Zara's Pov
The world exploded into light as the bag was ripped from her face.
Zara squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden glare, her skin flinching at the roughness of the air. Every inch of her body hurt — a symphony of bruises, aches, and raw wounds. Still, when she opened her eyes, it wasn't the pain that stole her breath.
It was *him*.
Arjun.
For a moment, everything else vanished — the bruises, the fear, the rage — drowned in the weight of that gaze.
He stood a few feet away, dressed in casual indifference, but his eyes — God, his eyes — locked with hers like a tether pulled tight between them.
A thousand emotions stormed through Zara's battered heart:
Recognition.
Confusion.
Longing.
And betrayal she hadn't earned yet but could feel blooming inside her bones.
She didn't dare breathe.
And then, Om's voice boomed, slicing through the fragile moment.
"Meet my son," Om said proudly, clapping a meaty hand on Arjun's shoulder. "Arjun Raisinghani. My blood. My legacy."
Zara's chest tightened painfully.
*Son. Heir. Raisinghani.*
The realization hit her like a cruel slap — hot and stinging.
The man whose presence had haunted her dreams, whose stare had ignited something she couldn't name, belonged to the family that had destroyed hers.
The family her mother had cursed.
The curse that would now gnaw at *his* life, just as it had stolen so many others.
Her stomach twisted, torn between anger and pity.
Arjun stood silent, unmoving — an enigma wrapped in the wrong name.
Part of her wanted to scream, to warn him, to shake him awake.
Part of her wanted to hate him for wearing the Raisinghani blood so easily.
And part of her — the traitorous, broken part — wanted to fall into him and forget the world.
But Zara forced the hurricane inside her to still.
She lifted her chin high, defiance sharpening the pain in her jaw.
No one here would see her bleed.
Not even him.
---
The hours that followed blurred into an endless, cruel cycle.
Om's men crowded her, their breath thick with tobacco and cruelty. They hurled questions like stones, circling her, jabbing her already battered ribs.
"Where's your mother, witch?"
"Where is she hiding?"
"Talk, girl! We know you know!"
Zara said nothing.
She sat motionless, spine straight, shoulders back, holding on to dignity like a drowning woman clutching a piece of driftwood.
Every question was met with silence.
Every slap against her pride was met with a cold stare.
Her silence infuriated them.
They pushed harder, voices rising, hands twitching with barely suppressed violence.
Finally, one of the larger ones — a man who smelled of sweat and cheap whiskey — leaned down, his face inches from hers.
"Answer us," he snarled, "or we'll make you beg for mercy."
Zara smiled sweetly, tilting her bruised face towards him.
"Mercy?" she whispered, her voice a blade dipped in honey. "You wouldn't recognize it even if it spat in your face."
The goon reeled back as if struck.
The others chuckled nervously, but she saw the flicker of uncertainty in their eyes.
Good.
Let them fear her.
Let them think her invincible.
The only thing more dangerous than a witch was a witch who had nothing left to lose.
---
When they finally left her alone, night crept into the filthy room.
Zara slumped against the wall, her strength leaking out now that no one was there to witness.
The cold stone bit into her skin, and the loneliness pressed against her ribs tighter than any chain.
She closed her eyes, letting the silence devour her.
The faces from her past floated up in the darkness —
Her mother's soft voice singing lullabies.
Her mother's hands weaving protection spells into the hem of her dresses.
The last time she had seen her — a flash of fear, a whisper of *run*.
Zara bit down on her lip until she tasted blood.
*I'm sorry, Maa,* she thought brokenly. *I couldn't run fast enough.*
She thought of Arjun again — of the unknowable war that raged behind his dark eyes.
He would die because of a curse born from her mother's grief.
An innocent caught in a blood feud older than either of them.
Guilt gnawed at her.
Anger gnawed deeper.
She hated the Raisinghanis for what they had done.
She hated herself for feeling sorry for their son.
How cruel the gods were, to tangle her fate with his.
---
The door clanged open again.
Two goons swaggered in, one carrying a metal tray piled with stale rotis and thin dal.
"Eat," one of them barked, kicking the tray closer.
Zara glanced down at the food, then slowly, deliberately, looked back up at them.
She smiled — a smile full of broken glass.
"Is this a bribe?" she asked sweetly. "Or are you just trying to poison me slowly?"
The goon scowled. "You'll need strength to survive what's coming."
Zara's laugh was low, bitter, and terrifying.
"You think I'm afraid of pain?" she said, voice steady despite the tremor in her limbs. "I was born into it."
She rose shakily to her feet, every muscle screaming in protest, and kicked the tray across the room. The dal splattered the wall like a bloody smear.
The goons lunged toward her, fury blazing.
"Touch me," she whispered, her voice so soft they had to lean closer. "And I swear to every god listening, you'll regret being born."
There was something in her eyes — a darkness, a promise — that made them hesitate.
Cowards.
They turned and fled, slamming the door behind them.
Zara slumped back down, shaking from the effort it had cost her to hold herself upright.
The hunger gnawed at her.
The thirst burned her throat.
But the idea of taking anything from them disgusted her more than death.
---
Hours later — or maybe days; time had lost all meaning — Zara lay curled on the floor, her arms wrapped around her battered ribs.
The moonlight through the barred window painted silver streaks across the filthy floor.
And for the first time, she allowed herself to pray.
Not the neat prayers her mother had taught her as a child.
Not the careful spells whispered to unseen deities.
This prayer was raw.
Ugly.
Bleeding.
"God," she whispered into the darkness. "If you're even there...
Do you see me?
Do you see what they've done?"
A tear slipped free, trailing down the curve of her cheek, disappearing into the grime.
"I tried to be good," she said brokenly. "I tried to be strong. I tried to believe. But... I'm so tired."
The bruises on her skin throbbed in rhythm with her heartbeat.
Her soul felt even more bruised than her body.
"If you're real," she said, voice barely a breath, "send someone. Send anyone. Before I become nothing but a ghost haunting these walls."
She closed her eyes, clutching the last shred of hope she hadn't dared acknowledge until now.
One name surfaced in her mind.
Not Arjun's.
Not Om's.
Not even her mother's.
*Vey.*
The strange boy with sad eyes and knowing smiles.
The boy who had seen her — truly seen her — in ways no one else had.
"Vey," she whispered into the cold night. "Please find me."
---
A sound broke through her prayer.
A footstep.
Soft. Steady. Close.
Zara froze, her battered heart leaping into her throat.
The doorknob rattled.
Was it another goon?
More threats? More pain?
Or...
She dragged herself upright, ignoring the scream of her wounds.
Hope flared so bright and wild it hurt.
Please, she begged silently. Please let it be him.
Please, just this once, let the gods be kind.