A boy, a bird, and the man who owns them both.

Rural Punjab, the 1990s. Asif is fourteen, a bonded servant in the house of Ameen, the feudal lord who owns the village and everyone in it. Asif works off his dead father’s debt. Ameen’s power runs on rigged rooster fights and on children sent out to beg.

When Ameen’s last fighting rooster comes out of the pit barely alive, Asif is ordered to nurse him. He names the bird Shah Rukh. As Shah Rukh wins and his name spreads through the pits, Ameen grows suspicious of his own house. Hunted, Asif is taken in by a blind wanderer the thugs fear as The Blade. Then Ameen takes Rafi, the boy Asif left behind, and sets a trap.

Asif can stay free, or go back for the children.