The air in the bookstore was thick with the scent of charred parchment and the lingering sweetness of the sandalwood sap that had leaked from Aryan's arm. Silence returned, but it was a heavy, expectant silence—the kind that settles over a battlefield once the screaming stops. Sarah lay in a deep, restorative sleep on the Table of Echoes, her breathing finally steady, her skin losing that terrifying porcelain sheen.
Aryan sat on a stool made of petrified wood, his mahogany arm resting on his lap. He looked at Ishaan, the old Archivist, who was busy sweeping away the black, shriveled leaves that had fallen from Aryan's wrist.
"You did more than just silence the siren, boy," Ishaan muttered without looking up. "You rewrote her rhythm. You gave her back her heartbeat. That isn't just power—that's inheritance."
Aryan didn't feel like a powerful heir. He felt like a man whose world was dissolving into a fever dream. "My father never told me," Aryan whispered. "He told me stories about trees having spirits, yes. He told me that a carpenter must listen to the wood. But he never told me I was a 'Seed'. He never told me I was meant to be a bridge."
"He wanted you to have a choice, Aryan," Mira said, walking toward him. She had put away her crossbow, but her movements were still guarded, like a cat in a new room. She reached into her tactical vest and pulled out an object wrapped in a faded silk cloth. "Your father left this with Ishaan for a day like today. He knew if you ever found out the truth, you'd need a reminder of who you were before the wood started to grow."
She unwrapped the cloth to reveal a small, ornate music box. Aryan's breath hitched. It was the music box his father had been carving for Rhea on that rainy afternoon in Shimla—the one with the tiny wooden bird on top.
"Rhea's music box," Aryan breathed, his human hand trembling as he reached out to touch it. "I thought it was lost in the fire at the villa."
"Vikram sent it to me years ago," Ishaan explained, leaning on his broom. "He said it contained the 'Compass of the Heart'. Go on, Aryan. Open it."
Aryan's mahogany fingers, though thick and wooden, moved with a surprising delicacy. He wound the small silver key at the side. The mechanism clicked, and a melody began to play—a simple, haunting lullaby that Aryan's mother used to sing to them when the mountain winters grew too harsh.
As the music filled the room, a hidden latch on the bottom of the box popped open. Aryan reached into the secret compartment and pulled out a small, translucent crystal and a piece of vellum paper.
The vellum wasn't a map of a city or a country. It was a map of a human body—a diagram showing the flow of sap and blood. But as Aryan looked closer, he saw that the diagram shifted. The 'veins' on the paper began to align with the veins on his own wooden arm.
"It's a Map of the Veins," Ishaan whispered, his eyes wide behind his thick spectacles. "It doesn't show you where to go, Aryan. It shows you how to be. It shows the path to the Core."
"The Core?" Aryan asked.
"The place where your humanity and the timber become one," Mira said. "If you reach the Core, you stop being a puppet of the Master. You become the Master of yourself. But there is something else in that box."
Aryan picked up the small crystal. As he held it, the amber light from his mahogany arm surged into the stone. Suddenly, a holographic projection shimmered in the air above them. It wasn't a message; it was a memory.
It showed a younger Vikram Khanna, standing in a lush, green forest that looked unlike any place on Earth. The trees were taller than skyscrapers, their leaves shimmering with a metallic luster. Beside him stood a woman—Aryan's mother—holding a baby Rhea.
"If you are seeing this, Aryan," Vikram's voice echoed from the crystal, sounding warm and tired, "then the shadows have found you. I am sorry I couldn't give you the simple life I promised. But remember this: The Master seeks the 'Seed' because he believes it is a weapon. He is wrong. You are a gardener. The treasure isn't at the end of the road; the treasure is the life you choose to protect along the way."
The projection shifted, showing a glimpse of a ruin buried under red earth and twisting vines. "Go to the Sunken Library of Hampi, Aryan. Look for the 'Heart of Flesh'. Only there will you find the strength to save what remains of our family."
The projection flickered and died.
"Save what remains?" Aryan's voice was sharp with a sudden, desperate hope. "He said 'family'. Not just me. Does he mean... is Rhea alive?"
Mira looked down at the floor. "The Master doesn't let things go to waste, Aryan. Especially not the daughter of a Keeper. We believe Rhea wasn't killed. She was 'repurposed'."
The word 'repurposed' hit Aryan like a physical blow. The thought of his sweet, innocent sister being turned into a clockwork construct or a wooden doll made the sap in his veins boil with a cold, terrifying rage.
"Then we go to Hampi," Aryan said, standing up. The music box stopped playing, but the lullaby remained in his head like a vow.
"It won't be easy," Ishaan warned. "The Sunken Library is guarded by the Silver Weaver. She was once a Keeper like your father, but she traded her humanity for immortality. She weaves the silver threads that bind the puppets together. She will know you are coming before you even leave this room."
Suddenly, the front window of the bookstore exploded inward. But it wasn't a bomb or a rock. It was a swarm of silver moths, thousands of them, their wings as sharp as razors. They began to circle the room, slicing through the air, their rhythmic fluttering sounding like the whispering of a thousand ghosts.
"The Weaver's Spies!" Mira yelled, pulling Sarah off the table and dragging her toward the back exit. "Aryan, use the music box! The melody—it's the only thing that can disrupt their frequency!"
Aryan grabbed the music box and wound it again. The lullaby began to play, and as the notes hit the air, the silver moths began to falter, their wings losing their sharpness.
"Go!" Ishaan shouted, throwing a heavy leather book at Aryan. "Take the Lexicon of Timber. You'll need it to speak to the trees in Hampi! I'll hold them off!"
"Ishaan, no!" Aryan cried.
"I'm an old book, Aryan! It's time my pages were turned!" The old man stood tall, his hands glowing with a faint, blue light as he began to chant in a language that sounded like rustling paper.
Mira grabbed Aryan's mahogany arm and pulled him toward the secret cellar door. "We can't save everyone, Aryan! If we stay, the Weaver gets the Seed, and Ishaan's sacrifice is for nothing!"
They dove into the darkness of the cellar just as the silver moths converged on the old Archivist. The last thing Aryan saw was Ishaan's calm, smiling face as the bookstore began to dissolve into silver dust.