Chapter 9: Fractured Fruit

B.S. 2082 Baisakh 3 – Kali Gandaki Gorge

The sapling's fruit hung like a tumor, its mottled surface veined with memories. Jay traced the ridges—each one a frozen scream from a timeline where Pema lived, died, or worse. Anika had forbidden anyone from touching it, but Meera's eyes lingered like a vulture's.

"It's not a fruit," Anika muttered, stringing a new bow with vines from the Kalpavriksha. "It's a trap."

Jay didn't argue. Since Pema's sacrifice, the gorge had grown quieter, as if the river itself mourned. Even the Trishula's hum had dulled, its whispers replaced by a silence that gnawed at his bones.

At dusk, the historian arrived.

Subhash Bharati smelled of mothballs and mustard oil, his tweed jacket patched with elbow leather. He carried Rajan Puri's dagger in a lead-lined box, its Puri sigils pulsing faintly.

"Fascinating," he breathed, adjusting wire-rimmed glasses. "The inscriptions match 14th-century Malla court records. See here?" He pointed to a serpentine glyph. "This denotes a blood oath between King Jayasthiti Malla and the Dashnami Puri."

Meera snatched the dagger. "We're not here for history lessons."

Subhash blinked. "But you are history, madam. Living, breathing, and"—he eyed her singed sleeve—"terribly flammable."

Anika snorted. Jay hid a smile.

Subhash's camp was a chaos of parchment and paranoia. Faded scrolls from the Malla dynasty hung from ropes, their edges nibbled by moths. A portable generator powered a microfilm reader, its glow painting the gorge walls with spectral text.

"According to this," Subhash said, projecting a 15th-century palm-leaf manuscript onto a bedsheet, "King Jayasthiti commissioned the Puri to sabotage rival kingdoms using time grafts—splicing disasters from one era into another. Nasty business."

The manuscript depicted a Dashnami Puri agent poisoning a well in Bhaktapur, only for the same well to combust centuries later during the Rana regime.

"Time grafts require a tether," Subhash continued. "A person, place, or… fruit." He glanced pointedly at the sapling.

Meera stiffened. "You think the Puri anchored their schemes to the Kalpavriksha."

"I think," Subhash said, "your little sapling is a nexus. Every Puri betrayal across time feeds it. And that fruit?" He shuddered. "It's a cancer."

Jay's Shankha mark prickled. The fruit writhed, its surface bubbling with half-formed faces.

That night, Jay dreamt of Pema.

She sat cross-legged in a void, rebuilding her pebble stupa. Each stone bore a name: Alessandro. Rajan. Durga. Jay.

"You left a thread," she said, her voice echoing from all directions. "Pull it, and the tapestry unravels."

He reached for her, but the void birthed fangs.

He woke to screaming.

Meera stood beneath the sapling, the corrupted fruit clutched in her hands. Bite marks gashed its flesh, oozing black sap. Her eyes, usually sharp as obsidian, swam with borrowed memories.

"She's alive," Meera whispered. "In the fruit. In here."

Anika tackled her, but Meera flickered, her body phasing through Anika's grip. The Trishula stirred, its hum now a dissonant screech.

"The fruit is a map," Meera hissed. "The Amrita's in Manakamana. The living temple."

Subhash adjusted his glasses. "Ah. That explains the 17th-century ledger I found. 'Manakamana's heart beats only for the heir.' Rather poetic, if true."

Jay stepped forward. "Give me the fruit, Meera."

She laughed, the sound tinged with Pema's cadence. "You think you're the only Giri with rights to eternity?"

The Trishula levitated, its prongs aimed at Jay's throat.

Manakamana loomed at dawn, its red-and-gold pagoda perched atop a mist-wreathed hill. Pilgrims crammed the cable car, their prayers drowned by the clatter of steel over steel. Jay avoided eye contact, his hood pulled low. Beside him, Anika nursed a gash from Meera's flight, her vine-hair brittle.

"She's gone full rogue," Anika muttered. "If she taps the Amrita before we do…"

"She won't," Jay lied.

The cable car lurched. A toddler giggled, pressing a sticky sel roti to the window. Jay's chest ached.

At the summit, the temple's doors groaned open—not at their touch, but at the Trishula's presence. Inside, the air tasted of burnt offerings and aliveness. Walls breathed. Floor tiles rippled like muscle.

Manakamana's Guardian awaited—a being of fused priestess and timber, her sari roots, her eyes sap-filled hollows.

"The Trishula's heir and the Fractured Fruit," she intoned, voice resonating through cedar ribs. "Choose your trial:

Truth…

…or Mercy."

Two paths split:

A staircase of blades, ascending to a glowing pool.

A bridge of silk threads spanning a pit of murmuring shadows.

Meera materialized behind them, the fruit's rot now creeping up her arm. "Truth is for fools. I choose power."

She lunged for the blades. The guardian's roots snared her.

"Only the heir may choose."

Jay stepped forward.