CHAPTER 15 — THE DAY THE THRONE SPOKE BACK
The sky above Dayapur was wrong. Weather changed like never before.
Not storm-wrong.
Not omen-wrong.
It was paused.
Clouds hung motionless, stretched thin like torn skin pulled too far and forgotten. No wind stirred them. No light shifted their shape. Birds had vanished hours ago, fleeing without sound or pattern, as if instinct itself had issued an evacuation order.
Even noise behaved strangely.
Footsteps echoed shorter than they should. Voices died halfway through the air. The world felt like it was afraid to let anything travel too far.
Arjun stood alone on the steps of the ancient temple at the city's heart.
Not kneeling.
Not praying.
Waiting.
The stone beneath his feet was warm, humming faintly, as if something deep below was awake. The doors behind him stood open, their carvings eroded by centuries of worship and abandonment—gods with missing faces, saints with broken halos, scriptures scratched out and rewritten over older ones.
Behind him, Dayapur held its breath.
People stood frozen in doorways. Lamps flickered but did not go out. Somewhere a child was crying, the sound thin and distant, like it came from another version of the city.
Rudra's last warning echoed in Arjun's mind, uninvited and sharp.
"Once the Throne speaks to you directly, you don't get to pretend you're human anymore."
Arjun flexed his fingers.
The mark on his palm no longer bled.
It listened to his as slave.
He could feel it now—not as pain, not even as presence, but as attention. Like something behind his skin had turned its head and was waiting for a cue. The powers and energy inside him.
The air folded inward.
Not collapsing.
Not tearing.
Making space.
Reality stepped aside the way crowds parted instinctively for something dangerous and important. The temperature dropped without cold. The light dimmed without shadow.
A presence descended.
Not from the sky.
From everywhere at once.
The temple walls blackened as if scorched by memory. Stone peeled back in layers, revealing carvings that should not have existed—older than the temple, older than the city itself.
Chains.
Broken.
Burned.
Half-embedded in the walls like fossilized wounds.
The Throne revealed itself.
Not as a seat.
Not as an object.
But as a concept forced into shape.
It hovered before Arjun, vast enough that distance lost meaning around it. Cracks ran through its form like fault lines through reality. There was no figure upon it.
There never had been.
It was empty.
And it was watching him.
"YOU REJECT WORSHIP."
The voice was not loud.
It did not need to be.
It existed with the same certainty as gravity, as inevitability.
Arjun clenched his fist, nails biting into his palm around the mark. His heart pounded, but his voice did not shake.
"Because it turns people into cages," he said. "And calls it devotion."
Silence followed.
Not absence.
Evaluation.
"YOU REJECT GODHOOD."
Arjun exhaled slowly. "I reject lies," he said. "Including yours."
The Throne shifted.
It was subtle—no dramatic movement, no roar—but the chains embedded in the walls rattled, metal screaming softly as if remembering pain.
For the first time since creation, something like hesitation rippled through the presence.
"ALL WHO STOOD BEFORE YOU KNELT."
The air between them filled with images.
Devak—smiling, radiant—slowly hollowing out as prayer consumed him from the inside, until only the smile remained.
Failed God-Bearers clawing at their own divinity, tearing themselves apart when worship did not bring freedom.
Adhrit—forcing himself onto the Throne, bleeding light and arrogance, rotting even as he ruled.
And finally—
A future.
Arjun saw himself crowned.
People knelt in endless rows. Cities rebuilt in his name. Songs sung not because they wanted to, but because they were afraid not to.
He felt eternity settle on his shoulders like a chain.
He also saw the end.
Humanity preserved perfectly.
And completely still.
No defiance.
No growth.
No choice.
Just order.
"You want stability," Arjun said quietly, the vision fading as he spoke. "You don't care what survives it."
The Throne trembled.
The cracks along its surface glowed faintly, like old scars reopening.
"THEN WHAT DO YOU OFFER?"
The question landed heavier than any command.
Arjun did not answer immediately. He lost in state of deep thinking.
He looked at the city behind him—at the fragile, breathing mess of humanity that worship had tried to freeze into something manageable.
Then he raised his marked hand.
"Judgment."
The word did not echo.
It cut.
The Throne recoiled—not violently, not defensively.
In recognition.
Chains screamed as if pulled too tight.
"THERE WAS ONCE ANOTHER."
Arjun's breath caught.
"THE FIRST WHO REFUSED BOTH GOD AND WORSHIP."
The sky cracked open.
Not with light.
With memory.
Something ancient poured through the fracture—stories erased, scriptures burned, truths buried so deeply even gods pretended to forget them.
A name burned itself into Arjun's mind.
Not spoken.
Imprinted.
A name the cult feared more than rebellion.
More than collapse.
"THE EXECUTIONER."
The mark on Arjun's palm split fully open.
Not into an eye.
Into a gate.
From it poured something cold—not evil, not cruel, but utterly final. A presence that did not argue, did not persuade, did not rule.
It ended.
The Throne screamed.
For the first time, its voice broke—not in pain, but in something far worse.
Loss of control.
Far away, in a sanctum filled with fading gold, Adhrit felt it.
He froze mid-laugh.
The smile slid from his face.
And for the first time since he had called himself a god—
He was afraid.