The fog had teeth.
It didn't drift or float. It slithered—coiling around Veyne's ankles as he stood motionless in the alley behind the burning shrine. Aranya's voice had faded into silence, the world of Mumbai gone dull and pale like ash. All that remained was the sound of his breath, steady yet cold, as if the air itself was learning to forget warmth.
The flames of the Saffron Hand's sanctuary didn't burn out. Instead, they bled colours that weren't meant for the waking world—violet, ochre, hues of midnight. The fire rose and twisted, forming a dome above Veyne, not unlike the spires of Valgard long buried in his memory.
Then came the Watchers.
Three figures, robed in dark veils, stepped out from the edges of the flame. No footsteps, no motion—just presence. Each wore a mask: one of bone, another of obsidian, and the third made of cracked, polished mirror. Their hoods fluttered despite no wind. No faction marked them. No symbol claimed them.
And yet Veyne knew them.
He didn't know how, but something in his bones stirred. Ancient muscle memory. The kind of remembrance that didn't belong to thought—it belonged to blood. His breath hitched.
"You," he said quietly, eyes locked on the mirrored mask.
The one with the mirror mask nodded. Her voice was not a voice, but a whisper stretched across lifetimes.
"Three you freed. Three you now face. We are the Eyes."
And then it hit him—like thunder that starts in your ribs before you even hear it. Memories surged, not from Valgard, not from Atlantis, but from a deeper time. Centuries before the rise of the Hidden Factions. A younger Veyne, foolish and determined, had shattered the seals on a forgotten prison buried under the Hollow Mountains.
He had freed them.
Not out of kindness—but necessity. The Kings of the Age had bound the Three Eyes fearing their knowledge. But Veyne had needed their sight to uncover truths long lost. And they had helped him, though at a cost he never fully understood. Until now.
"You knew I'd return," he said, voice still low, cautious.
"We saw it," the one with the bone mask replied. His tone was like wind through dry leaves.
"But seeing is not guiding. You must walk, not be led."
"The Rite has begun," said the obsidian-masked one.
"You seek vengeance. But vengeance without understanding is a dull blade."
Veyne stepped forward, shoulders squared. "Then show me. Show me why they betrayed me."
The Three Eyes said nothing. Instead, the flames around them began to spiral, drawing tight circles like ink in water. The dome above bent inward, forming a sphere that sealed around Veyne like a womb.
Darkness swallowed him.
He blinked. The world shifted.
Gone were the Watchers. Gone was the alley.
He stood now in a grand hall—gilded, enormous, alive with laughter and light. Candles floated mid-air, silk banners rippled along unseen currents, and music played from golden flutes without musicians.
He recognised it.
The High Feast before the Coronation.
He was watching himself—young, proud, not yet crowned, not yet scarred. Veyne Alaric stood tall in his ceremonial tunic, laughing with Daemon, his brother. Elias stood nearby, sipping wine. Seraya danced alone beneath the chandeliers, while Lord Kael—always composed—stood at the edge, smiling like a statue.
They looked like family. Like love. Like trust carved into human form.
But now Veyne saw what he hadn't then.
Daemon's hand lingered too long on the Sword of Alaric, examining it when no one watched. Elias whispered to a servant and pocketed a note—his eyes darting toward the dais, not Veyne. Seraya… she wasn't smiling with joy. She was searching the crowd. Watching Kael. Watching him. Her expression, barely noticeable then, now screamed of conflict.
It was all there. The signs.
And he missed it.
A sharp breath escaped his lips as the vision blurred and twisted again.
This time, he stood in a chamber beneath the Valgard Spire—the War Council's room. Long table, seven chairs. A heated argument was unfolding. Only four voices rose: Daemon, Kael, Seraya, Elias. He wasn't present, at least not physically.
Daemon pounded the table.
"He's not ready. The Ashen Crown obeys no man, not even him!"
Kael's voice was cold. "He will burn the factions to the ground. Unity is a myth. Chaos follows him."
Elias stood by the door, arms crossed. "He still calls me brother. He doesn't see me. Not really."
Seraya didn't speak immediately. But when she did, it wasn't rage—it was grief. "I loved him. I still do. But love will not save us. The Crown will consume him. We're buying time."
Veyne wanted to scream. To break through the vision and throttle them. But the Three Eyes appeared once again—standing just outside the illusion.
"This is not blame," whispered the mirrored one.
"This is truth. They believed what they did was right. And you gave them reason."
The bone-masked Eye pointed a single, gnarled finger.
"You were no saint, Veyne. You burned a city to stop a rebellion. You erased memories from allies to keep secrets. You carved loyalty from fear."
The words hit harder than swords.
He staggered.
"I did what I had to do," he said defensively.
"So did they," the obsidian mask replied.
The vision shattered.
He found himself kneeling in the ashes of the Saffron Hand's altar once more. The alley was still, the fire gone, smoke rising gently like incense. Aranya knelt nearby, eyes shut, whispering something under her breath. She hadn't moved during the entire Rite.
The Three Eyes stood around him, forming a loose triangle.
"Now you see," the mirror mask said softly.
"We do not guide vengeance. We reveal memory," said the bone mask.
"The Deacon will come next. He sees only purpose. Where we give understanding, he gives command," warned the obsidian Eye.
Veyne stood slowly, his hands trembling, but not from fear. From clarity.
Everything hurt.
Not just the betrayal. But the reason. The justifications. The conviction in their treason.
He looked up at the Watchers. "Why show me this now?"
The mirrored Eye's head tilted.
"Because the Ashen Crown will awaken soon. And before it obeys, it must know you. The real you."
Then, one by one, they vanished—turning into wisps of smoke that were sucked into the flames behind him. Only the echo of their presence remained.
The Rite was complete.
But Veyne felt no triumph.
Only truth.
The mist shifted.
Veyne stood at the edge of the obsidian platform, breath steady, gaze sharp. The temple around him had gone deathly still, like the world was holding its breath. The three Watchers had vanished into the smoke once more, their eyes leaving behind a chill in the air.
But something else had arrived.
From the far end of the void, between the curling shadows, footsteps echoed—measured, firm, final. A figure emerged, clad in weathered robes stitched with symbols of Order. His face was hidden beneath a smooth, porcelain mask, marked only by a single vertical line where the eyes should be.
The Deacon had arrived.
"So," the voice rumbled, deep and thunderous, like it had been waiting centuries to be spoken, "the traitor prince walks again."
Veyne didn't flinch. "And you must be the blade they've sent to stop me."
"I am no blade," the Deacon said, raising his hand. "I am judgment."
And the world cracked open.
The air shimmered with pressure. The shadows snapped into sharp-edged blades, and before Veyne could even raise a defense, the Deacon moved—like lightning in human form, cloaked in laws older than any written in stone.
Their clash was immediate.
Ashen light met radiant glyphs, each strike of the Deacon's staff carrying weight, history, and consequence. Veyne dodged narrowly, his influence flaring, not yet whole but desperate to match the fury of this holy executioner.
"You were not meant to rise," the Deacon growled, striking at Veyne's chest. "You were meant to die—forgotten in flame and shame."
Veyne spun, parried with a shard of memory-turned-blade. "Funny. That's what they told me... just before they knelt."
The Deacon struck again, harder this time. Each blow was not just an attack—it was a declaration. With every movement, the air whispered of balance, chains, rules written in the marrow of time.
"You think this is vengeance?" the Deacon barked. "It is sacrilege. You defy the balance. The Crown is not yours."
Veyne bled influence, not from wounds, but from within—his memories fueling his strikes. Seraya's veiled grief. Daemon's armored betrayal. Elias's whisper. Kael's silence.
"You know nothing of what was mine!" Veyne roared.
Then came the pause.
Not from Veyne. From the Deacon.
He staggered. Just for a second. As if the world blinked and something pierced the mask he wore—not blade, not power, but something older.
A vision.
The Deacon fell back, hand to his head. He saw it—flashes of a forgotten throne, crumbled stone halls drenched in gold light. A face in the mirror—his own—wearing a different crown, one forged not from obedience, but ambition.
And the Ashen Crown.
It hovered behind Veyne—not physically, but like a ghost watching the battle. Its presence was not violent... it was protective. For Veyne. And strangely, for the Deacon too.
"What... is this?" he whispered.
Veyne, breathing heavy, lowered his stance. "You saw it too, didn't you?"
Silence.
Then the Deacon stepped back—not in retreat, but in revelation. With a flick of his wrist, the temple around them fractured like glass, and suddenly, they were no longer there.
The world changed.
The world Veyne found himself in was nothing like the smoky temple or the battlefield he'd just escaped. It was a silence stitched in golden twilight, where time seemed to hum in meditation. The Deacon's realm—or perhaps the realm that had claimed him—was a place between life and story, where memory itself floated like incense smoke, winding through ruins that shimmered with both divinity and decay.
The stone beneath their feet was black and glassy, etched with old mantras that lit up with each step.
"न जायते म्रियते वा कदाचिन्
नायं भूत्वा भविता वा न भूयः।
अजो नित्यः शाश्वतोऽयं पुराणो
न हन्यते हन्यमाने शरीरे॥"
na jāyate mriyate vā kadācin
nāyaṁ bhūtvā bhavitā vā na bhūyaḥ
ajo nityaḥ śāśvato'yaṁ purāṇo
na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre
The Deacon recited without turning. "The soul is never born, nor does it ever die. It does not come into being and will not cease to be. It is unborn, eternal, and ever-existing. It is not slain when the body is slain."
Veyne walked behind him, bruised, bleeding, yet strangely whole. The blade that had torn open his shoulder now pulsed faintly with warmth rather than pain.
"This place… What is it?" Veyne finally asked.
The Deacon turned, his helm no longer hiding his face. What Veyne saw was not a monster or a zealot but a man with the weariness of centuries pressed into his bones. His eyes were grey, almost colourless, like ash that had seen too many suns.
"This is the First Memory," the Deacon said. "Where kings come to remember what they've forgotten in their climb."
"And you—what are you really?" Veyne demanded. "You came to end me. You said I wasn't worthy to rise."
"I still believe that," the Deacon said without hesitation. "But the Crown does not. It shielded you. It saw something I didn't."
He stepped aside, motioning to a great mural carved into the obsidian. It showed a tall figure—a king—standing above a fractured realm. Behind him loomed seven thrones, each cloaked in shadows, their faces hidden, but their symbols unmistakable: Desire, Order, Chaos, Will, Truth, Dream, and Death.
"I once ruled one of the Seven," the Deacon said. "A time so far back it no longer matters. I believed authority was enough. That if I imposed order, I could save everyone. I crushed dissent, thinking I was protecting them. I made statues out of people's freedom."
Veyne looked at the mural. The figure in the center, the king, began to crack apart from within until his heart split, and a crown of flame rose from the ashes.
"The others turned on me. Not out of envy, but necessity. I had become the very tyrant I swore to prevent. So the factions unmade me. They didn't kill me—they remade me into what you see now."
"You became their Watchdog," Veyne said.
"I became the Deacon of the Order. Their blade, their warning. I was sent to stop those like you."
"Then why hesitate?"
The Deacon stared at him. "Because when I struck, the Ashen Crown moved. It defied even the Watchers' will. It saw your path. And now… I see a choice."
They stood at the edge of a cliff, overlooking what seemed like an ocean of stars, every ripple echoing with whispers of old.
"You must understand your dharma, Veyne Alaric," the Deacon said. "You are not here to rule. You are here to balance."
Veyne frowned. "Balance what?"
"The fire and the form. The will and the wisdom. The Gita teaches not to act for reward but because it is one's purpose. Karmanye vadhikaraste, ma phaleshu kadachana. You do not have the right to the fruit of your actions—only to the actions themselves."
Veyne's voice lowered. "And if my actions demand blood?"
The Deacon looked at him, grim but resolute. "Then let it be righteous. Let your crown burn not to destroy, but to illuminate. The old Atlantis was lost because power forgot to kneel to wisdom."
At that moment, a low hum rose in the distance. From the stars came three echoing voices—echoes of the Three Eyes.
"He must see the betrayal as it was," said one.
"He must not become what betrayed him," said the second.
"He must walk between wrath and mercy," said the third.
The Deacon turned to leave. "You must walk alone from here. But remember this—ruling is not a right. It is a consequence. If you burn the factions without understanding their truths, you'll only create a new empire of shadows."
As he vanished into the golden mist, Veyne found himself alone again. But something was different. His mind echoed with ancient verses he had heard only in dreams.
"धर्म एव हतो हन्ति धर्मो रक्षति रक्षितः।
तस्माद्धर्मो न हन्तव्यो मा नो धर्मो हतोऽवधीत्॥"
Dharma, when protected, protects you. Dharma, when destroyed, destroys you.
The markings beneath his feet shifted again. No longer just glowing—now they sang. Not with sound, but with memory. Atlantis had once followed such teachings. Not in temples, but in their very governance.
He saw glimpses—priests who served not gods, but ideals. Kings who meditated before passing laws. Warriors who took oaths not on steel, but on truth.
And slowly, Veyne understood.
He wasn't meant to rise for revenge.
He was meant to rise for redemption.
He bowed, just slightly, in the golden dark. Not to the Deacon. Not to the Crown. But to something deeper—to dharma.
The golden mist had thinned now. Veyne stood at the edge of memory, looking down at a vast ocean that didn't reflect stars but histories. The water rippled with silent chants, with stories long erased by time and rewritten by the victors.
Behind him, the echo of the Deacon faded into silence. Ahead, something far older stirred.
A staircase of black stone emerged from the ocean's surface, each step a sigil carved in a tongue Veyne couldn't name, yet instinctively understood. As he descended, the stars above grew fainter. The ocean dimmed to a deep sapphire blue, thick with a humming force.
At the bottom, it waited.
A submerged temple, shaped like a lotus in bloom, rested in a basin of obsidian and coral. Vines glowed faintly, wrapped around its columns. The water here didn't drown—it preserved. Breathing was effortless. Light came from nowhere, yet everything was visible.
And upon its central pillar was written in golden script:
"Where truth once walked as a man, now silence speaks in his name."
Veyne read it aloud. "Truth… walked?"
The voice that answered wasn't the Three Eyes or the Deacon. It was gentler—older—like a mother teaching her child or a warrior whispering to his sword.
"This was once Dwarka."
Veyne froze. "The city of Krishna?"
"Yes. When the Yadavas fell to madness, and the sea reclaimed the land, the world thought it was lost forever. But some truths do not die—they simply change their shape."
Images bloomed across the temple walls—sacred texts folding into memory, warriors meditating before battle, a dark-skinned prince laughing beside his charioteer, holding not a crown but a flute. Then, the ocean shattered—and from the ruins rose a new city, a spiral of towers and floating bridges, alive with light.
"Atlantis was born where Dwarka fell. The Crown was not forged to rule—it was forged to remember."
Veyne's breath caught. "So all this… the betrayal, the factions, the rites… they come from him?"
"From his message. Not his myth."
"कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि॥"
You have the right to action, not to its fruits. Let not the results of action be your motive, nor let your attachment be to inaction.
The temple pulsed with the rhythm of this teaching. Veyne sank to his knees as ancient energy wrapped around him—not fire, not ice, but something in between.
A memory flickered.
In the archives of Valgard Spire, long before his coronation, Veyne had found fragments—tablets older than even the Hidden Factions. He had dismissed them then as superstition. One bore a name scratched hastily into its stone.
"Krishna Varunaya"
The Lord who danced through the end of time and sang the Gita of Renewal.
"Atlantis…" he whispered, "isn't just an empire. It's a promise."
"Yes," the voice said. "And the Ashen Crown is its final verse."
A sudden tremor shook the temple.
The walls splintered—not collapsing, but shedding—like a snake outgrowing its skin. Beneath, the true foundation emerged: golden pathways, aligned like a cosmic mandala. Each line pulsed with a mantra that felt sung across galaxies.
Om Keshavaya Namah. Om Narayanaya Namah.Om Govindaya Namah.
Veyne saw his reflection in the water—no longer bloodied or broken. Not a prince. Not a revenant. But a man carrying fire in his spine, and peace in his eyes.
"You must choose," the voice urged. "To burn this world in anger, or to reignite it in wisdom."
Veyne closed his eyes.
He saw Daemon's betrayal, Seraya's grief, Elias's blow, and Kael's silence.
But he also saw Aranya's faith, the Watchers' test, the Deacon's fall—and his own rise from dust.
He stood.
"This world was built on ruins," he said softly. "But ruins are not the end. They are foundations."
Above him, the temple began to rise—breaking free of the ocean floor, reaching toward the stars like a lotus reborn.
And as it did, the ocean whispered a final secret:
Atlantis was never lost. It was waiting. For him.