I shrieked feeling a jolt of lightning lancing through my gut. I fell on my knees, when a terrible sensation gripped my insides, as though falling off a steep cliff. And then an explosion of pain blinded me, to have a vision in my mind.

"Money! Land! The entire kingdom finally belongs to me!" Bhupathi Garg cried with joy and laughed viciously.

He dropped a knife aside and held a document up pointing at the signatures. He crouched beside a fourteen-year-old girl and forced her to look at it. She skimmed through it. Her innocent, yet fearful face was blotchy, soaked with sweat and tears. She held her stare into the document, her eyes beginning to enlarge. A look of greed and selfishness crossed her face, mouth slightly parted, an expression that stated a desire to want all of it to herself.

"Look, girl. Look!" Bhupathi seethed. "Only if you had this old woman put her signature years ago, she could have saved herself and me from all the trouble we went through."

There was a whimper and a womanly moan of pain. A bloodied hand came into the picture, wanting to hold the girl by her shoulder. She looked down at the dying woman, breathing steadily and clutching the wrinkly palm with hers. There was something going on in her mind, something beyond one's expectations from a fourteen-year-old.

There was a sudden sound of footsteps coming closer. Bhupathi stood alert and observant. "Someone's coming," he said, "We need to stop him before he takes Premila to the infirmary.  We need to buy a few minutes for her to die peacefully." He sniggered evilly and looked back at the girl. "I will leave you two alone. Feel free to make a last minute memory. Let's go, Varchas."

Two shadows fell on the girl's face and distanced. The door opened and then closed, the sun's rays that had penetrating inside just for a second startled her a little. But keeping her face expressionless, she kept staring at the woman, who was moaning and groaning with pain.

"There's no one inside, you can leave." A man's voice said, which wasn't Bhupathi's.

"Thanks for the information but let me look for myself." It was someone very well known.

The argument continued for a few minutes, and here the girl was done sitting idle and staring at the woman. Still keeping her face expressionless, she leaned a bit and held the knife in both her hands. The woman gasped when she lifted the knife up, with the pointy edge directed at the woman.

"No! No!" the woman croaked, "Nazira, dear..."

The girl being deaf wouldn't have mattered, she wasn't going to listen anyway. Her pretty face turned dangerous, sickeningly filled with lust for money. The woman moaned and cried, and then yelled seeing the razor sharp knife drawing forcefully closer.

"No...!"

The woman shrieked and at once the entire room filled with dead silence. The girl drove the knife into an already dying woman's chest. Blood splattered on to her perfectly sculpted face making her breathe the metallic smell. She pulled the knife and drew it into her heart for the second time. The door suddenly banged open, with a sheen of sunlight falling on her face. Getting alert, she quickly let the knife go and fell on the body of the woman crying. It was a pretend cry. The cry that could melt the hearts of the people who knew how to sympathize, to love, to shower affection.

A man crouched down beside the dead body and put his hand on her head, staring down with disbelief. She was still crying and quickly studied him and his actions. When the man wasn't paying attention at her but at the dead body, a small smile curled on her lips. She knew...Shourya was so going to come in handy.

I coughed as if I'd woken up from a coma. My eyes brimming with tears, and I couldn't handle this feeling. It was grief, the stage of denial, filling up in my heart. The last time I'd experienced it this bad was when I'd seen my parents lying lifeless in the mortuary. I felt losing a huge chunk of heart, and I needed it so back as if my life was dependant on it.

Sorrow tore me up and I let out a mournful cry.

"Hayden!" Ashwant pulled my hand away that was still in Pizaca's grip. "You are under his spell. Whatever you've seen is only a trick to weaken you. Don't believe him."

"Not a lie, boy!" Pizaca said, angrily. "It is the truth. Nobody knew her more than me and my siblings. She was this cunning and deceitful witch a thousand years ago. She is born the same now and will be the same in the upcoming generations as well. Cornelian users cannot escape her."

Ashwant patted on my shoulders trying to make me steady. I shook my head and tried to let the feeling of melancholy go. Hardening my heart, I tried to summon the vigor from the bottom of my gut which hardly came back to me. The faith and belief that I had on her seemed to be getting difficult to restore. I pressed my eyes shut, squeezing out all the tears and made an instant decision, that for now was to abide by Ashwant.

With a great effort, I finally found my voice. "I need the part of the dagger," I said, mustering up confidence, "This is my choice. My call. I want to kill Almourah myself. Nobody has forced me to. Please, Sir Pizaca, let me borrow the Spine."

"Certainly give it to you, I will, boy," he said, his eyes popped out. "That is everything I and my clan always wanted. To see him dead. My strayed little sister already did give the part, she told me. Also told me that there is something different about you from the First. I want to see myself how much different you are."

Right in front of Sir Pizaca's forehead, the mist started to form. It flicked and molded into the wooden elongated thin sheath of mahogany colored spine, with one sharp edge and another side thickened, intelligently made to fix both the Handle and Blade at either side.

Ashwant smiled with happiness, the kind of happiness that lacked in my heart. I was deprived of relishing the prospect of another easy gain.

With a cling, it fell on the ground beside my knee. I held it in my hands, but I stayed down there making up my heart. If there was any truth in whatever I'd seen today, then I had to sort it out soon before it got too late. Too late... hadn't she said that to me before I ran away from her to begin this job?

"I am scared," she said, tears falling faster. "Can we please talk on our way. I want to tell you everything before it gets too late."

"Why Cornelian users only?" I asked Sir Pizaca, tears temporarily blinding me.

He made a soft grunting sound. "Such kind of witches, they make themselves appear into something they aren't. They know that men, no matter how strong from the outside, are still weak when it comes to the matter of hearts. Haimavati Roksana was a powerful witch, boy, her presence caused shudders to even Lady Chandrika, who had to go through lengths to take away the magical powers off her. Haima had a knack for creating this deceitful aura. Once she knows a man is fascinated by her beauty, she will bind him to her will, and that will be the beginning of his gradual erosion. My sister, why do you think she turned out into the way she is? Haima targeted the First and the Second. As the Third, you've stepped into the breach, boy. And you seem more capable than those two. If she has already found you, then she'll never leave you alone."

Ashwant sighed dramatically. His grip on my shoulder was too tight that I thought it could crunch my bones. "We should go. Let's go," he said, gritting his teeth.

"Wait, just one second," I said, with a requesting tone to make him let my arm go. Something was still burning beneath my chest, and it was extremely painful to even comprehend the intensity of it. Just a day ago, Ashwanth himself had mentioned it- "You're a Samagraha. Your feelings might or not be real. They cannot be taken as a fact."

"Is everything about them a lie?" I asked Pizaca, mustering up an abundance of hope of heaven for him to say anything in my favor.

"Hayden, why are you even interested?" Ashwant demanded. "Did you really meet any such person? Don't forget Haimavati was born thousand years ago."

Pizaca and I both ignored him.

"She'll be useless as her own shadow until that invisible hurdle is alive," the tiny originator said, "Her powers are connected with his existence. Once he's gone, no odds will be against her."

I softly sniffed and blinked back the moisten off my eyes. "Invisible hurdle? The one born from Yajna?"

"Yes."

"He is dead! I killed him."

Sir Pizaca's face flustered with shock, and then the fear overloaded getting the best of him. As I was still watching him, he screamed with agony. For a moment I thought he was about to hurt me, to give me another round of concussion. The hall of his castle shook with the thunder of his monstrous yell. Ashwant pulled me back when Pizaca suddenly began to expand, growing larger in size, extremely tall and massive, his head colliding with the roof. And so did his mace which he flung aside getting completely out of control. A couple of pillars got uprooted and collided with one another, a few of them falling on our side.

I heard Ashwant's commanding his stone. The broken pillars diverted from their way and landed afar. "We have to go now!" He yelled at me.

When I didn't move and continued watching Pizaca's rage destroying his castle, Ashwant held me by my jacket and pulled me with him. Sunlight glazed upon me once we were out of the castle. Pizaca's cry and his final words stirred up the entire suburb. "Mark my words, Cornelian user. Never believe in beauty and innocence. It is all a camouflage against a sly personality. Otherwise, you'll have to cross blades with her, just like the First had!"

I felt my heart constricting on registering what he's said.

"Oh, God!" Ashwant shrieked, shaking every nerve of my body in agitation. "Everything's a mess!"

I grunted through my gritted teeth trying to come out of my trance-like state. Dry coughs and splutters brought my senses that were now back being mindful and full of hope. What was I thinking? How can I believe in someone I met a few minutes ago rather than the one who had been my shadow all the while my attempt to kill Shaytan Rup. It was true that she was the one to make me aware of the darkest warlock of the country, but hadn't she given me the determination to grow stronger and carry out this responsibility to make this country free and prosperous? What was I thinking!

Every moment we had spent together, all the while in Parallel Uniserve, cannot be all a lie, can it? They were nothing but the most memorable moments, to know about each other and get closer to one another only to fill in the void in our lives. Would it be justifiable to state them all an illusion, a deceitful string to make a thousand-year-old pact come true?

But then something troubled me - what in the world was actually making me see her in my mind and hear her voice? Whose voice was I hearing-hers, or Haima's?

The loud cries of the ogres brought me out of my delusions. Ashwant was blocking their ways from crossing the moat and attack us. Thousands of ogres seemed enraged for disrupting their Sir Pizaca's castle. They began to jump through the moat to get to us. Hurled their maces at us. But seeing the way Ashwant was fighting, only the defense and not attacking back, it seemed as if he was reluctant to hurt the clan he was related to.

Temper had already taken me over. Now that I was being myself, I felt my blood boiling up. Tightening my fists, I rained my anger down with a fury of a wounded lion.

I took a few steps upwards and commanded my stone, keeping in mind that they were supposed to be a friendly clan, just like the Clan of Matsyasvi. The devastating fire, as thick as lava escaped from my palms. It encircled and enlarged, revolving and rotating high above in the air covering up the circumference of the whole suburb as a fiery red blazing cloud. I was the master of this element, fire. And it acted as per my wishes.

The fire obviously scared all the ogres away. They rushed back in individual directions far away from us and into their huts, that did not get burned.

"Please! Don't believe him. Everything's a lie," Nazira said, tears streaming down her eyes. There was sincerity in those beautiful eyes that made me fall for her in the first place. But after everything Pizaca had told me, it was difficult to blindly believe in anything and everything.

If this relationship was meant to turn promising in a beautiful way, then I have to get to the bottom of this once and for all. I absolutely have to be sure that there was no embodiment of betrayal lurking beneath the feminine charms. For the first time I realized-Shashi, after all, cannot be judged a complete fool for being hell-bent to have her on his side, right?

When there was no sign of pursuit from the ogres, I remembered about the Spine that I was holding in my hand. I gazed at it intently. If she was Haimavati Roksana, then that means this was her creation. Whatever her reasons could be, there was no denying that she had instilled me with the wisdom of giving this country a fresh and anew life. I was another step closer to it and there was no way backing out. Because  The Clan of Almourah first.