The fruits had stopped flying.
Fenn stood frozen, half-laughing, half-concerned as Eloryn turned sharply—her gaze locked onto something hidden in the mist. The Dreamwilds had quieted again, which was never a good sign. Silence here wasn't absence—it was preparation.
"What is it?" Lys asked, her hand instinctively on her blade.
Eloryn didn't respond. Her eyes had gone wide, not with fear, but recognition.
A heartbeat later, the ground shuddered.
From the stone beneath their feet, black ash spread in a slow spiral, coiling out from a crack in the rock. Symbols in ancient Devanagari scorched themselves into the earth:
"ताण्डव आरम्भः।"
(The Tandava begins.)
Maren backed up. "That's… not Eloryn's magic."
Pennrick stepped forward, frowning. "No. It's Shivaic. But not Kaal Bhairav. This is Rudra—the Destroyer in his dance."
A shape rose from the ground—first just shadow and ash, then form.
A figure. Tall, wrapped in blackened serpents, his body draped in fading blue fire. Around his head coiled smoke like matted dreadlocks, rising as if the air refused to touch him. His third eye glowed with pale fire, unblinking.
Eloryn gasped.
"You," she said, her voice dry. "I've seen you. In my first life."
The figure smiled, but there was no joy in it.
"And you failed me then, Echo-Soul. Just as you will now."
Lys stepped in front of Eloryn. "Who are you?"
"I have had many names," the figure said, stepping closer. "But the Gloam calls me Vritrasura. The world once called me Kaalketu. The forgotten disciple."
He extended a hand—and the shadows twisted, forming a trident of obsidian and flame.
"I was chosen by Shiva not as a guardian… but as his wrath. Where Bhairav preserves time, I break its rhythm. I am the Tandava's echo."
Fenn hissed. "We've got our own time goddess. No need for a dance-off."
"She does not yet know the steps."
With that, Kaalketu stabbed the trident into the ground.
The spiral of ash exploded outward—sending memories spinning, uprooting pasts and hurling them into the sky. Eloryn fell to one knee, gripping her head as visions poured in. Not hers. His.
She saw him in her first life—kneeling before Lord Shiva in a cave of flame. Given a fragment of Rudra's essence. Sent to anchor destruction as she anchored memory.
But he had chosen rage over duty. Grief over balance. He had become… a storm with no rhythm.
As the ground shook and time trembled, Eloryn rose slowly.
"You're not a god," she whispered. "You're a fracture."
Kaalketu bared his teeth. "And you… are still trying to mend what must be broken."
Their powers flared—hers golden and spiraling with memory; his dark and shattering with ruin.
The first true clash had begun.
**************