Ritu did not remember the journey. When she next awoke, she was lying on a bed of woven kelp that felt softer than any cotton loom in Nagaraja. The air was dry, still, and impossibly clean—a stark contrast to the perpetually damp sickness of her homeland.
She was in Aetherium.
The chamber was massive, a cathedral carved into the bedrock of the ocean floor. The ceiling was not stone, but a colossal, curved vault of crystalline material that pulsed with a hypnotic, sapphire light. Through this natural dome, she could see the slow, ghostly drift of colossal sea creatures—not fish, but things of myth—moving in the dark water overhead. It was terrifying and sublimely beautiful, the domain of a god who cared nothing for the rules of the surface world.
She was alone. The white ceremonial gown was gone, replaced by a shift of dark, supple fabric that dried instantly on her skin. The heavy Chakra of Vows lay discarded on a ledge carved into the rock, its bronze surface dull against the gleaming crystals.
“You are awake.”
The voice was deeper, calmer, in this still environment. Likun stood at the far side of the room, near a glowing aperture that opened into a dark corridor. He was watching her, his body language relaxed yet radiating an intensity that made the air feel charged. He looked less like a figure of wrath and more like a king exiled to his own silent majesty.
“Where… where am I?” Ritu asked, her voice a reedy whisper.
“You are in my heart, little sacrifice,” Likun replied, a hint of something unreadable—perhaps dark amusement—in his tone. He walked toward her, his silent approach amplifying the size of the chamber. “This is Aetherium. The place your ancestors cursed and feared, the kingdom beneath the sea, where the sun is irrelevant and human prayers are drowned out by the tide.”
Ritu clutched the woven kelp. “My people sent me for appeasement. Why did you spare me?”
Likun stopped a handspan from her. The overwhelming proximity sent a wave of heat through her, a startling, forbidden sensation.
“Appeasement?” He laughed, a low, humorless sound that resonated in the rock. “They believe a single, short-lived human can soothe the fury of an entity older than their mountains? No. Their offerings are meaningless. Their curse is their own making, a tether they chose to bind themselves to the sea.”
He ran a finger along the line of her jaw, a gesture that was both tender and dangerously possessive.
“You, however, are a variable,” he murmured, his gaze locking with hers. “I do not need your life, Ritu. I need… complexity. For five centuries, I have listened to the monotonous beat of their fear. You carry something different—a fierce, quiet acceptance. And a desperate love for your own.”
“You are the source of the rain,” Ritu insisted, pulling back slightly. “The Elders—Tussar, Rudra—they swore it. You stole the sun.”
Likun straightened, and his eyes flashed with the raw power of a storm. “Lies built their kingdom. Lies sustain their fear. They tell you I am the curse so they don’t have to admit they caused the disaster that sank half their kingdom. The constant rain is not my wrath; it is the natural consequence of their sin, a reflection of the endless sorrow they cast upon the water.”
He softened, his gaze returning to a profound, unsettling stillness. “They feared the prophecy that named the maiden as the ‘Cleanser’—the one who would destroy the source of the curse. They expected you to die a silent death, taking the prophecy with you. But I saw something else when you fell. I saw a soul too brave to waste.”
He turned away, dismissing her with a final, chilling decree. “Rest. You are mine now. And no prayer, no curse, and no prophecy will ever return you to the surface.”
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