Shadowflame rising

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Darkness wrapped around Parashu like a cloak.

His body was no longer his. He had given it up—to survive.

And now… something inside him stirred.

Not rage.

Not pain.

But memories.

Memories that didn't belong to him.

---

He stood in an ancient hall, lit only by dying torches. The air was thick with incense and silence. Everything felt… wrong. Heavy. Sacred. Broken.

Parashu looked down—

Only to realize he wasn't himself.

These hands…

Slender, sharp, stained in red.

Not his.

Yakshini's.

He watched, helpless, as her hands gripped a curved, beautiful sword. Its edge shimmered like starlight. And beneath it… a body.

A divine body.

Still. Cold. Peaceful.

A man.

Face hidden beneath a golden mask.

There was no blood. No wounds.

Only silence.

Yakshini—he, now trapped inside her—lowered the sword and placed it gently across the man's chest.

She knelt.

Eyes closed.

Tears fell.

---

Then came the whispers.

People.

Voices. Dozens. Hundreds. Echoing through the halls. From the open temple gates, they saw her—sitting beside the lifeless body, the sword in her hands.

"She killed him!"

"The Thread is dead!"

"She destroyed the one who tried to wipe us out!"

"Praise Yakshini! Our savior!"

They didn't see her tears.

They didn't ask who the man was.

They didn't understand the truth.

They just wanted a god to blame.

And a goddess to worship.

---

In that moment, Parashu felt her heart shatter inside his chest.

> "You fools…" she had whispered back then, voice full of grief.

"You pray to me for killing him.

But he was the only one I ever loved."

Parashu's breath caught.

The God of Life.

Her husband.

Not a thread. Not a tyrant.

Her everything.

---

The scene changed.

Yakshini—now hollow—stood at the edge of a forgotten jungle temple. Her hands still held the sword, but her eyes were… empty.

She turned her back on the people.

And the temple became her prison.

> "They prayed to me like I was their goddess of death," her voice echoed inside Parashu's mind.

"So I became what they wanted.

A monster. A curse. A shadow."

---

Parashu gasped as he was thrown out of the memory.

His body hit the ground in the real world, breath ragged, heart racing.

Yakshini's voice was faint now. Soft. Almost broken.

> "Now you know, Parashu.

Why I hate them.

Why I burn."

Parashu didn't speak.

Because he finally understood—

Yakshini wasn't born evil.

She was made into one.

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