The eastern gates of Nalanda stood open for the first time in months.
Not to merchants. Not to dignitaries. But for something older… deeper.
Destiny.
Dozens of disciples, cloaked in fresh white and saffron robes, stood in lines as the morning sun cast long shadows across the stone courtyard. Their bags were packed, chakras tuned, and hearts pounded with silent drums of excitement, nerves, and dreams.
Acharya Aryabhatt stood at the head of the caravan, flanked by Yogini Maitri Kashyapi in silver-trimmed robes, her gaze cutting through fog like a sword, and Yogi Agnivesh Singh, his staff strapped across his back, the golden mantra-rings on either end now covered in sacred cloth.
Behind them, the chosen disciples prepared to leave the only place they had called home for years.
Maruti Vanar was doing stretches in the middle of the path, groaning dramatically.
Maruti: "Ughhh. My back. My legs. My glorious ranking. All this… burden."
Ravi (rolling his eyes): "You're not carrying the world, you drama fruit. Just your bedding and ego."
Maruti (grinning): "My ego needs space, Ravi. It has rankings now."
Naimisha, adjusting the strap of her satchel, watched them both with a small smirk, then turned to Pralay, who stood quietly at the side, gaze locked on the path ahead.
Naimisha: "You okay?"
Pralay: "I think so. Just… feels like we're walking into a story that's already written."
Naimisha (softly): "Then let's be the ones who change the ending."
Anand, standing apart as usual, examined the scroll he carried — a directive seal from Yogini Maitri. His eyes flicked over each line like he was memorizing the future.
Just then, the bell tower rang once—deep and final.
It was time.
Acharya Aryabhatt (projecting): "This journey is more than distance. More than fire trials and God Stones. This is the path to understanding who you are."
He turned. The gates creaked wider.
Acharya Aryabhatt: "To Ayodhya!"
The caravan began to move.
The disciples of Nalanda—those selected—stepped beyond the walls, beyond routine, beyond safety.
Some marched in silence. Others joked nervously. One or two looked back just once at the towering spires of Nalanda disappearing behind mist and light.
But none turned around. The road ahead was winding. Sacred. Ancient. They were headed to the city where gods once walked.
They were headed to Ayodhya.
The scent of marigold and sandalwood clung to the air as the gates of Ayodhya opened before them.
It wasn't just a city. It was a memory wrapped in golden light. A song sung for generations. A breathing monument where every stone hummed with the echoes of gods and kings.
Ayodhya—one of the four sacred kingdom of the Aryavarta Nation—stood tall and eternal, its skyline painted in temple spires, sun-bathed domes, and flag-laced terraces. Rivers of saffron fabric flowed from balconies. Crimson powder was smeared across the foreheads of children, dancers, guards, elders, and even oxen pulling floral chariots.
As the Nalanda group stepped past the towering lion-gate archway, they were swallowed by a city alive.
Drums thundered. Conch shells blared. A hundred temples bloomed with petals and people alike. Every street bustled with energy—priests guiding rituals, shopkeepers singing mantras while weighing sweets, and boys racing barefoot past shrines carrying tiny clay bows.
It was Saptami. The seventh day of Dussehra.
Ravi (awed): "This place… it's like the gods never left."
Maruti (grinning): "Feels like even the stones here could beat me in a fight."
Yogini Maitri, walking just ahead, turned her head slightly, her voice calm yet clear over the bustle.
Yogini Maitri: "Ayodhya is not just a city. It is a vow kept alive. The vow of Dharma. It was here that Lord Ram ruled, where the stories of valor, sacrifice, and balance were not just written—but lived."
Their caravan passed beneath archways adorned with carvings of divine battles and ascetics seated in eternal meditation. Murals painted across marble halls depicted scenes from the Ramayana—not just the battles, but the silences in between.
Yogini Maitri (continuing): "Dussehra here is more than celebration. It is remembrance. The victory of virtue over arrogance, of silence over noise. Each of these ten days mirrors the ten heads of Ravana—each head a vice to conquer."
A group of women passed by, balancing golden lamps on their heads, their eyes lined with kohl and devotion. They stepped aside briefly, smiling at the young Nalanda disciples as if recognizing future warriors in training.
Anand (softly): "Today is Saptami, the seventh day."
Yogini Maitri (nodding): "Correct. On the eighth day—Ashtami—we begin the Mani Exam. A divine alignment. A sacred challenge during sacred days."
Naimisha: "And the exam ends on Dashami…"
Yogini Maitri: "On the day of Dussehra. When the effigies of darkness fall in fire, your final trial shall decide who among you may rise to touch the Bodhi Tree."
The group passed through a plaza where artisans shaped molten brass into idols, while others arranged mirrors to reflect the morning sun into temple sanctums. Every street corner sang a different hymn. Every wall was a canvas. Every alley felt like a portal.
Ayodhya wasn't a city—it was a stage where divinity had once walked barefoot, and where mortals still tried to follow.
They crossed a wide bridge overlooking the sacred Sarayu River, its waters glittering like scattered offerings. The riverbanks were lined with platforms of polished white stone where priests chanted into the wind. Children floated diyas in coconut shells, each flame a prayer.
And ahead, beyond a grove of peepal trees, stood their destination.
Ram-Lalla Ashram.
An ashram built on holy ground, said to be the exact spot where Lord Ram had once meditated during his return from exile. It had no high walls. No guards. Just open courtyards, prayer wheels, and the silence of timelessness.
Acharya Aryabhatt, who had walked ahead without speaking, finally paused at the threshold.
Acharya Aryabhatt: "This place shall be your ground of testing. And, if fate permits… your place of transformation."
Yogi Agnivesh, finally removing the cloth from his staff, let the golden mantra-rings shimmer in the Ayodhya light. His voice was warmer now, touched with reverence.
Yogi Agnivesh: "No chakra drills. No scrolls. No mantras taught. The next three days will test only what's already inside you."
Ravi (under breath): "That's encouraging…"
Maruti (grinning): "I hope the test is punching a demon."
Pralay, however, stayed quiet.
His gaze remained fixed on the ashram gate.
Something in the air whispered to his ring, and it responded—faintly pulsing with a hum so ancient, it felt like time breathing.
They stepped forward, one by one, into the ashram grounds.
Ahead of them, the bodhi wind stirred the peepal leaves.
The Mani Exam was coming.
And Ayodhya… was watching.
Far from Ayodhya, beneath a burning sky and a crescent moon, the city of Madras lay cloaked in southern heat and murmuring winds.
At its center rose the black-stoned marvel of the Madurai Palace—a fortress of gods, kings, and whispered fears. Carvings of lions and nagas danced across its tall arches, each doorway shaped like the maw of some forgotten titan. Torches burned not with flame, but with golden light conjured from ether itself.
The great audience hall—Svarnasabha, the Golden Court—was lit by hovering orbs of light, rotating slowly in the air like captive stars.
The throne stood at the far end, carved of obsidian veined with gold, flanked by dragon pillars sculpted in a single breath of metal. It was empty.
Until now.
Footsteps echoed through the chamber—slow, sharp, echoing across the high domes.
Sauri had arrived.
He walked with the silence of fog, his robe trailing like the whisper of a storm long passed. His face remained hidden under his ash-colored hood, but his presence pressed into the hall like coiling shadow.
He stopped twenty paces from the throne.
And there, at the far end of the throne chamber, stood a man like a monolith—
Kaalnemi.
Tall. Dark-robed. His hands behind his back. The mark of nine spirals faintly etched at the hollow of his throat.
His back was to Sauri, but his voice cut clean through the shadows.
Kaalnemi: "What request do you bring… Sauri, child of the stillborn void?"
Sauri stopped.
His voice was colder than the marble beneath them.
Sauri: "I request the presence of the Emperor."
Kaalnemi turned—slowly. His face unreadable, pale eyes lit by the golden firelight that floated in the air around them.
A pause.
And then he raised his hand.
The light responded.
Sparks of liquid gold began to shimmer in the air above the throne—a throne made not of wood or stone, but of polished translucent crystal, lined with blood-gold filigree. Symbols of the Sun God and the Seven Epochs arched around its backrest.
The golden sparks twisted.
Spiraled.
And then condensed—pulling in toward a single point above the seat.
There was no flash.
Just sudden silence.
And then—he appeared.
Not walked.
Not materialized.
Simply was.
The light folded outward into the form of a man—golden-blonde hair falling to his shoulders in smooth, royal waves, and a deep yellow overcoat hung around his shoulders like a cape woven from sunlight itself. It billowed gently, though no wind stirred.
His eyes opened last.
They were unreal. Clear. Amber-gold. Sharp enough to unmake lies at a glance.
The Emperor had arrived.
Sauri and Kaalnemi both dropped to one knee in unison, their heads lowered—not out of protocol, but sheer gravity of presence.
The Emperor didn't speak right away.
He stepped down the three silent steps from his throne platform, his boots barely touching the floor, as though reality itself adjusted to his will.
He looked at Sauri first.
His gaze didn't command. It simply was. Absolute.
And then his voice—like velvet wrapped around thunder.
Emperor: "Speak."
Sauri didn't raise his eyes, but his voice carried.
Sauri: "We've received word. From our embedded informant. The Mani Exam… will take place in Ayodhya."
The Emperor remained still. The lamps above flickered once—as if reacting.
Sauri: "Only two yogis remain to guard Nalanda.
The others—Acharya Aryabhatt, Yogini Maitri, and Yogi Agnivesh—are all leaving with the candidates."
A moment passed.
The Emperor turned slightly, pacing with precise grace across the hall's golden light.
Kaalnemi (raising his chin): "An opportunity. Shall we move now?"
The Emperor's gaze lingered on the wall fresco of a tree ablaze in silver fire, and his lips curved into the faintest suggestion of a smile.
Emperor: "No. Not yet."
Kaalnemi (restraining a grin): "But the Bodhi Tree's path will open. The scrolls will move. The kalki stone bearer will be unguarded."
Emperor: "Exactly."
He looked over his shoulder, golden eyes narrowing slightly.
Emperor: "And all the attention will be there. In Ayodhya. At the edge of flame."
He opened his palm.
A swirl of golden particles danced over his fingers like embers seeking form.
Emperor (softly): "Let the light draw every moth. Let them think the exam is the purpose. Let them celebrate their illusions…"
He turned fully now, gaze burning with something older than strategy.
Emperor: "And when they burn brightest—we move in shadow."
Sauri finally raised his eyes.
Sauri: "You believe Nalanda will fall without a war?"
The Emperor stepped toward him.
Emperor: "No war is needed, Sauri."
His hand hovered above Sauri's bowed head—light humming in his fingertips.
Emperor: "Because the moment they fear us again… is the moment they already lost."
Kaalnemi: "The age of subtlety ends, then?"
Emperor: "Not yet. But it begins to crack. And through that first crack…"
He smiled.
Not warmth. Not cruelty. Just certainty.
Emperor (final): "…the Navdivyas return."
The chamber fell still again.
Still as prophecy.
The shimmering golden light of the Emperor had yet to fade, its warmth lingering like the last breath of a celestial fire. His words still hung in the air, sharper than any blade.
Sauri slowly rose from his kneel. There was no haste. Only reverence.
He lifted his left hand, fingers unfurling like a lotus offering its truth.
And there—glowing faintly against his wrist—emerged the symbol:
Nine concentric circles, etched not with ink, but with burning sigils of living gold.
They shimmered like a brand pressed into the soul, ancient and sacred.
The Mark of the Navdivyas.
Kaalnemi turned his head slightly, his eyes narrowing with silent pride. He did not speak. He did not need to. The weight of what Sauri had revealed spoke louder than thunder.
Sauri (calm, assured): "I shall relay your will… to the Bloodborn King."
For a brief moment, the hall darkened—not from any failing light, but from the very feeling that passed through the air.
The name had been spoken.
And with it, the scent of war.
The Emperor didn't react. His expression remained unreadable—somewhere between calm and cruelty.
Sauri, standing straight now beneath his golden gaze, pressed his right fist to his heart.
Sauri: "He waits. Patiently. And now, the path is clearing."
Kaalnemi, standing beside him, mirrored the gesture.
Their voices rose—not loud, but firm, ritualistic, unyielding:
Sauri & Kaalnemi (in unison): "Victory to the Emperor… Rudra."
The chamber echoed not with sound, but with the silent pulse of devotion.
The hovering lamps pulsed once in response. The symbols carved into the black stone beneath their feet flickered. And far above, the dome ceiling gleamed—revealing, just for a moment, a hidden constellation etched in gold: nine stars encircling a single sun.
A prophecy reborn.
A storm called Navdivyas had begun to stir.
And at its eye…
Stood a man with a golden overcoat, a smile without warmth, and a name whispered in fear across the realms:
Emperor Rudra.
[End of Chapter]