The sky bled that night.
Thunder snarled across the heavens like a wounded beast, each strike of lightning clawing the clouds apart. The kingdom of Veergadh, perched high in the cliffs between mountains and ocean, braced itself beneath the wrath of a storm not born of weather—but of omen.
In the highest tower of the stone palace, within a chamber lit by flickering lanterns and trembling chants, a queen screamed as life was torn from her body.
And then it came—the sharp, defiant cry of a newborn girl.
But it wasn't joy that followed.
It was silence.
The kind of silence that presses against your ribs. That smells like iron. That tastes like fear.
The midwife stared down at the child in her trembling arms. Her wrinkled hands turned cold. The room's flames sputtered, then died all at once, as though the air itself had been devoured. The women inside the room gasped, some crossing themselves, others bowing their heads in silent prayers.
"She bears the mark…" the midwife whispered, her voice cracking.
They held the girl up to the lantern's dying light. Upon her left shoulder was a dark, swirling birthmark—one that almost shimmered, as if it were alive. A mark shaped like a crescent moon split down the middle by a jagged crack.
The royal priest stepped forward. His black robes trailed behind him like smoke. Rainwater clung to his hood as he unfurled a weathered scroll, its edges burnt, as if rescued from a fire centuries ago.
His voice echoed through the stone chamber, low and heavy:
"When the skies weep and the blood moon rises,
A girl shall be born with the mark of the forsaken.
Cursed blood will search for its tether.
And when they meet—empires shall burn."
The queen, weak and pale, cradled the child to her chest, tears slipping down her cheeks—not tears of happiness, but grief. Her husband, King Aarvind, stood by the door. He had not stepped inside the chamber once. Now, hearing the prophecy spoken aloud, he turned away.
The child—Devira—entered the world in darkness, without a blessing.
---
As the years passed, Devira grew into a girl of rare, tragic beauty.
Her skin held the pale glow of pearl under moonlight. Her hair fell in thick waves the color of midnight, and her voice was like the low hum of a lullaby sung by a mother who never got to say goodbye. Yet no matter how she smiled, the courtiers never looked her in the eye.
She was royalty. She was a prisoner. She was the girl who made candles flicker and birds fly away in silence.
The mark on her shoulder never faded. If anything, it grew darker, sharper, as though etched deeper with each passing season.
The queen adored her in secret. She taught her to sing, to read the stars, and gave her books of ancient poetry—each torn at the corners, as if someone tried to burn their contents long ago.
But the king avoided her entirely.
"She's not just cursed," he once told the royal priest. "She's a weapon. I see it in her eyes—something old lives in her. Something waiting."
---
Devira learned not to cry. Not when the children of the court refused to play with her. Not when her only friend, a stable boy named Aresh, was banished for talking to her too long. Not even when she overheard the council suggesting she be sent away to the mountains "before the prophecy takes root."
She learned to hide her tears in silence, in books, in shadows.
But sometimes, when the moon was full and the air too still, she would sneak to the broken mirror in the west wing—the one no one dared to replace.
Its glass had cracked the night she was born.
Devira would stand before it, staring at the warped reflection. The mirror never showed her true face. Instead, it shimmered with faint colors—like a half-remembered dream.
She would trace her mark in the reflection and whisper:
"Who are you? What am I meant to destroy?"
The mirror never spoke.
But something within it always… listened.
---
The kingdom outside whispered louder as she grew.
They called her Chandra-Rogin—Moon Touched. Shapit Rajkumari—The Cursed Princess. Some said she could summon storms. Others claimed she was the reincarnation of a long-dead queen who had burned down her empire for love.
All Devira knew was that the dreams came every night.
Of fire. Of chains. Of battlefields under red moons.
And of a man.
Always a man.
She never saw his face, but she felt him—his voice echoing through her ribs like forgotten thunder. His touch burning through her skin like memory. His whisper threading into her soul:
"You belong to me… across lifetimes."
Every time she awoke, her pillow was damp with tears she didn't remember crying.
---
On her sixteenth birthday, the skies opened again.
It rained exactly as it had the night she was born. A blood moon rose, and the people refused to step out of their homes. The palace guards lit fires at the gates, as if to ward off unseen ghosts.
Inside the tower, Devira sat alone in her chamber, dressed in crimson silks. Her mother had sent her a single gift—a gold comb shaped like a phoenix, its wings chipped and scorched.
The flames in her chamber swayed violently. The glass on the windows trembled. And the mirror in the west wing… cracked a little more.
Devira stood and walked toward it.
This time, the mirror did not show her reflection.
It showed a battlefield.
A crown rolling in the dust.
And that same voice, calling her again.
But tonight, something had changed.
The voice whispered not in longing—but in warning.
"He has returned. And so have you."