Sankesh and Aisha arrived at the very end of the conversation.
“Well, Goonar,” the old man said, “You have good grandchildren. My grandchildren will be able to do business with them in the future.”
“Thank you, Daslar, for your kind words.” The chief, despite the apparent goodwill between them, still looked tense. Everyone knew that the Snow Giant Village was three times bigger and five times stronger than Brown Bear Village. “I will gladly go with you to the eastern provinces. Your terms are acceptable, and the loot will likely be plentiful.”
“There will be more of it than you’ve ever seen, honorable chief!” Roslar shouted. “We’ll acquire so much grain and so many prisoners that we’ll feast all through the winter!”
“May the Great Warriors help us,” Dokie added, supporting his brother.
“Let’s seal the deal!”
Everyone at the table rose, struck their goblets together so that the foam from their drinks fell into everyone else’s (an ancient custom that demonstrated that the drinks weren’t poisoned), and then drained them.
Roslar, wiping his lips with the sleeve of his shirt, stared at Aisha. She instinctively backed away, hiding behind Sankesh. That only made Roslar stare at her more lustfully. Goonar noticed.
“Do you like her?” He asked.
“Yes, venerable chief. You know my passion for bronze-skinned beauties.”
Goonar grunted and nodded. He threw a quick glance at Aisha and Sankesh.
“Well, if she has a baby, it’ll be a strong slave.”
“Thank you, venerable chief,” Roslar saluted him with a wide grin.
Sankesh felt like a giant had snatched the earth from under his feet. As if in a dream, he saw Roslar leap across the table and grab the screaming and writhing Aisha in the dim reflection of a broken mirror. Sankesh clenched his fist and swung, but before he could strike, Roslar’s knee hit him in the stomach. Sankesh lost consciousness.
***
Aisha came back a week later. Weakened, looking somehow diminished, she didn’t speak to anyone for another week. During the first day of her absence, the realization of where his beloved had been taken nearly drove Sankesh mad. Only now did he fully understand the helplessness Aisha’s mother had felt. He bit the knuckles on his hands until they bled, he prayed to the gods and demons alike, he even called for his father’s help. He banged his head against the wall, hoping to have the physical pain drown out the emotional one. However, all of it was in vain.
Roslar told the chief that ‘his slave was too spoiled’ and Sankesh was whipped. He was glad when it happened. He was so lost in the agony of the physical torture that he forgot the pain in his heart.
Several months passed. They both tried to forget the horror. Goonar let them live together. However, they didn’t sleep huddled together, as before, and instead, each of them slept on their own side of the ramshackle bed.
Aisha bathed often. Very often. She cried. Then she bathed again, scrubbing her skin until it bled, and she cried some more. Sankesh bit his knuckles whenever she did that. He wanted to hug her, but every time he tried to do so, he saw Roslar caressing her smooth skin, moving his hand lower and lower... It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair to Aisha. Sankesh knew that, but he couldn’t help it.
Two months later, at the end of winter, Sankesh gathered up his few possessions, which included a stolen kitchen knife, rolled them up into a makeshift bag, and slipped out into the yard. Cautiously, he dug a worn pair of snowshoes out of a snowdrift and headed for the woods. Even if he still didn’t understand how they worked, he could use them.
“Sankesh.”
He started at the sound of his name, which he hadn’t heard for so long that he’d begun to forget how it sounded outside of his own thoughts. Aisha stood behind him. Barefoot and dressed only in her nightgown, she was standing knee-deep in snow.
“Forgive me,” Sankesh whispered.
He turned around and walked away.
“I’m pregnant!” She exclaimed desperately, but he didn’t stop.
Once, long ago, they’d dreamed about having a baby girl together, and they’d agreed that they would call her Arliksha. Arla was Sankesh’s mother’s name, and Ikshan was Aisha’s mother’s name. Now, however, he couldn’t accept this baby as his own. He left the village and the silent, tearful Aisha behind.
***
Sankesh stopped keeping track of time. Every new morning, he set himself a goal — to survive until the evening, and in the evening, he would set a new goal — to live until the morning. He didn’t know the exact date, but winter had come last month.
Covered in scars and wounds, Sankesh kept trudging through the storm and darkness. He walked toward the Icy Shield, where the ancient cultivators and practitioners had lived once. Worshippers of the Sun.
In reality, he could no longer hope to get any revenge or find salvation, and so he was relying on a myth. He fought against wolves and bears, eating their raw flesh. He avoided the animals that had managed to form their cores and start walking their own, animalistic path of cultivation. His gaze hardened, becoming iron itself.
Rahaim would’ve been proud of him.
***
The following winter, after spending a year surviving alone where even true cultivators would’ve died, Sankesh reached the Icy Shield. The snowy wasteland was a kind of gateway to it. There were fragments of an ancient fortress wall in the middle of it.
Sankesh passed by them. In all that time, he never said a single word or turned back. Aisha’s image was disappearing from his memory, but he didn’t care. He had only one goal — to live until the sunset, and then, to see the dawn again.
***
Two years later, Sankesh, wandering through the mountains, fell into a crevice. He thought he was going to die that day. And he did. Sankesh died and Sunshine was born.
The crevice led into a mountain gorge where an ancient castle stood. Covered in ice and snow, it had lost its former greatness over the years. The only thing that reminded of its former glory was a hundred-foot statue of a warrior towering over the building. The man held a huge sword in his hands, the sight of which nearly killed Sankesh.
The statue seemed to contain a part of the Sword Spirit. It was barely there, but even after millions of years, it was still capable of taking the life of a weak practitioner.
It took Sankesh another six years to find a room in the ancient castle that contained records of the sun worshipper’s Techniques. Or rather, not records, but drawings on the walls. They showed a young warrior practicing different stances. A golden halberd glittered in his hands.
***
Sankesh, who had been seen as a lazy and incompetent practitioner all his life, suddenly felt a deep kinship with the Light Spirit. The secret room where a book with a meditation Technique was stored allowed him to make an improbable leap forward in his cultivation. In just a year, he, a mere practitioner at the Bodily Rivers level, was able to reach the level of a true cultivator. It was an achievement that would’ve been legendary in any era, but Sankesh didn’t care. He only wanted to follow this new path to a new life.
A short, weak practitioner entered the ancient castle, and then a giant Heaven Soldier came out. His muscles bulged like boulders. His veins stood out like steel ropes. His black hair fell to his waist. He was nearly seven feet tall. In his hands, he clutched a makeshift spear. Made of stick, rope, and a suitable stone, it was the only thing that hadn’t betrayed Sankesh over the years.