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The rain had transitioned from a violent downpour to a mournful drizzle by the time the black van pulled into the narrow, cobblestone alleys of Old Thane. This was a part of the city that time had forgotten—a labyrinth of crumbling colonial buildings and tangled electrical wires that hung like weeping vines.
Mira stopped the van in front of a building that looked like it was being held together by the very ivy crawling up its walls. A faded wooden sign swung precariously over the door: "The Archivist's Rest." "We're here," Mira whispered, her voice weary. She glanced at Aryan, whose eyes were half-closed, his face pale except for the glowing amber veins tracing his mahogany arm. "Stay close. This place is protected by more than just locks."
Aryan climbed out, carrying Sarah in his arms. The girl felt even colder now, her skin having a porcelain sheen that shimmered under the dim streetlights. As Aryan stepped onto the pavement, he felt a strange vibration beneath his boots. It wasn't the city's rumble; it was as if the ground itself was humming a low, ancient lullaby.
They entered the bookstore. The air inside was a magnificent collision of smells: old parchment, dried lavender, and the sharp, grounding scent of cedarwood. Books were stacked from floor to ceiling, not in neat rows, but in chaotic towers that seemed to defy gravity.
From the shadows of the back room, a man emerged. He was hunched, his skin wrinkled like a sun-dried plum, and he wore spectacles so thick they made his eyes look like swirling nebulae. He looked at Mira, then his gaze fixed on Aryan's arm.
"So," the old man wheezed, a faint smile touching his lips. "The Seed has finally sprouted. Vikram always said his son would have the stubbornness of a mountain pine."
Aryan stiffened at the mention of his father's name. "You knew him? You knew Vikram Khanna?"
"I am Ishaan," the old man said, gesturing for them to follow. "I didn't just know your father, Aryan. I was the one who forged the tools he used to hide you. Come, lay the girl on the table of Echoes."
As Aryan laid Sarah down, he couldn't help but look around. This wasn't just a bookstore. Tucked between the novels were strange artifacts: a clock that ran backward, a compass that pointed toward 'Fear' instead of 'North,' and jars of shimmering sawdust.
"Ishaan," Mira said, her tone urgent. "The Collector's Hound found us. Malphas is active in Mumbai. We don't have much time."
Ishaan sighed, his fingers tracing the spine of a leather-bound book. "The Collector is a moth drawn to the flame of perfection. And Aryan... your father made you too perfect." He turned to Aryan. "Do you remember the summer you turned twelve? The time you fell from the Great Deodar tree and didn't break a single bone?"
Aryan's mind raced back. He remembered the wind whistling past his ears, the terrifying snap of the branch, and the hard thud against the roots. He remembered his father running toward him, his face a mask of absolute terror—not because Aryan was hurt, but because he wasn't. "Don't tell your mother," Vikram had whispered that day, checking Aryan's pulse. "The tree caught you, Aryan. It recognized you. You must never tell anyone how the branches moved to soften your fall."
"I thought it was a miracle," Aryan whispered, his hand clutching his mahogany wrist. "I thought I was just lucky."
"There is no luck in your bloodline, boy," Ishaan said, opening a large, dusty ledger. "Your family were the Keepers of the Great Grove. For centuries, you protected the boundary between the world of Men and the world of the Living Timber. But your father wanted a different life for you. He wanted you to be a writer, to live in the sun, away from the splinters and the sap."
Ishaan pulled out a yellowed photograph from the ledger and handed it to Aryan.
Aryan felt the breath leave his lungs. In the photo, his father stood in front of this very bookstore. Beside him was a woman with a radiant smile—Aryan's mother. But standing behind them, leaning against the doorframe, was a young woman who looked exactly like Mira.
But the date at the bottom of the photo read: October 1974.
Aryan looked at Mira, then back at the photo. "This... this is impossible. This was fifty years ago. Mira, how...?"
Mira didn't look away. Her expression was a mix of sorrow and ancient duty. "Time moves differently for those of us who have replaced our hearts with the core of a tree, Aryan. I was your father's student. I promised him I would watch over the Seed until it was time for the Harvest."
"Student?" Aryan's voice rose in anger. "You've been watching me my whole life? While my sister died? While my father vanished? You were there?"
"I couldn't interfere!" Mira shouted back, the first crack in her icy exterior. "The Master was searching for the Seed. If I had stepped in, they would have found you years ago. I had to let you become a man on your own."
The room suddenly grew cold. The books on the shelves began to tremble. Sarah, still unconscious on the table, began to hum. It wasn't a human sound; it was the high-pitched vibration of a tuning fork.
"She's waking up," Ishaan warned, backing away. "But she isn't Sarah anymore. Malphas didn't just want her marrow; he used her as a vessel for a 'Song of Rot'."
Suddenly, Sarah's eyes snapped open. They weren't brown anymore; they were a milky, sightless white. Her jaw unhinged with a sickening crack, and a dark, oily liquid began to spill from her mouth.
The melody she hummed intensified. Aryan felt a sharp, agonizing pain in his mahogany arm. The green leaves on his wrist began to turn black and shrivel. The wood of the bookstore—the shelves, the floorboards, the very ceiling—began to groan and warp as if it were being tortured.
"She's a Siren!" Mira yelled, drawing her crossbow. "She's designed to vibrate the mahogany until it shatters! Aryan, you have to silence her!"
"I can't kill her!" Aryan cried, his vision blurring from the pain. "She's an innocent!"
"If you don't," Ishaan gasped, clutching his chest as the floorboards rose up like waves, "the wood in your body will expand until your ribcage snaps. She is the Master's weapon, Aryan! Choose: your humanity, or your life!"
Aryan looked at Sarah—or the thing that looked like Sarah. He remembered his sister Rhea's voice. He remembered his father's lessons about the soul of the wood. He realized the Master was mocking him, using a girl's body to destroy the last Seed of the Great Grove.
He stepped forward, his mahogany hand glowing with a fierce, angry red light. He didn't raise his fist to strike. Instead, he placed his wooden palm over Sarah's heart.
He didn't fight the Song of Rot. He began to 'write' over it. He closed his eyes and projected every warm memory he had—the scent of his mother's bread, the sound of Rhea's laughter, the feeling of the Shimla sun. He poured his humanity into the wood, using his body as a bridge.
The bookstore screamed. The warped wood began to settle. The black leaves on Aryan's wrist fell off, replaced instantly by new, golden buds.
Sarah's humming slowed, then stopped. The oily liquid receded. She let out a long, shuddering breath and her eyes returned to their natural brown. She looked at Aryan, whispered a single word—"Thank you"—and fell into a deep, natural sleep.
Aryan collapsed to his knees, his mahogany arm smoking as if it had been through a furnace.
Ishaan looked at him with awe. "You didn't break her. You... you healed the grain. No Keeper has been able to do that for a thousand years."
Mira knelt beside him, her hand trembling as she touched his shoulder. "You're more like your father than I realized, Aryan. But you've just sent a massive flare into the supernatural world. Every puppet, every Architect, and every Hunter within a thousand miles just felt that burst of Purity."
She looked toward the door. The shadows in the alleyway were beginning to stretch and take the shape of long, spindly limbs.
"The Harvest has begun," Mira said grimly. "And we are the only crop left."