The world burned.
Not with flame—but with color, with motion, with sound. It overwhelmed the senses like a storm without rain.
Veyne blinked.
Sky. Wires. A giant face grinning from a glowing wall. Smoke from a hundred street carts. The air was thick, but not from war—it was heat, spice, pollution, and life crammed into every inch of this... realm.
His mouth was dry. Tongue cracked. His limbs felt alien. Heavy. As though stitched from someone else's bones.
Where am I?
He tried to rise—but pain lanced through his chest. Old pain. Familiar pain. The kind born from betrayal. From blades.
His hands shot to his side—no blood. No wounds. Just smooth skin. Clean. Unscarred.
"No… no, this can't be right."
"Bhaiya! Are you okay?" a young voice called out.
He turned his head and was met with the curious gaze of a boy, maybe nine or ten, holding a plastic cricket bat. The child looked cautiously heroic, like he wasn't sure if he was rescuing a man or poking a crazy person.
More faces appeared behind the boy. Adults this time. Cautious. Half-interested. Someone muttered in Hindi. A woman covered her mouth, whispering something about 'baba' and 'pagal hai.'
"What is this place?" Veyne croaked.
The boy stepped closer. "Mumbai. You okay, uncle?"
Mumbai. A name he had never heard, yet it rolled across his tongue like prophecy.
A hand reached under his arm. Another joined it. He was being lifted—gently but with hesitation, as if he might shatter or explode.
"Someone call an ambulance," a man barked. "He looks like he's been through hell."
If only you knew.
Veyne tried to speak again, but his throat clamped shut. He coughed and spat out a black smear of ash. The crowd gasped.
"Bhaiya, are you from the cremation ground or what?" someone muttered nervously.
He wasn't listening. The city roared around him—cars, scooters, people shouting, laughing, arguing, hawking. Banners hung from crumbling buildings, wires knotted like serpents overhead. It was alive in a way Atlantis never had been. Raw. Unforgiving. Real.
He felt it in his bones. This was no illusion. No vision from beyond death.
He was here. Truly here.
Alive… in another world.
Veyne was taken to a clinic—not a palace of healing, but a cramped, overworked room where flickering fans battled a dying summer and antiseptic clung to the walls like guilt. The people who brought him there didn't stay. Just dumped him off with a few muttered words and vanished into the chaos again.
He was alone.
Again.
The doctor was a lean man with rimmed glasses, looking more tired than anyone had the right to be. "Name?" he asked, not looking up from his clipboard.
Veyne stared at him. "Veyne Alaric."
The doctor froze for a beat. Then chuckled dryly. "And I'm King Ashoka. You a cosplayer or something?"
He scribbled, "Unidentified male. Approx. 30. Delirious."
Veyne tried to stand. The doctor gently pushed him back onto the cot with a single finger. "Easy there, Bollywood. We'll get you cleaned up first."
Time slipped. Hours passed.
He was given clothes—second-hand denim and a loose cotton shirt. His hair, still matted with soot, was cut roughly. The doctor asked if he had any relatives. Veyne said nothing. Every word felt like a betrayal to the world he'd left behind.
He remembered the betrayal. The flames. Their faces.
Elias, with tears. Daemon, cold. Seraya, her lips against his brow. Kael, whispering apologies like prayers. And the knife—the final betrayal—delivered by the one he loved most.
His cousin. His blood.
Why me? Why this?
Night fell over Mumbai.
The lights came on—not in rows like torches, but everywhere at once. Neon signs, glowing buildings, rickshaws with LED underglow. Music blasted from alleyways. The air smelled like fried dough, motor oil, and distant rain.
He wandered the streets like a ghost. Every face was unfamiliar. Every word was foreign.
Until he saw her.
Sitting at a corner chai stall, sipping from a glass cup, surrounded by books and an open laptop, was a woman who radiated... clarity.
She looked up.
And she saw him—not the ragged man in stolen clothes, but him.
Noticed. Frowned. Stood.
And said, quietly, in perfect English: "You shouldn't be here."
Veyne's heart skipped. "You know me?"
She hesitated. "No. But... I've dreamed about you."
Her name was Aranya.
A cultural anthropology grad student, part-time journalist, and full-time seeker of oddities. Her great-grandfather, he said, was a mystic—someone who once walked with shadows and foresaw the fall of "seven towers drowned in salt."
She never believed him. Until she started having dreams.
Of fire. Of a crown. Of a man with eyes like dying stars.
"I've seen you burn," she whispered, as monsoon rain slapped against the tin roof. "And rise again."
"You're not from here, are you?"
"No."
"Then where?"
Veyne looked up at the lightning-laced sky.
"From a place where power was sacred, loyalty was currency, and betrayal wore a crown."
The tea shop was small—just a stall, really—wedged between a shuttered bakery and a cyber café that still used dial-up sounds as background ambiance. The rain tapped on the tin roof like restless fingers.
Veyne sat across from her, a cup of steaming chai in his hands. Aranya watched him closely. Not with fear. Not with pity.
Curiosity. A hunger to understand.
"You don't belong here," she said again.
"I've gathered that."
"I mean, you really don't belong here. The way you looked around the city... like it was a hallucination that wouldn't fade."
He smirked weakly. "I was expecting stone towers. Not… food delivery drones and cars that play music."
She raised an eyebrow. "So… time travel?"
"No. Not that simple." He looked out at the street. "Another world. A world that bled into this one."
She tilted her head, quiet for a beat.
"Atlantis?"
His gaze snapped to hers.
She took a sip of her tea, completely unfazed.
"Ramakrishnan Sen," she said. "My grandfather. He used to talk about a 'drowned empire of flame'—ruled by seven crowns, bound by ash and influence."
"Seven flames," Veyne whispered, stunned.
She nodded. "He said it was real. Said it still echoes through people. Through bloodlines. That somewhere in this world, the pieces of that empire still move."
"I was one of them," Veyne said quietly. "One of the Seven."
"The Crown of Flame," she murmured. "The Waking Ember."
He blinked. "That's… that was one of my names."
She leaned closer, lowering her voice.
"I used to dream of you," she said. "Standing in fire. Screaming someone's name. A knife in your back. A city crumbling around you. You were alone. Always alone."
Veyne's throat tightened.
"Do you remember the name?" he asked.
She shook her head. "It always faded when I woke up."
Her apartment was a fortress of madness.
Books are stacked like towers. Scrolls. USB drives. Tiny statues of gods, from Ganesha to obscure Babylonian demons. Clippings from newspapers with strange markings. A murder board full of symbols. At the center of it all: a sketch of a burning crown wrapped in thorns.
"I never showed this to anyone," she said. "I thought I was losing my mind."
"You weren't," he said, tracing a finger across the drawing. "You were remembering."
She stared at him. "But why me?"
"I don't know. But if you've seen me before… there's a reason."
She exhaled sharply. "Okay. Let's say I believe you. You're a king from a lost world. Reborn here. What now?"
"I rebuild."
Her lips twisted. "You say that like it's easy."
"It isn't," he said. "That's why I need you."
Aranya sighed, still uncertain about what her destiny has planned for her.