Chapter 1
The year was 1896. The air in the small village near Varanasi smelled of incense and river mud. Time moved slowly, like the Ganga herself—steady, silent, and full of secrets.
In a worn-out two-story house, hidden behind neem trees and broken walls, lived a girl named Mohini.
She was seventeen.
She was born into a strict Brahmin family—Pandits—where men ruled with heavy words and women stayed quiet like shadows on the wall. Her family was large: three older brothers, 5 older sisters. But Mohini never belonged. She was not a daughter, not a sister, not a gift.
She was a curse.
They said the day Mohini was born, her mother almost died. The roof of the prayer room in temple fell. Since then, no good had come to the family.
From her very first breath, they blamed her.
Her beauty did not help her. It made things worse.
By the time she was five, her eyes could silence a room. By ten, her skin glowed like milk in the moonlight. Her lips stayed red even when dry. The boys in the village stopped talking when she walked by. Women whispered behind their veils.
The old priests said she was an Apsara—a heavenly woman—fallen to earth by mistake.
But no one wanted a goddess that brought bad luck.
When she turned 11, a marriage was arranged. The boy came from a nearby village. He came with his father and uncles, riding horses and dressed in white. But before they could reach Mohini’s house, their horse slipped, and the cart turned over. No one died, but the accident spread through twelve villages like fire.
They said: “The cursed beauty has struck again.”
The marriage never happened.
Now at seventeen, Mohini was famous for the wrong reasons. She was the most beautiful girl in the region, and the most feared. Some called her “Dayan”—witch. Others said she would bring the ruin of any man who dared to love her.
But no one ever asked Mohini what she thought. What she wanted. What she felt.
Because in her home, her voice was a sin.
Her mother only looked at her when angry. Her sisters never played with her. Her brothers , sister in laws avoided her like she was a ghost.
They all hated her.
But Mohini did not cry. Not anymore.
She had stopped crying at seven, when her mother poured oil on her feet and said, “I should have buried you alive.”
That day, Mohini made a promise.
She would never be weak.
She would never beg for love.
She would never break.
If they thought she was a curse, then she would be one.
She would be their nightmare.
Inside, she burned quietly like a coal under silk. She learned how to smile without meaning it. She learned how to watch people with eyes like honey—and poison. Every insult they gave her, she folded neatly and tucked inside her soul, saving it like a knife.
Her body was growing like a temple built by gods—soft curves, full lips, dark hair that touched her lower back. Her eyes were like a trap: once you looked, you couldn’t look away.
But her heart?
Her heart was made of fire.
Mohini walked differently now—slow, like a dancer with secrets. When she moved, even the wind seemed to follow.
She knew the power of her beauty. She knew what men thought when they saw her, even if they called her bad luck. She knew how to look, how to speak, how to touch the edge of danger and still walk away.
And slowly, Mohini began to use it.
Not loudly. Not yet.
But in small ways. She was studying them.
She was practicing.
Because one day, she would leave this cursed house.
She would climb higher than all of them.
And she would never come back.
