The concrete room was pitch black, the window covered by a thick woolen blanket. Rohan sat on the floor, his breathing slow and heavy.
"Focus on the heat in your chest, Ro," Vikram said, standing in the center of the room. "Prana is not a muscle force. It's the electric current running through your nerves. You have to speed up the current."
Rohan gasped, his shoulders tensing. A faint, crackling blue spark flared over his right knuckle, illuminating the dark room for a split second before vanishing.
"I felt it," Rohan said, his voice excited but tired. "It felt like static shock."
"That's the start," Vikram said. "Keep practicing the breathing. The more Prana you have, the more you can resist the shadow freeze."
Vikram closed his eyes. He focused on his own electromagnetic field, expanding it like a dome around the safehouse.
*Tenebrous Sensing.*
To his blind mind, the room was a canvas of electric currents—the hum of the generator in the next room, the wires in the walls, the rhythm of Rohan and Rahul's hearts.
But outside the concrete wall, in the narrow Dharavi alley, Vikram detected a cold void.
It was a pocket where there was no electric current, no heat, and no biological frequency. A silent, freezing signature that was moving slowly across the corrugated metal roofs.
A Vow scout.
"Rohan, stop," Vikram whispered.
Rohan went quiet instantly, his hand resting on the iron pipe.
Vikram willed his Prana to ignite, but he kept the blue sparks hidden under his skin. He walked slowly toward the door, his eyes closed, tracking the cold void's movement.
The void stopped directly above their wooden door.
*Target is waiting,* Vikram's instincts signaled.
He opened his eyes, nodded to Rohan, and reached for the metal latch of the door. They were going to catch the scout before he could call Javed's Wraiths.