The Grand Gate of the Varjita Kṣetra crouched before them like a wound in the world—steel-barred, its iron lattices scored with runes that hummed faintly with latent Prana. Here, at the rim of Bharatavarsa, the careful waltz of science and sorcery had been taught for generations. Tonight that waltz ended.
Avikarh stood on the marble platform, the cold light of ward-torches painting his face in hard planes. Behind him, adepts and veterans prepared their instruments and weapons, their eyes glinting with discovery's dangerous promise. His six closest allies moved at his shoulder, each step in perfect sync.
"Remember your training," he called. "The crater's readings are unstable. Enter in formation, shields up, and don't leave anyone behind."
Nods answered him, quick and silent. They advanced.
Then the world groaned.
The wards shuddered and broke. Dust spiraled, torches guttered, and Avikarh's gut turned cold with recognition: the Gate's protection was failing.
"Move! Follow me!" he barked, surging forward.
They plunged into the tunnel beyond the Gate, its conduits pulsing with frantic light. The passage opened into the caldera—a city-sized wound crowned by the Sleeping Flame. The volcano's throat burned with restless fire, storming with raw Prana.
And on its rim stood a figure.
Motionless, cloaked, the silhouette raised gloved hands. Violet glyphs spun in a circle above the crater, and from its center dropped a glowing object—its light erratic, unstable, alive.
"Brace!" Avikarh shouted.
The volcano roared like the tearing of the sky. Black fire and shadow erupted, swallowing earth and flame alike. The blast struck Avikarh's team with impossible force. For an instant he saw only the storm of glyphs, the shattering of steel, and the widening maw of the Rift.
Then came silence.
When Avikarh opened his eyes, the world was fractured. He lay amid jagged rubble beneath a wrong sun—cold, pale, unyielding. Around him, fragments of machines and charred banners of his order lay broken. His memory slipped through his grasp like water: the Gate, the caldera, the glowing object… then only void.
He reached for names, for faces, for the six who had stood beside him. Nothing remained but blurred shadows. His own past crumbled in his mind, replaced by a terrible emptiness.
And in that emptiness, a voice.
Deep. Resonant. Ancient.
"Avikarh… my son. I am sorry... I had to send you to a place far from your home. It was for your safety. Seek the six… reclaim what was stolen… and come back safely."
The words thundered in his mind, burning, then fading into ash.
The last thing he felt was a hollow pull, like being dragged through the marrow of the world. The Rift swallowed him whole.
Avikarh woke in darkness.
The air was damp, heavy with the scent of stone and moss. Faint light trickled in from a crack above, illuminating the jagged walls of a cavern. His body trembled as though he had been remade. He tried to remember who he was, where he had come from, but the memories slipped further away with every breath.
A cave. A boy's body. A name—Avi.
It was the only truth left to him. And beyond the mouth of that cave, the strange new world awaited.