The journey was a blur of dust and fear. A hell filled with creaking axles and the whimpering of hungry children. Shankara had walked it in a haze, the soldier Bhaskar's words and the impossible image of that broken sword a constant, grinding thought in his mind. He had made a promise. A bargain. He had sold his hands to a ghost story in exchange for rice.
Then, they were there.
The gate, a wall of sharpened, heavy timber, swung inward. And Shankara, who had thought his heart had turned to cold iron in his chest, felt it crack.
It was green. A deep, impossible green. After months of living in a world of brown dust and grey rags, the sheer, vibrant life of the valley was a physical blow. He saw neat rows of vegetables, the sturdy frames of new huts, the clean, orderly lines of a settlement that did not just cling to life, but commanded it. He smelled damp earth and woodsmoke instead of sickness and despair.
The sight did not bring him joy. It brought a pain so sharp it stole his breath. It was an echo of the life he had lost. A ghost of the order and purpose that had been stolen from him. His people, stumbling out of the pass behind him, were silent. They stared, their eyes wide, as if they had just walked into a dream.
A boy was waiting for them. The Prince. Aditya. He was smaller than Shankara had imagined, dressed in a plain, functional tunic that was smudged with dirt. No silks. No jewels. No ceremony. He simply stood there, his eyes taking in the caravan, his gaze lingering not on the artisans, but on the thin, frightened faces of their children.
Shankara felt a surge of his old pride. He was a Master Smith of the Empire, and here he was being greeted by a farmhand.
The boy-prince did not speak to him. He turned to face the hard-faced man with a captain's bearing—Bhaskar. "The rations for tonight are doubled. The children eat first. See, they are given the warmest quarters."
The command was simple. It was not an act of charity, Shankara realized. It was an act of logistics. A clear, cold, efficient decision. Our most valuable new resource is fragile. Protect it first. The boy's humanity was a form of calculation. The thought was deeply unsettling.
The first week was like a strange fever dream. Food was plentiful. The air was clean. The nights were safe behind the wall. Yet Shankara felt like a tool in a toolbox, waiting to be used. He watched the valley's inhabitants. The soldiers moved with a frightening, silent precision. The farmers worked their plots with a grim diligence. And all of them, all of them, moved around the prince with an orbit of absolute, unquestioning faith. It felt like a cult built on a foundation of full bellies and sharp steel.
He clashed, inevitably, with Bhaskar.
"The forge requires a foundation of flat, river stone," Shankara had stated, pointing to a section of the valley floor.
"That stone is for the new barracks," Bhaskar had countered, his hand resting on his sword hilt. "My men need shelter before the next rains."
"Your men can sleep in the mud for another month," Shankara had growled, his voice a low thunder. "My forge cannot be built on uneven ground. Do you want swords, or do you want paperweights?"
Before the argument could escalate, the boy was there. He appeared as if from nowhere, his eyes taking in the situation.
"Master Shankara is correct," Aditya said, his voice cutting through their anger. He then turned to Bhaskar. "A barracks can be built of wood. A forge that can withstand the heat I require must be built on stone. The quality of the foundation determines the quality of the product. The forge is our priority."
Bhaskar, the fearsome captain, simply nodded and turned to give the new orders. He did not question it. Shankara was left feeling a strange mix of triumph and unease. The boy had sided with him, yes. But he had done so because he had calculated that the forge was, for now, a more valuable asset than the soldiers. Shankara was a tool that needed to be properly housed.
Finally, the prince summoned him to his chamber. It was a cave, its walls covered in terrifyingly precise drawings. Schematics. Maps. Lists. It was the den of a madman or a genius.
Aditya unrolled a large parchment on the table. It was the full design for the forge. More detailed than the one he'd seen in the camp.
"The waterwheel will provide the power," Aditya said, his finger tracing a line. "The gears must be carved from ironwood, to these exact specifications. But the crucible… I am uncertain." He looked up, and his eyes were not the eyes of a prince giving an order. They were the eyes of a scholar seeking a consultation.
"My calculations suggest a clay body with a twenty percent quartz temper should withstand the thermal shock," he said. "But the calculation does not account for the impurities in the local clay. Your experience… what does it tell you?"
Shankara stared at him. The boy, who had redesigned a forge and plotted the course of a community, was asking for his opinion. He was deferring to the master's instinct, to the unwritten knowledge that lived in his hands.
He looked at the drawing. He saw the impossible brilliance of it, the cold, foreign logic. He saw a forge that could create a fire hotter and purer than any he had ever seen. He thought of the cracked cooking pots of the refugee camp. He thought of the satisfying heft of a perfectly balanced hammer.
The boy was offering him a choice. He could remain a relic, a master of a dead art, clinging to the traditions of a world that was already dead.
Or he could lend his hands to this strange, new fire. He could take this boy's terrifying numbers and give them a soul of steel.
"The quartz will make it brittle," Shankara said, his voice a low, rough growl. He picked up a piece of charcoal and, his hand surprisingly steady, made a correction to the drawing. "Soapstone. Powdered soapstone mixed with the clay. It holds the heat, but it yields. It will not crack."
Aditya watched him, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes. "An excellent solution," he said. "Let us begin."