Assi Ghat, Varanasi – Before Sunrise
The river was slate-grey and silent.
Devika stood barefoot at the edge of the ghat, the hem of her salwar clinging to her ankles, heavy with morning mist. She had barely slept. The manuscript still burned at the back of her mind, its verses pulsing like the faint throb of a drum she couldn't locate.
Each night since opening the vault, her body had betrayed her.
Warmth spreading without cause. The breath catching in her throat. Arousal that came unbidden — not shameful, not hungry, but ancient, ceremonial, as if her body was remembering a rite she had once performed under moonlight.
She reached into her shoulder bag and unwrapped the parchment from Vaidya's envelope. She read the verse again.
"The womb remembers what the mind is told to forget.When she opens her voice, the fourth flame will rise."
She whispered it aloud. The river stirred.
A light breeze curled around her ears, carrying the scent of burnt camphor and something darker — like old incense soaked into temple stone.
Then she heard the anklets.
Soft at first. Measured. Not running, not dancing. Walking. Confident.
She turned.
An elderly woman stood behind her on the ghat steps. Clad in a saffron sari edged with black, she bore no bindi, no jewelry — but her eyes glinted like mirrors aged with fire.
"You said the verse," the woman said.
Devika stiffened. "I—what?"
The woman stepped closer. "It was not meant for you alone, beti. It was meant to awaken me too."
Devika stepped back instinctively. "Who are you?"
The woman smiled faintly. "I am the last of the Raktapushpa line. The red-flowered ones. Your grandmother's sister knew me."
Devika blinked. "My grandmother died in 1993."
"She died in Calcutta. But before that, she left you a name."
Devika said nothing.
The woman continued: "Kankali. That's what she called you when you were born. Not Devika. She said you'd come without memory, but the body would know."
Devika's voice cracked. "You knew her?"
"I initiated her. She fled the path, but she carried the seed. So did your mother. You —" She touched Devika's forehead gently. "You carry the flowering."
Devika felt it. A deep hum in the pit of her belly.Not sexual. Not spiritual. Something else.
Alive.
A Little Later – Beneath Tulsi Bridge
They sat across from each other in a stone alcove tucked between an abandoned akhara and the crumbling bridge pillars.
The old woman — who called herself Maya — had brought a copper thali, covered in rose petals and turmeric ash. She offered Devika a sip of darkened tulsi water and placed a sliver of sandalwood on her wrist.
"You've reached the second syllable," Maya said. "Rati. Desire. But not of man or god. Desire as cosmic will — the shakti that wants to remember itself."
Devika watched the ash rise from the petals on the plate.
"What's the third?"
Maya lifted her gaze. "Svarna. The golden sound. It only awakens when the breath no longer fears the body."
Devika frowned. "What does that mean?"
Maya leaned closer. "You must speak the verse during pleasure. Not ordinary. Not selfish. A touch that opens not the skin — but memory. Only then will the third flame appear."
Devika turned her face, heat rising into her cheeks. "You're asking me to...?"
"To let the Grantha unfold where it was first written," Maya said. "On the body. In the act. It was never transcribed in ink. It was written in flesh. Women like us were the parchment."
Devika looked away.
She didn't feel fear. She felt a pull. A knowing. As if she had done this before — long ago, when touch was ritual, when breath was scripture.
"What happens after the third flame?" she asked.
Maya's tone turned solemn.
"The fourth is not yours to awaken. It belongs to him."
Devika looked up. "Who is he?"
Maya whispered: "The one who was cast out. The one who loved you in another yuga. The one who fed on verses meant for gods."
A chill licked down Devika's spine.
Meanwhile – Delhi, Private Archives of the Vaideha Trust
The man in the black kurta unfolded a newly acquired palm manuscript on a rosewood table. The candlelight revealed just one word, inked in red at the bottom of the page:
Kankali.
He smiled, just slightly.
Then, with the edge of his thumbnail, he scratched the word out — not to destroy it, but to awaken it.
As he did, the ink began to rise. Not melt. Rise — like a breath held too long.
He closed the manuscript and whispered to no one:
"She's begun. And she's already one syllable late."