Prologue
There were two stories—
one of love,
and one of forgiveness.
Both left unfinished.
Both written in the wounds of death.
The sky was heavy that evening.
Clouds pressed low over a blackened palace,
wind clawing at stone like restless ghosts.
She ran barefoot.
Skin torn. Breath breaking.
Swords rang behind her, voices calling her name—
but she did not stop.
Her robe burned around her legs.
A scroll crushed to her chest.
Blood bloomed across her back.
The arrow had already found her—
yet she ran.
She ran leaving her own behind,
enduring shame,
to save a single life.
---
Inside the palace,
a king stood before a mirror that reflected nothing
but grief.
Veerendra Rajvardan—
once a lion, now hollow-eyed.
His hands trembled.
The sword rested against his heart.
His shawl slipped,
sinking into blood at his feet.
He had lost everything—
yet no one understood his truth.
---
At the gates, her steps faltered.
The world blurred.
The archer raised his bow—
a face she once trusted,
a heart now poisoned by rage.
The arrow flew.
She fell forward,
crimson soaking her dupatta as it drifted from her shoulder
like a dying petal.
Her fingers clawed the dust.
Silence followed.
---
Back inside,
the king knelt before the mirror.
No fear in his eyes—
only guilt.
Without a word,
he drove the blade into his chest.
No scream.
The mirror swallowed the sound.
It pulsed once—
then went dark.
---
The story ended…
or perhaps only paused.
Would time grant these two souls
another chance?
---
A New Time. The Same Curse.
When a sword once tore through a chest,
another man now fastens his belt.
In one age, blood spilled over royal robes.
In another, cologne lingers in the air.
The blood-soaked shawl returns as a black blazer.
He straightens his collar,
ready for a party—
unaware a cursed king’s blood still flows within him.
---
Her story, too, is written across worlds.
A modern girl twirls before her mirror,
colorful dupatta on her shoulders,
bangles singing as she reaches for lipstick.
In the same breath,
three hundred years ago,
another girl collapses into dust—
her bangles shattering in blood.
When one adjusts her dupatta before the mirror,
another’s is drowning in red.
---
Two shores of time.
The same page of a story.
Two timelines.
One curse.
They do not know each other,
yet their souls ache in the same places.
Their hands tremble the same way.
Their reflections remember
what their minds have forgotten.
Those who believe they are new
have lived before.
Perhaps in another life.
Another world.
---
A shadow stands at the edge of the mirror
watching, waiting, remembering.
The one who never forgot.
The story has returned.
Will the ending change this time?
Or will time drag them back
to the same sword,
the same arrow,
the same final breath?
