The temple doors closed like the jaws of a beast, iron hinges shrieking in protest before the final, bone-deep thud. Dust trembled down from the lintel as if even the stones flinched at the sound.
Chains bit into Alira's wrists and ankles — cold one breath, blistering the next — as though they shifted with the mood of the sanctum. Iron as thick as her wrist, scored with sigils that crawled under her skin, anchored her to the floor. The metal didn't just restrain; it listened. She could feel it pulse faintly against her veins, drinking the rhythm of her blood like a predator learning its prey.
The air inside was not air for breathing — it was incense-choked, acrid with burnt camphor and sandalwood, but not the sweet warmth of prayer. This was a cloying, medicinal stench that seemed to varnish the inside of her throat, coating every thought in dread. Somewhere deep within the temple's marrow, a steady, low hum vibrated. It was not human, nor entirely divine.
Through the sanctum's narrow lattice window, Alira could see the courtyard — though "see" was the wrong word. The flames of the yagna cast light like molten metal, warping the air, so every priest, every devotee, every shadow seemed to bend unnaturally. The pyre's fire was wrong. Too bright. Too hungry. It twisted on itself like serpents fighting in silence, fed not only by ghee but by the venom dripping from black-stemmed vessels the priests handled with gloved hands.
The courtyard pulsed in rhythm with the fire, the heat throbbing even through stone, making the sanctum's walls exhale in slow, stifled breaths.
They had brought Aryan to the altar.
He knelt, his head bowed not in surrender but in defiance, the curve of his spine unbroken. His scaled arms shimmered under the fire's warped light, each scale edged in dull gold. The sacred chains binding him — gold that had been blessed and cursed a hundred times over — smoked against his skin. The smell was not of metal, but of burning leaves and rain hitting a dry riverbed. Every hiss from the chains sounded like a whispered word in an ancient tongue that she half-recognized but could not place.
His golden eyes — clear and sharp even through the heat-distorted air — found hers through the lattice.
Alira's breath caught. That look held no fear, no plea, but it held her, unmooring her from the stone she leaned on. She pressed her palm to the cold latticework, as though the pressure could pass through, as though skin could answer skin.
The High Priest, draped in blood-red silk that drank the light instead of reflecting it, stepped forward. His voice was sand on stone — grainy, eroding.
"By blood, we restore balance."
The crowd — priests and devotees both — echoed the words, their voices overlapping into something more like a swarm than a chorus. The air thickened with each repetition, as though the words themselves were bricks sealing the moment in place.
The ritual blade was brought forward. Obsidian, crescent-shaped, its edge so fine it caught no light, as if it cut through illumination itself. Its hilt was carved from bone, smoothed by the grip of generations. They said it could sever not only flesh but the thread that tied a soul to its body.
The hum in the stone walls deepened, vibrating through Alira's teeth. The temple was listening.
Her own chains shuddered as if in excitement, pulling her down until her knees kissed the cold floor.
Memories clawed through her in jagged flashes — the first time Aryan had taken her hand, his palm calloused, his laugh like sudden rain; the way he stood between her and the hunters; the night they had sworn themselves to one another in the shadow of the banyan, the stars tilting as if leaning in to listen.
Her lips formed his name before her voice found it.
"Aryan!"
He didn't move, but his gaze softened — and that, more than anything, broke her. She hurled herself against the lattice, ignoring the bite of iron on her skin. Her voice cracked into something primal.
"You cannot have him!"
The priests didn't hear her, or pretended not to. The chant swelled, faster, more fevered.
The fire roared. The wind — where had the wind come from? — whipped through the courtyard, carrying with it the scent of rain and blood. The temple groaned, its foundations shifting as though bracing for an old, remembered pain.
The High Priest lifted the blade. The crowd leaned forward. Even the fire stilled, its serpent-coils freezing mid-twist.
Alira pulled at her chains, feeling the skin on her wrists split, hot blood slick against the cold iron.
The blade began to fall.
And then—
The earth screamed.
It was not a sound. It was an undoing. Stone fractured beneath the courtyard; the altar buckled. The fire recoiled, serpents snapping into nothing. The ground pitched, sending priests sprawling, the blade skittering across the cracked stones.
From somewhere deep below, older than the temple, older than the gods the priests served, came a voice without language — a roar, a wail, a call. It resonated through marrow and memory, through every grain of sand in the courtyard.
The sanctum's lattice split in two under Alira's hands. Her chains fell slack, smoking where they touched the ground.
Aryan rose. The gold around his wrists shattered like glass struck from within, the fragments melting into the air before they touched earth. His scales caught the dying firelight, and for a moment, it was the courtyard that seemed bound, not him.
The crowd's chant broke into shrieks. The High Priest backed away, his blade forgotten.
Aryan stepped off the altar, and the ground rippled under his feet. Shadows bent toward him like supplicants. His eyes — still fixed on Alira — were no longer gold, but molten, as if the fire had chosen him over the priests.
Alira crossed the courtyard before she could think, the air thick with ash and sparks. The temple shuddered again, more violently this time, as though warning them — or urging them on.
When they reached each other, his hands, still warm from the chains, closed around hers.
Behind them, the pyre collapsed inward, sucking light into its core until the courtyard was lit only by the glow in Aryan's eyes.
The earth's voice still echoed, fading now, but leaving the world changed. The scent of sandalwood lingered, but it was different — no longer the stench of judgment, but something wild, unbound.
And somewhere deep in the temple's walls, that low hum continued, softer now, like a secret being kept until the next time balance demanded blood.
The ground beneath them cracked open, fissures like veins bleeding shadow and smoke. Aryan's molten eyes flickered with power that made the air itself tremble, and Alira felt the chains on her wrists dissolve into ash, falling away like ghosts finally exhaling.
But freedom tasted bitter.
The High Priest's scream split the night—raw, broken, desperate. His red silk was smeared with dust and sweat, the color draining into something closer to rust. He staggered forward, voice ragged as he spat, "You defile the sacred balance… You bring ruin."
Alira's gaze locked onto him, fierce and unwavering. "The balance is a lie—an iron cage for those who dare live beyond your control."
Behind the priest, the courtyard convulsed, blackened roots bursting from the cracked stone, writhing like serpents alive and angry. The old gods were awakening, not in worship but in revolt. The temple, the ritual, the chains—all unraveling like threads in a fire.
Aryan's voice, low and steady, cut through the chaos. "The blood you shed was never to restore balance. It was to feed your own hunger."
The priest lunged, obsidian blade raised, but the ground beneath him erupted. Tendrils of shadow snatched the weapon, tearing it from his grasp, shattering it into nothingness.
Alira stepped forward, heart pounding like thunder. "We're rewriting the story. Not of sacrifice, but of resistance."
Aryan's molten gaze softened just enough to hold hers, the promise of dawn in the aftermath of destruction. "Together."
As the temple groaned one last time—its walls bleeding ancient whispers—the courtyard was bathed not in fire, but in the raw, unbound light of defiance.