In a candlelit chamber, the two Sutra pages begin to twitch like living skin. Together, they form a partial diagram of a circular sequence—a spiritual engine. For a moment, the air folds. Rudra sees himself in another position, mirroring Priya. When he looks again, she has already drawn a ring of salt around them, murmuring a binding chant. Something presses against the other side of the ritual circle—unseen, but very awake.
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The ritual chamber wasn't empty.
It pretended to be empty. But it wasn't.
Rudra stepped into the small, circular room where the air pressed inward like a closed fist. The walls were smoothed to a polish, every inch covered in tiny sigils so fine they looked like the ridges of a fingerprint. Overhead, no ceiling—just a narrow shaft cut upward into pure darkness.
In the center of the floor was a stone slab, worn smooth and slightly concave, ringed with faded copper inlays shaped like teeth.
Priya walked the perimeter slowly, barefoot, her eyes half-closed. She reached into her satchel and withdrew a small pouch of white powder, which she poured carefully as she moved, drawing a circle.
"Salt," she said softly, before he could ask. "Old enough to remember."
Rudra stood at the edge, watching the circle close.
The manuscript pages in his satchel pulsed like a second heartbeat.
"We don't have to combine them," he said, though his voice lacked conviction.
"They've already found each other," she replied. "This chamber was made for listening. Let it listen."
She sat cross-legged inside the salt ring, her back straight, her hands resting palm-up on her knees.
Rudra hesitated, then joined her, mirroring her posture.
The moment he crossed into the salt circle, the pages stirred.
He unwrapped them both and laid them out between them.
They twitched.
Not from wind—there was none. And not from his breath.
Each page curled inward slightly, then relaxed. Then again. Like lungs.
Then they began to inch toward each other.
Rudra reached to stop them.
Priya grabbed his wrist, firm.
"Don't interfere. Let them show us."
The pages touched.
And snapped into alignment.
The charred edges merged like puzzle halves. The illustrations of Mudra One and Mudra Two now flanked the beginnings of a central diagram—part-mandala, part-engine. Spirals, spokes, and layered circles that almost resembled a human iris.
The copper inlays in the floor flickered once.
Then the air folded.
It wasn't motion. Not exactly.
More like the room had blinked.
Rudra's eyes adjusted in time to see it:
Himself.
Sitting across from himself.
The same posture, same breath. Except—his reflection was not holding the pages.
Priya was gone.
In her place sat him, again. But this version wept black ink from both eyes, and its smile was cracked open far too wide.
Rudra blinked.
Priya was back.
And already chanting.
Low, rhythmic, barely audible. The words crawled out of her throat like roots.
The air around the salt circle hummed.
Then—pressure.
Something pressed against the circle's edge.
Not visible. Not shadow. Just weight.
The way you can feel someone staring before they speak.
The salt crackled at one point. Then hissed.
Priya raised her chant a little louder.
The pages twitched again. The central diagram deepened—more layers emerging, symbols sliding into clarity.
"What is that?" Rudra whispered.
Priya's eyes were open now, but glowing faintly. Not metaphor. Light.
"The engine," she said.
"The Sutra doesn't grant power. It maps power."
"Each mudra is a position inside the wheel. Each glyph—an activation."
"When the wheel completes... it chooses a mouth."
Rudra stared at the diagram.
It was incomplete. Only two outer rings had been revealed. Six more awaited.
And in the center: a small blank circle, surrounded by script he couldn't read.
He felt a word rising in his mind—not from memory, but from outside.
A name.
A sound like breathing through water.
But just as it began to shape in his mind—
The chamber pulsed again.
And something laughed.
Not from the circle.
From inside his bones.