Garima woke before the morning bells.
Before the sun. Before the shrine woke up.
Her body felt lighter. But there was still an uncomfortable soreness like the kind that happens after intensive gym, but the inflammation had retreated. She was lucky there was no fever.
She lay still for a moment,then got up slowly, out of habit more than necessity.
Her training clothes folded on the shelf. Agatha had given them to her– simple garments—dark fabric, loose fitting which she had tried to tie with torn fabrics from her robe. Ava had stitched them together to match her frame, which meant they actually fit now.
Garima changed. The fabric felt good against her skin. Breathable. Unrestricting.
She stood in front of the bronze mirror—the image distorted and imperfect—and looked at herself. Her face was thinner than before.She had lost some weight but her eyes looked harder somehow. Less uncertain.
She turned away from the mirror and walked out of her room. Down the dim-lit corridor towards the training hall.
The hall was empty at this hour. The sky was dark still, but the darkness had shifted—from absolute black to deep blue. Dawn was coming.
Garima found a quiet corner. Then she took a breath.
And began.
The first movement was the one her mother had taught her, standing in her maternal grandparent's house in Kerala, guiding her arms into position. 'Tribhanga', the weight shifted. One leg straight, one bent. Hip cocked. The arm curved like water.
Her body remembered before her mind did.
The next step came—the careful, precise foot placement. This dance was not explosive. It was controlled. Fluid. A conversation between the body and gravity.
Garima moved through the basic steps. 'Jatiswaram'. Rhythm and weight. Twist and flow.
She stumbled on the third sequence.
Her foot caught. Her body lurched. She went down hard on one knee, catching herself with her palms against the stone.
She sat there for a moment, it's been so long since she danced.
Then she got up and tried again.
This time she made it further. Five steps. Six. Then a full rotation.
The other knee buckled and she went down again.
The movements weren't coming back smoothly. Her body was trying to remember something it had half-forgotten. There were gaps. Moments where the muscle memory failed and she had to think her way through it, which made it clumsy, which made her fall.
Her grandmother had been better at this than her mother. The thought came suddenly. An old memory. Her grandmother from Kochi, visiting for two weeks, showing her granddaughter the movements.
"The body knows before the mind understands," her grandmother had said in Malayalam, a language and Garima—born between a Punjabi father and South Indian mother—had half-understood even then. "Stop thinking. Let it move."
Garima had been ten. She had stopped thinking. The movements had flowed.
Now she was twenty-six and thinking very hard, and the movements stuttered and failed.
She tried again. Got further. Fell differently. Caught herself on a wall instead of the ground this time. It was a small progress. Her spins were a bit steadier.
The fourth attempt went better. She made it through an entire sequence without falling, though her movements were stiff and uncertain, nothing like the fluid grace she was trying to recreate.
She was dripping sweat by the time the first real light started touching the sky. Rays entered through the window and lit the hall. Tears began sliding down her face, mixing with her sweat. But she couldn't stop her feelings.
Her mohiniyattam was coming back slowly.
That's when she heard footsteps.
Riley appeared around the corner, presumably on some early morning walk. He was moving with his usual boundless energy, already talking to himself about something—probably a joke or a game —and he hadn't noticed her yet.
Garima stood very still, breathing hard, very aware that she looked ridiculous. Sweating. And nervous.
Riley's eyes found her.
She watched his expression cycle through: confusion, recognition, concern.
Then he made a choice.
Without saying anything, without acknowledging what he was seeing, Riley simply turned. He altered his path. He walked away in a different direction entirely, his footsteps careful and deliberate.
Giving her privacy.
Garima stood alone again and felt something in her chest tighten. Riley was only fourteen. He had no reason to understand what she was doing or why it mattered. Or why she was crying. He could have stopped to stare. Could have asked questions.
Instead he walked away.
She made a mental note. When the time came—she would remember this kindness. This particular, specific understanding that sometimes people needed to be left alone.
She took a deep breath.
Then went back to bath before the shrine fully woke.
---
Breakfast was crowded. Priests and priestesses eating quickly before dispersing to their duties. Garima sat between Agatha and Ava again, like it had become a habit, and ate quietly. Priest Hill sat near Agatha.
She was thinking about the sword. Darla. Already in her possession, wrapped in cloth, hidden carefully in her room. The sword she had taken before Renya could claim it. The sword that was not meant for her but that she had stolen anyway.
She had guided herself and called it a vision.
And Renya was coming.
Ava set down her cup. "You're thinking about something."
It wasn't a question.
"A woman," Garima said carefully. "Coming to Solmere.She is important to what's ahead."
Agatha's gaze sharpened. "Is this the same girl you mentioned before?"
"Yes," Garima said. "She was supposed to arrive late. But she will come soon."
She didn't add: "She should have met Rowan's people by now"
"You're still looking tired," Ava said immediately. "Are you sure about training?"
"I'm okay."
"Training and meeting visitors are stressful even when you are well." Agatha said dryly.
Garima didn't argue. She ate another bite of the loaf.
"When is she arriving?" Agatha asked.
"Tomorrow," Garima said. "Or the day after. Can she stay here?"
Priest Hill exchanged a look with Agatha. Some silent conversation passed between them.
"There are plenty of rooms." Hill said quietly. "If she is willing?"
Garima set down her cup very carefully. There was no point in lying. Not to these people.
"I will convince her," she said.
"So you need her," Agatha said.
"Yes."
"Okay," Agatha said. "I will make the preparation."
Garima nodded and she finished breakfast quickly, excusing herself.
---
The sword was wrapped in cloth, hidden in the back of her closet behind spare robes. She unwrapped it carefully.
'Darla'.
The blade was plain without any inscriptions. Just clean steel and a simple leather hilt. It looked like nothing in particular. A sentient being. Like Excalibur.
She had held it once before. In the smithy. And felt it reject her.
She held it again now.
The rejection was still there. A quiet certainty. This blade knew what it was meant for. And it was not her. But it was not pushing her away. Maybe it was because she created this world. So it made her immune to its violence. Or recognition as the creator.
She could use it anyway.
Garima wrapped it carefully and hid it again.
Then she went to the training hall. Again.
Ruslan himself had arrived a little late, Garima didn't comment on it. Maybe he was a little considerate, arriving after breakfast
He asked about her well-being and then started with the pose and stances.
Training with Ruslan was different now.
He didn't push her the way he had before. But he watched her more carefully, as if trying to see something in her movements and what made them different."
"Somehow," he said. "Your moves have become confident."
"I practiced a little today," Garima said.
"The form is still weak." He said.
"I just practiced the dance."
"That's why it shows the fluidity. Are you trying to remember?"
She nodded.
"If you do, it can become something unique," Ruslan said. "Not like others.Keep developing it."
"I plan to."
"But still, it needs sparring and practice."
"Yes."
Then they practiced some more.
Later that afternoon an invitation arrived to teach.
A handwritten letter delivered by Priest Filly. Garima was able to read the message. When she had first arrived at the shrine, Cosmo had already woven a spell into the world itself. Not a translation—something deeper. The moment Garima's consciousness touched the world, the language settled into her mind. She could understand the Cosmo and then priests' conversations, even write her own thoughts in the flowing script. It felt almost familiar and she could understand the language of the world—her world.The message in the paper was to teach Zihan, Ava, and Riley about medicine. Diagnosis. Symptoms and treatment. Signed by Riley.
The three of them were waiting in a small classroom when Garima arrived—Zihan sitting with perfect posture, Ava with her note-taking supplies, and Riley vibrating with excitement.
"You said you would teach us how to actually heal things," Riley said immediately. "Even without energy."
Garima sat down slowly. She had been thinking about this.
The truth was: she didn't know if she could teach them anything real. She had gone with the flow.
Her knowledge came from the internet. From conversations with Maria. From watching medical dramas and reading articles late at night. Some home remedies her grandmother had told. None of it was complete. None of it was verified by actual medical training.
The other truth was: she was about to tell them something potentially dangerous, and she couldn't afford to be cavalier about it.
She looked at the three of them—waiting, expectant, ready to learn from the her who could see the future and apparently knew healing secrets no one else possessed.
"I'm going to tell you a story before I start," Garima said instead. "Not about medicine. About something else."
Zihan raised an eyebrow. Ava looked at her with confusion. Even Riley sat silently.
"There was a man," Garima began. "In a place ... a distant land. Very far from here. He read about a particular type of illness. He didn't have any actual training. He learned the symptoms, the causes, and treatments that supposedly worked."
She paused.
"And one day he met a woman who had those symptoms. He was confident. He boasted he could cure her. He had read the articles. He understood the disease better than anyone. He gave her the treatment he had read about."
Riley leaned forward. "Did it work?"
"No," Garima said. "It didn't. Because the woman didn't have that illness. She had something similar. Something that looked the same from the outside but was different underneath. And the treatment he gave her made it worse."
The room was quiet.
"Half knowledge is dangerous," Garima said. "Because it feels like whole knowledge. It feels complete. It feels certain. But it has gaps. Gaps you don't see until someone gets hurt."
She looked at each of them.
"So here's what we're going to do," she said. "I'm going to tell you what I know. About symptoms. About what causes the illnesses. About what might help. But I'm also going to tell you every gap. Every place where I'm uncertain. Every moment where I'm guessing based on incomplete information. And you—" she pointed at Ava, "—are going to verify everything. Cross-reference with the old texts that you healers read. Only then you proceed."
Ava nodded slowly.
"And if I ever tell you to do something and you're not certain, you stop," Garima continued. "You ask. You verify. You don't just trust me. You trust the method. The evidence. The thinking."
Riley's excitement had dimmed slightly. Zihan looked thoughtful.
"I can teach you what I know," Garima said. "But I can't teach you with certainty. Because I don't have it."
She took a breath.
"But what I 'can' teach you is how to think about illness. How to ask the right questions. How to notice what's actually happening instead of what you expect to see. That's more useful than any single treatment."
Zihan met her eyes. There was something like respect there.
"Okay," Ava said, her pen started moving. "Then let's start with the symptoms. Tell us everything you know. And tell us where you're uncertain."
So Garima did.
She talked about diseases and their symptoms— thyroid, fever, diarrhoea, rashes, infection, indigestion. About the difference between fever from infection and from other sources like inflammation. About indigestion and diarrhoea. About the danger points—when a fever gets too high, when dehydration becomes critical.
And she talked about what she didn't know. The exact threshold where the symptoms becomes dangerous. How to distinguish between different types of infection. Whether certain home remedies actually worked or just made people feel better psychologically.
Ava wrote furiously.
Riley asked questions that were surprisingly sharp—questions about prevention, about patterns, about what happened when treatments didn't work.
Zihan listened. He didn't write. He just listened, and occasionally asked something that went to the heart of what she was saying.
By the time the lesson ended, an hour had passed. Garima was exhausted in a different way than physical training had exhausted her.
"That was completely different from what I expected," Riley said as they were leaving.
"In a good way or bad?" Garima asked.
"Both," Riley said. "But good overall."
Zihan paused at the door. "You are looking scared," he said. It wasn't a question.
"Yes," Garima admitted.
"Of what? Those sound very different from here. The healers here rely on energy flow through the energy nodes. They can heal almost everything. But these methods feel powerful too"
"Those are not conventional techniques."
"But they work."
"I didn't tell you about the ones that may not."
"What?"
"I won't try them unless it's an emergency or life and death situation."
"Why are you scared of using them?"
"I am scared of being wrong about something that matters," she said. "Of having half knowledge and not realizing it until someone gets hurt."
Zihan nodded slowly. "That's the right fear to have. But I know you won't hurt anyone. I trust you."
He looked at her one last time then left.
When the evening came, Garima sat in her room with the artifact in her hand, still pondering about everything.
"She will be here soon," Garima said quietly.
"Yes," Cosmo replied.
"I have the sword."
"I know."
"She doesn't know."
"She will, when the time comes."
Garima was quiet for a moment.
"I feel like I'm stealing from her," she said.
"You are," Cosmo said simply.
Garima didn't flinch from it. "But I'm going to give it back."
"Yes. Eventually."
"That doesn't make it right."
"No," Cosmo agreed. "It doesn't."
The artifact pulsed softly in her hands.
"Why are you being honest about this?" Garima asked.
"Because you're asking honestly," Cosmo said. "And because the best manipulators are those who know exactly what they're doing."
Garima sat with that for a while. And looked out of the window.
Above them, the moon was rising. Phael, according to Ava's story. Cold. Proud. Chasing the sun he could never quite catch.
"One more day," Garima whispered.
"One more day until what?" Cosmo asked.
"Until I can save her," Garima said. "Should I give her the sword?"
"And will you?"
"I don't know," Garima said. "I don't know what to do anymore."
"So what do you think is right?" Cosmo
said. "Sometimes we have to do what's necessary even if we hate it."
"You changed your tone, Cosmo." Garima let out a small laugh. "Are you consoling me?"
"I have to Aella," Cosmo said. "If not me then who?"
Garima smiled but didn't reply.
The artifact glowed softly, warm in her hands.
And for now, that was enough.