When the sun had not yet risen in the desert, Amir woke Xin and handed him a weapon.

"What is this?" he asked in disorientation, not quite sure how to hold the cold metal object.

"You don't want it?" Amir said, much more serious than the night before.

When Xin shook his head, the man retrieved the gun and began to handle it like an expert, briefly explaining the simple mechanics behind the act of firing.

"Are you sure? It's not complicated, you just have to make sure you take the safety off before you shoot, and that's it," he demonstrated how to do it. "Just aim as best you can, and then you shoot."

"No, thank you. I'm fine..."

Amir looked at him blankly.

"As you wish," he sighed, "now get ready, we leave in ten minutes."

And so it was. Ten minutes later, Ava dismissed them with a distant wave of her hands as the two joined the road equipped with everything they would need for the journey. Xin rode alongside Amir, accompanied by another group of men in the back of a rickety Jeep. Three vehicles formed a hurried caravan into the heart of the Kavir desert --- the great salt lands.

Silence was contemplated for most of the journey. All Xin could think of were the prying eyes of the armed men, who all watched him curiously. Everyone was heavily armed with pistols, grenades and rifles, on which they rested their heads lazily, evidently used to the uncomfortable feel of the weapon against their skin. Some of them made comments in Farsi from time to time, which made Xin rather nervous.

"It's not what you're thinking," Amir interjected, passing him a canteen of water.

The heat had become more intense in the last few minutes.

"I'm not thinking anything," Xin lied, receiving the canteen.

"Yes, you are. I can see it in your eyes," his bodyguard replied, gesturing with his hands over his temple. "I can see the gears in your little head working and overheating from the sun. And that's why I'm telling you it's not what you're thinking..."

"Okay, so I'm not crossing the desert in a caravan full of criminals."

At first, Amir didn't answer; he merely smiled bitterly. For almost a minute there was a tense silence in the air. Xin watched the desert dust rise behind them and form a trail behind the caravan. Amir kept his eyes on Xin watching that, but after a sigh, he averted his gaze.

"I don't know what it's like where you live, but...," Amir resumed without looking at Xin. "Here, to be born with hopeful eyes is a sin, or a crime punishable by death..."

A bitter laugh left his chest and, once again, he rested his brown eyes on Xin.

"Shit, everything here is paid with your death..."

Xin turned around.

"Hopeful eyes?"

"It's like we tell magic. Parents know if their children will have the gift because when they're born, the iris in the baby's pupils takes on a bright, strange colour, alien to any known natural one. In the past it used to be a sign of fortune and fulfilled dreams, or at least it was so for our ancestors. Today it's a sign of terror, of uncertain futures, of a life in the shadows. But, even so, we have never stopped calling it hopeful eyes...".

As he said it, Amir's brown eyes had turned dangerous and sad. Xin felt terrible.

"Amir, I don't..."

"The truth is, these men cannot stop seeing you because you're curious," Amir continued, interrupting him. "You're someone who's willingly running in the direction of a place we all dream of escaping from, and you do it even though you're not from here, where most of us were born, because --- well, that's something we all can tell just by looking you in the eyes, Xin. Do you understand? That's why they talk about you. You're weird."

Xin didn't know whether to smile, sadden, or be annoyed.

"It was a compliment, by the way," Amir added as he saw the confusion on Xin's face. "And as for being a criminal, well... Maybe you're right, and we do, we are all criminals, but that doesn't take away the fact that we're just doing what we have to do to survive. Or can you blame us for trying to get some happiness in our lives? Besides, work comes with its rewards, that I can tell you..."

Once again, Amir smiled mischievously. But despite the casual gesture, those words struck a chord with Xin, who couldn't help but see himself mirroring his bodyguard in a way. Both were struggling to live their lives freely, trapped by something or someone that always kept a blade against one's own neck; both longing to escape just by being different from others, but not knowing how, and in the end, it was he, Xin, who was finally getting a bit of everything he had always wanted.

«Fresh air...»

The views of the Dasht Khwar, as Amir called the desert at some point of the trip, were very beautiful, but when noon began to fall upon them, the heat became so stifling and steamy that Xin couldn't help but fall asleep, no matter how hard he fought his closing eyes. Arash, once again, was calling out to him, inviting him to a place much colder and strange, yet just as barren and beautiful as the desert was...

「 心 」

Arash walked barefoot in the cold snow. The icy wind hurt his face and eyes, undeterred. As he climbed the northern slope of the Damavand, dying, and resilient, he carried with him nothing but his bow and a strange arrow with a shaft as black as obsidian; at the tip, the edge of its bronze was twisted like a trident, and at the other end, it was adorned with a feather as blue as the sky, which Arash seemed to draw closer and closer to.

The eyes of the archer and hunter glowed orange and full of life, even though the hand with which he clutched the arrow, as well as the side of his abdomen, kept dripping blood, staining the white snow with the colour of the cherries that still remained on the branches of the frozen trees. Behind him was a trail of red dots like newborn stars of fire, like elements of a saving constellation drawn with footsteps.

"Today," Arash declared once he stopped at the top of the mountain, "the voice of my people will be heard!"

The hunter felt that, if he raised his hands, he would probably touch the clouds and the sky.

"O blessed be the hands of the Beginning and End that moulded and shaped my body," he proclaimed as he painfully adjusted his body and prepared to shoot: "Blessed be the breath of my mother who gave me life and nourished me with her body, and the life-filled eyes of the only woman I loved, and with whom I produced life; blessed be the blood of my people, unjustly shed during the war and deprived of their freedom." Arash drew the bowstring using the strength of all his muscles, as his orange eyes blurred every detail of the world in front of him. "And blessed be the arrow that I hold between my fingers, as an effigy of the sacrifice, desire and willpower, of everyone who saw it born, and everyone else who will see it reach the firmament. Now... Fly...! XIN!"

And when the sun's rays touched the sky and painted it red, Arash let the arrow go:

"Fly, may nothing stop you," he declaimed as loud as he could, fleshing out his voice in the moisture of his low throat, full of magic, momentum, and frenzy.

In his final moments, Arash the Archer thought of Shirin, and helplessly dreamed of seeing her again someday. He gave thanks for having known her in this life, as he watched his arrow grow farther and farther away. His fingers could still feel the nock and the soft quill brush against him, as if it were all an inseparable part of him; and the vibration in his hands, driven by the magical force of the spell, also shook him. The tug pulled him as if it wanted him to be able to fly too, together, over all Persia and its every horizon.

The hero's eyes burned. At the top of the mountain, the dying body of Arash collapsed to his knees beneath the clouds, with only a few metres separating them from the blue sky. The damp ground covered his doomed skin, wrapped once more in Sandaramet's earthbound cry, and became one with it. His body disappeared and joined the heartbeating snow of the mountain, as his spirit had already left, and like a trail of fire, it would follow his arrow for as long as necessary. Father and son, creator and creation, archer and arrow, they both would go together throughout the sky, so both would finally end the war, and bring peace to the people who so longed for it.

「 心 」

"Comfortable?"

Amir's voice was the first thing Xin heard. It sounded deep and very close to him. When he finished opening his eyes, he realised that his head was resting on Amir's legs, and he sat up with a start.

"You still got drool all over my trousers," he teased.

"Where are we?" asked Xin to divert the topic of conversation, poking his head out of the Jeep.

"At the salt oasis."

The place was dark. Night had already fallen upon them. The ground looked broken and fragile, like glass on which a herd of elephants had walked and whose only source of water was a huge, dark, almost dry mud pit. The place seemed to be dying of sorts.

"I had another image of the oasis," commented Xin, somewhat chagrined.

"That doesn't matter," Amir said, jumping down from the Jeep. "While you were sleeping, the guys packed us some backpacks with supplies for the road."

"They're not coming with us?" asked Xin, suddenly feeling unsure.

"No. They have to continue on their route to cross the desert and meet our leader, Hassan, at the Afghan border. Typical day-to-day struggle. I hope you understand..."

"I guess I do."

"Good, are you ready, then? We have a little more walking to do before we get to the crevasse."

"Crevasse?"

"Oh sweet, the magical entry..."

Xin nodded affirmatively.

With all their gear packed, Amir and Xin said goodbye to the guerrillas men and began their trek into the salty area. With each step they took, the brittle ground beneath their feet shattered. Xin could still feel the heat emanating from the ground in the form of steam, even though the night's cloak did not let them see beyond the beam of light from Amir's lantern. The earth had become a prison for the hellish climate, and as they walked, the smell of salt stung their eyes and burned their noses.

"Don't stray too far from me," Amir warned as he shone his torch on an Asiatic cheetah following close behind. "I think someone might want to confuse us with their dinner."

Xin walked closer to Amir, so much that he could feel the man's strong, salty scent coming off his body, as well as his warmth.

"How will we know when we're near the blissful rift?"

"Easy," Amir admitted. "With magic."

Amir's eyes went from deep brown to shining silver in an instant, as he smiled confidently at him.

"We're close now," he added, pointing one of his fingers at the nothingness in front of them. "There, can you feel it?"

"Here? I don't know," Xin admitted, trying to pay attention. "I'm not sure."

After a dozen more steps, Amir stopped as if he could see something hovering in the air.

"Here, look," he said, taking Xin's hand to make him touch something invisible in the middle of the desert.

Xin felt a rush go through his body, and instantly, his eyes widened in surprise.

"Did you feel it?" asked Amir.

"Yes, it was like... electricity," gasped Xin as he watched his hand disappear, swallowed by the air in front of him. "Unbelievable!"

Amir let out a carefree chuckle before clinging to Xin's hand completely and breaking through the invisible screen, dragging Xin with him. At the slow and distant presence of the cheetah, who didn't seem too surprised to see them disappear, both Xin and Amir felt a strong warmth and a strange current invade their bodies, along with a subtle dizziness that blurred their vision, as they finished crossing the portal.

"It can't be...!"

"Welcome to the Airyanem Vaejah," Amir said with satisfaction to answer Xin's admiration.

He could now see that the sky was completely clear and that there was no moon, but the moon didn't need to be out there. The number of stars in the sky was so many that they illuminated the Earth without great difficulty. It was the first time Xin had ever been out of breath in his life. He was quick to turn off the torch on his phone.

Beneath his feet he noticed that, where once there had been brittle, parched soil, there was now green grass stretching out in every possible direction. A forest of palm trees stretched out in the surrounding countryside, disappearing from view, deep into something Xin would never have thought of as a desert. The place was full of life. A few metres away were the shores of a huge lake, where a pair of rare donkeys were leisurely drinking water.

They were splendid creatures full of an overwhelming vibrancy that even Xin, without any practice or training, could feel. Both had beautiful reddish fur covering their entire bodies, and while one of them had a small wrinkled horn protruding from between its ears, the other, larger, almost as stout and tall as a rhinoceros, had on its head a kind of crown made of bones, pearls and gold, which gave the creature an almost divine air.

When the animal laid its eyes upon them, noticing them for the first time, Xin could see that the creature's eyes had a beautiful bright orange colour, like Arash's in his dreams. Xin couldn't help but think how curious it was that everything magical in the world could paint eyes in extravagant, vivid colours.

Very respectfully, Amir bowed to the creature. Xin mimicked him as best he could. The beast looked at them intently, almost warily, like a queen in a court awaiting the loyalty of her subjects, and a moment later, the beast returned the gesture and then lost itself and its breed amidst the palm trees.

"I never thought such a world could exist," Xin commented in wonder.

Amir walked over to the lake to refill his canteen. His eyes were still shining grey like the full moon.

"Yes, it is beautiful, but since the white worms appeared, it is in danger."

"What?" Xin asked confused and disgruntled. "What do you mean?"

"Long answer, and I really don't go in troubled waters."

Amir pulled out the map Ava had handed them.

"Anyway, we've got several days of walking ahead of us, so we'd better get going."

"It's just that I'm having a hard time coming up with a logical explanation," Xin insisted after a few minutes. "About those you call White Worms."

Amir sighed in annoyance, and rushed to answer:

"Look kid, a lot of times people don't need an excuse to be bad, aight? They're just bad. It's in their nature."

"No... that's too simplistic. I don't think so," Xin mused. "There always has to be a reason why someone decides to do something bad..."

"Oh, yeah?" replied Amir wryly. "Let's see, do you happen to know the first one with a justification for his horrible actions?"

He tried to answer, but suddenly, Xin fell silent. The memory of his father washed over him, trying to find a place for him in the conversation for some reason. But Xin didn't know how to place his mere memory in his argument, under the shelter and meaning of his words, and for another instant his chest ached, helpless and frustrated.

Amir interpreted the silence as a point in his favour.

"We all have our own sons of bitches, Xin. Remember, no mercy for them..."

Xin answered nothing. Minutes passed. The walk under the stars continued at ease. Finally, after a while, Xin spoke again.

"Going like this, how long will it take us to reach the Amu Darya?"

"Two weeks, a week and a half," Amir replied. "Who knows, maybe only one if we get transport and stop only to eat and sleep in the villages..."