The temple doors crashed open, an ancient thunder splitting the stifling dusk.
The gathered crowd, a sea of silken saris and iron helmets, scattered like startled birds — a single ripple through the temple's stone stillness.
Aryan staggered inside, his wrists shackled in cold iron chains, the links biting deep into flesh scaled and bruised. His forearms shimmered with glistening blood — the dark crimson mixed with iridescent stains, the telltale gleam of Nāgavanshi veins beneath human skin.
The royal guards flanked him, spears leveled, yet their hands trembled like reeds in the monsoon wind.
"He fought alone," murmured one, voice rough as sandstone. "Against dacoits who meant death to us all. He saved three lives with his bare hands, then fell as though his own blood turned traitor."
The High Priest's lip curled in venomous disdain.
"Nāgavanshi filth."
Alira's breath hitched.
The silence thickened, broken only by the low drum of the temple's heart — the endless pulse of ancient rites.
His eyes met hers: gold-flecked, slit-pupiled, coiled with the weight of prophecy — heavy as the moonlit jungle before the storm breaks.
Then he crumpled.
The priests recoiled, voices rising in a chorus of fear and revulsion.
"Unclean! His blood defiles the sanctum!"
But Alira was already moving — chains clinking, skirts brushing temple stones — kneeling beside him with the reverence of a forgotten ritual.
Her fingers found his pulse, a thunderous rhythm matching the drums — the same wild cadence echoing in her veins.
The High Priest hissed: "Step away, Rajkumari. His kind are not meant to touch yours."
Aryan's hand shot up, trembling but firm, gripping her wrist. Not to push away.
To steady himself.
"You," he rasped, voice like rustling leaves, "I've dreamed you."
The crowd gasped — the words like lightning in a dry season.
And then—
From the shadowed gallery, a voice cracked the sacred silence:
"From coil to coil, the serpent sings,
In blood and bone, the prophecy rings.
The golden eyes shall pierce the night,
Bound by chains, unbound by right."
The procession faltered, half the guards stepping back as two hands dragged in another figure — not limp, not lifeless, but coiled strength refusing to yield.
Aryan, Nāgavanshi blood etched in every scar, walking the razor's edge between worlds.
Scales flickered faintly beneath torn flesh — iridescent crescents catching torchlight like stolen jewels.
Despite wounds, his shoulders remained square — a warrior's defiance etched deep.
"Too dangerous," the captain declared, voice sharp as a spearhead. "He cannot roam free."
Alira's chains clinked again, her eyes locking on Aryan's with a fierce clarity.
No pleading. No fear.
Only the quiet accusation of a world that repays bravery with shackles.
Beneath the pounding drums, she heard it — the hiss of a serpent uncoiling, not in the air but in her own blood.
"He walks the path of ancient wrath,
Marked by fate's unbroken path.
In his veins, the tempest stirs,
Binding blood, defying hers."
Aryan's voice fell to a whisper, laced with fire and shadow:
"The time is near. The serpent's coil shall break."
Alira shivered — her chains a mere whisper against the storm rising inside her chest.
The High Priest spat on the floor, a cracked curse echoing the temple's age-old hate.
"Blasphemy!"
But the crowd was silent — the ancient song still thrumming in their bones, the prophecy stirring the air like dust before the rains.
She tightened her grip on Aryan's wrist, the pulse beneath her fingers a drumbeat of destiny.
And in that moment — suspended between fear and hope — she understood.
This was no mere man.
No mere prisoner.
This was a living legend.
The High Priest's voice cracked like a whip, "The sacred rites must be preserved! The impurity must be purged!"
But the temple, ancient and patient, did not heed his words.
A tremor rippled through the stone floor, subtle but undeniable, as if the temple itself drew breath — inhaling the promise of upheaval.
Alira's gaze never wavered from Aryan's, her fingers tightening on the iron cold of his chains, and yet, in that pressure, she felt something else: a spark, a charge.
The guards hesitated — their spears lowered slightly, uncertain.
"Bring forth the Scroll of Serpents," the High Priest demanded, his voice brittle as cracked obsidian.
Two robed acolytes moved swiftly, their hands trembling as they unfurled a yellowed parchment etched with coiling glyphs and serpentine script.
The crowd leaned in, breath held in collective suspension, as the High Priest read aloud:
"When blood of serpent stains the soil, And golden eyes meet fate's turmoil, Chains shall break, the night ignite, For dawn is born from ancient fight."
The words hit the air like thunderclaps — part warning, part reckoning.
Alira's heart surged — a river bursting banks, wild and relentless.
She pulled her skirts tighter around her ankles and rose, voice steady, loud enough to cut through the chanting murmurs:
"He is not a curse. He is our shield. The serpent's blood runs through us all — hidden, waiting."
A murmur spread like wildfire.
"Madness!" spat the High Priest, but his eyes flickered, betraying his doubt.
Aryan struggled to sit up, chest heaving, scales glittering with sweat and blood — the very embodiment of the prophecy made flesh.
"You," he said, voice hoarse but burning, "were the dream I could not forget. The key to the coil breaking."
Alira stepped closer, fearless now, brushing aside robes of suspicion and tradition.
"We will not let fear dictate the future."
The crowd, caught between centuries of dogma and a heartbeat's chance at change, faltered.
And then — from the darkest corner of the temple, a sound rose: low, guttural, alive.
The serpent's hiss — the song of a thousand years waking.
The High Priest stumbled back, white-faced, as the walls seemed to pulse with the serpent's song.
"Release him," Alira commanded, voice slicing through the temple's heavy silence like a blade.
The chains clattered to the floor.
Aryan rose — unbound, unbroken — golden eyes blazing with the fire of revolution.
The temple was no longer a prison.
It was a battlefield.
And the serpent had just uncoiled.