The world snapped back into focus, but it was a fractured, unreliable thing. The cold stone of the observatory roof felt alien beneath Mira's palms. The familiar scent of pine was thin and distant, overpowered by the phantom smell of ozone and cosmic grief. Her heart, a frantic drum against her ribs, hammered out a rhythm of pure terror. The omen had not just been seen; it had been felt, a psychic wound inflicted upon the fabric of reality itself.
Bhaskaran's words—The Age of the Lion-God has dawned—did not comfort her. They were a death sentence for the world she understood, a world governed by order and predictable laws. This new age smelled of blood and fire.
The immense, impersonal grief of the cosmos—the feeling of a star being extinguished, of a covenant breaking—was a vast and crushing weight. But as it settled upon her, it dredged up a memory from the depths of her soul. A grief that was not cosmic, but small, sharp, and intensely personal. A grief that had taught her, long ago, that the heavens were empty and prayers were only echoes in a silent room.
The cold stone beneath her faded, replaced by the damp, packed-earth floor of a small hovel. She was seven years old again.
Her world had once been the scent of vellum and drying ink. Her father, a temple scribe, was a man of gentle, calloused hands and a quiet, unshakeable faith. He taught her the sacred alphabet, showing her how the elegant curves and sharp lines were not just letters, but vessels of divine power. Her mother, a lay-priestess, taught her the melodies of the ancient hymns, her voice a thread of silver that seemed to weave light into the air. Their life was one of humble, devout service, built on the bedrock of a faith as solid and real as the mountains themselves.
Then the Crimson Plague came.
It started in the lower villages, a sickness that painted red blossoms on the skin and filled the lungs with fire until breath became a final, rattling curse. It moved with the merciless efficiency of a flood, ignoring pleas and prayers alike.
The scent of their town changed first. The familiar aroma of cooking fires and flowers was choked out by the cloying, sweet stench of decay, masked poorly by the desperate burning of purifying incense. The sound changed next. The cheerful bustle of the market was replaced by the hacking coughs of the sick, the wails of the bereaved, and the rhythmic, hollow chanting of the temple priests, their voices growing more strained with each passing day.
Mira, small and silent, watched the world she knew unravel. She saw the temple guards, their faces grim behind linen masks, bar the gates to a family whose youngest child bore the crimson marks. The father, a simple farmer, fell to his knees, his hands clasped in supplication. "Please," he begged, his voice raw. "We have given tithes our whole lives. Let us pray before the sanctum. Let the gods have mercy."
The head guard, a man whose piety Mira had once admired, struck the farmer across the face with a leather-gloved hand. "The temple is a sanctuary for the pure, not a hospice for the damned," he snarled. "Your lack of faith has brought this upon you. Do not taint this holy ground with your corruption."
Mira watched from the shadows of an alleyway, her small hands clenched into fists. She saw the farmer drag his weeping family away, his own faith bleeding from him like a physical wound. Inside the high walls, the priests continued their melodious chants for divine intervention. It was the first time Mira understood that a wall could be used not just to keep things out, but to lock compassion in.
The plague did not respect walls. It slipped through the gates like a ghost and found its way to her family's door.
Her father was the first to fall. The man whose hands had so lovingly crafted the words of gods could not hold a brush. His breath, which had patiently taught her the holy scriptures, became a shallow, rasping struggle. He died in the night, his eyes fixed on a religious scroll hanging on the wall, his final, unanswered question hanging in the air.
Her mother fought on. She was a pillar of faith in a crumbling world. She brewed bitter herbs, she chanted the ancient hymns, and she prayed. Oh, how she prayed.
Mira remembered the final evening with a clarity that felt like a fresh wound. The sun was setting, casting long, mournful shadows into their small home. Her mother lay on a thin mat, her skin pale and clammy, the crimson blossoms stark against her skin. She held Mira's small hand in her burning one.
"Don't be afraid, my little star," her mother whispered, her voice thin as a thread. "The Lord is our shepherd. He will not abandon us. He will send a sign."
She closed her eyes and began to pray. Her whispers filled the dying light, a litany of names, of promises, of desperate, fervent belief. She prayed for a miracle. A healing touch. A whisper from the gods. A single sign that they were heard.
Mira knelt beside her, holding her mother's hand, feeling the frantic, fluttering pulse beneath the hot skin. She watched her mother's face, a mask of desperate hope. She watched the shadows devour the room. She listened to the prayers grow weaker, faltering, until they were just breathless movements of the lips. She felt the pulse in her mother's wrist slow, stumble, and then stop.
She stayed there for a long time, holding her mother's cooling hand, listening to the silence. It was a profound and absolute silence. The gods had not sent a miracle. They had not sent a healing touch. They had not even sent a whisper.
The only answer to her mother's lifetime of devotion was nothing.
That was the day Mira's faith died, and the scholar was born. She realized then that hope was a poison, and belief was a cage. The only things one could trust were the things one could measure, test, and prove. The rest was just a story people told themselves to keep the darkness at bay.
A hand, warm and steady, touched her shoulder. Mira flinched, the memory shattering, leaving her gasping on the roof of the observatory, tears she hadn't realized she'd shed turning cold on her cheeks.
"The past is a deep well," Bhaskaran said softly. "Do not let yourself drown in it."
She wiped her face with the back of her hand, her anger a welcome shield against the returning grief. "It's not the past," she said, her voice hard and brittle. "It's the present. It's the same story, just on a grander scale. A great light is extinguished, a covenant is broken, and a roar of rage answers the silence. It's the same pattern. The gods are silent when they are needed, and only speak in violence."
She stood up, her small frame radiating a fierce, defiant energy. The terrified girl of a moment ago was gone, replaced by the skeptical scholar, the survivor who had learned to trust proof over prayer.
"You say the Age of the Lion-God has dawned," she said, meeting her guru's sightless gaze without flinching. "Fine. Let it dawn."
She looked at the hole in the sky, at the empty space where a promise used to be. "But if the gods have finally decided to speak, I will not be listening for their whispers. I will be looking for their footprints. I will measure their power. I will demand evidence." Her voice dropped to a near whisper, but it held the unbending strength of forged steel.
"And I will hold them accountable."