Date: The Morning of the 4th Day of the Month of Blossoms, Year 1107 of the Imperial Calendar.
Location: The "Rat's Nest," Deep Slums.
The morning arrived not with the song of birds, but with the heavy, rhythmic throb of a headache.
Aanya slowly drifted back to consciousness. The heat that had consumed her body for the last twenty-four hours had receded, leaving behind a weakness so profound that her limbs felt like they were made of hollow glass. The willow bark and the single apple had done their work; the fever had broken.
She opened her eyes.
At first, the world was a blur of gray wood and dust motes. She blinked, her eyelashes heavy, trying to clear the fog from her vision.
When her sight finally sharpened, the first thing she saw was Veer.
He was sitting cross-legged on the dirt floor, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. He wasn't looking at the door. He wasn't looking at his knife. He was looking directly at her.
His dark eyes held a glaze of exhaustion, but beneath it burned something else—a fierce, quiet relief. He looked at her the way a starving man looks at a loaf of bread, or a drowning man looks at the shore. It was the look of a boy who thought he had lost his entire world, only to have it returned to him in the morning light.
Aanya felt a sudden, instinctive flush of heat rise in her cheeks. For a fleeting second, she was just a girl waking up under the gaze of a boy who cared for her. She looked down, shy.
" You're back," Veer whispered. His voice was rough with lack of sleep. "How are you feeling?"
Aanya tested her throat. It was dry, but the stone blocking her voice had crumbled slightly.
"I am feeling... well," she murmured. "Better."
Veer let out a long breath, his shoulders sagging as the tension left his frame. He smiled—a genuine, crooked smile that showed his relief.
But as he smiled, Aanya remembered.
She remembered the bucket. She remembered the melting face. She remembered the monster in the shop window.
Her hand flew up to cover her right cheek. The shame hit her like a physical blow. Here she was, letting him look at her, letting him see the swollen, purple ruin of her face in the unforgiving morning light.
A sudden, desperate panic seized her chest. She sat up, clutching the scratchy wool blanket to her chin.
"Veer," she said, her voice rising in pitch. "Do you have a cloth?"
Veer blinked, confused. "A cloth? For your face? I used the towel yesterday—"
"No," Aanya interrupted. She looked around the tiny, cramped shack. "A big cloth. A sheet. Something to make a wall."
Veer frowned. "A wall? In here?"
"Yes," Aanya insisted, pointing to the space between the pallet and the door. "I need you to hang it there. Between us."
"Why?" Veer asked gently. "Are you cold? Is there a draft?"
"Because I don't want you to see me!" The words burst out of her, sharp and pained.
She lowered her head, hiding behind her hair. "I cannot wake up every morning and have you look at this... this mess. It will ruin your day. It is ugly."
"Aanya," Veer started, reaching out. "I don't care about—"
"I care!" she snapped, pulling away. "I cannot sleep, I cannot eat, I cannot breathe if I feel your eyes on my scars constantly! I need... I need a place to be ugly in peace."
She looked at him with pleading, wet eyes.
"Please, Veer. I need a backstage. I cannot perform survival every second of the day."
Veer froze. He looked at her trembling hands. He looked at the way she was trying to shrink into the corner.
He sighed, running a hand through his messy hair. He realized this wasn't a tantrum. It wasn't vanity. It was a desperate clawing for the only thing she had left: dignity.
"Okay," Veer said quietly. "Okay. I get it."
He stood up and went to the corner of the room where he kept his pile of scavenged goods—trash he had collected to sell or trade. He dug through coils of wire and broken tools until he pulled out a bundle of fabric.
He shook it out.
It was an old bedsheet, gray and heavy. It had been torn down the middle and stitched back together clumsily. It was stained with patches of rust and motor oil from when he had used it to wrap stolen copper piping.
"It's not silk," Veer warned, holding it up. "It smells like the shipyard."
Aanya reached out. She touched the rough, grimy fabric. It smelled of metal, mildew, and rain.
"It's perfect," she whispered.
Veer didn't argue. He found two rusted iron nails in his pocket. He picked up a rock from the floor to use as a hammer.
Bang. Bang.
He drove the nails into the opposing wooden walls of the shack. He took a length of fraying hemp rope and strung it tightly between them.
Then, together, they draped the torn bedsheet over the rope.
The heavy fabric fell, cutting the room in half.
The space instantly became claustrophobic. It was smaller than a coffin now. The air felt still and close.
But the moment the curtain hung, Aanya's shoulders dropped.
She retreated to her side—the side with the pallet and the corner. Veer took his side—the side with the door and the dirt floor.
The dynamic shifted instantly.
Aanya sat back on the straw. She was alone in her gray tent.
For the first time in three days, she slowly lowered her hand from her face. She let out a breath she felt she had been holding since the palace.
She reached up and touched her face. She traced the swollen ridges of the scar, the scabbed lip, the puffiness around her eye. She explored the ruin of her beauty without the burning fear of being watched.
She closed her eyes, and the tears came. They flowed silently, tracking through the dust on her cheeks. It was a release of tension so pure it felt like bloodletting.
The day passed in silence, broken only by the sound of the rain and the rustle of the curtain.
Night fell.
On the other side of the sheet, Veer struck a flint. A soft, yellow glow bloomed, illuminating the fabric. The bedsheet was thin enough that the candlelight cast Veer's shadow onto it.
Aanya lay on her side, watching his silhouette. She saw the outline of his messy hair, the curve of his nose, the slump of his shoulders.
"Aanya?" his voice came through the fabric. It sounded softer, stripped of the harshness of the air.
"Yes?" Aanya replied. Her voice was steady. Without his eyes on her, she found she could speak without choking.
"How is the pain?" Veer asked.
Aanya touched her cheek. "It burns," she answered truthfully. "Like a wasp sting that won't go away. But... the dark helps."
"Good," Veer said.
There was a rustling sound near the floor. The bottom of the curtain lifted slightly.
"Water," Veer said.
Aanya reached down. Her fingers brushed against his rough, calloused hand as she took the tin cup. The contact sent a strange jolt through her, but they didn't see each other. Just fingertips in the dust.
She drank deep. The water was cool.
"You know," Veer's voice came again, laced with a hint of humor. "This divider... it really ties the room together. It looks like a fine imported tapestry from the dumpster district."
Aanya lowered the cup. A small, rusty sound escaped her throat. It was jagged and weak, but it was unmistakably a laugh.
"It is exquisite," she replied dryly.
She lay back on the straw pallet.
The curtain fluttered slightly in the draft coming from the door. It was a pathetic, stained rag held up by rotting rope.
But to Aanya, it was a fortress.
She realized then that to survive the slums, she didn't just need bread or apples. She needed the ability to hide. The curtain was her new mask—not one she wore on her face to deceive others, but one she lived inside to protect herself.
Behind the gray sheet, the monster could sleep. And maybe, just maybe, the girl could heal.