Discovery

The forbidden lab—the nursery of Chirag Mithra's destruction—remained filled with pale mantra-smoke, but its vaults were no longer hot. The glyph-walls no longer spat. No further screams came from the spirit-chambers.

Which, in Mira's opinion, was the ideal moment to return.

"You're crazy," Kiri grumbled, resting a smashed lantern on his thigh as he mapped their path along the fallen corridor. "Just saying."

"You've said that three times," Meera replied, not looking back. "You still came."

Bhuvan grinned, trailing behind with a long hook-shaped staff. "That's because he's curious. Not cautious. There's a difference."

They passed under the old Mithra crest—now blackened and cracked.

Meera's mantra torch danced along walls that still shuddered with ancient knowledge. Cryptic equations covered stone—mantra-science no longer learned, no longer allowed. Devices were in pieces but not dormant. The residual energy in the room brought hair standing on their arms.

Then Udai discovered the door that had been closed.

It was in the form of a prayer circle, but reversed. Secured not by key—but by heritage.

Kiri scowled. "This glyph's alive."

Bhuvan leaned forward. "Think we should—?"

But Udai walked past them, soundlessly.

And laid his hand on the center.

The glyph stirred.

The door shrieked, then split in two with a hiss of old air. The room within was small—only a raised stone table and a single, closed mantra-record suspended above it. It pulsed red-gold. Unmoved.

Meera blinked. "What is it?"

Udai didn't respond.

He approached the pedestal slowly, eyes growing wider with each pace.

He read the inscription once.

Then again.

Then he staggered back, face white. His chest was heaving.

"Udai?" Meera took a step forward, suddenly concerned. "What's wrong?"

Udai wheeled around, clearly disturbed. His voice was hoarse. "This… this doesn't belong here."

"What do you mean?"

"It's a record," he replied. "Of something lost. Something buried."

His knuckles were white. His lips formed the words, silently repeating the name carved on the plate.

Kiri's tone was half-joke, half-not. "Don't tell me it says your family started all this?"

Udai gazed up.

And didn't reply.

Instead, he spun, sprinted out of the room.

Bhuvan called after him, bewildered. "Where are you going?"

"To Shaurya," Udai yelled back over his shoulder. "He needs to see this. Now."

The three remaining stared at the dim glyphs.

And the plate of red-gold, floating a mite too perfectly.

Unaged.

Unsettled.

Unspoken.

Slotted into the north cliff face like a festering wound that could never heal, Mithra's city—Rajrakta—rose up from dark red rock, fortress citadels built not to be beautiful, but to last. Its buildings were squared-off and battered, scarred with glyphs of conquest and determination. The air was ever so slightly metallic in smell, even when it rained.

The city's symphony-channels excavated deeply, not as open streams but as arteries: submerged, pulsating through stone with red light, giving the streets a heartbeat. It was in this place that spirit-streams were pressurized, condensed into rich veins of energy accessible only to the privileged. The others? They lived on runoff—flickers, remainders, drips.

Mithra's plazas were battlegrounds. Even the bazaars were training pits. Statues never depicted saints or scholars—warriors in mid-leap, generals on their knees only to accept fresh swords. Discipline was not a learned thing. It was enforced.

Strength was orthodoxy. Weakness was heterodoxy.

And in the midst of it all stood Dhairyaveer Mithra, king not by birth alone, but by shattering will.

Where other kings sat on thrones, he sported his scars.

Where others spoke of harmony, he demanded domination.

His palace—Lohakosh, the Womb of Iron—was fortress built into the side of the cliff itself. It was said that the stone had run blood when he came to the throne. His throne room was no court but an arena: warriors bled to speak to him. Even his advisors wore mantra-bindings of muteness unless granted voice.

Dhairyaveer's spiritual discipline—Bloodmancy—was not metaphor.

He had learned to harness power from his own body, to write glyphs in blood, embracing spirits not in song or prayer but in sacrifice. His aura was heavy and red, not radiant but seething—only apparent when he wished it to be so. It did not radiate outward. It clamped inward, like pressure in a drowning lung.

His most infamous act had entered myth:

In the Rebellions of the East, when his own men died from a plague of ghosts, he opened his chest, carved glyphs into his breastbone, and bound the plague to his veins. It cost him years of agony—but ended the rebellion within seven days.

They claim he sleeps two hours a night.

They claim that no longer does his blood grow cold.

They claim that no ghost has ever been able to possess him—because it would have to obey.

Mithra revered him not as a god, but as a knife—sharpened, oiled, and ready to hand.

And deep in the Red Vaults down below, where untrained captives were said to be taken for "offerings," the walls whispered one creed, repeated a thousand times in ancient war-writing:

"From pain, command. From loss, dominion. From blood, the right to rule."

The hall burned dim with torchlight, casting restless shadows over stone walls. At its center, Dhairyaveer Mithra sat still on a low dais, robed in plain cloth threaded with mantra-fiber. He looked like a fixture of the fortress itself—unyielding, unbending.

His lieutenants knelt: scarred commanders, spirit-healers bound in glyphs, shadow-eyes with flickers of news. None spoke. Permission was survival.

The Shadow Watch leader stepped forward, bowed low, and read: "Ashwan reels. Chirag Mithra—now the Wraith—has destroyed sanctuaries, shattered spirit-barriers. Citizens scattered. The ring you gave him… it changed him."

Dhairyaveer raised a hand. "How bad?"

The answer came steady: "Grohg's defenses fell. Inverted mantras corrupted entire wards. The Wraith's power exceeds any threat we've seen. The ring fueled it."

Silence. Tension thrummed like a blooded wire.

Dhairyveer stood, cloak falling like dusk. He walked to an obsidian basin etched with blood-mancer runes. Hand in the dark water, he murmured, "The ring was meant to expand our reach. Power, bound by design. But Chirag... broke it."

He turned, voice colder: "Was this failure unforeseen—or inevitable once mortal greed met spirit-forging?"

A general spoke: "The ring was tested. But spirit-bound tools carry deep peril. Chirag's surge shattered the bounds. The Wraith wasn't commanded—it erupted."

Dhairyaveer's jaw tightened. At a wall relief of an ancient blood-mancer turning demons into shields, he traced its glyphs.

"Strength is our creed," he said. "We bind spirits to protect. Sacrifice shapes order. But unshaped sacrifice devours all. Chirag craved control—and the ring answered."

He turned to the narrow windows. "Ready my approach to the observatory. If Ashwan can fall, so can any province. This is no isolated fire—it could break the realm."

The chief spirit-healer stepped forward. "We can attempt a counter-binding—if we recover the ring's core sigils and find someone who understands them. Parshvananda is gone. His work—scattered."

Dhairyaveer's gaze darkened. "The ring's blood-thread is still in me. I'll oversee the counter-ritual. Send envoys to Ashwan. Offer help—on our terms. We'll be their salvation. Let no one suspect we birthed this disaster."

He stepped to the window. Red-stone towers stretched beneath a bruised sky. Faint cries echoed on the wind.

"Let the world see: when chaos rises, only Mithra remains. But if they think we caused this, they'll resist. Spin the tale. Blame Chirag's hunger—not our design."

A ripple passed through his war-council—they understood: tragedy turned to leverage.

He turned, voice low but fierce. "Summon the blood-forge masters. A new ritual begins. I'll power it myself. If the Wraith is to be bound, it'll be by my sacrifice."

He paused. "And Chirag… if any trace of him survives, he'll answer for this. But first—we stop the storm he became."

The room emptied. Alone, Dhairyaveer lingered by the basin. For a flicker of time, doubt crept in. Was strength worth this price?

He dismissed it.

Only through trial did order emerge.

And so, beneath Mithra's rust-red sky, forces rallied. Rituals prepared. Dhairyaveer Mithra would face the monster he made—and prove once more that the world survives only under strength.