[Aryan – The Heir]
The metro doors opened at Rajiv Chowk, and Aryan stepped off with the weight of a migraine building behind his eyes.
Another dream last night. Another voice. Another name.
He'd written it down as soon as he woke:
"Draupadi has returned."
He didn't know who she was, but the name made his chest ache.
As he moved through the crowd, he glanced up—and for a second, his breath caught.
A woman in a navy pantsuit was walking the opposite way. Her stride sharp. Her hair unbound. Something in her presence hit him like a slap.
He stopped.
She didn't.
By the time he turned, she was gone in the crowd.
[Devika – The Flame]
She felt him.
Just for a moment.
In the sea of strangers, her pulse stuttered. Her breath caught.
She turned her head, but the face was already swallowed by people and motion.
She didn't know why her chest hurt.
But she knew one thing:
She had seen him before.
Not here.
Not now.
But somewhere.
Where trust was broken.
And silence was paid in blood.
[Vikram – The Fighter]
He didn't go to therapy.
He went to war—every day, inside his own mind.
Tonight was supposed to be calm. Just a jog. Just the gym.
But as he passed the underpass near Lodhi Garden, he stopped.
A man was trying to snatch a woman's bag.
Vikram didn't even think.
One second he was standing.
The next, the thief was on the ground, groaning.
The woman ran off without a thank you.
Vikram just stood there, panting.
His fists trembled. Not from the fight. But from the look in the thief's eyes before he fell.
Fear.
The same fear he used to see—on a battlefield.
He looked up—and across the street, someone else had stopped to watch.
A tall man in formal clothes. Serious eyes.
Aryan.
They looked at each other for a second too long.
Then the lights changed, and the crowd swallowed them both.
[Riyaan – The Archer]
He was sketching at a café. A new logo for a wellness brand. Arrows and circles. It bored him.
But something made him look up.
A woman at a corner table was typing furiously. Intense, magnetic. She didn't glance his way, but something about her burned into him.
He pulled his sketchpad closer.
He drew her before he realized what he was doing.
Not the modern woman.
But a queen.
Hair in braids. Fire in her eyes. Draped in red silk.
He blinked.
The vision was gone.
She closed her laptop. Left.
But her presence lingered like smoke.
[Sahil – The Seer]
The lines were converging.
He could feel it—on his skin, in the sky, in the slow shifting of the stars.
He sat in his small apartment, surrounded by charts and texts, barely touching his food.
Everything pointed to one thing:
The circle is beginning again.
He scribbled notes rapidly.
Names he didn't yet have.
Places he hadn't visited.
Faces he saw in his dreams.
And in the center of the page, one word in bold strokes:
"Kurukshetra?"