The ancient banyan tree didn't just stand at the village's edge; it brooded. Its gnarled, serpentine roots gripped the earth like the fists of a buried giant, and its canopy was a cavern of living shadow, swallowing the last of the twilight. The air here was still and cold, carrying the scent of damp rot and something else—old grief, left to curdle for centuries.
And then they saw him.
He hung not from a branch, but from the very darkness between the leaves, inverted, motionless. His skin was the blue of a twilight sky just before it bleeds to black. His eyes were open, not with malevolence, but with an endless, weary seeing. A faint, knowing smile touched lips that seemed carved from the same ancient wood.
Neer's breath fogged in the unnatural chill. His hand found the hilt of his sword, not to draw it, but for the solid reality of it. "Agni… look."
Before the word fully left his lips, the figure moved. It wasn't a jump; it was a reordering of reality. One moment he was suspended; the next, he stood before them, rooted to the earth as if he'd grown there. His laughter wasn't a sound—it was a vibration that hummed in their teeth and bones.
"Ah…" The voice was rich, layered with the echoes of countless whispers. "The feast does not flee. It walks into the dining hall. I know your names, Agnivrat. Neervrah. I know the weight of the souls you carry."
Neer stepped forward, his own voice cutting the heavy air. "If you know us, then you know why we've come. The tyranny ends tonight. We offer not a fight, but a farewell."
The Vetala's smile widened, revealing glimpses of sharp, pearl-like teeth. "Liberation? You presume to hold the key to my cage, little warrior? But tell me, do you even know the shape of your own lock? Do you know who you are, Neervrah?"
"I know enough not to be tangled in your word-webs," Neer shot back, but his eyes darted to the side. Agni, who had been a solid presence at his shoulder a moment before, was gone. The space where he'd stood was just empty, chilling air. "Agni? What game is this? Where is he?"
The Vetala drifted closer, not walking, but as if the world slid beneath him. "Patience. You charge so bravely, yet you know your fire cannot burn me, your water cannot drown me. I am a Vetala. I am the regret that outlives the man. I am the 'what if' that never dies. Time is my tapestry, and you are but a single, fraying thread."
Neer's heart hammered against his ribs, but his stance never wavered. "What do you want?"
"A conversation," the being said, its head tilting with avian curiosity. "It has been… oh, five hundred years since someone looked at me with anything but blind terror. They scream, they plead, they run. You… you stand. You ask. This is a novelty. So, a game. Three questions. Answer them, and you may reclaim what is lost. Fail… and the loss becomes permanent."
The silence that followed was absolute. Even the insects had hushed. Neer met the being's ancient gaze. "Three questions. Ask."
The Vetala's eyes glittered. "First: What is the truth that masquerades as a lie? The thing that, when spoken, sounds false to the ear, yet to deny it is to make a lie of one's entire life?"
Neer closed his eyes. He didn't search his mind; he dropped beneath thought, into the quiet place where instinct and truth lived. The answer rose not as a word, but as a feeling—the terrifying vulnerability of Agni's trust, the unspoken pledge between them that was too vast for words.
"Love," Neer said, opening his eyes. "When someone says 'I love you,' the heart often hesitates. Is it truth? Is it manipulation? To accept it blindly is peril. To reject it outright is to build a life on a foundation of cynicism. It is the ultimate risk, the truth that demands faith."
A slow, approving nod from the Vetala. "You taste the paradox. Good. Second: If you gaze into a mirror and the face looking back is a stranger's—a king's, a beggar's, a demon's—can you still say, 'This is I'? Or are you merely a reflection of what the world has shouted at you?"
This time, Neer didn't hesitate. His gaze was inward, seeing the mosaic of his own soul—the dutiful student, the loyal friend, the warrior, the protector. "I am all those reflections, and none of them. The 'I' is the one who chooses which face to wear, which duty to fulfill. I am Neer… because I am the one who stands beside Agni. That is my north star. That is the core the world cannot reshape."
The Vetala's eerie smile returned. "Intriguing. You anchor yourself in another. Dangerous. Noble. Now, the third, and final: What is the grandest illusion of all? The one every mortal heart clings to, yet is the source of its deepest sorrow?"
The question hung in the cold air. Neer thought of Raghav, waiting forever for a love that was torn away. He thought of his own journey, of battles won and fears faced alongside a friend he assumed would always be there. The answer came with the weight of a stone dropping into a still pond.
"Permanence," Neer whispered, then stronger, "The illusion of 'forever.' We believe our loves are eternal, our hatreds definitive, our bonds unbreakable by time. We build our lives on the sand of 'always,' and then weep when the tide of 'never' washes it away. The greatest sorrow is not loss… it is the shock that anything we held could ever be lost."
For a long moment, there was no sound. Then, the Vetala laughed, a sound that was strangely beautiful, like wind chimes in a graveyard. "You have answered. Not with knowledge from scrolls, but with wisdom from the wound. Go. Your companion is behind the tree."
Neer moved, a surge of relief propelling him. He found Agni slumped against the massive trunk, unconscious but breathing. He knelt, a hand on his shoulder. "Agni. Wake up."
Agni's eyes flew open. But they weren't Agni's eyes. They were pools of confused fury. He surged up, and the sword that was suddenly in his hand was aimed at Neer's heart.
"Agni! Stop!"
"I will take your life!" Agni snarled, the voice his, but the intent foreign.
The Vetala's voice whispered from everywhere. "The final test is not of mind… but of heart."
Neer parried, the clash of steel a shocking, wrong sound in the sacred clearing. He defended, retreated, his every move defensive. He saw the madness in Agni's eyes, the puppet strings of an ancient curse. With a twist and a disarming flick, he sent Agni's sword skittering away.
Agni lunged again, unarmed, a raw cry of rage tearing from his throat.
Neer dropped his own sword. It thudded on the soft earth. He stood, arms open, his chest exposed. "If you must take a life… take mine. I will not raise a hand to you. Not ever."
Agni froze, his fist clenched mid-air, trembling. The raw, animal fury in his eyes cracked. Something behind them—the real Agni—stirred, fought against the binding illusion. The Vetala's hold was powerful, but it was woven from betrayal. It had no thread strong enough to comprehend this: a willing sacrifice, offered not in despair, but in unwavering loyalty.
A sound like a sigh passed through the clearing. The oppressive magic shattered like thin ice. Agni stumbled back, blinking rapidly, as if waking from a fever dream. He looked at his empty hands, then at Neer, standing defenseless before him, then at the swords on the ground.
"Neer…? What… what was I doing?"
The Vetala's form shimmered, becoming less solid, more like a figure woven from moonlight and memory. Its voice was soft now, stripped of malice, filled only with a profound, weary wonder. "In five hundred years… no one has chosen that. No one has valued another's life above their own, when vengeance was in their grasp. You have done what love, duty, and society failed to do. You have broken the cycle."
Neer, still breathing heavily, looked at the fading spirit. "We knew your pain, Raghav. We came to end it, not with force, but with remembrance."
The Vetala—Raghav—nodded. A peace, deep and final, settled on his translucent features. "My chapter is closed. But yours… yours is being written in a light I cannot see. Heed your karma. Listen to the truth between you, for it will be your shield in trials yet to come." His gaze held Neer's, then Agni's. "Perform my rites. Let me go to where Neelima has long waited."
With a final, gentle gust that carried the scent of night-blooming jasmine—a scent from a garden five centuries old—the form dissolved. At the same moment, the ancient banyan tree gave a deep, groaning creak. A great crack split its trunk, and with a roar of surrendering timber, it collapsed inward, a giant laid finally to rest.
Agni stared at the ruins, then at Neer, his expression a storm of confusion and dawning horror. "Neer… why were you on your knees? This sword… did I…?" He couldn't finish.
Neer walked over, picking up both swords. He handed Agni's back to him, his touch firm and sure. "Be at ease. It was not you. It was the last echo of his sorrow. Now come. We have a final duty."
They returned to the village. The old sage, seeing the peace on their faces and the distant crash of the tree, wept silent tears. Under his guidance, by the river at dawn, they performed the pindadan and all the funeral rites that had been denied to Raghav. The offerings were simple: rice, sesame seeds, water. But the intent behind them was a universe of compassion.
As the last mantra faded into the morning air, Agni turned to Neer. He didn't speak. He simply placed his hand on Neer's shoulder, his grip tight, his eyes saying everything his voice could not—gratitude, a trace of shame, and a reaffirmed vow.
Neer met his gaze and gave a small, tired smile. "It's done. Let's go. The road doesn't end here."
They walked away from the village, the first true rays of the sun warming their backs. The silence between them was no longer heavy with dread, but filled with the quiet understanding of a bond that had been scorched in a supernatural fire and had emerged not broken, but tempered. Stronger. The ghost of a love story from the past had been laid to rest, and in its passing, it had forced the truth of their own story into the light a story not of illusion, but of a choice, made again and again, to stand, to protect, to sacrifice.
The path ahead was long, and darker shadows might gather. But for now, they walked in the clear light of morning, together
After they walk away from the village
Yet far behind them, beneath the river's surface, a pair of eyes opened eyes that had heard Raghav's last words.".