Durkhanai inched forward, trying to get a closer look, but just as she did, she saw Palwasha-sahiba’s entire body tense.

The ambassador began to run.

“Why is she running?” Durkhanai hissed, as she and Asfandyar began to run after her. But Palwasha-sahiba was fast and already twenty paces ahead of them.

“Follow me!” Asfandyar said, grabbing her hand.

He cut through the trees, pulling her along with him, and for a moment she doubted him—then she saw: Palwasha-sahiba ran parallel to them on lower ground. Durkhanai quickened her pace, getting ahead of Asfandyar, branches snapping against her arms as she ran.

Until someone intercepted her path.

It was a group of men, and from the look and smell of them, they were drunk.

Durkhanai scrambled to pull her chaadar up to cover her hair and face. As she did, Asfandyar stepped in front of her, breathing heavily.

“Are you the little bandits hanging out medicine?” one of the men asked.

Caught up with Palwasha-sahiba, Durkhanai and Asfandyar had gotten sloppy—they hadn’t been watching their own backs.

“Not quite,” Asfandyar said. His hand slipped into his pocket, and before anybody could react, sand flew into the air. It briefly blinded the men, and a moment was all they had.

Asfandyar grabbed her hand, and they ran.

Their feet beat against the ground, and the sound of the men quickly followed. Asfandyar quickly veered left, pulling her out of the forest and into an alley with him.

“Go on,” he told her. “I’ll lead them another way.”

“No,” she protested, grabbing his arm. “We stay together.”

“Go,” he insisted. “We already lost Palwasha-sahiba. At least take the last vial to the child who needs it. I will meet you there when I’ve lost them.”

Durkhanai’s face scrunched with anger.

“No,” she said simply. “Don’t try and tell me what to do.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Durkhanai,” he said her name with extreme tenderness. “Please. The child needs his medicine.”

There was urgency in his voice—and no time to fight. Durkhanai pushed him away from her and ran before she could change her mind, thoughts spinning from Palwasha-sahiba to where she was to deliver the medicine.

The house was a few blocks away, home to a little boy named Mahd, who spent every free moment he had in drawing little pictures. He was the boy who had drawn her on top of the highest mountain peak, her crown made from the rays of the sun.

When she had seen him last, he was too sick even to play games with his brothers in the streets or to draw anything at all. He had been burning up with fever, his throat and nose clogged with mucus. He’d barely been able to talk. Durkhanai had especially saved medicine for him.

She ran toward Mahd’s home, not stopping to look back for even a moment, just pushing forward.