Author's Note : To vidhu25 AnyaSharma97 bookloverng RitikaChabra likhitha9 amazing2awesome ChocoRiz joshidhawal Anukrissh shellyxleonn ApurvaSrivastava9 nairalkesh Sriram_Gudimella darkgirl731 kalyanipalle Harshitaneppalli KirtiNimmala ErzaLockhart blare_lina nuri911 celestial_sesi

This is another most awaited and much hyped chapter that I, sincerly and whole heartedly, dedicate to all of you. Even though some of you are taking time to come back and be part of Hayden's journey, you still deserve the dedication. You guys have been patient, loved whatever I presented about this country I invented, been immensely supportive, and I am actually proud of myself that made you guys to get connected with all these characters as much as I am. I can't thank you enough to all of you who want to see my series published. That is one comment and appreciation that I have received the most and has also encouraged me to enhance my writing skills. Thank you so much !!

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The stinging pain in Pruthvi's eyes did not fade away at once. He was wincing slightly and hissing, covering his face in grimace. Leena provided him with a wet napkin to cool the area down. Dabbing his eyes gently with it, he, with Leena behind him, walked out of the lobby, before anyone could notice him struggling for too long.

I looked around at the rest of the Samagraha, who were settling down on their usual tables. Apparently, there were some murmurs of discontent echoing among them, words like 'lame', 'loser' and 'liar' repeatedly being muttered. The only quiet person was surprisingly Donovan Singer, who was just listening his girlfriend Naomika talk.

Noticing Pruthvi and Leena walking outside the lobby, I got up and immediately followed them, diverting my mind towards the upcoming job that I was so looking forward to, ever since Doctor's return.

Leena was giving her boyfriend a lecture on his sudden careless action, when suddenly I spotted Nazira walking back to her bedroom from the other end of the corridor. She sheepishly looked up at me and was about to turn the knob of the door to her room. My hand must be having a mind of it's own, as I suddenly lifted it up and waved at her to seek her attention.

That sudden impromptu gesture was truly unplanned. But it was my subconscious mind demanding me to feel responsible about my Aunt troubling Nazira with her unnecessary questioning.

"Hayden, this way," Leena said, standing at the entrance of the training room. "We are already late."

"You go ahead," I said, trying to frame a conversation in my mind which I was daring myself to have with her, "I'll be there in a minute."

She shrugged and disappeared inside with Pruthvi.

Batting my eyes several times, I walked towards her nervously, mentally feeling my whole body convulsing. It was going to be my first one on one chat with her ever since we brought her to the academy and I want to do it right.

I walked closer to her, looking at her bright face beneath the glowing lantern and said, "Umm..."

I quickly shut my mouth, words failing me. I completely forgot why I was here, or may be her curious eyes were making my pulse rate go high, "I..I ..just .wanted to..."

Oh God, she is looking at my lips! Stop looking at my lips! Man, this is going to be so difficult.

I took a deep breath and decided to start over.

"I wanted to...wanted to apologize...about my...about my aunt." I managed to say, even though I doubted if she understood any of it with all my stammering.

She frowned a little at first. But thankfully, she seemed to have grasped it when she raised her hands to signal. "I shouldn't have reacted that way with your Aunt. I apologize."

"It..it wasn't your...your fault...really" I said, my voice turning low, and before I totally lost it, I blurted it out quickly, "My aunt is actually...she just didn't know what she was talking about."

She was still looking at my lips, reading them carefully. But to me her gaze was making my heart beat rise up to the level of giving me a cardiac arrest. It was really a bad idea to come and stand this close to her.

She smiled, signaling, "It's okay."

"Do you..do you.. want to go back to lobby and...and have something to eat?" I asked, only to find a way to end the conversation, "There is still some food left."

She continued giving me that smile and nodded. "Sure, thank you."

"I..I'll see you later," I said, stepping back and then turned around without waiting for her reply.

Her eyes on my lips was troubling me so much and I couldn't stand being anywhere near her anymore. Owlishly widening my eyes, I strode away or rather ran away from her, finally feeling my pulse slow down.

The garage chain sound of the door helped me break my reveries. Stepping inside, the first thing I noticed was Doctor talking with my Aunt, both of them standing next to his table. Pruthvi and Leena were sitting in their chairs immersed in their own talks and an extra chair was placed beside Leena's, certainly waiting for me to occupy.

"What took you so long?" Doctor asked, watching me walk inside, still being very serious. Breaking Samagraha seemed to have given him a tough time.

"Er," I said, looking at my Aunt, "I was just finishing some stuff."

"Is it taken care of?"

"Yeah," I replied and quickly added, "I guess."

"Your Aunt is leaving now, for Dakshinpur. Do you want to bid her goodbye?"

I involuntarily stopped walking. This was too sudden for me to know that my Aunt was leaving already. Had I come a little earlier I could have atleast utilized those extra minutes to spend them with her. I stirred with restlessness. It was as if there was one more person adding up in the list of people I cared leaving me behind. I had no idea if I was going to see her again, now that Doctor had indirectly stated to count my days.

I watched my Aunt walk towards me, her eyes streaming with tears. She softly kissed on my forehead before she said, "You take care, alright?"

Keeping my positive spirit up, I replied, "I'll see you soon, Aunt."

I heard Doctor reciting his routine before blowing the powder in the air. The brilliant oval shaped light emerged at the corner the cabin, opening wide and showing the entrance of the Sharad's Palace. Sobbing, my Aunt let go off me, walked around quickly and took Doctor's help to pass through the Gates.

I ran my hands at back of my neck. I threw myself down in the empty chair, feeling groggy when the Gates closed behind with my Aunt's exit.

"Are you okay?" Doctor said walking around the table and sitting in his chair.

I looked up and on realizing he was actually talking to me, I nodded grimly.

"You better be," he said, clasping his hands and placing firmly on the tables, "Harden your heart, and keep a cool head. Because I am sure you might not be able to cope up with what I am going to tell you today."

I furrowed my eyebrows, making myself sure if what I heard from Doctor made any sense. But whom was I kidding, I already knew it was going to be one heck of a job. Glancing from the corner of my eye, I found Pruthvi and Leena sharing a nervous glance, their hands fused tight beneath the table.

"I am ready" I said, invincibly, with a strong courageous voice, "Whatever it takes."

Doctor gazed at me proudly for a second, but as I looked closer, his expression also included some uneasiness. Sighing softly, he then bent down to his right, and lifted a box resting next to his chair. He placed it on the table and dragged it smoothly towards Leena, letting the three of us have a proper equal share of look.

It was a vintage, mahogany box and lid, with all it's intricate design engraved on it, and seemed to have a capacity of holding lighter and smaller objects such as jewelry. There were scratches here and there, and at places the wooden layer peeled off, indicating it was probably made ages ago.

"Wh..what is this?" I asked, slightly shrinking my eyes. Pruthvi was trying to touch it, but Leena instinctively hit him hard on his hand, startling him to keep his hand to himself.

Doctor leaned back, and tapped the table with his fingers. He still seemed rather skeptical to disclose whatever it was holding inside, but also trying too hard to not to keep it a secret anymore. He cleared his throat, looked up at me and said it.

"Hayden Mackay, I am going to tell you why you are called The Fire of Vengeance."

Leena's convulsive gasp sent a shudder of shock wave run down my spine. The words that came out of Doctor's mouth had the power to shut my whole system down. For once I had to remind myself to breath. I squinted my eyes from him, to down at the box, and then back up at him, to see if it has anything to do with me being The Fire of Vengeance.

The most vital and neglected subject, that even my Constellia Singh was aware of, but extremely reluctant to reveal, was finally going to get unleashed today. That reminded me of the promise Doctor had made five months ago. He was back from Uttarameer and he was indeed keeping his promise.

"Why?" I asked, my voice shivering like never before, "why?"

"Before I tell you why," said Doctor, "answer my question first. And my question is for the three of you."

Leena sat upright. Pruthvi was seated the other side of her, out of my sight but I was sure he was as impatient as I was.

"You kids are too inquisitive," said Doctor, "that is what I sincerely admire about your generation. Sometimes you ask me questions that make me wonder how ingeniously you think. And you don't step back to blame me for not giving you proper information beforehand. But... there is something out in the open and even after repeatedly being discussed, it's really surprising that none of you haven't ever come forward with this one question."

Will you stop lecturing me and tell me already!

"So my question to you is," continued Doctor, darting his eyes at three of us one after the other, "why did we, in the sense King Aghasthya, King Harsh and I, had to go through all those troubles in performing Yajna, for whole one and half year, when your parents could have easily travelled to USA through the Gates of Chandrika?"

I stared at him, open mouthed. Of course, if they had just used the Gates, King Harsh wouldn't have had to sacrifice himself in order to finish the Yajna. He would have been still be living and all this mess with Shashi might have never had started.

"There is no point of even brainstorming about this," said Pruthvi, being extremely impatient than he ever was, "Tell us Doctor, why didn't you just simply use the Gates?"

"I will," said Doctor, nodding, "The main intention for us to send all the suspected Samagraha, was to keep them safe from Shashi. But just sending them thousands of miles away wasn't enough to keep him out of their reach. Reason, Shashi being a intense dark magic user and with the help of millions of his reliable sources, he could have still found them, no matter what part of the world we sent them to. Therefore, we had to chose a way, which not only kept your parents far away, but also be totally invisible to Shashi's eyes."

"Wait..." I said, nonplussed, "What do you mean invisible?"

"Shashi was incompetent to see your parents with his naked eyes. And we made it possible through Yajna."

I creased my brows, finding it hard to believe.

"Wait Doctor," said Leena, before I could, "This is really complicated to understand. How is it..."

"Why is it complicated?" asked Doctor quickly, "Leena, remember the day when you were too worried for Tyrell after he got away with Jyran Kerenza, and you suggested me to find Jyran as soon as possible, I told you that it was impossible, because he performed Yajna on his own house and turned it invisible. Didn't it occur to you, that same thing might have happened with your parents as well?"

Disappointment etched on Leena's face as she sagged her shoulders down. Pruthvi squeezed her hand, to which she smiled grimly, appreciating his support.

"So Yajna is all about making people invisible?" I asked.

"Yajna is a dark magic, Hayden" Doctor said, "A human sacrifice is a requirement only for a certain type of magic. When you talk about Yajna in particular, about its purposes, it depends on the number of sacrifices made. One human sacrifice, turns the people participating in it invisible. Hundred or more human sacrifices, I believe it has the capability to make them immortal."

I raised my eyebrows, and Pruthvi immediately put forward the obvious question.

"You can perform Dark magic?"

Doctor wetted his lips before he said, "We will get to that in detail later. But for now to answer your question-Yes, I can, Yajna only. And so you know, Panchayat approves Yajna, with total consent of only one human ready to sacrifice."

I scoffed and murmured, "That's so nonsensical."

Doctor dragged his eyes towards me but denied to reply to my comment.

"So our parents were invisible," I continued, questions filling up in my brain, "Only to Shashi?"

"To almost everyone in Paramarashtra."

"How?"

"Yajna was performed right beside the Sharad's river, the same very river that connected Dakshinpur and our academy..."

"You mean the water in the pond outside the training room?" I interrupted, unable to contain the curiosity. Speaking about Sharad's river quickly reminded me of the time when I and Tyrell had traveled through it to save Pruthvi from his abduction.

"Right," he replied, nodding, "When Yajna was performed, it turned the water of the river sacred. That means, the water became the main element to make people incapable of seeing the participants. We made sure everyone in Paramarashtra drink that water. Mixing it in every water bodies, every storage areas..."

"Dark magic sounds ludicrous," Pruthvi commented.

"There are many kinds of dark magic, Pruthvi," said Doctor, "If I give you the list, you might just end up in a psychiatric hospital."

Leena sniggered.

"So how do you know Shashi drank it?" I asked resuming the topic.

Doctor paused for a few seconds and then said, "I can only guess he did."

"Did you drink the water?"

"Yes I did."

"Then how can you see my Aunt?" I asked, spontaneously, questions flowing out my mouth, "She participated in Yajna too, right?"

Doctor smiled, impressed. "Every dark magic has its own drawback and complications aftermath of its use. It requires sheer maintenance to keep it working, which I couldn't do it for I was thrown in jail. Apparently, the power of the water gradually reduced as the time passed, not completely inefficient though. When you and Tyrell passed through it, it was still powerful. You told me it did not make you wet at all, if you remember. On top of it, the moment I blocked the way that lead to Dakshinpur, is the moment I completely and successfully broke the power of Yajna. Water in the pond and the river isn't scared anymore. And so your Aunt is visible since then."

"Okay," Leena said, before I accepted his answer, "So how did Shashi really kill our parents? How did he find them?"

Doctor's smile faded. And on carefully reading his expression, I noticed it was something he was knowingly delaying to reveal. He cleared his throat once again before he said, "The only person that could see your parents, even after performing Yajna, is one such person who is invisible himself."

I blinked. "Sorry, what?"

"Shaytan Rup!" said Doctor, with such a grating voice that gave me a thousand volt shock, "An invisible man with the capability to kill with his most manipulative and superlative acts. When Yajna was invented a thousand years ago, Shaytan Rup was born as a loophole, in order to locate those invisible people."

I was listening to whatever he was saying so intently that my mind at once deciphered what he meant. My breathing turned hotter and my eyes started moistening. That invisible person is the one who located my parents. He is the reason I and my friends are parentless.

"So he is actually the one..." asked Pruthvi but couldn't complete the question. His voice was calm yet it was trembling.

"Yes," said Doctor, "Shashi took his aid to find all your parents. I couldn't have imagined Shashi can actually dare to go so far to even befriend him."

"But my parents died by an alligator attack," he said now sounding trilled.

"The way he acts," said Doctor, "he makes sure to leave an impression of an accident. But in reality, it isn't. He is an invisible person. He can make things happen. For example, he can make an alligator swim right towards his victims," he averted his eyes to Leena and said, "he can make human beings hang themselves," and finally at me, "and he can direct a heavy duty truck onto a moving car."

A hard bile rose in my throat on recalling my parents lifeless bodies I had seen in the mortuary. My stone in my pocket suddenly began to burn, when rage and a vehement desire of destroying everything in front of my eyes suddenly crept up on me. Shashi had caused this. The invisible person had caused this.

"He killed many people," continued Doctor, but I wasn't really paying attention, "may be even more than Shashi did. He even killed Ashwanth's mother..."

"What is the job?" I interrupted, slightly getting an idea of what it was going to be, "What does everything you just told us has anything to do with me being The Fire of Vengeance?"

Doctor swallowed and said, "The Yajna was invented by none other than the great mage Lady Chandrika, using the same Diamond that I carry and..."

"And?"

"And the magical fire."