The Vanishing
The silence pressed in on Vivaan — unnatural, suffocating.
Sitara was gone.
Gardens. Alcoves. Hawk towers. Nothing.
Only the echo of her absence.
"She left without a sound," he muttered. "But silence doesn't lie. It tells you exactly what you meant."
"Aasha!" His voice cracked the air like a whip.
The girl arrived breathless, ink on her hands.
"Find Talan," he said.
"And send a message to the Silver Wing. Tell them the night moves."
Talan
Talan appeared from the mist. Cloak damp. Eyes distant. Guilt in every line of his face.
"You knew," Vivaan said quietly. "Didn't you?"
"You knew she was leaving."
Talan's jaw tightened.
"I knew she was preparing," he said slowly. "But not where. Not why."
Vivaan's voice broke as anger threaded through grief.
"I trusted you."
"And I trusted her," Talan snapped. "We all lose people, Prince. You're not the only one who bleeds."
The Journal
The queen's chambers were colder than memory.
Behind the panel, a cedar box. Inside, a journal — worn, brittle, waiting.
"Two were born beneath the Blood Comet — one from fire, one from frost."
Vivaan's eyes moved fast, then slowed. His breath faltered.
"Vivaan is bound to light, but light can blind."
"Storm and light."
"Fire and frost."
He whispered the final line aloud:
"Two flames cannot burn forever — unless they burn together."
And yet, he felt no warmth.
Only the chill of inheritance.
Lira, the White Veil
Far from Aryagarh, fog gathered like ghosts.
Sitara knelt before a woman cloaked in mist and salt — Lira, the White Veil.
"You're early," Lira murmured.
"The land waits for no one."
Sitara's voice was hollow.
"I didn't think it would hurt so much... the silence."
"That silence," Lira said, "is love unspoken. And love unspoken becomes a curse."
Sitara closed her fingers around the flame-shaped pendant.
"I didn't ask for this."
"Prophecy doesn't knock," Lira replied. "It enters like a storm."
The Council's Suspicion
In Aryagarh, shadows deepened in the council hall.
Minister Ravindra stood before the throne, hands clasped tight.
"The girl is gone. The queen vanished. And now the prince rides alone."
"Too many questions. Not enough fear."
He glanced toward the latticework where light filtered in red and gold.
"If prophecy walks again," he muttered, "then power must be seized… before it burns through the walls of this palace."
The Departure
Vivaan rode through the night.
No guards. No banner. Just the wind and the gnawing weight of identity.
"What am I?" he whispered into the dark.
"Prince? Pawn? Or something worse?"
He spurred the horse faster, eastward, toward the temples of Vashar.
"I will find Nalin," he said.
"And I'll find the truth — even if it shatters me."
The Prophecy Awakens
Blue wind curled around the temple.
Lira raised her hand above Sitara's head. The stones trembled. Candles flickered — unnatural. Hungry.
A voice rose — old as ash, deep as stone:
"When moonlight bleeds, and twin flame rises,
the shadow crown shall break or bind the realm."
Sitara gasped — visions crashing down:
Vivaan in chains. Fire in his hands. Ash choking the skies.
"He doesn't know what he is," she whispered.
"Then," Lira said,
"you must decide what he becomes."