The rain returned that night—not as a storm, but as a quiet, unsettling rhythm, tapping against the broken windowpanes of Aryan's room. The kind of rain that didn't cleanse, but soaked the silence with secrets. It came down in slow waves, like whispered warnings from an ancient sky.
Aryan sat cross-legged in the center of the dimly lit room, the soft glow of the table lamp casting long shadows that twisted against the peeling walls. The bamboo stick—his practice sword—rested across his knees. His body was still, breathing calm and focused, but his mind stirred with a thousand unanswered questions. Since Veer's appearance, since the tremble in his bones began to sync with the rhythm of something older, Aryan could feel it: the air itself had changed. Something was no longer dormant. Something was... watching.
Then came a click.
The mirror on his desk—a seemingly mundane object cracked during a minor tremor last week—shifted on its own. A soft shimmer pulsed through the crack, like light trapped in a wound. Aryan's eyes opened slowly. He didn't flinch. He stood with the grace of someone who expected to be hunted.
The mirror's surface warped.
He stepped closer, barefoot over creaking floorboards, until he could see the reflection clearly. But it wasn't mimicking him. The figure inside tilted its head the opposite way, smiled, and whispered one word:
"Rudra."
The mirror rippled as if made of water. Then a gust of wind surged from it—unnatural and sharp—tossing loose papers into the air like startled birds. Aryan blinked, startled but not afraid. He knew that voice. It wasn't Rudra's, not exactly. It was something older, a voice from the marrow of the world.
The crack in the mirror pulsed again. And then—etched slowly, like a knife carving through time—a symbol began to appear on the glass: three interlocked circles, shimmering faintly in hues no human eye had names for. Aryan's breath caught. He had seen that mark twice before—once etched into the wrist of the man Veer had killed in the alley, and once in a half-finished dream Rudra never remembered drawing.
Suddenly, a whisper echoed—not from the mirror, but from behind him.
"That symbol… is not his. It belongs to the first gate."
Aryan turned sharply—no one there. Only the open window swaying with the breeze and the rhythmic drip of rainwater from the eaves.
Then he heard it: the sound of footsteps in water. Sloshing. Slow. Deliberate. Not outside. Inside.
His eyes darted around the room—nothing. But the scent changed. The faint trace of smoke. Old incense. Burned feathers. And something else… ozone. Like the air before lightning.
He looked back to the mirror.
It was no longer showing his room. It was showing Veer.
But Veer wasn't standing. He was on his knees, blood trickling from his mouth, one eye swollen shut. Behind him stood seven towering silhouettes, cloaked in smoke and shadow. None had faces. None moved.
One of them held a chain burning with black fire. Another's arms were elongated and curled like tendrils. One simply stood in silence, but from their throat, a soft, mechanical ticking could be heard.
And one... one had Aryan's voice.
Not just his voice. His laugh. His rage. His echo.
The image began to flicker, as if something was trying to suppress it. Aryan stepped forward instinctively, pressing his palm to the glass.
That was when it shattered.
But not like ordinary glass. It shattered inward—folding into itself like it was being pulled into a void. A soft humming sound filled the room. When it faded, all that remained on the desk was a single black feather.
Still warm to the touch.
Aryan picked it up. As he held it in his palm, a single drop of his sweat rolled down and touched the quill.
It hissed.
The lights in the room flickered.
And on the wall, in the shadow cast by the lamp, the three interlocked circles reappeared.
Then… they began to rotate.