𝙈𝙔 𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙁𝙀𝙐𝘿𝘼𝙇 𝙇𝙊𝙍𝘿

The air was thick with the copper stench of slaughter and the choking smoke of a burning homeland.

She ran. She ran with everything left in her breaking body, her bare feet stumbling over the cold, rigid limbs of those who had been alive just hours before. The distant roar of the mob swelled, a monstrous wave of hatred chasing her through the ruins of Punjab.

No. The thought clawed at her frantic mind. They cannot catch me. They cannot touch me. At that moment, a dignified death was no longer a tragedy; it was her only wish.

Behind her, the shadows detached themselves from the smoke. A pack of men, eyes wild with the fever of Partition, brandished glinting swords, heavy knives, and rifles.

“Bachni nahi chahiye wo!” one of them bellowed, his voice cutting through the night. “Uska zinda rehna humari haar hai!” (She shouldn’t be left alive! Her survival is our defeat!)

Fresh, scalding tears blurred her vision, but she forced her legs to move, draining the absolute last ounce of strength from her cells. But as she glanced back and saw them closing the distance, a cold realization settled into her chest: she could not outrun them.

In a desperate, blind leap of faith, she whipped around a sharp corner, plunging into a dingy, suffocatingly narrow alleyway. The cobblestones were slick with blood. It was a labyrinth of darkness, suffocating and foul.

“Wo raasta band hai, bibi!” a mocking shout echoed from behind. “Tum humse nahi bach paogi!” (That road is a dead end, lady! You can’t escape us!)

She didn’t care. Even if it was a dead end, even if it meant facing a brick wall, she kept running. Death by a stone wall was better than what waited in their hands.

She sprinted blindly into the deepest shadow, only to collide violently with a solid, unyielding chest.

Before she could crash onto the bloody stones, a pair of powerful arms locked around her waist. Caught in his grip, drenched in the grime and blood of a torn nation, their bodies fit together like two tragic, interlocking puzzle pieces. She gasped for air, her consciousness slipping away, her eyes fluttering shut from sheer exhaustion.

“Sardar!” a harsh voice barked from the entrance of the alley, accompanied by the sudden, flickering amber glow of torches. “Ye Hindu-Sikh hai. Yahan humari zameen pe reh gayi hai... Jis tarah se unhone humare logon ko aane nahi diya, hum unke logon ko jaane nahi de sakte.” (Master, she is a Hindu-Sikh. She’s been left behind on our land... Just as they didn’t let our people cross over, we cannot let their people leave.)

The torchlight washed over the narrow roadway, cutting through the gloom and illuminating the face of the woman fainting in the leader’s arms.

Sardar Salaar Sikandar Khan froze.

The breath caught violently in his throat, and a sudden, agonizing pang ripped through his chest, as if a physical blade had pierced his heart. The chaos of the riots, the roaring flames, the demands of his men—everything fell away into deafening silence.

He was looking at her. After twelve agonizing, empty years.

Salaar hadn’t felt more violently alive, or more utterly dead, in a decade. His fingers tightened instinctively around her waist, pulling her closer against his chest as the brutal reality of the universe crashed down upon him.

For there, pale and unconscious in his arms, lay Raj Nandani.