Chapter 1: The Death Dream
The sword in my hand was the only cold thing in that storm-wracked hell.
It was a sliver of polished steel, a promise of death. And I was about to break it.
Before me, Neer knelt on the rain-lashed stone of the ruins. His blue robes were soaked black, clinging to a frame that was already too still. The howling wind stole my voice, but I forced the words out, a shattered whisper.
"Forgive me, Neer. There was no other path."
His eyes, the colour of a tempestuous sea, held mine. Not with anger. Not with fear. But with a heartbreaking acceptance. A faint, tragic smile touched his lips, a stark contrast to the agony I felt tearing my soul apart.
"If this… was my destiny…" he strained, each word a battle, "I am blessed… that it is you who holds its pen, Agni."
A sob I couldn't release choked me. I looked at my best friend, my rival, the only person who had ever looked at me and seen a man, not just a prince.
"You won't… you won't be able to forget me… will you, Agni?"
"Never," I vowed, the word a raw wound.
With a cry torn from the depths of my being, I lunged.
The world narrowed to the path of the blade. It sank into his abdomen with a sickening finality. I felt the impact travel up my arm, a vibration that would haunt me for eternity.
He crumpled forward into my arms. I held him as the light in his stormy eyes stilled, as his body grew heavy and cold. The rain washed his blood over my hands, but it felt like it was scalding me.
This was my destiny. My curse.
Then, everything changed.
A strange warmth spread from the sword into my palms. Neer's body began to glow with a soft, malevolent blue light. The rain around us froze mid-air, hanging like a million glittering daggers.
A voice echoed, not from his lips, but from the fabric of reality itself—a sound of prophecy and doom.
"You think this is the end, Agni? This is only the beginning."
I stumbled back as Neer's eyes snapped open. But they were no longer his. They burned with an unearthly blue fire.
In a voice that was a distorted echo of his own, he spoke the words that would become my nightmare.
"We will meet again… in another life, in another form. But next time, I will not be the one dying."
The blue light exploded, swallowing the world, swallowing me—
—I jolted awake, a scream trapped in my throat.
My chest heaved, drenched in a cold sweat that had nothing to do with the early morning warmth filtering through my window. The familiar, spartan sight of my room in the Gurukul greeted me. The rough-hewn wooden desk, the neat stack of scrolls, the sword resting in its stand.
A dream. It was all a dream.
The same dream that had clawed at my mind every night for a month.
My wrist, where the mark of my clan—a stylized flame—was etched, throbbed with a phantom pain. I clutched it, trying to steady my racing heart.
"Still having bad dreams, O Perfect Prince?"
The voice, laced with familiar mockery, came from the doorway.
My head snapped up.
There he was.
Leaning against the doorframe with an infuriatingly casual grace, was Neer. Alive. Whole. His blue eyes sparkled with mischief, not unearthly fire. A smirk played on his lips, a world away from that heartbreaking smile of death.
The sight of him, breathing and real, hit me with a wave of violent, inexplicable relief. It was so powerful it felt like a physical blow, leaving me dizzy. For a single, shameful second, all I felt was gratitude.
Then, the cold dread returned, coiling in my gut like a serpent.
The prophecy echoed in my mind, as clear as if it had been spoken in the room: "We will meet again… in another life, in another form."
But this was no other life. This was now. This was the Gurukul where we had grown up.
And the boy standing before me, alive and breathing, was destined to die by my hand.
He raised an eyebrow, his smirk widening. "You look like you've seen a pishach. What, did your precious rules and disciplines rebel against you in your sleep?"
I couldn't speak. I could only stare, the image of my sword plunging into his gut superimposing itself over his living, breathing form.
This was no dream. It was a warning.
And I was the monster in it.
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