden while they took what they wanted?
"That's not- this isn't your fight, Sidharth. You're barely healed. You don't have a real weapon. And you're branded. If they catch you-"
"They'll kill me. I know." He picked up his sword hilt from the corner. Tested its weight. "But I didn't keep this as just a reminder. I kept it because I knew, eventually, I'd need to fight again."
"With a hilt?"
"I was Third Order in the Knight's Academy. I fought for years in training. I know seventeen ways to disable a man with nothing but my hands." He looked at her steadily. "Trust me. Please."
The bells rang again, this time closer.
Madhubala's jaw worked. Fear and frustration and something else warred in her expression. "If you die protecting this village, I will find a way to bring you back just so I can kill you again. Understand?"
Despite everything, Sidharth smiled. "Understood."
"And you don't fight unless absolutely necessary. You observe. If they're just collecting taxes, let them. If they—" She stopped, seeing his expression. "You're going to do something stupid regardless of what I say, aren't you?"
"Probably."
"Ancestors preserve me from noble idiots." But she was already moving, gathering things into a bag. "If this goes wrong, run north. Three miles, there's a cave network. You can hide there for weeks if needed. I'll bring supplies when it's safe."
"Madhubala—"
"Shut up and let me help you survive your own stupidity."
The sound of hoofbeats grew louder. Laughter and crude jokes carried on the wind.
Sidharth moved to the window, keeping himself in shadow. Watched the soldiers dismount in the village square. Watched the Captain—a man with a scar bisecting his face—swagger toward the nearest house.
Watched the fear in every villager's eyes.
And he felt something wake in his chest. Something thorned and angry and tired of watching suffering from a safe distance.
The shard pulsed against his ribs.
Outside, the thornvines began to grow faster. Silver flowers bloomed in broad daylight, dozens of them, hundreds, responding to something they sensed.
"Sidharth," Madhubala whispered, "your eyes."
What about them?
"They're. glowing. Just a little. Like the flowers."
Sidharth looked at his reflection in the window glass. She was right. His eyes caught the light strangely, throwing back a faint silver sheen.
The shard pulsed again. Stronger. And deep in his marked shoulder, the Forsaken brand screamed in response.
Two opposing forces, locked in combat within his dying body.
The Captain grasped a young woman by the arm in the village square. She struggled. He laughed.
"I have to go," Sidharth said.
"I know." Madhubala pressed something into his hand. A small clay jar. "Nightshade extract. Concentrated. If you get it in their eyes or mouth, it'll drop them fast. Don't use it unless you have to."
"Why do you have concentrated nightshade extract?
"Because I live in a village that gets raided regularly and I'm not stupid enough to rely on mercy from soldiers." She met his eyes. "Be careful. Come back alive. And Sidharth?"
"Yes?"
"Make them regret coming here early."
Sidharth tucked the jar beside the shard in his pocket. Felt both of them pulse against his skin, one warm and one cool. Life and death, carried in his clothes.
He stepped out into the autumn afternoon, sword hilt in hand, and headed toward the sound of laughter and fear.
Behind him, Madhubala watched from the window. Her hands clenched the sill until her knuckles went white.
"Bring him back," she whispered to ancestors or gods or anyone who might listen. "Please. I just found him."
The thornvines listened. They grew.