Time seemed to warp, lengthening the moment of Devansh's impending death to an eternity. Aaditya's heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat of pure terror. He saw the beast's muscles coil, saw the deadly glint of its horns, saw Devansh's eyes shut in resignation.
"DEVANSH!!" The roar was ripped out of Aaditya's soul. His bowstring sang.
Tung!
The arrow fletched with hawk feathers was tipped with polished steel and shot straight and true. It was a perfect shot, aimed for the bull's heaving flank-a non-lethal strike to distract and enrage, to draw its attention away from the vulnerable prince.
But an inch from its target, the arrow shivered. It was as though it had struck an invisible, glassy wall. With a sickening crack, it veered wildly off course, embedding itself deep into the trunk of a nearby banyan tree.
Aaditya felt his blood run cold. Magic. Dark, intervening magic.
The bull, completely oblivious to being hurt, snorted gutturally in triumph and lunged, its hellish eyes fixed on its prone target. Devansh was mere seconds away from being gored.
Devansh's mind went silent, his heart resigned to the inevitable. But his soul screamed. Within the void, one desperate cry echoed: Not yet. Please, not yet.
And his veena answered.
A sound burst from the instrument strapped to his back, not a gentle hum, but a sharp, resonant TWANG! cutting the air like a physical blade. It was a note of pure, defensive fury. A visible beam of silvery light, condensed from the very sound, shot forth. It twisted and solidified in mid-air, taking the form of a dazzling, ethereal arrow made of solidified melody and moonlight.
It moved faster than sight, drawing a searing, incandescent line through the dim forest. It struck the bull not with physical force, but with a wave of purifying energy, piercing right through its dark heart.
Huaaaaaaaaa!
The beast's roar was not of pain, but of rage and shock, a sound too intelligent for a mere animal. With a crash that shook the ground, its massive body went down. A foul, black smoke started welling from nostrils and eyes, coiling in the air like a venomous serpent before dissipating into nothingness.
The woods were silent once again.
Aaditya stood frozen, his bow dangling limply in his hand. He had just witnessed the impossible. He saw the light fade from Devansh's veena, leaving the ancient wood looking ordinary once more.
"Devansh!" he screamed finally in his hoarse voice and jumped off his horse, running to the other prince's side. He fell on his knees, his hands running over him frantically, searching for any injuries. "Are you hurt? Speak to me!"
Devansh's eyes fluttered open, his sapphire-blue irises wide in a shock that mirrored Aaditya's. He looked from the dead beast to Aaditya's terrified face. "I. I am alright. You. you saved me."
Aaditya let out a shaky breath, his hand closing around Devansh's forearm to help him up. The contact was electric, a jolt of life after facing death. "I did nothing," he murmured, his gaze intense. "The arrow. it was your music. You saved yourself."
And then their eyes met, and the world just narrowed down to that point of connection. Aaditya's eyes were afire with a storm of emotions: lingering fear, overwhelming relief, and a dawning, awe-struck wonder. Devansh reflected it all back through his blue eyes with profound confusion about the power he had just unleashed. And then, for one long, breathless instant, they just held each other's eyes, wordless conversation passing between them as they acknowledged the super-natural event binding them closer.
Aaditya broke first, clearing his throat, his fingers wrapping around Devansh's arm, gently pulling him to his feet, and not letting go. "Your ankle? Can you walk?
Devansh weighed his weight and winced. "It is sore, but I can manage."
"Then we must leave this place. Now," said Aaditya, his voice regaining its command. The forest no longer felt like a sanctuary, but a trap.
Sully prattles along, trying to explain his story, while his lawyer just hopes he does not say anything too incriminating.
They had not been gone more than a few minutes when the shadows beneath the banyan tree deepened and coalesced into a human form.
A figure emerged from the gloom, his face and body draped in a shawl of woven shadows that seemed to drink the light. His face was concealed by a featureless black mask of polished obsidian, but from within its dark recesses, two points of malevolent crimson light shone. There was a silence, unnatural and out of place, as if his weight settled upon the dry leaves without causing them to crunch.
He knelt beside the carcass of the bull, from which the last tendrils of black smoke were fading. With a gloved hand, he reached into the beast's chest-not through a physical wound, but as if dipping his hand into water-and pulled out the lingering essence of the sound-arrow. It rested on his palm, a shimmering, silent chord of light, already beginning to fade.
"Heh." A low, hollow laugh escaped him, a sound that held no mirth, only a chilling anticipation. "So it begins. the vessel remembers."
He closed his fist over the dying light and let it dissolve into his hand, not disappearing, but somehow being absorbed into his body. A wave of dark energy pulsed out from him, and the leaves on the closest trees withered, turning black.
He looked up toward the canopy, as if addressing the heavens themselves. "Indra." he whispered, making the name a curse on his lips. "Your ancient curse is rusting. Their bond is the hammer that will break its chains."
He clenched his newly empowered fist, and the shadows around him churned with deadly violence. "But I will not allow it. This love. this damned harmony. will never reach heaven once more. I will drown their symphony in silence."
He adjusted his mask and dissolved back into the shadows, whence he came, leaving behind nothing but the scent of ozone and decay, and the unsettling promise of a war waged from the darkness.
-
The silence was thick with unsaid words as the two princes made their way to the palace.
"Are you really not injured?" Aaditya asked once more, his eyes fixed ahead, his profile sharp against the setting sun.
Devansh's hand unconsciously went to the wood of his veena; it felt warm. "I don't understand what happened, Aaditya. It has never done that before. I felt. I felt a part of me awaken that I never knew was sleeping."
With a stern look, Aaditya looked at him. "When my arrow was deflected. that was no natural wind. Now, Raj-Guru's words echo in my mind- a powerful force does not want us together."
Devansh exhaled a trembling breath. "I thought it was just court intrigue. Rival kingdoms, political maneuvering. But this. a beast twisted by dark magic? This is something else altogether. Why? We are but. two princes forming an alliance."
Aaditya reined in Agni, pivoting him so that he faced Devansh full on, his eyes crimson with the last rays of the setting sun. "Perhaps," he said, low and sure, "that's the greatest threat of all."
The spires of the Suryapuri palace came into view in the distance, gilded in the fiery light of dusk. But its majestic walls no longer promised safety; they felt like a gilded cage at the very center of a storm-a storm of curses, forgotten lives, and a melody that was just beginning to remember its song.
. Chapter End Note: The first blow has been struck, not by steel, but in shades of light and in the shadows. A hidden enemy has revealed his hand, speaking in the power of dark magic; he's invoked the name of a Celestial curse. Devansh's veena is not an instrument; it is a weapon of his soul. And Aaditya now realizes their friendship is the battlefield. The mystery unravels, revealing a conflict between mortal and divine. The hunt is over, but the real game has just begun-a game of souls.