At first, Anesh stood with his hands resting on the railing, watching where the lowest lights of Yantra faded into the distance and the coast became just a dark band.
“The cave wasn’t far from home,” he said at last. “Or maybe it was far from everything else and only close because I knew it.”
Zena didn’t interrupt him.
“As a child, I sometimes went there with my father. Not often. We would descend from Altaluna. He used to say that a place where sound changes shouldn’t be worn out. That’s what he called it: the place where sound changes. I don’t know if it had a real name. Maybe it did, but that’s the only one I ever remembered.”
He spoke softly, not out of fear of being overheard, but because the cave, once evoked, seemed to require a different measure of voice. Below them, Yantra kept moving, with its elevators, bridges, and lights that never stayed still; the terrace, leaning against the side of Mount Uruk, now seemed to belong to a different rhythm. Even Zena, who until a moment before had seemed always on the verge of getting up, now didn’t move.
“When the war reached Altaluna, it didn’t come all at once. That’s why, at first, it seemed possible to understand it. First came news, then maps, then closed roads, then people who no longer passed through the same places. The Southern League and the Northern Alliance were words adults pronounced as if they pointed to two different skies. Then they entered homes, warehouses, markets, even families. Altaluna no longer knew which way to look. Or maybe it knew too well, but in opposite directions.”
Zena lowered her eyes. Kemet’s face, which had appeared on the city’s screens a little earlier, passed between them without being named.
“I didn’t understand everything,” Anesh continued. “I don’t think I wanted to understand everything. I only knew that people began to mean different things when they said the same names. Neighbors who had shared water and work stopped sitting at the same table. Some left. Some came back changed. Some didn’t come back. Then one day there wasn’t much left to interpret.”
He stopped.
“I was left without a home,” he said. “And without a family.”
He didn’t add anything else. Zena didn’t ask him for names, dates, or circumstances; that part of the story was still too close to the wound to be crossed.
“At first I hid wherever I could. Barns, collapsed walls, empty rooms, a dry cistern. Then I went back to the cave. Not because I had decided anything. I ended up there one evening almost without realizing it, with scratched hands and a throat full of dust. I had brought a few things with me, badly: some food that ran out quickly, a blanket, a knife, a rope. My father’s guitar. I don’t even know how I managed to bring that.”
“And you stayed there?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know exactly. In the cave, time didn’t pass like outside. At first I slept a lot, then very little. I went out when I had to, got water, looked for wood, avoided the paths. There were days when I didn’t see anyone. Others when I heard vehicles passing far away and stayed still until the noise faded. I was afraid, but not always. Fear, after a while, becomes a way to measure things. It tells you how far you can go, how long you have to wait before lighting a fire, how much noise a foot makes on a dry stone.”
Zena listened with her hands clasped between her knees. The guitar case cast a long shadow beside her.
“Did you play?”
Anesh let a little time pass before answering.
“Yes. Softly. Not always. There were days when I couldn’t even look at it. Others when I kept it on my lap without playing, just to remember its weight. When I ran my fingers over the spots where my father had left some imperfections in the wood, it felt like I was still touching his way of thinking. I don’t know if that makes sense.”
Zena looked at her own case, then at him again. “Yes.”
Anesh didn’t ask her how.
“I drew too, with charcoal. At first just marks to remember the days, the water level, the direction of noises. Then maps. Then maps that were no longer useful for finding places. There were lines of the sky, cracks in the rock, positions of the moon, paths I hadn’t taken. Sometimes the cave seemed bigger inside than outside. Not because it really was. Each wall had started to contain a piece of time.”
“And you left the guitar there?”
It wasn’t an accusation, but Anesh still felt a pressure in her words. Maybe because he had already asked himself that question many times.
“Yes.”
“Hidden?”
“In a side cavity, where water doesn’t reach. I wrapped it in the best blanket I had. Then I closed the entrance with light stones, not too many, just enough so it wouldn’t be seen right away. I left a mark on the wall, but small.”
“To come back?”
Anesh didn’t answer immediately.
“Maybe. Or so it wouldn’t see me leaving.”
Zena tilted her head slightly. “Her?”
“The guitar. My father. I don’t know.”
The wind moved the metal mesh of the terrace. For a moment, the sound resembled badly plucked strings. Anesh heard it and lowered his eyes.
“I couldn’t take it. Not really. Not on that journey. I didn’t even know if I’d make it to the next day. And then…” He searched for words, but they all seemed too orderly. “If I had brought it, I would have had to still be the boy he gave it to. I wasn’t sure I was anymore.”
Zena kept her gaze on his hands.
“One night I saw the light above Kangen,” Anesh resumed. “I was near the cave entrance. I don’t remember why I was awake. Maybe because of the wind. Maybe because sleeping had become difficult at that time.”
Zena looked up. “The night of the meteors?”
Anesh nodded.
“Here in Yantra some saw the sky light up too, but from here it was just a distant glow.”
“I was closer.”
“What did you see?”
“Not the crater. I wasn’t there and I didn’t go.”
The clarification came out sharper than the others, as if he needed to correct a story that someone, sooner or later, would tell wrong.
“The sky opened with light. Not like lightning. It wasn’t a single thing, but it wasn’t many separate things either. It seemed to split as it fell, too quickly for the eyes to follow. Some trails were bigger, others thinner. For an instant, the mountain in front of the cave had shadows in different directions.”
Zena listened motionless.
“Then the noise came. Much later than I expected. First I saw the light, then I felt the body of the earth notice it.”
“The body of the earth,” Zena repeated.
“Yes.”
She didn’t correct him.
“After that there was silence. Not immediately. First dogs and birds crying out, stones falling, maybe distant voices. Then, at a certain point, everything seemed to stop. Me too. I stayed at the cave entrance until the sky turned dark again. I don’t know how long. Maybe a little. Maybe almost the whole night.”
“You didn’t go to see?”
“No.”
“Out of fear?”
Anesh looked at the sea. “Maybe. But I also felt that wasn’t where I was supposed to go.”
Zena didn’t ask him where that feeling came from.
“Then Ku arrived.”
She lowered her gaze to the small wicker container.
“Is that what it’s called?”
Anesh nodded.
“What is it?”
He placed a hand on the basket. “A butterfly.”
Zena looked at him first, then at the container.
“There’s a butterfly inside?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t laugh. She just waited.
“I found her near the fire. Or maybe she found the fire. The morning after the light, or maybe the next. I don’t remember. It was very cold in the cave. I had lit a small flame, more smoke than heat. At some point I saw something move where the stone became lighter. I thought it was a leaf blown in by the wind. Then it moved again.”
“Was it hurt?”
“No. The thing is, it was cold, there were no flowers, nothing for her. Yet she was there. She came closer to the fire, but not too close. She stayed on a stone, with her wings closed. I didn’t touch her. I thought she would die.”
“And instead?”
“Instead, the next day she was still there.”
Anesh felt the basket move slightly under his hand. This time Zena saw it. She said nothing, but didn’t look away.
“At first I didn’t call her Ku. I didn’t call her anything. I didn’t want to give her a name. Giving something a name means admitting it’s no longer just passing through. But she stayed anyway. If I went out, I found her closer to the entrance. If I sat by the fire, after a while she was on a stone not far away. She didn’t look for food from me, didn’t ask for anything. Sometimes she disappeared for hours and I thought she wouldn’t come back. Then I’d see her where I didn’t expect, motionless, as if she’d always been there.”
“And then you put her in the basket?”
“No. The basket came much later. First we lived in the cave together.”
Zena lowered her eyes for a moment. Anesh realized how strange that word might sound, but he didn’t take it back.
“I don’t know when I really started to feel her presence. It wasn’t like talking and it wasn’t even understanding. It was closer to when, in a room, someone stops moving and you still feel they’re there. The cave changed. Not because she did anything. Her presence kept certain things from closing completely.”
“What things?”
Anesh searched for an answer.
“Me.”
Zena looked at the sea.
Below the terrace, a cargo line moved along an external rail, carrying three hooked containers upward. Their red lights passed one after another against the rocky wall and disappeared behind a tower. When the noise faded, the terrace’s silence seemed vaster.
“For a while we stayed like that. I went out when I had to, came back, lit the fire, drew, repaired things that weren’t needed, played softly. She stayed in the warm spots on the stone, near the entrance or where the light reached for a short time. There was no journey. There was no direction. It was just a way not to disappear.”
“And then?”
Anesh looked at the basket.
“Then she started looking outside.”
“At first I thought she wanted to leave. I left the entrance open more often. She went out, sometimes, but didn’t fly away. She would settle on a stone in front of the cave and stay facing the horizon. Not toward the woods, not toward the water or the paths. Toward far away. She could stay like that for a very long time. Too long, for something so fragile.”
“Always in the same direction?”
“Not always. Or maybe yes, but I didn’t know how to read her. At first she just seemed restless. Then I started to notice that, when she came back in, the cave felt smaller to me.”
The sentence came out with difficulty, but once said, it felt exact.
“Smaller?”
“Not less safe. Just smaller. As if the place that had saved me was becoming the thing that held me back.”
Zena leaned forward slightly and waited.
“I resisted for days. Maybe weeks. I told her there was nothing outside, that I didn’t know where to go, that I had no one left. That the war hadn’t ended just because we were silent. She kept staying at the entrance. Sometimes, when I came back with water, I found her already facing the horizon, as if she was waiting for me there instead of inside.”
“And in the end you followed her.”
“Yes.”
Anesh didn’t add anything else. He remembered the extinguished fire, the drawn walls, the guitar hidden in the cavity, and Ku perched near the entrance. On the morning of departure, he had waited for her to enter the basket on her own. She had flown in a circle above the cave entrance, then settled on the edge of the basket. Anesh had opened the little door woven into the side and waited. Only after a moment did Ku enter the tiny shelter on her own.
“And the Nerek?” Zena asked.
“I met it further down, along a service road. It came rattling noisily, slowing down to take a tight curve carved into the mountainside. It didn’t stop. When it passed by me, I saw the side platform was empty. Ku stirred in the basket, so I ran a few steps alongside the vehicle, then grabbed the edge and jumped on. I didn’t know where it was going.”
Zena lowered her gaze to the basket.
The wind picked up for a few seconds, pressing against the terrace’s metal mesh. Anesh felt the wicker vibrate under his hand. It wasn’t Ku moving, not yet. It was the air trying to get between the fibers.
“So you got here by following a butterfly,” Zena said.
Anesh waited for an ironic tone, but it didn’t come.
“Yes.”
“And you left in the cave the only thing your father had made for you.”
“Yes.”
“To go where?”
Anesh looked at the distant sea. He had answered “I don’t know” so many times that day that the words were starting to feel like a defense.
“I didn’t know.”
Zena followed his gaze. “And now?”
The basket remained still between Anesh’s hand and the wind.
“Now I think it wasn’t Yantra.”
Zena stood up slowly, picked up the guitar case, and moved closer to the railing.
“Do you want to see if she’s still looking?”
Anesh immediately understood what she meant. The basket under his hand seemed to become more fragile, almost too small for what it contained.
“It’s windy here.”
“I know.”
“She’s a butterfly.”
Zena looked at the dark line of the sea. “Exactly.”
She didn’t add anything else. She didn’t turn that moment into a test and didn’t reach for the device on her wrist. She stayed beside him, hands resting on the railing, and waited.
Anesh looked at the sea, then at the small wicker container.
Ku didn’t move.
Or maybe she was already listening.