ใ โง ๐๐๐ง๐๐ค โง ใ
Standing inside the ancient temple, covered in moss and ivy, I could tell that it was centuries old. The cracked walls, the dangling roots, the damp Earth, everything evidenced that it was being abandoned, and that's what I would have believed, too, had it not been for the clean and dust-free floor, lack of dry leaves, the lamps that hung from the walls, and the lit diya placed in front of the giant shivling.
The shivling was massive, covered in ash, bel patra, and garlands of fresh marigolds. Drops of milk fell on it from the copper Kalash hanging on top of it, and the diya flickered as it breathed its last breath. The ghee was running out.
Somebody was taking care of this mandir.
Unable to stop myself, I scanned the room. There, on the side altar, clean, arranged, deliberate, a brass canister sat beside a ladle. The countertop was spotless, so locating the canister wasn't hard. I grab it and walk to the diya. Every step toward the dying diya burned the raw skin of my feet. Blood was drying in a trail behind me. I limped forward, body heavy with ache.
I could feel the blood drying on my soles, and I limped over to it. Opening the can, I reach for the ladle when his voice breaks the silence.
"Are you serious?" He asked.
I ignored him. I could still smell the gunpowder, and the events of what had happened five minutes ago had turned my brain off.
I could only feel shame.
And this was what I had to do in order to relieve some tension from my heart and bones.
"This is what Maa used to make me do whenever I turned into this," he said, and I still did not look at him.
I was right. Something in his brain had snapped, and he wasn't himself. What had happened? I wanted to know. How did his personality change so suddenly?
Why did he change so much?
"Stop, Beti."
My head jerked up. The voice was not Aryan's. It came from beyond the sanctum.
My head snapped up to the voice, and from a door at the end of the Puja room, an old man emerged, dressed in a white dhoti and kurta. His white beard was long, touching his chest and his moustache curled at the end. A rudraksha mala hung from his neck, dark against his pallor. In one hand, he gripped a carved wooden staff that seemed to hum faintly as he stepped forward. "This flame was lit at twilight," he said, voice like a river flowing beneath stone. "It must be allowed to die. As all things must."
I felt Aryan walk over, but I didn't look at him. I couldn't.
"Leave," Aryan commanded as I put the ladle back in the canister and closed the lid.
"Asking the Pandit to leave his own Mandir?" he said softly. Then he shook his head, and the beads in his hair whispered with the motion. "A Pandit does not leave his God. Not while the soul clings to this vessel. And when it leaves..." He tapped his staff once against the floor. A soft, hollow echo answered him. "...it finds Him again, to serve Him again." Stating that, the Old man walked towards me.
Aryan steps forward, coming between me and the Pandit.
He stopped. "Why have you come, children? Why are you seeking shelter in Mahadev's abode? What do you seek at his feet?" He gestured to the room, the run-down stone walls and the blackened ceiling. "This Mandir is no resting place for wanderers of the flesh. What are you seeking within these ruined walls of stone?"
Aryan grabs my wrist and pulls me up. The pain in my sole shot through me again, and I silently winced. "We were running away from people who wanted to kill us. And now, we are here to take a vow."
Pandit ji smiled. "One or seven, Child?" And then frowned. "And where is your hawan kund?" he asked, voice almost curious. "Where is the fire that will bear witness to your union?"
Aryan smirked. "Bonds written in the stars do not need a fire to witness their union."
The Pandit's head tilted slowly, like he was studying something not visible to the eye. "There is a reason the fire is called sacred," he said softly. "It does not warm. It tests. It does not see. It judges. You stand here claiming a destined bond, only to tie it without the blessing of the Gods?"
He then walked towards the Shivling and tapped his staff against the floor. "Mahadev and Mahakaali were bound long before the first breath of creation. Their union was not merely destined; it was cosmic law. It was written in the fabric of the universe, before it was even formed."
And then turned, looking at us. "And yet even Shiv and Sati... even Parvati, reborn in flesh, in blood, did not defy the sacred rite. In their mortal form, they stood before Agni and spoke their vows as the heavens watched. They did not bind themselves in shadow, but summoned the Gods to descend, to bear witness to their union."
He reached up, fingers brushing the damp air, and seized a root that hung like a forgotten thread from the vaulted darkness above. With a slow, deliberate pull, he yanked it downward.
What happened next froze my breath mid-chest. Even Aryan, who never flinched, fell silent, his mouth slightly parted.
The root groaned like something ancient waking from sleep. It began to unravel from the ceiling, slithering down in slow coils, not unlike a serpent descending from the heavens. It was enormous, easily fifty feet, and its bark was thick with the soot of centuries, textured on it.
When it finally collapsed onto the cold stone floor of the Mandir, it did not just fall; it landed with a thunderous thud that echoed through the hollow chamber. Dust, undisturbed for ages, burst into the air in great choking clouds, swirling in the half-light like spirits torn from the earth.
I coughed as the dust settled in my lungs. Looking at the old man through the cloud of dust, he glided the root around and, in a move that could only be described as martial arts, he coiled it into a giant heap before us.
"Speak, child," he said, looking at me. "Or are you planning to take the vow in silence?"
I did not know what to say. "What? What do you want me to say?" I spoke in a voice that was thinner than I intended. Pandit ji walked to one of the lanterns and held it above the root.
"Not what I want, Beti, but what the fire demands." He turned the lamp to its side and began spilling the oil and gas onto the root.
I looked at Aryan, only to flinch when I found his eyes already on me. In that moment, I couldn't remember what had happened tonight. How his brain had snapped, and I bore the consequences of his insanity. How, even though he was insane and tortured me, I didn't want to change a thing about it.
I recalled a memory that had been buried deep in me. Of the time when I was locked in the classroom with him by those three boys, thinking it would be funny.
The lock didn't turn, and I was truly stuck in the room with him. I turned to him, eyes angry, my heart thudding. "You think this is funny?" I screamed.
He raised a brow. "You think I did this?"
"Who else then? You like to trouble me!"
He smirked. "You are giving yourself too much credit, Princess. I don't even think about you, let alone make plans to annoy you."
My chest crushed at his words. "Good. I wouldn't want to live in that head of yours, either."
'Maybe I could live in your heart instead?' A voice that I had kept buried in me for years spoke, raising its head as though it had been waiting for this opportunity.
'SHUT UP!' I screamed at myself and looked at the chairs in the room, and then thanked the lord for how lucky we were to be on the ground floor.
"It was Hardik, Aarav and Prateek," Aryan said as he lounged on one of the chairs. "Worry not, I know exactly what I am going to do to them," he replied.
"Good!" I said, and grabbing one chair, I threw it against the window, shattering it into tiny pieces. The hole was big enough for us to walk through. I turned to him, "Let's go."
My heart clenched. What I had wanted then was what I wanted now as well.
Some things really don't change.
Something in my eyes must have shifted, because Pandit Ji smiled. "Your heart has spoken, Child." He then turned to Aryan. "You don't need to voice your consent. But you need to offer her your truth. Especially when hers shines brighter than the Sun itself."
My blood turned cold at his words. Was it evident? Could he see it? Did everyone know?
In one swift motion, Aryan raised his gun, aimed it straight at the old man's chest.
"You talk too much," Aryan growled, his voice low, fraying at the edges of control.
"No!" I lunged, my hand grabbing his arm, trying to wrestle it down. "Aryan, snap out of it! This isn't you!"
But the Pandit didn't flinch.
He didn't even blink.
Instead, he laughed.
"You are standing before Mahadev, and you try to conceal what's in you." He gestured to the temple walls. "In this space, even shadows confess. You may deny it with your tongue. You may bury it in silence. But he sees. And you... You have shadows clinging to you. Do you truly think you can hide from it?"
He then threw the lamp on the root, and the small fire burning in the lamp grew into a massive flame as it touched the dry root and the oil spilt on it. "Take the vow," the Pandit commanded, his eyes now lit by fire and something deeper, something unseen. "The Gods are here. Watching."
But then--
"Aryan," A voice shouted from the entrance. I turned to look at it, and Parth came in view, running up the steps of the mandir, with our family trailing behind him.
I spun back to the altar.
The Pandit was gone.
Completely.
No footsteps. No retreating shadow.
"Where did he...?" I asked, scanning the room frantically. "Where did he go?"
But the fire still burned. The root still crackled.
"Forget it," Aryan said and turned to look at our family coming to us.
"Kanak!" Papa's voice tore through the temple like thunder, raw and breaking. His footsteps pounded up the stone steps, and in the next breath, I was in his arms.
"My child... my child..." he whispered, again and again, as if saying it enough times might undo the night. He crushed me against him, one hand on the back of my head, the other trembling as it held me close.
And I took it all in.
Just like how I had done sixteen years ago. The events of this night mirrored those of that night, but did not ease my heart. It set it on fire.
"Mera bacha..." Maa's voice came soft, broken, as she reached us and joined the embrace. Her hands searched my face, as if checking whether I was still real, still whole.
"Those fucking Italians," Papa whispered. "They'll die. Every last one of them. For what they did to you, they will beg for death before I give it."
'Right. My state. The dirt, the sweat, the cuts. He thinks it is the Italians.'
"Let's go," he said suddenly, grabbing my arm like I was still five years old. "Let's go home. Shivansh! Get the car ready!" he spoke over his shoulder.
I opened my mouth, just enough to say no, but I never got the chance.
Another hand caught my other arm.
Strong. Steady. And unchanging.
I didn't have to turn to know who it was.
I felt it in my bones.
Aryan.
"Where do you think you are taking her?" He said, and Papa froze mid-step, his head turning with slow fury. Their eyes locked.
"Home," Papa said, his tone a warning in itself. He gripped my arm tightly and tugged me forward again.
But Aryan moved in a blur.
He yanked me back with such force my father's grip slipped, and I stumbled into Aryan's chest, breath caught in my throat.
"The only home she'll be going to..." Aryan said, his arms anchoring around me like a claim carved in stone, "...is mine, Sasur ji."
Papa turned fully now, his jaw clenched, his rage silent and deadly as it gathered behind his eyes. He looked not at Aryan's face, but at the arm that held me.
I struggled in Aryan's grip, whispered his name, but he didn't loosen.
"This is the only warning I'll give you, Aryan," Papa said, his voice low and controlled, the voice of a man who'd made people vanish for far less. "Let. Her. Go. I'm calling this marriage off."
The words slammed into the air like thunder.
Silence fell.
"Viraj," Dev Uncle's voice carried over the stillness in the Mandir. "What the hell are you talking about?"
Papa turned to him. "I am calling this marriage off!" He then looked at Aryan. "Let. Her. Go!"
Then came the laughter.
A low rumble at first, like distant thunder rolling through his chest.
Aryan laughed.
His shoulders shook with it, every breath a quake through his body. The sound echoed through the Mandir, bouncing off stone and flame, and with each reverberation, the room grew stiller.
People stopped moving.
Stopped breathing.
As Aryan laughed at Papa's declaration, I saw Tara Aunty clutching Dev Uncle's shoulder, her face frozen in an expression that could only be described as terror.
"Dev," she whispered.
Dev Uncle looked at Aryan, slowly clenching his fist. "I know," he replied. He stepped forward with determination. "I need to bring him back before we lose him more."
"Aryan!" he called out, firm but edged with desperation.
But Aryan didn't turn. He tilted his head back, eyes locked on the ceiling. And then, with a bitter laugh, he exhaled. "Oh, this day just keeps getting better and better." His gaze snapped to me.
"He made me do this," Aryan said, his voice almost... amused.
And then he turned, slowly, and raised the gun--
Pointed it at my father. In an instant, every person in the room raised their guns at each other. Papa, Maa, Shivansh, Parth, Tara Aunty... everybody! The Mandir had turned into a battlefield in an instant. The only person without a weapon was Dev Uncle.
Every instinct in me screamed. I wanted to slap him, scream at him, drag him back to himself, whatever was left of him.
"Aryan!" Dev Uncle's voice cracked like a whip across the hall, echoing louder than the fire. "Get a hold of yourself." He stepped forward again, hands out. "Look at me," he said, softer now. "Remember who you are."
Aryan didn't move.
Didn't lower the gun.
But something flickered.
A twitch in the corner of his mouth. "Reminding me of Maa won't help me now, Papa." His voice was cold. "I'm too far gone."
"Aryan, I will kill you with my own hands if you even think of harming a hair on his head," I whispered my promise to Aryan.
His head tilted. "I will cross that bridge when I come to it, Princess."
I reach over and grab his hand, pushing it down.
"Even after killing me," Papa said, his voice hard, "do you truly think you'll be able to marry her? Every single member of the Thakur clan will die before they let that happen."
A cruel smile touched Aryan's lips
"Then maybe," he said softly, "our bond will be tied in your family's blood, Sasur ji."
A collective gasp rippled through the hall like a wave of dread.
"Aryan!" Dev Uncle's voice cracked through the silence.
Aryan turned to him in a sharp snap. "The head of the Rathore clan," he hissed, "is speaking to the head of the Thakurs. Your voice has no place here."
I inhaled sharply.
Dev Uncle stared at his son. No anger. No argument.
Just a long, quiet look, filled with sorrow, he turned to Tara Aunty. "It's too late."
Aryan turned back to my father, gaze steady, "Why?" he asked. "Why are you calling off this marriage now? Why the sudden betrayal?"
Papa stepped forward, chin high, shoulders squared. "Because you failed," he said. "You were supposed to protect her. You were in charge of security. And she was taken, stolen from right under our noses. Someone managed to plant bombs in the Haveli while you were supposed to protect us all."
He looked at me now, his voice cracking with pain and fury.
"I will not give my daughter's hand to a man who couldn't protect her before she even became his."
"Bomb?" I whispered. Someone had planted bombs?
The room held its breath.
Aryan smiled and held me a little closer to him. "And what do you plan on doing, if not marry her to me?" He leaned forward and mocked, "Marry her to someone else?"
Papa stared at him. "Someone more deserving. Someone more worthy."
Aryan stilled. He let out a soft laugh, hollow and sharp, and turned to Dev Uncle, who stood frozen in place like he already knew what was coming.
"It's said a man is destined to follow in his father's footsteps," Aryan murmured. "Perhaps... I am no different."
He turned back to Papa, and this time his smile held no humour.
"Do it," he whispered. "Marry her to someone worthy. Someone else." A beat of silence. "I will follow in my father's path. And I will kill the man at the altar, just as he once did. And I will marry the woman I want... over his dead body."
"Aryan," Papa warned him.
This was a mess. Messier than everything, the night unfolded. It needed to be stopped.
"Or maybe," Aryan suddenly exclaimed, his voice rising with a wild, twisted glee, "I'll follow in your footsteps instead, Sasur ji."
The words struck like a thunderclap, shocking the room into stunned silence.
A single breath later, Shivansh's voice cut through the air, low, cold, and lethal.
"Aryan," he warned, his murmur louder than the fire's crackle, "mind your next words... very, very carefully."
But Aryan didn't heed his words and said, "And marry the woman I want to," he said, his tone now like poison dressed in silk, "after murdering her father in the Mandap, of course."
I heard the safety of the gun unlock, and Shivansh pointed his gun at Aryan. "You have crossed every line," he said.
"Shivansh!" Papa's voice rang out, thunderous and commanding. "Put the gun down!"
But Shivansh didn't move. Didn't lower his arm.
Aryan didn't flinch either.
He turned his head slowly toward Papa, his expression unreadable.
"Do whatever you want, Viraj Thakur," he said, calm as death. "Fire your bullets. The result will be the same."
Then he looked at me, really looked at me, for the first time since everything began. His eyes met mine, and for a moment, the madness slipped.
He saw the fury.
The betrayal.
The silent scream behind my tears.
And then, he turned back to my father, voice lower, darker.
"But I have a proposition," he said. He pause. "Something I know you'll agree to."
Then, lowering his gun, he said, "I am making a vow!"
Behind us, I could hear the fire crackling, and maybe it was my imagination, but at his words, it seemed to burn brighter, hotter and louder.
"Rakt Bandhan!" The words rang in the hall, and I could feel the stillness settle in the room. The breaths that were held. My own chest had turned hollow at his words.
Rakt Bandhan, the ancient marriage practice that happened in our world, happened in the Kesaries. A vow made in blood. A vow to give your weapon to another. A vow to protect a woman. A vow to die if the woman is harmed. A vow to be killed by your own weapon.
"I am willing," Aryan declared, stepping forward, eyes never leaving my father, "to make the vow to you."
He paused.
Then continued, "A leader... to another."
My chest shuddered. Even the temple seemed to shudder.
Even Papa paused.
For the first time that night, Aryan's words gave him pause. Not out of fear, but out of sheer, stunned disbelief.
And thenโ
His face twisted.
Not in the usual anger I had grown up with. Not the stern rage of a father.
This was something deeper. Something darker.
"How dare you?" he snarled, voice raw and thunderous. "You dare stand before me, in this sacred place, and speak those words?"
He stepped forward, pointing his gun at Aryan, as if the very act of naming the vow had tainted the air.
"What do you take me for?" he spat. "A barbarian?"
The room flinched with each word.
"Do you think I will allow my daughter, my daughter, to be married off like cattle in some ancient trial of blades and blood?"
His voice cracked, not from weakness, but from fury barely caged.
"Rakt Bandhan?" he sneered. "Did you really think I would agree to this barbaric tradition?"
He turned to the gathered family.
"This ends now," he declared. "This circus, this madness. There will be no wedding."
He looked back at Aryan, face storm-dark, voice shaking with the weight of pride and pain. "You are not worthy of any rite. Not sacred. Not savage. And certainly not hers."
He grabbed my hand and pulled, but Aryan's hold tightened on me.
"While you were crying outside her room," Aryan began, his voice cold and cutting, "while you were clutching your hair, wailing for the daughter you thought you lost, I was on the streets."
His gaze didn't waver. "I was the one chasing shadows in alleys. I was the one combing through the highways, the silence."
He pointed at me. "I found her. I protected her. And I brought her back."
The room fell into stunned silence, broken only by the crackling fire behind him.
He turned slowly, letting his eyes sweep across the hall, pausing just long enough on each face to make everyone uncomfortable.
"I brought her back within the hour," he said. "One piece. Unharmed. Alive."
His voice lowered, "And as for the bombs, that doesn't happen by chance."
People shifted. Eyes darted. Fear began to swirl like smoke.
"Someone in this family betrayed us."
The words dropped like a stone, "The bombs... the timing... the access, someone opened the door."
He paused, then added, almost like a confession, "Not keeping an eye on the family... was my mistake." He looked at Dev Uncle, then at Papa, then at me. "And I intend to correct it."
There was a pause.
"I managed to do what you couldn't! I am the reason she is here," he said.
I wanted to speak.
God, I wanted to tell them everything.
How I hadn't been kidnapped from the Haveli.
How I had run.
I wanted to tell them that the Italians hadn't found me in the Haveli
They found me in the wild, on the road.
And Iโ
I killed them.
Nine of them.
With blood on my hands and fire in my lungs, I carved my way through them. Not because I had no choice.
But because I could.
And that Aryan... He hadn't saved me from them either.
He had chased me.
Through the forest.
Through the dark.
And he did things to me, unspeakable, wild things. Things that should make my skin crawl and my soul weep.
But they didn't.
Because I had welcomed it all.
Because I hadn't fought back.
And the most terrifying truth?
I didn't regret a second of it.
And I would have said it all, but then, I would have had to accept the secret I was hiding, too. A secret Aryan has promised to keep. Because revealing it all would have also revealed how it was Shivansh who had helped me run away. How, it was our family that had betrayed first.
So, I said none of that. But I did speak.
"Papa," I spoke, my voice hoarse from the lumps in my throat. It cut through the tension that had strung his muscles together. He relaxed a little.
"Papa..." I said and looked at him, Maa and Shivansh. "Papa, I wan--" I tried.
"I want to marry him," I said and turned to look at Aryan. "I want to marry, Aryan." Aryan's head slowly turned to look at me, his lips curling into a smirk.
He knew why I had said it. The agreement between us. The deal. I submit to him, and he finds Phantom for me. I agree to be his, and he kills all of my demons for me.
"Kanak," Papa said, his voice low with betrayal. My heart pinched at it.
'God, I am so sorry, Papa.'
"I know what you fear, Papa," I said, "But I know," I said. "I know he will keep his word. I know he will keep his promise."
The heat of his gaze at the top of my head was enough evidence of how my words were affecting him.
"I believe your daughter's wishes take priority over your wishes, Sasurji," Aryan said.
Papa gulped as he continued to stare at me, and then his eyes snapped to Aryan.
"Rakt Bandhan," Papa began. "I will allow it!"
"Viraj!" Maa's voice rang through the murmur of the spectators.
"Papa!" Shivansh said. "You can't be serious."
Papa looked at them and said, "Trust me."
He then turned to Aryan and said, "But we don't live in those ages, Aryan."
He stepped towards us. "If you want to make a vow," he said, nodding toward the sacred fire still crackling behind us, "then you make it not just to the Gods."
He looked at me.
"You make it to her." And then his eyes found Aryan's again. "And to me."
The words landed with weight, heavier than any gunshot.
"Because if anything happens to her, anything, that takes away her ability to carry out the tradition..." He stepped closer, now toe-to-toe with Aryan. "Then I will hold the right to kill you myself," he whispered.
Aryan raised his gun to Papa and said, "Deal!" he said voice was like iron scraped against stone.
The word echoed through the silence like a challenge spoken into the bones of the earth.
Papa's eyes dropped to the weapon in Aryan's hand, its cold metal gleaming under temple firelight.
"You may use this," Aryan said, his gaze unwavering, "to end me with your own hands..."
His voice deepened, almost reverent.
"If I fail to protect her." He raised his head, the fire casting his shadow long and monstrous behind him. "If I break the vow I make to you tonight, as her father..." A pause. "...and to her, as the woman I choose above all else..."
He pushed the gun forward, into Papa's hand.
"Then let this weapon be my sentence."
Papa grabbed the gun from his hands.
"Darsh," Aryan barked at his guard, who stood straighter. He raised his hand towards him and said, "My dagger."
Darsh walked towards Aryan and placed an ornate and beautifully carved dagger in Aryan's hand. Spinning me out of his arms, he placed me before him. I could see the fire Pandit Ji had lit behind him. I could feel its heat.
'The Gods are here. Watching.' His voice rang in my head.
And in the presence of these Gods, before Mahadev, Aryan pulled out the dagger from the sheath with a swish.
His eyes bore deeply into mine. "I vow, before the Gods who watch, before Mahadev who holds witness, that no harm shall come to you while I draw breath. That your fears shall become mine to destroy. That every demon that dares to reach for you shall meet me first. I swear to shield you with my body, my blood, and my soul. With my blood as witness, I promise to stand between you and the world."
He raised the blade.
And without hesitation, he drew it across his palm.
Blood bloomed, dark and unflinching. The sight of blood, any other blood, would have made my heart race, my vision to darken and my mind to snap shut.
But like everything, he was the exception.
Raising his hand, slowly and steadily, he put his bleeding hand on the crown of my head, and with a stroke, wiped his blood into the partition, the place where he was supposed to put Sindoor.
And just like that, I was married to Aryan Rathore, our bond tied in ancient tradition and blood.
.ยท:ยท.โง โฆ โง.ยท:ยท.
Write a comment ...