7. The weight of unseen battles

Harsh sat on the worn steps of a small temple courtyard, staring at the cracks in the stone. His mind was a battlefield—questions and doubts clashing like swords in the fog of war.

The noblewoman, whoever she was, had made it clear—she was watching him.

And in this world, the interest of powerful people was never without consequence.

He exhaled slowly, pressing his palms against his knees. He had spent years in libraries, absorbing knowledge about the past, but nothing had prepared him for living inside it. It was one thing to read about injustice, another to feel its weight in the air, in the way people bowed too easily, spoke too softly, dared not look up.

He clenched his jaw.

He wanted to change something. But where did he even begin?

A shadow shifted in the doorway. Harsh tensed, but the figure was no noble—just an old priest, his frail form wrapped in saffron robes, moving with the slow deliberation of a man whose body no longer obeyed him easily.

The priest glanced at him. "You sit like a man carrying a heavy burden."

Harsh managed a small, tired smile. "I have much to think about."

The old man hummed in understanding. "Thinking is good. But too much thought and no action is as useless as a sword never drawn."

Harsh swallowed. Action.

That was the real problem, wasn't it?

Because no matter what his modern mind told him, this world would not welcome the ideas he had brought with him.

Later, as he walked through the village outskirts, he watched a group of children play near a small well. Their laughter rang in the air, pure and free.

But just beyond them, their mothers worked in quiet submission—stirring pots over open fires, carrying heavy water jugs, their faces devoid of the light their children still held.

Their daughters would one day mirror them. Their sons would grow into men who believed this was how things had always been—and should always be.

No one taught them these things.

They absorbed them.

He spotted an older man—a potter—guiding his young apprentice. The boy, no older than ten, worked the clay with careful hands, mirroring the older man's movements.

"This is the way," the potter murmured, smoothing the clay with practiced ease. "As it was in my father's time, and his father's before him."

The boy nodded, his face set in quiet concentration. He did not question. He did not ask if he could become something else.

Harsh looked away, an uncomfortable tightness in his chest.

They were not forced into these roles.

They believed in them.

This was not slavery in chains. This was slavery of the mind.

And a mind that did not recognize its chains would never seek to break them.

Night had fallen by the time Harsh returned to the small hut he had been given in the village. He pushed open the wooden door, the creak cutting through the silence.

Then he froze.

Someone was inside.

He barely had time to react before a blade pressed against his throat.

A soft chuckle. Feminine. Familiar.

"You are far too easy to find, traveler."

His heart slammed against his ribs. "You again."

The pressure of the knife eased, and she stepped back into the faint glow of the oil lamp.

The noblewoman.

She looked the same as before—composed, unreadable—but there was something different tonight. Her gaze was sharper, her posture less relaxed.

She was not here to simply test him anymore.

He forced himself to stay calm. "If you wanted me dead, I assume I wouldn't still be breathing."

Her lips curved slightly. "Smart."

She turned, casually dragging the tip of the blade along the wooden table before setting it down.

Harsh swallowed. "What do you want?"

She studied him for a long moment, then finally spoke. "I have been watching you."

He already knew that. But he stayed silent, letting her continue.

"You ask dangerous questions. You look at the world differently. That makes you either a fool…" She leaned in slightly, her voice lowering. "Or a man with a plan."

Harsh's pulse quickened.

"I am no threat to you," he said carefully.

She smiled, but there was no warmth in it. "That is where you are wrong."

A heavy silence stretched between them.

Then, unexpectedly, she turned away.

"I need to know what kind of man you are, traveler," she said, moving toward the door. "If you are a fool, you will die soon enough."

She glanced back over her shoulder, her eyes dark with something unreadable.

"But if you are not…"

The door creaked as she stepped into the night.

"I may have use for you."

And then she was gone.

Leaving Harsh standing alone, heart pounding.

He had stepped into something far larger than himself.

And he had no idea where it would lead.