Of Ashes and Oaths

Chapter 2

The night was still. Too still.

Outside Aradhya's window, the streetlights flickered softly. Inside her room, the only sound was the slow hum of the ceiling fan spinning above her head. She lay asleep on her bed, one arm loosely thrown over her stomach, the covers tangled at her feet.

The book and the ring sat untouched on the bedside table. But they weren't silent.

The ruby on the ring pulsed.

Once.

Then again.

And again.

A strange red glow began to spread across the tabletop like spilled ink—crawling in slow, graceful tendrils that looked less like light and more like ancient chains woven of fire. It slithered past the table's edge and reached the floor, curling like smoke made of silk, slipping under furniture, creeping up the walls.

The room, once dim and ordinary, was now alive with crimson veins of light.

It wasn't loud.
It wasn't violent.
It was inevitable.

Tiny orbs—like red fireflies—began to appear midair, flickering into existence one by one. They spun in lazy circles around Aradhya, weaving between her limbs, her face, her chest—tracing her outline like she was something sacred. Something chosen.

A low hum buzzed beneath the silence. Not mechanical. Not musical. Alive.

The book fluttered open on its own. Pages turned rapidly, blurring past inked words and forgotten verses, until they stopped on one page with no writing at all. Just a single crimson symbol burned into the center.

The fireflies gathered.

They circled faster and faster, becoming a storm of red light. Aradhya shifted slightly in her sleep, her eyebrows twitching, fingers curling into fists.

And then—everything froze.

A final pulse echoed from the ring. Like a heart beating after years of stillness.

And in a blink—Aradhya was gone.

Her room fell silent once more.
No smoke.
No fireflies.
No girl.
No book.
No ring.

Just the empty room—cold, lifeless, untouched.
As if no one had ever lived there at all.

Elsewhere... time continued.

Aradhya stirred.

Her brows knit slowly, breath shallow as if she'd been dreaming underwater. Her fingers twitched against sheets that were far too soft. Her head rested on a pillow that smelled of jasmine and something ancient—something that had long since been forgotten.

Her eyes fluttered open.

And her breath caught.

She was lying in a room unlike anything she'd ever seen—straight out of a history textbook, or perhaps a hallucination. The bed beneath her was enormous, carved from dark wood and gilded with gold and silver. Heavy silk sheets spilled over the sides like molten light. The curtains surrounding the bed shimmered in maroon and bronze, dancing softly with a breeze that shouldn't have existed.