The night sky bled with the light of two eclipses, their shadows twisting the land. The Naag sadhus gathered in a circle carved deep into the earth, their bodies painted with ash and serpent coils of sandalwood. Each chant they uttered sent ripples through the air, and Aadi felt the ground throb as though a great heart beat beneath it.
At the center of their circle lay the fragments of the trident—once whole, now shattered by battles older than memory. Each shard glowed faintly, not with steady light but with the shimmer of scales, as if serpents slithered just beneath their surfaces.
One of the sadhus stepped forward, eyes white with trance."Child of the Veil," he intoned, "the time of shadows is upon us. The Serpent's Gate opens only when the Kala Chakra turns. And only one who dares to wield what was broken may walk through."
The air thickened. Between the sadhus' chants and the storm's rumbling above, a vast spiral of energy unfurled—serpentine coils of light rising from the ground, writhing upward until they shaped into an arch of living fire and shadow: the Serpent's Gate.
Aadi's chest tightened. He felt the pull of the Gate in his bones, like a current tugging at his blood. Time itself shimmered in its opening—visions of the past flickered across its edges: battles of Kurukshetra, the churning of the ocean, Lanka in flames. On the other side, he glimpsed not just futures, but possibilities: Arul standing whole again… or Arul's body burning on a pyre.
One of the sadhus pressed a shard of the trident into Aadi's hand. Its jagged edge burned, searing his palm with a serpent-shaped mark."Each fragment is a truth," the sadhu whispered. "Broken by gods to scatter time. You must bear it, or be broken in turn."
The other fragments rose from the ground, orbiting Aadi in fiery arcs, their hum filling his ears like the hiss of a thousand cobras.
He staggered, sweat pouring down his brow. "If I pass through… what happens?"
The eldest sadhu's voice thundered like a drum."You will face the truth that was denied. You will walk into the spine of time itself. And you will not return as the boy who entered."
The Gate pulsed, waiting. The storm above split, lightning tracing serpentine patterns in the sky. Rahu's laughter rolled faintly through the clouds, while the void of Ketu bent the stars.
Arul's pale face flashed in Aadi's mind. The faces of his tribe. Kairava's burning eyes. Kripacharya's words about cycles that never end.
Clutching the fragment until blood ran down his hand, Aadi stepped forward.
The Gate hissed open.
And the Serpent swallowed him whole.