The ring was heavier than it looked.
Not in weight.
In consequence.
Bharat stood in the estate's security office—a room that smelled of old leather and surveillance paranoia. Banks of monitors flickered with camera feeds: gardens, gates, hallways, rooms where family members moved like actors in a play they'd rehearsed for generations.
He had access now.
To everything.
Almost.
The head of security—a man named Vikram, built like a wall with eyes that had seen too much—handed him a tablet without a word. Bharat scrolled through the estate map. Familiar sections lit up in green. Restricted areas stayed red.
"What's this?"
Bharat pointed to a red zone beneath the east wing. No label. No description. Just coordinates and a warning icon.
Vikram's face stayed blank.
"Old storage. Nothing important."
"Then why is it restricted?"
"Family tradition."
Bharat looked at him. Really looked. The Contract Vision flickered at the edges of his sight—faint script crawling up Vikram's neck, binding him to something older than loyalty.
Fear.
Obligation.
Silence.
"I want to see it."
"That's not advisable."
"I have full security clearance."
Bharat held up the ring. Mira's family crest caught the monitor light, turned it into something sharp.
"Unless you want to explain to her why you're blocking her husband's access."
Vikram's jaw tightened. Barely visible. But Bharat saw it—the moment calculation turned into surrender.
"Follow me."
The east wing was older than the rest of the house.
You could feel it in the walls—stone instead of plaster, cold that had nothing to do with air conditioning. The corridor narrowed as they walked, ceiling dropping lower, like the house was closing its throat.
Vikram stopped at a door.
Plain. Wooden. A lock that looked modern but sat in a frame carved with script Bharat couldn't read—symbols that made his eyes hurt if he stared too long.
"You sure about this?"
"Open it."
Vikram pulled out a key. Old brass. The kind that looked like it had been copied from something ancient, something that shouldn't be copied at all.
The lock clicked.
The door swung inward.
Darkness breathed out.
Not just absence of light. Something thicker. Heavier. Like the darkness had been waiting.
Bharat stepped inside.
The room was small. Stone floor. Stone walls. A single oil lamp burned in the corner—flames that didn't flicker, didn't dance, just stayed perfectly still like they'd been painted onto the air.
And in the center—
An altar.
Carved from black stone that seemed to drink the lamplight. Surface covered in script—the same kind that crawled on the door frame, on the Temple Contract, on Bharat's own skin when the System activated.
But these weren't contracts.
These were names.
Hundreds of them.
Bharat stepped closer. His breath misted in the cold air.
The names were crossed out.
Every single one. Slashed through with red ink that looked too fresh, too wet, like it had just been applied.
"What is this?"
His voice came out quiet. Reverent. Like speaking too loud would wake something.
Vikram stood in the doorway. Wouldn't cross the threshold.
"The family ledger."
"Ledger of what?"
"Grooms."
The word fell like a stone into water.
Bharat's pulse kicked.
He looked at the names again. Read them slowly.
Arjun Malhotra. Crossed out.
Dev Sharma. Crossed out.
Karan Kapoor. Crossed out.
Twenty names. Thirty. Fifty.
All the way down to the bottom of the altar.
Where the stone stayed blank.
Waiting.
"They all married into the family?"
Vikram's silence was answer enough.
"And they all—"
"Didn't complete the contract."
"You mean they died."
"I mean what I said."
Bharat's hand moved on its own—reached out, touched the altar's edge.
The stone was warm.
Shouldn't be warm.
Should be cold as death.
The Contract Vision exploded.
Not gently. Not gradually.
Like someone had ripped open his skull and poured light directly into his brain.
He saw—
Flashes. Fragments. Memory that wasn't his.
A man kneeling at this altar. Young. Terrified. Blood on his hands.
Mira standing behind him. Younger. Colder. Watching.
The System's voice—not in English, not in Hindi, something older—reading terms he couldn't understand.
The man screaming.
The altar drinking.
The name crossing itself out.
Red ink that was never ink at all.
Bharat stumbled back.
Gasping.
Vision clearing.
Vikram caught his arm. Steady. Professional.
"First time is always hardest."
"You've seen it too?"
"Everyone in security has."
"And you still work here?"
Vikram's smile was tired. Bitter.
"Contract Vision works both ways. Once you see the altar, the altar sees you."
"What does that mean?"
"It means you can't leave."
Bharat pulled free. His heart was hammering so hard he could feel it in his teeth.
"There has to be a way out."
"There is."
Vikram pointed to the wall behind the altar.
Where a seam ran through the stone—thin, almost invisible, but there.
A door.
Hidden.
"Where does it lead?"
"Depends on who's asking."
"I'm asking."
"Then it leads to the temple."
Bharat moved toward it. Slow. Every instinct screaming at him to run, but his feet kept moving forward.
He pressed his palm against the seam.
The stone shifted.
Not much. Just enough.
Just enough to show—
A passage.
Narrow. Dark. Descending.
And carved into the archway above:
"Exit for the Completed. Entrance for the Next."
Bharat's throat went dry.
"Completed means—"
"Sacrificed."
"And Next means—"
Vikram didn't answer.
Didn't need to.
Bharat's phone rang.
Shrill. Violent. Shattering the thick silence like glass breaking.
He pulled it out.
Unknown number.
He answered.
Static. Breathing. Then—
A voice he knew.
The hospital nurse.
"Mr. Rao, you need to come now."
"What happened?"
"Your mother—someone was in her room. We don't know who. Security footage is corrupted. But she's—"
The nurse's voice cracked.
"She's asking for you."
The call cut.
Bharat turned to Vikram.
"I need a car."
"Now?"
"Now."
Vikram looked at the altar. At the passage. At Bharat.
"You go to that hospital, you're walking into a trap."
"I know."
"And you're going anyway?"
Bharat looked at the ring on his finger. At the weight of a war he'd started with a handshake and a refusal to kneel.
"She's my mother."
"She's leverage."
"I know that too."
He walked past Vikram. Out of the room. Down the corridor.
Behind him, he heard it—
Faint.
Distant.
The sound of something scratching.
Stone on stone.
Like the altar was writing.
Adding a name.
His name.