Chapter Eight: A Promise Beneath the Stars
For a long time, the little girl did not move.
Miral lay beside her, her face peaceful in a way it had never been during the days they had spent together. The lines of pain that had once creased her forehead were gone, and her lips rested in a faint, almost imperceptible smile.
It was the first time the little girl had seen her look so peaceful.
She hated it.
Because she knew that peace had come at a price.
"Miral?"
Her voice was quiet.
She already knew there would be no answer, yet she called again.
"Miral, it's getting cold. You should wake up."
Nothing.
The little girl stared at her companion's face, waiting for the familiar complaints about aching limbs and the poison that made every breath difficult. She waited for Miral to ask whether they would ever find their way home, or to tease Addo for walking too slowly.
She waited for anything.
But Miral remained still.
The little girl slowly lowered her head.
She had thought she understood death.
After all, she had witnessed it countless times.
She had watched her mother take her final breath in their dilapidated hut. She had sat beside her mother's body for days, too young to understand where she had gone and too frightened to leave her alone.
Then, in the physician's lair, she had watched children die one after another.
Some had screamed until their voices failed. Others had begged the physician to stop. A few had simply closed their eyes, too exhausted to fight the agony any longer.
Eventually, they stopped breathing.
And the physician would carry them away.
It had become such a familiar sight that she had learned to recognise the moment when a person's life slipped away.
She had believed that understanding death would make it easier to accept.
She had been wrong.
It was one thing to watch strangers die.
It was another to lose someone who had held her hand, shared food with her, and promised to take her home.
Miral had promised that they would become sisters.
The little girl had believed her.
For the first time since losing her mother, she had allowed herself to imagine what it might be like to belong to a family again. She had imagined sitting beside Miral's parents, eating a warm meal, and listening to the stories of twelve children who had never known her existed.
She had imagined being welcomed.
Now, those dreams were gone.
And she had not even learned where Miral's village was.
A tear fell onto the back of Miral's hand.
Then another.
The little girl quickly wiped her face with her sleeve, as though embarrassed by her own weakness.
She had cried enough in her life.
She had cried when her mother died. She had cried when the physician cut into her flesh. She had cried when the children she had come to know were carried away, never to return.
What had all those tears accomplished?
Nothing.
Her mother was still dead.
Her friends were still dead.
And Miral would never wake up again.
She clenched her remaining hand until her fingernails dug into her palm.
"Why?" she whispered.
The question escaped before she could stop it.
"Why does everyone leave me?"
The forest offered no answer.
Above her, the stars continued to shine.
She looked up at them, searching for the strange comfort she had experienced earlier. For a brief moment, she thought she felt that familiar warmth stirring somewhere within her.
But it vanished before she could grasp it.
The wailing in her head continued.
And Miral remained dead.
---
"Little one."
Addo's voice broke through the silence.
The girl did not respond.
"Little one, come here."
She turned towards him reluctantly.
Addo was sitting against the trunk of a tree, his knees drawn up and his head resting against the rough bark. His face had grown frighteningly pale, and the dark patches scattered across his skin seemed more pronounced beneath the moonlight.
He looked exhausted.
No, exhausted was not the right word.
He looked as though something was slowly hollowing him out from within.
Yet he still managed to give her a crooked smile.
"You're going to catch a chill sitting there all night," he said.
The little girl stared at him.
Then she looked down at Miral.
"I can't leave her."
Addo's smile faded.
For several moments, he said nothing.
Eventually, he lowered his gaze.
"Neither can I."
The words were so quiet that she almost failed to hear them.
He turned his face away, pretending to examine something in the darkness.
The little girl noticed the way his shoulders trembled.
"Brother Addo?"
"I'm fine."
He answered too quickly.
She frowned.
"You don't look fine."
"And you look like a little ghost, but you don't see me complaining."
Under different circumstances, she might have smiled.
Instead, she stared at him with such solemnity that Addo sighed.
"All right, all right. I suppose I don't look particularly handsome tonight."
He tried to laugh, but the sound turned into a cough.
It was a terrible cough.
His whole body shook with it, and when he finally stopped, he had to press a hand against his chest while he struggled to breathe.
The little girl immediately crawled towards him.
"Brother Addo!"
"I'm fine," he repeated, although his voice had become weaker.
She reached for his hand.
It was cold.
She stared at their joined hands for a moment before looking into his face.
"You are going to die too, aren't you?"
Addo went still.
The question was so direct that he could not find a way to evade it.
For a while, he watched her silently.
Then he exhaled.
"I don't know."
It was not the answer she wanted.
But it was the truth.
He had spent the last few days trying to ignore the changes in his body. His limbs had become increasingly weak, his chest often hurt when he breathed, and sometimes his vision blurred without warning.
He knew what those symptoms meant.
He had watched enough children die in the physician's lair to recognise the signs.
The poison was winning.
He simply did not know how much time he had left.
The little girl tightened her grip on his hand.
"Don't die."
Addo blinked.
"What?"
"Don't die," she repeated, her voice trembling. "Please."
He looked at her for a long moment.
Then he smiled.
It was not his usual crooked smile, the one he used whenever he wanted to pretend that everything was less terrible than it seemed.
This one was smaller.
And sadder.
"I'll do my best, little one."
"Your best isn't enough."
The words came out harsher than she intended.
Addo's smile disappeared.
She lowered her head.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't apologise."
He shifted painfully, making room for her beside him.
"Come here."
She hesitated before sitting down.
Addo leaned back against the tree and closed his eyes for a moment.
"When I was younger, I used to think that growing up meant becoming strong enough to handle anything," he said.
The little girl listened quietly.
"My father worked on other people's farms. So did I. We worked from sunrise until our backs hurt, and sometimes we still went to bed hungry."
He paused.
"I used to complain about it. I thought it was unfair that we had to work so hard while other people sat around giving orders."
A faint smile touched his lips.
"I even told my father that when I grew up, I'd become a rich man. I'd buy a big house, hire people to work for me, and never touch a hoe again."
The little girl glanced at him.
"Did your father believe you?"
Addo snorted.
"He laughed so hard that he nearly fell off the bench."
For the first time since Miral's death, the girl's expression changed.
It was not quite a smile, but something close.
Addo noticed.
He continued, encouraged by the small response.
"He told me that if I wanted to become rich, I should start by learning to count properly. Apparently, I had been giving people the wrong change whenever he sent me to buy things."
"Did you?"
"Of course not!"
She looked at him.
Addo held her gaze for a moment before sighing.
"All right, perhaps I did. But the shopkeeper was a very dishonest man."
A faint sound escaped her lips.
It was so small that Addo almost missed it.
A laugh.
Barely more than a breath, but a laugh nonetheless.
He stared at her.
Then he grinned.
"There! I knew you could smile."
The girl immediately lowered her head.
"I wasn't smiling."
"Of course not. And I was never bad at counting."
She looked away, but the corners of her mouth twitched.
For a moment, the forest felt a little less cruel.
Then the girl's gaze drifted back to Miral.
The fragile warmth disappeared.
Addo's smile faded with hers.
Neither of them spoke for a while.
Finally, the little girl whispered, "I thought we would all make it."
Addo followed her gaze.
"So did I."
"She wanted to go home."
"I know."
"She wanted to see her parents."
"I know, little one."
The girl swallowed.
"She wanted us to go with her."
Addo closed his eyes.
"Yes."
"Why couldn't we?"
He had no answer.
He wanted to tell her that the world was fair, that good people were rewarded, and that kindness would eventually bring happiness.
But he had lived long enough to know that such words were not always true.
Miral had been kind.
She had done nothing to deserve her fate.
And still, she was gone.
Addo reached out and placed his hand gently on the girl's head.
"I don't know why," he admitted. "But I know one thing."
She looked at him.
"What?"
"We're still here."
He glanced towards Miral.
"And as long as we're still here, we can keep trying."
The girl stared at him.
It sounded like such a small thing.
Keep trying.
She had spent eight years doing nothing but trying.
Trying to survive the poison.
Trying to endure the pain.
Trying to hold on to the memories of her mother and the children she had lost.
What had it brought her?
More suffering.
More loss.
Yet Addo spoke as though continuing to try was not a punishment.
As though it was a choice.
She looked down at their joined hands.
For some reason, she did not want to let go.
---
They buried Miral the following morning.
It was not much of a grave.
They had no tools, and Addo could barely stand without swaying. The little girl had only one hand, and although her strange resilience allowed her to endure far more than she should have been able to, she was still weak from years of torture and starvation.
They worked slowly.
Addo found a fallen branch and used it to loosen the earth. The girl helped as best she could, using her remaining hand to move the soil aside.
Every few minutes, Addo had to stop and catch his breath.
Once, he nearly collapsed.
The little girl immediately rushed to support him.
"I'm all right," he insisted.
"You keep saying that."
"Because it's true."
"Then why can't you stand properly?"
Addo opened his mouth.
Then he closed it.
"You're becoming rather troublesome, little one."
She stared at him.
"You taught me how."
He blinked.
Then he laughed.
It was a weak laugh, cut short by a cough, but it was genuine.
"That's fair."
They returned to the task.
By the time they finished, the sun had climbed high above the trees.
Miral's grave lay beneath the shade of a broad tree, marked by a small pile of stones.
There was no inscription.
Neither of them knew how to write her name properly, and they had nothing with which to make a marker.
But they stood beside the grave for a long time.
The little girl looked at the mound of earth.
She tried to remember Miral's voice.
Her laughter.
The way she had called her little one.
She was afraid that, with time, those memories would become blurred, just as the faces of some of the children in the physician's lair had begun to fade.
She did not want that to happen.
"Miral," she whispered, "I'm sorry."
Her throat tightened.
"I couldn't take you home."
She lowered her head.
"But I won't forget you."
For several moments, she could not say anything more.
Then she added, "I'll remember your family, too. Your parents and your twelve siblings. If I ever find your village, I'll tell them what happened to you."
It was a promise she had no idea how to fulfil.
She did not know where Miral's village was.
She did not even know how to find her way out of the forest.
Yet she made the promise anyway.
Because Miral had once promised to take her home.
And someone ought to remember that promise.
Beside her, Addo bowed his head.
"Rest well, Miral," he murmured. "You don't have to work anymore."
His voice broke on the last word.
He turned away quickly, but not before the little girl saw the tears in his eyes.
She did not mention them.
Instead, she reached for his hand.
Addo looked down at her small fingers wrapped around his.
For a moment, he seemed surprised.
Then he squeezed her hand gently.
Together, they stood beside Miral's grave until neither of them could bear the silence any longer.
---
They resumed their journey that afternoon.
The little girl walked beside Addo, keeping a close eye on him.
He had insisted that he could continue travelling, although she was beginning to suspect that his stubbornness was stronger than his remaining strength.
He stumbled twice within the first hour.
The third time, she caught him before he fell.
"That's enough," she declared.
Addo looked at her.
"Enough what?"
"Walking."
"We can't stay here forever."
"Then sit down and rest."
"Little one, if you keep ordering me around, people might mistake you for a village elder."
She did not smile.
"Sit."
Addo stared at her for a moment.
Then he sighed dramatically and lowered himself onto a nearby rock.
"Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. I escape a mad physician only to become the servant of a four-foot-tall tyrant."
"I'm not four."
"You're certainly not fifteen."
She clenched her fist.
Addo chuckled, then immediately regretted it when a sharp pain seized his chest.
His smile vanished.
He pressed a hand against his ribs and leaned forward, breathing through clenched teeth.
The little girl crouched in front of him.
"Brother Addo?"
He waved a hand weakly.
"Give me a moment."
She waited.
His breathing gradually steadied, but the effort left him pale and trembling.
The girl looked at him with growing fear.
She had seen this before.
She had seen children reach a point where even the simplest movements became exhausting. She had watched them struggle to breathe, their bodies slowly surrendering to the poisons.
She knew what came next.
She did not want to know it.
"Is it getting worse?" she asked.
Addo did not answer immediately.
Then he nodded.
"A little."
She stared at him.
"How long?"
He looked confused.
"How long what?"
"How long until you can't walk anymore?"
His expression changed.
He had hoped to hide the truth from her for a little longer, but he could see that she already understood.
He sighed.
"I don't know."
The girl looked away.
She hated that answer.
She hated it more than anything.
There was so much she did not know.
She did not know how to remove the poison from their bodies. She did not know where the forest ended or whether a town lay beyond it. She did not know why she could survive things that killed everyone else.
And she did not know how to keep Addo alive.
For a while, she stared at the trees.
Then she turned back towards him.
"Tell me something."
Addo raised an eyebrow.
"That depends. Are you going to ask me to explain why the sky is blue? Because I have absolutely no idea."
"What are cultivators?"
The question caught him off guard.
"Why are you asking about cultivators?"
"Because you mentioned them before. You said they were strong."
Addo rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"I said they were supposed to be strong."
"What's the difference?"
"The difference is that I've never met one."
She frowned.
"Then how do you know they exist?"
"Stories."
He leaned back against the rock.
"When I was little, the men who worked on the farms used to talk about them. Whenever we had a few minutes to rest, someone would start telling stories about powerful cultivators."
His eyes brightened slightly.
"They said some cultivators could leap from one mountain to another. Others could walk through the air as though invisible steps had appeared beneath their feet."
The little girl listened intently.
"Walk through the air?"
"That's what they claimed."
"How?"
"How should I know? Do I look like someone who walks through the air?"
She ignored his question.
"What else can they do?"
Addo grinned.
"Apparently, the truly powerful ones can move mountains."
She stared at him.
"Mountains?"
"Mountains."
"How?"
"With their hands, their swords, or perhaps by glaring at them. People tell all sorts of stories when they're sitting around a fire."
She considered this.
Then she asked, "Can they die?"
Addo's grin widened.
"Ah, now we're getting to the interesting part."
He lowered his voice dramatically.
"Some stories claim that powerful cultivators cannot be killed by ordinary means. You could cut off their heads, and they would simply put them back on."
The little girl stared at him in disbelief.
"That's impossible."
"Of course it's impossible."
"Then why tell me?"
"Because I didn't say I believed it!"
He threw his hands up, then winced when the movement strained his body.
"Honestly, little one, you ask too many questions."
She ignored him again.
"Can they really move mountains?"
Addo's expression softened.
"Some might be able to do things we can't imagine. I don't know. I've never seen one."
He looked up through the trees.
"But if even half the stories are true, then there are people in this world who are so powerful that ordinary folk like us might as well be ants beside them."
The little girl fell silent.
People who could move mountains.
People who could walk through the air.
People who could survive having their heads cut off.
She thought about the physician's lair.
She thought about Miral's grave.
She thought about the countless children who had died because neither she nor Addo had possessed the strength to protect them.
Then she looked at Addo.
His shoulders were slumped, and his breathing remained uneven. He was trying to conceal his discomfort, but she could see how much effort it took for him to remain upright.
He was getting weaker.
And there was nothing either of them could do.
Unless...
"Brother Addo."
"Hmm?"
"How does someone become a cultivator?"
Addo blinked.
Then he laughed.
Not because the question was funny, but because it sounded so hopelessly simple.
"If I knew that, do you think I'd still be here?"
She lowered her eyes.
Addo's laughter faded.
"Listen, little one. I don't know how cultivation works. I've heard people talk about it, but that's all. I don't know what someone needs to do to become a cultivator, and I certainly don't know where we'd even begin."
He studied her face.
"Why do you ask?"
She did not answer immediately.
Instead, she looked towards the forest stretching ahead of them.
Enan had called the place where the physician found her the Pathway of Ascension. He had explained that it was where people began their cultivation journeys, though she had never understood what that meant.
At the time, cultivation had been nothing more than another strange word in a world she knew nothing about.
Now, it felt different.
If cultivators truly possessed the strength Addo described, perhaps they could survive the poison.
Perhaps they could find medicine.
Perhaps they could prevent others from suffering the way they had.
Perhaps she would never again have to sit beside someone she cared about and wait helplessly for them to die.
She clenched her remaining hand.
"I don't want you to die."
Addo's expression softened.
"Little one..."
"I don't want anyone else to die."
Her voice trembled, but she continued.
"I don't want to keep running away from things I can't fight. I don't want to watch people disappear while I stand there doing nothing."
She looked directly into his eyes.
"If cultivators are really that strong, then I want to become one."
Addo said nothing.
The girl took a shaky breath.
"I don't know how. I don't even know whether someone like me can do it. But I want to try."
She glanced towards the direction they had travelled from.
Somewhere behind them lay the mountain with the strange face, the physician's burned lair, and the grave where they had left Miral.
She could not bring Miral back.
She could not undo what had happened to the children in the lair.
She could not return to the moment when her mother was still alive.
But perhaps she could change what happened next.
Perhaps the future did not have to be another endless repetition of the past.
She turned back to Addo.
"And I want you to come with me."
He stared at her.
"Me?"
She nodded.
"We'll become cultivators together. We'll find a way to remove the poison from our bodies. We'll get stronger, and we'll survive."
For a moment, Addo looked as though he did not know whether to laugh or cry.
Then he shook his head.
"You really are a strange little girl."
She lowered her gaze.
"I know."
"No, I mean it." He smiled faintly. "Most people would be thinking about how to get out of this forest. You want to become a cultivator who can move mountains."
"I want to live."
The simple answer silenced him.
She looked down at her remaining hand.
"And I want you to live, too."
Addo's smile disappeared.
He looked at the girl sitting before him.
She was small, painfully thin, and missing an eye and a hand. Her clothes were little more than rags, and her body bore the scars of eight years of cruelty.
She had every reason to give up.
Yet here she was, talking about the future.
Not because she believed the world would suddenly become kind.
Not because she thought the poison would disappear on its own.
But because she had decided that she wanted something more than another day of suffering.
She wanted to live.
And she did not want to do it alone.
Addo lowered his head.
For a long time, he remained silent.
Then he reached out and placed his hand on her head.
"All right, little one."
She looked up.
"Really?"
He gave her a tired smile.
"Really."
"But you don't know how to become a cultivator."
"Neither do you."
"We'll have to find someone who does."
"Then we'll find someone."
"And we have to get rid of the poison."
"Yes."
"And you have to stop pretending you're fine when you're not."
Addo's mouth fell open.
"Now, hold on. I agreed to become a cultivator, not to surrender all my dignity."
She stared at him.
He sighed.
"Fine. I'll try to stop pretending."
She nodded solemnly.
"Good."
Addo chuckled.
Then, after a moment, he extended his hand towards her.
"Come on, little one. Help me up."
She took his hand and pulled.
He was too weak to stand without her assistance, and she was hardly strong enough to support him. They struggled for several moments before finally managing to get him onto his feet.
Neither of them said anything about how difficult it had been.
Instead, the little girl slipped beneath his arm and helped him steady himself.
Addo looked down at her.
"Do you know something?"
"What?"
"I still think you make a terrible village elder."
She glanced at him.
"And I still think you talk too much."
He laughed.
This time, the sound did not turn into a cough.
For a brief moment, the two of them stood beneath the trees, sharing a small, fragile piece of happiness in a world that had given them so little.
Then they began walking again.
They had no map.
They did not know where the forest ended, where the nearest settlement lay, or whether cultivators would even be willing to help them.
They did not know how much time Addo had left.
And they certainly did not know whether the strange power hidden within the little girl would ever reveal itself.
But they had made a decision.
They would search for a way to cultivate.
They would find a way to survive.
And they would do it together.
As they walked beneath the endless sky, the little girl glanced up at the stars once more.
The mysterious voices stirred in her head.
A familiar pressure settled over her body.
She clenched her jaw and kept walking.
This time, she did not stop.
She had spent eight years enduring a life she had never chosen.
She had spent those years waiting for the pain to end, waiting for death to take her, and waiting for someone to save her.
No more.
If strength was what she needed, then she would seek it.
If cultivation was the path that could save Addo, then she would walk that path, no matter how difficult it became.
And if the world refused to give her a future in which the people she loved could survive...
Then she would find a way to change that future herself.
For the first time in her life, she was no longer simply enduring what the world had decided for her.
She was choosing what she wanted.
And beneath the watchful stars, a little girl who had known nothing but misery took her first step towards a different tomorrow.