The evening sun spilled molten light across Bhaktapur's rooftops, painting brick lanes and pagoda spires in hues of fire. The city was alive in a way that pressed on every sense—incense smoke coiling like prayer into the air, drums pounding from the temple square, merchants shouting over each other, and children darting between stalls with sweets clutched in their fists.
Arya moved through it all like a shadow. Seventeen, wiry, his sneakers torn at the seams, his hood tugged low enough to turn his face into nothing more than a suggestion. To most, he was no one at all—just a rumor. To others, he was the sudden tug at their pocket, the vanishing shape when a momo dumpling disappeared from a plate.
But hunger had teeth tonight, sharper than usual. His stomach cramped, and sweat trickled down his back, though the evening breeze had cooled. Something else gnawed at him too, something stranger. A restless hum beneath his skin, a charge in the air that didn't belong to the festival. It made his steps faster, his heart more restless.
That was when he saw it.
A thug shouldered through the crowd, thick-necked, his leather satchel slapping against his side with every step. Arya's eyes fixed on it before his mind caught up. A thief's instincts never slept. But this wasn't the usual weight of food or coin. The satchel leaked faint, bluish light through a tear along the seam. It was subtle, but once seen, impossible to ignore.
Arya licked his lips. He should walk away. No good ever came from things that glowed. But curiosity and hunger always fought for the reins, and hunger usually won.
He slipped into the crowd, his body weaving with practiced ease between silk drapes and baskets of oranges. A brush of his hand, the tug of his fingers, and the satchel was his.
The roar that followed was instant. "Oi! That brat—stop him!"
The market erupted. Arya bolted, heart hammering, ducking between stalls, knocking over brass pots that clattered like cymbals. Vendors cursed, bystanders shouted. He leapt a cart, stumbled, then caught his footing. The satchel throbbed against his chest like it had its own pulse.
He scaled a bamboo ladder three rungs at a time and clambered onto a roof. Tiles shifted under his sneakers, splintering off into the alley below. He sprinted across, leapt the gap between houses, and almost didn't make it—his fingers scraped clay as he hauled himself up.
The city stretched below in a blur of shouting voices and colored banners. But Arya didn't stop until he stumbled into a courtyard no one used anymore. He'd heard whispers of it—cursed, haunted, avoided by old women who crossed themselves at its mention.
The archway sagged under moss. Murals of gods and demons peeled from the walls, their painted faces cracked by time. At the center stood a broken pedestal, its shape unmistakable: a trident head carved in stone.
Arya dropped the satchel, his chest heaving. He tore it open with trembling hands.
Inside lay a shard of crystal, glowing soft and cold, like lightning frozen in glass.
His breath caught. His first thought: throw it away. His second: sell it. His third: why can't I look away?
The shard hummed, faintly, as though matching the rhythm of his heart. His fingers closed around it, and pain shot through him, sharp enough to make him gasp. The world tilted. His vision blurred.
Some unseen pull dragged him to the pedestal. Before he knew what he was doing, his shaking hand placed the shard into the cracked groove.
The ground groaned.
Symbols burned to life across the stones, spiraling into mandalas of fire and light. Lightning erupted, snaking up the courtyard walls, wrapping Arya in blinding coils. His body lifted off the ground, weightless, as if the sky itself was swallowing him.
Visions stabbed into his mind—mountains splitting beneath a colossal trident, rivers boiling under the tread of demons with burning eyes, a gate of ice cracking open to pour out endless shadow.
Then came the voice.
It wasn't sound. It was pressure. A weight that lived in his ribs and skull.
Bearer of the storm… awaken.
Arya screamed as the shard dissolved into his skin. A trident mark burned itself into his palm, glowing pale blue, alive.
The lightning receded, leaving silence thick as ash. He crashed to the stones, gasping, his hand still glowing. His hoodie smoked faintly where the energy had touched him.
And then the thunder came.
A bolt of lightning struck the golden spire of Pashupatinath Temple. The sound cracked across the city, shaking bells into wild tolling. Shouts of fear rose from the streets.
Arya staggered to his feet, trembling. He clutched his glowing palm against his chest, but the light bled through his sleeve. "What… what did I do?" he whispered.
The trident pulsed once, as though answering.
He stumbled into the alley, but he wasn't alone. From the rafters above, a figure crouched, its cloak shifting with the shadows. A single red eye glowed faintly, unblinking, fixed on Arya. And then, as if satisfied, it vanished.
Arya collapsed on a rooftop, pulling his knees to his chest. The city below carried on, blind to what had happened, but Arya knew. His old life was gone. The storm had found him, and it would never let go.
Far to the north, in a monastery carved from ice, a blind monk gasped mid-prayer as visions of storm and fire consumed her. And deep in Narak, the Rakshasa King stirred, eight arms spreading wide as he smiled, as though he had been waiting for this moment since the beginning of time.