The fire started in the northern cluster of huts — the oldest, driest part of the village.
No one saw how it began.
Some whispered it was a cooking flame left unchecked. Others swore it was the anger of the gods for too much greed and too little giving.
But by the time the first screams rang through the twilight, it no longer mattered why.
The thatched roofs caught first. Flames leapt like wild dancers, devouring everything in their path — bamboo walls, old cot frames, the prayer flags that fluttered in doorways. Smoke rose thick and black, choking the air with panic.
Anaya heard the screams as she was returning from the well with two small children. She dropped her pot immediately and ran toward the chaos.
"Get water!" she yelled to the villagers. "Buckets! Pots! Anything!"
But there was no river nearby. No stream. The well water was deep and slow to draw. The flames moved faster than desperation could chase.
She didn't stop.
She threw a cloth over her face, ran into the smoke, and pulled an old woman from a collapsing hut. She pushed two children ahead of her and shielded a baby with her own shawl. Her skin blistered, but she kept going.
And then she heard the unmistakable sound of panic from the main square.
The fire was heading toward the granary palace.
Yuvan stood on the second floor balcony, watching the orange glow rise like a second sun. The wind had turned. Embers danced toward his storehouse like omens.
"Cover the grain!" his father roared. "Close all the doors! Keep the fire out!"
But Yuvan didn't move.
He stared at the horizon, where silhouettes of villagers stumbled through the smoke — their homes burning behind them.
He remembered Anaya's words.
"If I starve feeding others… then my hunger has purpose."
And then he ran.
When Anaya emerged from the smoke near the temple wall, coughing and covered in ash, she saw something she hadn't expected.
Yuvan.
Not in silk. Not giving orders. But carrying a burning plank away from a hut where two children screamed inside.
He tossed the timber aside and kicked open the door, pulling the kids out with his bare arms.
"This way!" he shouted, pointing them toward the safer side of the village.
Their eyes met across the chaos.
He looked different — wild, real, raw.
No gold. No guards. Just a man with soot on his face and fire in his chest.
"What are you doing here?" she asked as he stumbled toward her.
"What you've been doing all along," he said, gasping. "Trying."
Together, they began forming lines — shouting to villagers to pass buckets, soaking sheets, pulling out the trapped, organizing what the elders couldn't.
And in the skies above, the gods gathered again.
Parvati stood beside Shiva, both silent as the flames reflected in their eyes.
"Even fire cannot burn what the soul begins to remember," she said softly.
Narada twirled a note on his veena and floated closer.
"Well, well," he smirked. "The merchant's son has finally found something heavier than gold — responsibility."
Lakshmi, watching the burned village, whispered to Vishnu,
"He gives not out of wealth now… but out of will."
Vishnu smiled. "And that is the seed of prosperity."
Then, just as the last hut was doused and the smoke began to clear, the first raindrop fell.
Then another. Then dozens.
It wasn't a storm — just a soft, steady rain that began to cool the ash and wash the village in silence.
Anaya looked up, letting the drops run down her soot-covered face.
Beside her, Yuvan sat, breathing heavily, clothes torn, palms red from effort.
"You're bleeding," she said.
"So are you," he replied.
She gave a tired, small smile. "It suits you."
He didn't reply.
But he didn't look away either.
In fire, they stood apart.
In rain, they stood side by side.
And neither knew it yet —
but this was the moment the vow began to live between them.