Chapter 24 — The Last Seed Keeper

The tenth night on Dong Tro, the wind died down completely, and the cloudless sky revealed a sea of stars denser than anything Khe Mien had ever seen through the filter of Mai Loc.

The group set up camp earlier than usual, taking advantage of a flat area protected by a row of low rocks, and after a simple dinner, Kien and Diem Quynh fell asleep almost immediately, exhausted after a long day of walking in the intense heat. Ngan The Binh took over the head guard, sitting far enough away to keep an eye on but close enough to intervene if necessary, and it seemed that, according to some unspoken understanding, he chose to sit with his back to the small fire where Khe Mien and Bach Lam were still awake.

"The star at the Green Dome isn't like this," Khe Mien said, tilting her head up to look up at the sky, her voice carrying a wonder that hadn't left her since the first night they slept outside. "We have a system that simulates the night sky projected onto the upper part of the Filter Roof, but it's never this dense. I used to think it was because of limited technology. Now I think maybe they simply can't reproduce this."

“In many places I have been, the sky is the only thing that remains constant,” Bach Lam said, his voice deeper and slower than usual, as if this quiet night had loosened some of the vigilance he had maintained all day. "The arch falls, the people change, the land dies and may or may not be resurrected. But these stars, they were there before the Great Cataclysm, and will be there long after we are no more."

Khe Mien was silent for a moment, feeling that this could be the moment he promised from the night near the ruins, when he said he would tell her but not that night. She didn't ask, just waited, learning from him that sometimes silence is the best way to invite a confession.

"Five people," Bach Lam said finally, his eyes still looking up at the sky, not turning to her. "That was the size of the group I led five years ago, the same number of people as our group now. Maybe that's why these past few days, I kept thinking about them."

He stopped, took a deep breath, and Khe Mien waited, not saying anything, just moving a little closer to let him know she was really listening.

"The leader of the group is not me," he continued. "It was my teacher — a man named Qin Dinh Vu, who found me when I was a child wandering out in Dong Tro after the Dome where I was born collapsed from a plague in the water system, not too different from what your Green Dome almost faced. He taught me everything I know about surviving out here — how to read the wind, how to find water, how to judge whether a structure is safe or not. I was his student for twelve years, and on that trip, for the first time he assigned me the official role of deputy group leader, no longer an apprentice."

"What happened?" Khe Mien asked softly, her voice careful as if she was touching something very fragile.

“We escorted a group of traders from a small Arch to source metal in the eastern ruins — the area I warned you not to go through, when we first discussed the route,” he said, his voice starting to strain, though he tried to keep it steady. "My teacher knew the area was unstable. But the group of traders applied pressure, saying they needed to get there before another competing group found the source of the metal first. My teacher, despite knowing the danger, eventually gave in — not because of the money, but because he believed in his own ability to get everyone across safely, as he had done hundreds of times before."

“We entered the ruins one afternoon, intending to stay only a few hours to collect samples, then return just before dark,” he continued, his voice now lowered to a whisper. "But a small earthquake — not uncommon in areas devastated by the Great Cataclysm, where the ground still hasn't fully stabilized after decades — caused an entire large structure to collapse right as we were in the middle of it."

Khe Mien felt her breath stop, waiting for the next part even though she had already partly guessed the outcome.

“I was at the back of the group when it happened,” Bach Lam said, his voice now carrying a pain he was no longer trying to hide. "I got out, along with one of the merchants. The remaining four, including my teacher, were buried under the rubble. I tried to dig, tried to find a way in, for nearly six hours, until it got dark and the remaining survivor pulled me out, saying that if I continued, I would die with them without being able to save anyone."

"I didn't listen to him right away," he continued, his voice choking for a moment. "I went back to digging some more, alone, until my hands were bleeding from the broken concrete. But nothing had changed. By the next morning, when the light was enough to see clearly, I knew for sure there were no survivors down there."

The two sat in silence for a long time, only the sound of the fire crackling and the steady breathing of Kien and Diem Quynh sleeping behind them. Khe Mien placed her hand on Bach Lam's hand, saying nothing, just letting her presence be the answer.

“After that I spent a year without leading any groups,” he said finally, his voice calmer but still carrying the cracks of pain that had never truly healed. "I worked sporadic jobs, staying away from any responsibility that came with leading the way for others. It was Ngan The Binh who convinced me to come back — he told me that if I had let fear make me quit, my teacher would have died for something meaningless, instead of for the work he devoted his life to."

"From there, I made my own rules," he said, turning to look at her for the first time since the conversation began. "Never go through unstable areas to save time. Never give in to pressure from customers when it comes to safety. Never let anyone in my group feel like they are alone in the face of danger, as my teacher was alone in those final hours."

"That's why I always check everything twice," Khe Mien said softly, the disparate pieces of her personality now connecting into a complete picture. "That's why I chose the safer route even though it was slower."

"That's right," Bach Lam said. "And that's why, when Kien was injured in the ruins just now, I could barely breathe for a few seconds, until I was sure he was going to be okay. Every time there was danger, I saw myself five years ago, standing helplessly in front of the rubble, unable to do anything to save the people I was responsible for protecting."

Khe Mien squeezed his hand tighter, and this time, he did not withdraw his hand, but turned his hand around to hold her hand, a simple gesture but carrying the weight of everything that had just been said.

"You weren't the one who did that," she said, her voice steady. "You were the one who tried your best to save them, and who carried that lesson with you to protect everyone who came with you from then on. It wasn't a burden to be ashamed of. It was a testament to the fact that you learned something from the greatest loss of your life, instead of letting it crush you completely."

Bach Lam looked at her for a long moment under the starlight, and in his eyes, Khe Mien saw that the defensive wall she had felt since the first day they met had now opened up a gap wide enough for her to fully see the true person inside — not the cold, pragmatic traveler, but a man with enough pain to make him choose to become the most devoted protector anyone could wish for.

"Thank you," he said, his voice quiet but more sincere than anything he'd ever said to her before, "for listening without pitying me."

"I don't pity you," Khe Mien replied. "I admire you."

They sat there for a moment longer, hands still clasped, not needing another word, while the starry sky continued to rotate slowly above their heads, watching something grow between two people who had learned to trust each other through the trials of the dead land, like a seed silently taking root in the darkness before anyone even realized it had sprouted.

When Ngan The Binh's watch shift was almost over, he stood up to wake up the shift changer, and on the way past the almost extinguished fire, he glanced at the two people still sitting next to each other, hand in hand, silent under the starry sky. He said nothing, just nodded slightly to himself, as if he had just confirmed something he had long predicted, then quietly continued into the darkness, leaving them with that rare moment of privacy in the middle of a journey where every moment of privacy was a luxury.

Before going to sleep, Khe Mien wrote a short line in her notebook, different from the long pages she usually wrote:

* Tonight I understand one more person. And I thought, perhaps, I had just let that person understand a little more of a part of myself — the part that had never dared to believe that I could find something like this, so far away from the Green Dome.*