The Oracle of Dust and Dream
The storm was over, but Lumenkar still trembled.
The wind towers had stopped spinning, and the clouds above the city hung still as glass. The smell of scorched ozone lingered in every street. Broken banners fluttered from rooftops, and prayer circuits along the temples flickered like the last breaths of exhausted fireflies.
Arjun sat on the steps of the plaza, his body coated in dust and light. His cloak had torn in several places, but the mark on his palm still glowed faintly, its rings slowly rotating like celestial gears.
Every breath he drew carried the faint taste of iron and incense.
Mira knelt beside him, cleaning a cut on his forearm with a strip of cloth soaked in some herbal mix. "You should rest," she murmured. "Your energy field is still unstable."
He shook his head. "The people needed help."
"They have priests for that," she said. "You're not a god."
"Neither are you," he replied gently. "But you still heal."
Her eyes softened, and for a moment, the world around them felt quiet — a brief peace between battles. In that silence, Arjun realized something strange: the wind that had nearly torn the city apart now moved around him like a guardian, not a threat.
He didn't command it. It followed him.
---
Veda approached, her golden braids slightly singed. She carried a small metallic cube, etched with runes that pulsed faintly.
"This," she said, handing it to Arjun, "is a fragment of the conduit you stabilized. The Vayu Fragment accepted your resonance and imprinted part of itself into this vessel. Think of it as your first Divyaastra core."
Arjun turned the cube in his palm. It was warm, humming faintly with power. The rings on his mark pulsed in response, syncing to it.
"What does it do?" he asked.
Veda smiled slightly. "Whatever the wind wills. For now, it listens only to your intent."
Mira frowned. "That sounds like a danger."
Veda shrugged. "So is breathing in a storm. But without it, you die."
Then, her tone shifted — less analytical, more cautious.
"There's something else. When the fragment stabilized, the data logs showed an external resonance — another mark, somewhere far east of here."
Arjun's heart skipped. "Raghav?"
Veda nodded slowly. "If that's the name of the other bearer... then yes. The pattern matched — but it's corrupted, unstable, burning through its channel."
Mira went still, her hand tightening on her satchel. "Then the gods haven't given up on him," she whispered. "He's still... connected."
Arjun looked at his palm, remembering the warmth that had become his strength. "Or cursed."
---
That night, they stayed within the temple's inner sanctum — a chamber filled with old idols linked by streams of light.
As Mira tended to the wounded citizens, Arjun walked alone to the rooftop, where the wind still played faintly among the bells.
He sat cross-legged, the cube resting in his hand. The city lights below looked like stars trapped in metal.
He closed his eyes and reached inward — toward the mark, the rings, the storm that now slept within him.
He saw flashes again:
A vast sky, torn apart by fire.
Golden cities collapsing.
Men wielding weapons made of light, turning on each other as the gods watched from silence.
And at the center of it all — a dark figure standing beneath a bleeding moon, blade raised against heaven itself.
Raghav.
No — Ashura.
Arjun gasped and opened his eyes.
The cube flickered violently in his hand, resonating with what he'd seen.
The voice that came was not Vayu's.
> "When light forgets mercy, darkness becomes justice."
He froze. The whisper came from nowhere — or everywhere.
---
Suddenly, a soft chime echoed behind him.
He turned and saw a young woman standing by the rooftop's edge. She couldn't have been more than nineteen — her eyes glowed faint gold, irises swirling with constellations. Her skin shimmered faintly under the moonlight, as if dusted with starlight.
She wore a long scarf woven with sacred patterns, and a pendant shaped like a crescent sun.
"Who—" Arjun began.
The girl smiled, calm and unreadable. "I'm Tara. The city calls me the Oracle of Dust and Dream. The gods call when they want me to speak."
Mira arrived a heartbeat later, her breath catching when she saw the girl. "Tara? I thought you vanished after the great blackout!"
Tara tilted her head. "I go where the dreams call me."
Her eyes shifted to Arjun. "You're the new bearer. I've seen you — in echoes."
Arjun frowned. "Echoes?"
"The world dreams, Yodha. Every act, every thought ripples through it. I saw your trial in the winds before it happened. And I saw the other one — the Fallen Protector."
Mira's hands clenched. "You mean Raghav."
Tara nodded slowly. "He's alive, but he's not himself. The blade he carries — Dhvaja-Khanda — has awakened fully. It no longer obeys him. It obeys what lies within it."
Arjun stepped closer. "What lies within?"
Tara's eyes dimmed, her voice turning distant.
> "The shadow of an ancient war — when gods fought their own creations. The same force that whispered to him is stirring again. And soon, it will reach for you too."
The words sent a cold tremor through the night air.
---
Tara turned to leave, but paused by the doorway.
"The gods don't speak often anymore," she said softly. "But when they do, they choose mortals not because they are strong… but because they are breakable."
Arjun didn't understand fully, but he felt the weight of those words settle on him like an invisible crown.
Tara looked back one last time.
"When the next storm comes, don't fight to survive it. Fight to remember why you began."
Then she was gone — her form dissolving into faint motes of golden dust that scattered with the wind.
---
Mira approached slowly, eyes shadowed with thought. "She's not like the others. When Tara speaks, even gods listen."
Arjun gazed at the cube in his hand — its surface now calm, reflecting the moonlight.
"I think she just told us this war isn't about light and dark," he said quietly. "It's about who remembers what they're fighting for."
The wind stirred again, gentle and warm — as if in agreement.
Far away, the same wind brushed against a cliff where Raghav stood. He felt it, turned toward it, and for one brief moment — before rage drowned it out — he almost remembered mercy.