As the days went on, Suhra focused on watching and protecting the boy. She named him Ashai, after the first thought that came to her the day she found him—light from beyond, quiet and radiant.
She tried to teach him what she could about the land and how people used Myhn in everyday life, but he was too young to understand. Still, she spoke to him daily, weaving stories from memory, hoping her words would become a comfort.
A year passed, and to her growing disbelief, Ashai could walk and run with a fluid grace. He climbed trees with ease and balanced across stones as if gravity bent slightly around him. But even as his body grew stronger, he made no sound—not a word, not even a cry. His violet eyes studied everything, wide and alert, but his mouth remained closed.
Suhra often sat up after putting him to sleep, staring into the firelight.
"You're not like other children, are you?" she whispered into the embers. "And I don't know what that means."
She watched for signs—of illness, of confusion, of danger—but found none. He was bright, curious, and uncannily aware. It was as if he understood her long before he could speak.
And deep down, she began to suspect something unspoken. Something in the mark on his chest—tattooed like the petals of a star—unmoving, untouched since the day she found him.
She had seen weaver marks before, the ones that formed after years of mastery over Myhn. But this one… it had been there since birth.
"No one must see it," she told herself. "Not yet."
The next two years followed the same quiet rhythm. Suhra tended to him, and he would follow her voice, watch her weave the Myhn into warmth, light, and healing. He never tried to use it, but she often caught him feeling the air when she did—like he could see something she couldn't.
He didn't speak, but he listened.
Then, on the day he turned four, something changed.
A soft sound escaped his lips—a broken vowel, barely formed. Suhra spun around and froze.
"Ashai?" she said, hardly above a breath.
He blinked up at her and whispered, "Su…ra."
Her chest tightened. Not from fear—never fear—but awe. He had remembered her name, not just from her saying it, but as if it had always been his to know.
In the months that followed, his words began to take shape. Halting at first, then more clearly. Suhra taught him gently, guiding him through speech the way one teaches a melody to a child who already knows the rhythm.
He repeated her old phrases—"little star," "soft steps," "quiet wind"—like they were spells, sacred in their sound.
One evening, while they sat beneath a night sky veiled in starlight, Ashai looked up at her with those vivid violet eyes.
"Thank you," he said.
Suhra blinked. "For what, little one?"
"For finding me. For hiding me."
A long silence stretched between them. Suhra turned toward him slowly, searching his face.
"I remember," he said softly, "the sky. It… pulled. I fell. But your voice called me back."
She gently pulled him close, her voice barely holding steady. "You didn't fall. You were given. And I will keep you safe."
Ashai rested his head against her arm. "I feel it sometimes… the way the Myhn moves. It's loud."
Suhra's breath caught. Her thoughts turned to the mark again, hidden always beneath wrappings and scarves. A secret not even he fully understood.
"Then you must listen quietly," she whispered. "And speak of it to no one. Not yet. The world may not be ready for what you are."
Ashai looked up at her. "And if I'm not ready either?"
She smiled faintly, brushing his hair back. "Then we'll wait. Together."
And as the stars shimmered above them, Suhra held him close, wondering if fate had truly chosen her to guard something older than destiny itself.