Chapter 14: The Council’s Shadow

B.S. 2082 Baisakh 7 – Kathmandu, Beneath the Ashes

The sewers of Kathmandu reeked of rust and rotting marigolds. Jay waded through waist-deep sludge, the Trishula's corrupted core strapped to his back like a corpse. Anika's fireflies cast jagged shadows on the tunnel walls, their light warped by the swarm's newfound sentience. Rani Lakshmi's voice now lived in the hum of their wings—a vengeful dirge.

"Left at the fork," Anika muttered, her pupils flickering blue. "The shrine's beneath the old slaughterhouses. The Dashnami built it over a balighar—a sacrificial pit."

Meera trailed behind, her once-sharp gait reduced to a shuffle. Since purging Jayasthiti's memories, she'd aged a decade overnight, her hair streaked white, her hands trembling. "They used to drown living goddesses here. Girls who failed the Kumari trials. Their bones paved the foundations."

Jay's Shankha mark throbbed in time with the Trishula's pulse. The sapling's growth had awakened something older, darker. The whispers began an hour ago—a woman's voice, iron-hot, carving syllables into his skull:

"Bring me the traitor's spine."

The Mahakali Shrine – Chamber of Severed Tongues

The shrine was not a place of worship. It was a tomb.

Blackened brass doors, etched with the silhouettes of dismembered deities, sealed the entrance. Anika's fireflies ignited the oil lamps, revealing walls lined with stone mouths—hundreds of them, each stuffed with ash and human molars. At the center stood Mahakali's idol, her four arms gripping a severed head, a noose, a sickle, and a child. Her tongue lolled, a rusted bell hanging from its tip.

"The Dashnami's dirty secret," Meera said, tracing a mural of priests gutting a buffalo over a blood-filled trough. "They didn't just guard the worlds—they policed them. Mahakali was their executioner. Still is."

A cold draft stirred the ash. The stone mouths moaned.

"Jay… Giriiii…"

The Trishula vibrated, its spine-like prongs gouging the floor.

"Show yourself," Jay demanded.

The idol's eyes oozed pitch. A figure coalesced—a woman with skin like charred parchment, her sari stitched from funeral shrouds. Mahakali's Oracle.

"The Council knows you woke the shrine," she hissed, her voice serrated. "They've sent the Purity Squads. You'll wish the Puri had killed you."

Anika stepped forward, fireflies swarming. "We didn't come for threats. Why'd the shrine call us?"

The Oracle's gaze fell on the Trishula. "That abomination carries Gorakhnath's madness. The goddess demands it be cleansed… in the balighar."

She gestured to a pit behind the idol. The stench of centuries-old blood rose in a visible mist.

As Jay unbuckled the Trishula, the child-acolyte materialized atop the idol, his golden threads now woven into a janeu sash. His eyes were no longer voids but galaxies—Kala-Chakra's gaze.

"The pit isn't for the weapon," he said, voice echoing with timeless neutrality. "It's for you. Her price."

Jay froze. "What?"

"Mahakali thrives on sacrifice. To cleanse the Trishula, you must offer a life thread." The child's fingers plucked an invisible string. "Yours. Anika's. Meera's. Choose."

Anika's fireflies dimmed. Meera laughed bitterly. "After all this, the goddess wants a martyr? How quaint."

The Oracle's nails dug into Jay's wrist. "The balighar only accepts willing blood. Decide, or the Squads will decide for you."

Boots echoed above. The Dashnami's Purity Squad descended—seven figures clad in bhoto armor fused with rudraksha beads. Their leader removed his helmet, revealing Vedant Saraswati, Meera's estranged brother.

"Jayasthiti's whore," he spat at Meera. "You let a king's ghost defile your flesh. The Council's verdict is death."

Meera bared her teeth. "You sent me to die in Patan. I'm harder to kill than you think."

Vedant raised a Vajra axe, its prongs crackling with Saraswati Vidya. "The sapling's ours. The shrine's ours. You're just—"

The child-acolyte flicked a thread. Vedant's axe shattered.

"No one claims anything today," the arbiter said. "The threads are balanced. Leave."

The Squads hesitated. Vedant's eye twitched. "This isn't over."

Silence returned, heavier.

Jay approached the balighar. The pit's depths whispered with the screams of failed Kumaris, rebel Dashnami, heretics.

"I'll do it," Anika said.

"No." Jay gripped the Trishula. "It's my burden."

"Idiot," Meera coughed. "You die, the sapling dies. Let the bitch goddess take me."

The child shook his head. "Her thread's too frayed. The pit would reject it."

Jay unbuttoned his shirt. His Shankha mark pulsed—a map of scars from battles yet to come. "How?"

The Oracle smiled. "Step into the mist. Let her taste your resolve."

The blood-mist swallowed Jay whole.

Memories not his own erupted:

A 12th-century Kumarī, her third eye gouged for prophesying the Dashnami's fall.

Mahakali's last execution, beheading a rogue Dashnami Giri who tried to free the enslaved worlds.

Himself, centuries hence, kneeling before the sapling as it consumed the earth.

*"Weakness disgusts me," Mahakali's voice boomed. "But your guilt… it's succulent."

A blade materialized—a kukri forged from the Trishula's spine.

"Sever your thread. Become my blade."

Jay lifted the kukri. The child's voice echoed: "You can still choose mercy."

He slashed—not at his wrist, but at the mist itself.

The shrine trembled. The balighar collapsed, its mist solidifying into a black lotus—the first untainted Amrita since Gorakhnath's fall.

Mahakali's Oracle screamed, dissolving into ash. The child-acolyte smiled. "You broke the cycle."

The Squads retreated. Vedant's snarl lingered: "This changes nothing."

Anika cradled the lotus. "It's… warm."

Jay slumped against the idol, his Shankha mark scorched but whole. "We bought time. Nothing more."

Above, the sapling's roots cracked through the sewer ceiling, its branches now visible from the streets. Kathmandu would notice soon.