Thanjavur breathed differently.
Where Chennai buzzed with restless noise, Thanjavur felt ancient—alive in its own silent pulse. The land here was older, its history woven into the soil like threads of forgotten gold.
Shandhru stepped off the bus just past noon, the weight of the previous night still heavy on his shoulders. The conductor gave him a strange look—maybe because he looked exhausted, maybe because his shirt still smelled faintly of ozone.
But Shandhru had no choice.
The lightning-woman's final words echoed in his skull:
"Keeper of the Broken Realms… you are found."
Whoever she was, she had known him.
She had known exactly who he was, even though Shandhru himself didn't.
And she wasn't lying.
He had caught lightning.He had felt time bend—not break, not freeze, but bend to his will.
Something inside him had awakened.
Something dangerous.
Something he didn't understand.
And there was only one place he could go for answers:
Brihadeeswarar Temple.
To locals, it was Periya Kovil—The Big Temple.
To tourists, it was a UNESCO monument.
But to ancient manuscript hunters, secret sects, and occult historians across Tamil Nadu…
…it was the strongest untouched Shakti point in South India.
A place where worlds overlapped.
A place where answers lived.
🌑 The Temple's Shadow
The temple tower—206 feet of carved granite—loomed over the horizon like a mountain of stone. Its shadow fell long across the courtyard as the sun dipped lower.
As Shandhru approached, a strange wind blew through the massive stone entranceway. Not a natural wind—this one carried a faint, metallic hum.
His skin prickled.
The Fracture is here.
Tourists laughed and posed for photos, oblivious to the shifting currents. Only Shandhru seemed to feel the pressure in the air, like invisible hands pressing against the world.
He walked deeper into the temple's halls.
Dark stone corridors.
Ancient murals.
The echo of his own footsteps.
He reached the inner courtyard, stood beneath the towering Vimana, and whispered:
"…Why here? Why now?"
The sky answered.
A tremor of darkness rippled over the temple tower.
Shandhru's breath caught.
A shadow detached itself from the stone—slowly peeling away like ink dripping through air.
A figure formed.
A tall man—broad shoulders, dark robes that moved like smoke—his eyes glowing with a faint, unsettling red.
He wore no ornaments. No symbols.
Only a single mark carved into his forehead:
"0"
Shandhru took a step back.
"You're not human…"
The man smiled—thin, calculating.
"Not anymore."
The voice echoed like multiple tones merged into one.
Shandhru swallowed hard.
"Did she send you? Aadhira?"
At the name, the man tilted his head, amused.
"Ah. The Storm-Warden met you first. Interesting."
He took a slow step forward.
"You're early, boy. Much earlier than the timelines predicted."
"Timelines?"
"You opened your Shakti Core before the gatekeepers could reach you."He gestured lightly toward the temple."And the temple… responded."
Shandhru felt it—the Shakti within the temple was swirling toward him, reacting to him.
The man watched the invisible flow like a scholar examining a specimen.
"So tell me…" he continued softly."When you caught lightning—what did you feel?"
Shandhru's pulse quickened.
He didn't answer.
The man laughed gently.
"Good. Keep your secrets. A Keeper must."
Then the smile faded.
"Unfortunately—I can't let you walk away."
He raised his hand.
The temple darkened instantly.
Every shadow stretched, merging into a single moving mass. They crawled across the floor like living ink, rising behind the man like a tidal wave of darkness.
Tourists froze in place.Their bodies stilled.Their eyes glazed over.
Shadow paralysis.Shandhru's heart hammered.
"You… did this?"
The man nodded calmly.
"A simple trick. Your kind are vulnerable to the Unwritten."
"The… what?"
"The stories that were erased. The timelines that were deleted.The beings who never received a name."
His eyes flickered with cold, authorless emptiness.
"I am one of them."
Shandhru's body screamed at him to move, but his legs felt stiff.
"You—are you from the Fracture?"
"Not exactly."He smiled."I was born from it."
He spread his arms wide.
"Allow me to introduce myself. I am—"
A crack.
A tear.
A distortion in the air flickered—
—and a new voice boomed from behind Shandhru:
"HE IS NOT ALLOWED TO SPEAK HIS NAME TO YOU."
Shandhru spun.
Lightning sparked.
For a moment, he expected Aadhira.
But instead—
A young man stepped forward from behind a pillar. Barely older than Shandhru. Dark hair. Intense eyes.
He carried no weapon, no aura.
But the air bent around him as though obeying some invisible command.
The shadow man hissed like a beast.
"You… again."
The newcomer shot Shandhru a sharp glance.
"Don't listen to anything he says," he said."Unwritten Ones trap keepers with half-truths."
Shandhru blinked.
"Who are you?"
The young man ignored the question and stepped between him and the shadow figure.
He cracked his knuckles.
"This is sacred land. You don't get to corrupt it."
The shadow man chuckled.
"Ah… Arvind Velayudham."His tone turned playful, mocking."The Reader who remembers too much."
Shandhru's breath stopped.
Reader?
What does that even mean?
Before he could ask, the shadows lunged.
The courtyard swallowed in darkness.
Tourists collapsed like dolls.
And Shandhru felt time twist again.
Arvind didn't flinch.
He raised his hand.
And the world shifted like a page turning in a giant book.
The shadows stopped midair.
Frozen.
No—rewritten.
Arvind exhaled softly.
"Chapter Three," he muttered under his breath."Let's begin."
Shandhru stared at him, stunned.
Arvind's eyes sparked with unnatural light.
The kind only one type of being possessed—
A Reader.Someone who could see the world as a written story.Someone who could rewrite it.
Shandhru stumbled backward.
"What… are you?"
Arvind turned to him slowly.
His voice low.
His expression grim.
"I'm someone who's been waiting for you for a very long time, Shandhru."
He stepped closer.
"And if we don't leave now—the Unwritten will kill us both."