The city of Mumbai, ever restless, had a strange hush in its breath that night. Like it knew something had shifted in its bones. The rains had returned unseasonably early, washing the alleys with a strange mix of old blood and new beginnings. Water dripped from the rusted tin roofs, carried the scent of damp jasmine, diesel, and something ancient that didn't belong here.
Veyne Alaric walked the narrow lanes of Mazgaon as if retracing steps he had never taken, yet somehow always known. His boots splashed softly in the puddles, cloak soaked and heavy, face partially hidden under the low hood. Aranya followed quietly behind him, her mind still clinging to fragments of the last battle. The Saffron Hand now bowed to him. Nalini, the former guardian of the Sanrakshna Order, had turned her back on her faction and stood at his side. It should've been a victory, but what they had wasn't yet control—it was the calm before another storm.
Veyne paused before a locked iron gate hidden behind a tangle of wild bougainvillaea. It didn't lead to a palace or hidden base. Just an old municipal water station. Forgotten. Useless. But beneath it, buried in the dark belly of the city, was a vault that once held artifacts from eras erased from memory—things touched by the Ashen Crown long before even he rose.
"This place?" Aranya asked, glancing around. "Looks abandoned."
"Most of what's powerful in this city is," he said simply, his voice heavy but calm.
He placed a hand on the rusted gate. For a moment, the veins in his arm glowed faintly—the old runes reacting. The gate unlocked with a sound that felt more like a sigh than a click.
They stepped inside. Nalini appeared behind them moments later, silent as a whisper.
"I thought you were resting," Veyne said without turning.
"I don't rest easy these days," she answered. "Not after what I saw. Not after switching sides."
Veyne looked at her then, properly. "You didn't switch sides, Nalini. You chose the truth. There's a difference."
She met his eyes. "Truth isn't enough when war is coming."
They descended the staircase that spiraled down into the underbelly of the station. Water dripped like falling time. Old walls bore faint carvings in Atlantean script—etched ages ago by a different hand. Possibly even his.
As they reached the chamber below, the three paused. The room was empty except for a single raised stone slab. Upon it was a map—etched in obsidian, pulsing faintly. Not of just Mumbai. But of India. Glowing sigils marked several points—seven in total, each connected by faint golden threads.
Two of them glowed brighter than the rest—Mumbai. Desire and Order. The other five were still dormant.
"The other factions," Nalini whispered.
Aranya traced a finger over one of the dim sigils near the south. "This one's close to Madurai. Old temple lands. That could be the Dominion of Faith."
"Could be," Veyne said, but he didn't sound convinced. "The factions hide their presence well. Even in this age."
Nalini stepped forward, resting her hand on another mark—in the deserts of Rajasthan. "And this one… looks like the Seat of Judgement. The Dominion of Law?"
"Perhaps," Veyne said again, watching her. "We won't know until they reveal themselves. But they're watching. That much is certain. They've felt the Crown stir."
For a long moment, no one spoke. Only the soft hum of the obsidian map echoed in the chamber.
"Why bring us here?" Aranya finally asked. "What's next?"
Veyne's eyes never left the pulsing crown symbol in the centre of the map.
"I brought you here because we need to prepare. The city is boiling. The factions are watching us, waiting to see what we do. And we…" he turned, his gaze sweeping over both women, "…we start pushing back."
Aranya looked unsure. "We just got control of Desire. Order's in shambles. Isn't it too soon?"
"No," Nalini said, her voice steely. "It's too late. We're behind. The factions are already adapting. Sanrakshna will regroup. Others will emerge from their shadows. If we wait, we'll be swallowed."
Veyne nodded. "Exactly. That's why we build now. No more running. No more reacting. We make Desire our fortress. And from there, we reach out. Quietly. One step at a time."
They returned to the surface just as the skies cracked open again. Thunder rolled like drums of war. Veyne looked up, rain washing over his face. And for a flicker of a moment, in the flash of lightning, the sigils from the map appeared in the sky—distant, spectral, watching.
Inside the New Saffron Hand Sanctum
Karan Dev stood in front of the central sanctum, head bowed, hands trembling slightly. The Saffron robes he wore were no longer symbols of blind devotion. They were tools now—tools of a movement with new purpose.
Veyne entered, flanked by Aranya and Nalini. The sanctum was now under his control, but he knew that control meant nothing without loyalty. And loyalty was a fragile thing.
"You summoned me," Karan said, raising his eyes to meet Veyne's.
"Yes. I need you to rebuild the Hand—not as a cult, but as a network. Informants. Analysts. Diplomats. Warriors, yes, but thinkers first."
Karan looked wary. "You trust me that much?"
"I don't," Veyne said flatly. "But I believe in second chances."
Karan let out a dry, nervous laugh. "You're dangerous, Alaric."
"No," Veyne said, stepping closer. "I'm necessary."
He turned to the others in the sanctum. Former zealots, now uncertain followers. "You've followed blindly. Now you will see clearly. The world is shifting. And you can either be the fire that forges it… or the ash it leaves behind."
The room fell silent. And slowly, one by one, they knelt.
Karan looked at them, then at Veyne.
"Then let's forge something real."
The night air in Mumbai never truly settled. It clung like silk and soot, thick with memory and motion. From the rooftop of an old textile mill that had long given up the ghost, Veyne stood watching the streetlights blink beneath. Each one a flicker of memory, like the torches of Valgard once blazing on his coronation night—just before the betrayal.
Behind him, the Saffron Hand had transformed. What was once a cult held by fear was now a movement pulsing with purpose. Under Karan Dev's submission, the faction of Desire had begun to evolve into a vessel of controlled chaos.
But inside, Veyne wasn't settled. Not fully. Not yet.
He turned to Nalini, who stood beside him, her presence a question still unanswered. Gone was her stiff authority from Sanrakshna. She now dressed plainly, her voice softer, her defiance tempered.
"You never asked me why I changed sides," she said suddenly.
Veyne gave her a half-smile. "Because you realised I cannot be caged."
"No." Her voice was like cooled fire. "Because I saw something you haven't seen yet. You're trying to build an empire, Veyne. But you don't know the language of masks."
He arched an eyebrow. "Explain."
Nalini gestured to the city. "Every faction wears a mask. Order wears the face of justice, but it hides control. Desire once wore indulgence, now it shifts toward revolution. You… you still wear your pain as your mask."
That hit deeper than he expected.
Veyne walked to the edge of the rooftop, looking down at a group of Saffron Hand followers lighting incense at the street corner. Fire always helped them focus.
"They betrayed me," he said quietly. "I was meant to wear the Ashen Crown, to unite the Seven. Instead, I was cast into the deep with blades in my back. My pain isn't a mask, Nalini. It's a torch."
Nalini didn't flinch. "Even torches cast shadows."
Silence followed, not hostile, but heavy. She was right. He knew it. But acknowledgement wasn't surrender—it was preparation.
Below, a messenger approached swiftly.
"Master Alaric," the youth panted, bowing. "The Watchers—they've left something behind. In the abandoned library Karan Dev once used to train recruits. You should see it."
Veyne nodded, turning to Nalini. "Time to read the forgotten."
The library was not vast, but it was layered. Dust rested like snowfall across shelves of saffron-covered manuscripts. Murals drawn in ochre hues depicted strange figures with flaming halos, holding scrolls and swords both. Veyne ran his fingers across one.
It was the Three Eyes.
He recognised them from the Rite. They had marked his soul.
At the centre of the room lay a black pedestal. Upon it sat a single tome bound in ash-grey hide. Ancient, breathing as though it waited for someone to lift it.
Nalini approached with caution. "Is this Atlantean?"
"No," Veyne said. "It's older."
He opened it.
The pages turned themselves, as if time itself desired the story told. And there, woven in elegant script, came a voice—not aloud, but within the mind.
"From the city that drowned and rose again, the truth lies not in the ocean's belly, but in the hearts it scarred. Atlantis was not a kingdom of gold. It was a forge of balance. The Ashen Crown is not a weapon. It is memory. Burnt, buried, born again."
A shiver passed through him.
He read further. The words were riddles but somehow, they answered questions he hadn't yet asked.
"The Crown chooses not the strongest, nor the most righteous—but the one who remembers pain, yet does not wield it."
He stopped.
That line pierced like Elias' blade had once. Right between the ribs.
He turned to Nalini. "They want me to lead—but not to become what I hate."
"Exactly," she replied. "You're walking a line thinner than a knife's edge. Step wrong, and you become them."
The tome let out a gust of air as if agreeing.
In the corner of the library, a fire pit lay dormant. Veyne reached into it and pulled out a scroll wrapped in crimson cloth.
He unrolled it. A single mantra was inscribed:
"Aham Brahmasmi." I am the universe.
He remembered the Deacon's warning: rule with authority, and you become a tyrant; rule with purpose, and you become a bridge.
That night, Veyne made his decision.
The Saffron Hand would become more than just a faction.
It would become a mirror. For every other faction to see what they had become—and what they could be.
Mumbai didn't sleep, but sometimes it held its breath.
The storm came without warning—neither from the sky, nor the sea. But from the faction of Order.
A ripple in the underworld networks revealed that an attack was coming.
Not a full-on war—but a reminder.
As Veyne stood before the gathered followers of the Hand, lightning cracked the horizon, drawing harsh shadows across his features. He looked like a king—not from storybooks, but from scriptures, where kings bled and prayed alike.
Nalini stood beside him. Karan Dev bowed in silent fealty. Aranya had arrived as well, her eyes more certain than ever, notebook in hand, recording history as it breathed.
Then it happened.
At the temple ruins near Byculla, a sacred site once protected by Sanrakshna, explosions tore through the silence. It was no coincidence.
They wanted to provoke him.
Veyne arrived swiftly with his inner circle. What remained of the sanctum was rubble. Among it, the symbol of Order—three intersecting circles, burnt into stone.
"They're watching," said Karan Dev. "They want to see if you'll react like a tyrant or a torchbearer."
Veyne stepped into the centre of the wreckage.
He didn't scream.
He didn't vow revenge.
Instead, he knelt.
Dipped his fingers into the soot.
And smeared the mark across his forehead.
"Let the world know," he said, voice steady. "We do not return fire with fire. We return it with light."
Nalini's eyes glistened. Aranya's hands trembled as she wrote. Even Karan Dev, battle-scarred and bitter, bowed his head.
Later that night, Veyne walked to the sea alone. The waves reached for him like old friends.
He whispered a name—Dwarka.
Not aloud. But in memory.
The city that drowned, they said. Swallowed by the ocean in myth.
But Atlantis… Atlantis had survived.
Not in marble and gold.
But in fire, memory, and will.
He turned back to the city.
He still had five factions to find.
And every single one would either kneel to the light—
—or burn in its shadow.