Ratri stood at the edge of the World Veil, where dimensions bled into one another like swirling silks caught in an eternal breeze. Naked as always, yet invincible in her divine modesty, her body glowed faintly in the gloom—milk-gold skin dusted in starlight, breasts rising softly with each breath, hips swaying like the rhythm of temptation itself. The shadows beneath her feet curled and kissed her thighs as if worshipping their queen. But tonight, she did not smile.
There was a coldness in the air, not born of wind, but of doubt.
She could feel it—threaded through the pulse of Rudra's divine web like a sour note in a perfect composition. Someone within their growing church of shadows had begun to waver. One of the Apostles, perhaps more. Her place as Rudra's enforcer was not written in contracts or stone tablets—it was etched in their bond, one so primal, it transcended faith. While others worshipped the Monarch, Ratri craved Him.
Not just His commands or power.
She craved the heat of His fingers on her hips, the quiet dominance in His breath, the overwhelming belonging she felt only in His arms.
But now that bond, too, felt chilled.
Her golden eyes narrowed.
In the deepest corner of her palace—the Shrine of Hungers Unnamed—a whisper had reached her. A flicker of thought from a mortal priestess she'd once kissed into madness. The whisper spoke not in words, but sensation: Vaidehi is hiding something. The White Mask, the chosen of the Lich, was building something unseen behind her blank devotion. Ratri had watched Vaidehi from afar—admiring her beauty, intrigued by her intelligence, but now, jealous of her silence. No woman kept secrets from Rudra. Not while Ratri lived.
With a thought, the shadows wrapped around her body, forming nothing more than ornamental jewelry—a collar of obsidian teeth, a chain of bone spiraling down her hip, anklets that rang with the moans of those she'd claimed. She vanished into the shadows and emerged in the Twilight Realm, no announcement, no summons—just presence.
The chamber Vaidehi occupied was a masterpiece of holy stillness—columns of white stone etched with golden prayers, a shallow pool of lightless water at its center. Vaidehi sat by it, as always, masked and veiled, fingers brushing over a scroll bearing Rudra's insignia.
Ratri's arrival broke the air like lightning.
"Tell me, priestess," Ratri purred, her voice dripping with contemptuous sensuality, "do your lips still move in His name, or have they found another to taste?"
Vaidehi did not flinch. She stood slowly, her white silks whispering across the floor, her mask unmoving. "I serve as I was designed."
"No," Ratri hissed, stepping closer, hips swaying like a slow, deadly pendulum. "You were chosen. You were not designed. Don't insult Him with that lie."
She pressed herself chest to chest against the Apostle, towering slightly, letting her aura pour over the woman like an intoxicating mist. "Do you know what I am, Vaidehi? I am the hand that holds His pleasure and His punishment."
Vaidehi's voice was cold and precise. "I fear neither."
"You should," Ratri whispered into her ear, lips brushing the mask, "because I know what you dream of when you sleep. I've visited those dreams. And I've seen you on His throne."
The silence was sharp.
Ratri vanished before Vaidehi could respond. But the seed had been planted.
Back in the Zix Core, Rudra sat cross-legged within the storm of memory and design. Across his mind danced visions of each realm, each avatar, and the fragile faith holding them together. Kaalkrit had restored order through fire. Dronak remained his loyal blade. Asha brought hope to forests sick with war. But Vaidehi… she stirred the air like a perfume meant to hide blood.
Rudra inhaled deeply, calling upon a new resonance within the Core. He needed balance. Fire was burning too fast. Lust was being weaponized. Betrayal, like ice, was creeping beneath layers of gold and incense.
He pressed his palm against the central crystal of the Zix Core.
"I call forth what is untouched by desire, unshaken by heat," he said, voice deep with decision. "Let her rise—not in shadow, not in fire—but in absolute stillness."
And from the freezing void between realms, a new avatar began to awaken.
Her name had not yet been spoken.
But her soul was being carved from silence.
In a world wrapped in eternal twilight snow, where mortals could not survive more than a breath, she stirred.
Hair of pale blue glass, skin like moon-ice, and eyes that could stop time when they locked onto a man's sins.
She would not seduce.
She would judge.
She would not desire.
She would watch.
She would be the Ninth Avatar—born to preserve the rhythm of the Monarch, when all others failed.
Back in her realm, Ratri shuddered. She had felt it—the arrival of a new woman. One untouched. One perfect. One designed not to tempt, but to counter temptation.
And for the first time in centuries, Ratri did not feel like the most powerful woman in the empire.
She felt… replaceable.
That night, she returned to Rudra's mortal world—slipping silently into his room. His eyes were closed, his chest rising slowly with deep meditation. But when her hand traced his bare shoulder, he opened his eyes without flinching.
"I sense her," she said softly, resting her forehead to his. "This new one… the ice-born. She will not love you as I do."
"She isn't meant to," Rudra replied, voice tired yet tender. "She's meant to cool the fire before it consumes the temple."
Ratri's lips trembled. Her body pressed against him, seeking warmth she could never truly lose.
"Let me stay tonight," she whispered. "Not as your avatar. Not as your blade. But just as your Ratri."
He embraced her without question.
And as they held each other in the quiet of their most vulnerable selves, neither knew that far away, in a ruined temple deep beneath the merchant realm, Vaidehi knelt before a cracked altar—the same one the forgotten god Virezak had once occupied before being erased by Rudra's flame.
There, Vaidehi opened her mouth for the first time in years and prayed.
Not to the Monarch.
But to something older.
Something returning.