Heartbeating snow

Chapter 9

At dawn, they all departed. As he sped across the sky, Xin couldn't stop thinking about how much his life had changed since the journey to Iran had begun, but when a sudden wind blew through his bones, his mind spat out an overwhelming truth. The truth was that everything had already changed long before....

«Everything's changed since Dad's death...» he thought and hid behind Arash's back.

"The world is a cruel enough place without us making it easier for him, Xin."

Arash's voice rang out loud and deep, even above the roar of the wind. The three of them were mounted on the back of a huge, beastly, orange-eyed eagle that heeded the archer's orders. They were on their way to Hashtrud, but not before flying over the Damavand for the sheer pleasure of memories, from where, more than two and a half thousand years ago, Arash shot the arrow that brought peace back to his people.

"I confess I never thought I would make the same journey in the opposite direction again," Arash said, smiling. "Remember that once you and I were one..."

"Were you afraid?" asked Xin without missing a beat of what Arash was telling him.

The archer, sensing the direction of his words, stepped forward to ask:

"Of course, young Xin, why do you ask, is that what you are feeling?"

"It's just that," Xin said suddenly as tears welled up in his eyes. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I don't think I'm the best person to help you, sir. I don't want to fail you, and I'm not the arrow you made me. I don't — I don't know what I'm supposed to do or what I'm doing here — I should..."

"You should breathe," the archer interjected gently. "Breathe calmly, not like you're running away from life. Come on, breathe. Take advantage of the fresh air Altair allows us to feel..."

Xin obeyed and took a deep breath of the cool mountain air.

"That's it, very good," Arash encouraged him. "Of course you're not just an arrow, Xin, and the truth is, you stopped being one a long time ago. You don't have to follow any direction but your own..."

"Wh-what does that mean?"

Arash smiled warmly at him.

"I've seen you from afar, and just as you've seen my memories, I've seen yours," he murmured. "Ever since you shot out of my fingers, you haven't stopped for a second, and with each life you lived, the further you drifted away, until one day, I could no longer keep track of you. I'm sorry if because of the distance, we got lost. Do you forgive me?"

Xin could only nod as he received a fatherly smile from Arash's lips.

"You've never been just a tool, and I'm not asking you to be one now, Xin. I'm just asking you to be with me as I conclude this last chapter of my life, and we both, as we once did, put an end to so much suffering once and for all. Perhaps you will gain momentum again, or perhaps this will be no more than a strange memory for you. Either way, I want you to trust me one last time. Do you think you could do that?"

"I think so," Xin nodded. "I'd like that..."

That was enough for the old man, who released a hand from the eagle's feathers to stroke Xin's hair. They could both notice how the sun travelled almost side by side with them in its race to leave the sky. In little more than a couple of hours, the sun would set and darkness would swallow them up, a portent that the end of the adventure was near.

And though Arash's words had calmed him somewhat, now that he could only listen to the deafening wind, his mind had been isolated to a new wave of bitter memories starring his father: «If you fail, you are destroying me, your mother, and all of our ancestors with your mistake...»