Riyaan Mehta's hands never shook.
Not when he strung a bow in archery competitions. Not when he drew sketches for fashion clients who expected perfection. Not even during his TEDx talk on "Art as Precision."
He was the golden boy of Mumbai—clean-cut, talented, calm under pressure. A child prodigy turned national archery champion turned design entrepreneur. Everything in his life was precise.
But lately, even his shadows felt off-center.
It started during a photo shoot three weeks ago.
He was adjusting the lighting rig when something hit him—a sudden, overwhelming vision of a battlefield. Smoke. Chaos. A thousand arrows slicing through the sky like a swarm of deadly birds. And in the middle of it all, he stood tall, calm, unshaken, letting fly arrows faster than thought.
But it wasn't the archery that haunted him.
It was the voice behind him. Steady. Wise.
"Let go of doubt, Partha. That is your only enemy."
He didn't know who Partha was. Or why hearing that name made his throat tighten.
He'd collapsed right there on set.
Now, the dreams came nightly.
A chariot pulled by white horses. A divine figure beside him, speaking calmly as war drums pounded in the distance. A woman with fire in her eyes, calling him by name—not Riyaan, but Arjuna.
In the real world, Riyaan started to pull away from everything.
His coaches said he was slipping. His assistants noticed his focus drifting. His aim—once godlike—had begun to falter.
But none of that mattered.
Because the memories were returning. Not just sights, but emotions. The guilt of walking away from her. The shame of questioning the path. The constant, crushing weight of having to choose between loyalty and righteousness.
He wasn't just seeing a war.
He had fought in it.
One night, while practicing alone, he found himself moving differently. His hands took a stance he hadn't learned. His breathing changed. His fingers remembered a grip that no modern coach had taught him.
He loosed an arrow—and split the bullseye in half.
Then again.
And again.
Tears welled up in his eyes as he stared at the target.
Not because he'd hit it.
But because it didn't feel like victory.
It felt like penance.
Riyaan couldn't explain it yet. But he knew something was waking in him—something old, unfinished.
And whoever the woman was, the one in his dreams, she hadn't forgiven him.
Not yet.