Threads of Fate

Chapter Three: The Carousal of Secrets

Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The historical elements referenced are inspired by Indian heritage but have been adapted for the purposes of this narrative.

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The Southbank carousel was a ghost of its daytime self.

In daylight, it was a whirl of children's laughter and sugary churros. At midnight, under a bruised London sky, the painted horses looked like frozen monsters, their wooden eyes gleaming in the amber streetlights. The calliope music played faintly—a creeping, minor-key melody that sounded like something trying to remember how to be happy.

Maya stood by the railing, the Thames churning like black ink below her. She clutched the 1924 photograph in her pocket, her fingers tracing the edges until they bled. The man in the picture—the one who looked exactly like Rohan—haunted her.

Was he a ghost? A descendant? Or was time itself failing?

The question made her feel unmoored, as if the ground beneath her was becoming negotiable.

"You're late, Maya. In the old days, that would have cost you a kingdom."

Maya spun around. It wasn't Rohan. Standing by the ticket booth was a woman wrapped in a heavy silk sari that seemed too thin for the London cold. Her hair was silver, braided with jasmine flowers that shouldn't have been blooming in November.

"Ishani?" Maya whispered, recognizing her cousin from Jaipur. But this wasn't the flighty, social-media-obsessed Ishani she knew. Her cousin's eyes were clouded with cataracts, yet she looked directly at Maya with terrifying clarity.

"Ishani is at home, sleeping," the woman said, her voice echoing with a strange, double-toned quality. "I am merely using her breath. I am the Oracle of the North Gate, and I have come to tell you that Rohan Varma is not your ally. He is your shadow."

That's not possible. But even as Maya thought it, she felt the truth of it resonating in her bones. There was something off about Rohan. Something that didn't fit into the architecture of normal reality.

"He has the compass," Maya argued, stepping forward. "He knew about the double-grid system!"

"Because his family stole it!" the woman hissed. The carousel suddenly groaned to life, the calliope music playing that distorted, minor-key melody faster, more frantic. The wooden horses began to spin, faster and faster, until they were a blur of gold and red. "The Varmas were never the Gurus. They were the Executioners. They were sent to kill your bloodline three centuries ago, and he has returned to finish the task Vikram Singhania started with a pen."

Executioners.

The word landed like a stone in still water, sending out ripples of cold dread.

Maya's head throbbed. "I don't believe you. He saved me in the library."

"He saved the Map," the woman corrected, her voice sharp as broken glass. "Not you, Maya. Never you. Look at the feather."

Maya pulled the peacock feather from her pocket. It wasn't just blood-red anymore. It was turning to ash, the tiny barbs dissolving into a fine, grey powder that smelled of funeral pyres and old photographs.

Ash. Death. Time turning to dust.

"Vikram wants your land," the Oracle whispered as the carousel reached a deafening speed, the horses becoming abstract streaks of color. "But Rohan wants your soul. To open the Seal, he needs the heart of a Jaipuria heir. Why do you think he's been following you through every lifetime?"

Every lifetime.

The phrase echoed. It suggested reincarnation, cycles, a pattern repeating across centuries. Maya felt her rational mind—the part that understood blueprints and structural integrity—beginning to crack.

The carousel lights suddenly exploded in a shower of sparks. In the split second of darkness, Maya felt a hand clamp over her mouth and a strong arm wrap around her waist, pulling her behind a stone pillar.

The scent of rain and crushed marigolds filled her senses.

"Don't scream," a voice hissed into her ear. It was Rohan. He was breathing hard, his leather jacket torn, as if he'd been moving fast. Fighting. "That isn't your cousin, Maya. Look at the ground."

Maya looked. Where the woman had been standing, there were no footprints. Instead, there was a scorched circle of grass, and inside it, a modern tracker—the kind used by elite private security.

Vikram's tech.

"Vikram's men are using holographic tech to mess with your head," Rohan whispered, his eyes scanning the shadows. His grip on her was firm but not controlling, as if he was giving her the option to pull away at any moment. "They want us to turn on each other. To make you distrust me. But we have to go. Now. My flight to Jaipur leaves in three hours, and you're on the ticket next to mine."

Maya pulled away slightly, studying his face in the darkness. There was desperation there, yes. But also something else. Guilt. As if he was asking her to trust him despite knowing reasons she shouldn't.

"Why should I believe you?" she asked, her voice steady despite the fear coursing through her veins.

"Because," Rohan said quietly, "if I wanted to kill you, I wouldn't have wasted three years learning your family's architecture. I could have done it in London, in the library, when you were completely defenseless."

It wasn't reassuring. But it was honest in a way the Oracle's holographic seduction hadn't been.

Behind him, across the river, the giant digital billboard on the Shell Centre flickered. The advertisement for Vikram's new mall disappeared, replaced by a single sentence in glowing Sanskrit:

पुनरागमनं कुरु (Return to the Beginning)

"I can't go to India, Rohan," Maya whispered, her phone vibrating in her pocket. She pulled it out. It was a picture message from an unknown number—a live photo of her Dadi-sa in Jaipur, sleeping in her bed, while a red laser dot rested directly on her forehead.

The text below it read: Sign the contract, Maya. Or the grandmother doesn't wake up.

Rohan's face went white. "Vikram is escalating. That means he's desperate. The seal must be failing faster than we thought."

"What seal, Rohan?" Maya demanded, her voice breaking. "What are we actually talking about here? Because from where I'm standing, I'm watching holograms, getting death threats, and being asked to trust a man who might want to kill me. So I need you to explain what's actually happening."

Rohan looked around to make sure they were alone. Then he met her eyes, and she saw the weight of it—the centuries of burden, the guilt, the desperate hope that maybe, this time, things could be different.

"The seal," he said quietly, "is why we exist at all. It's why your family has guardians, and why my family has watchers, and why Vikram is willing to kill your grandmother to access what's underneath your ancestral home. But I can't explain it here. Not when Vikram is listening. We have to go to Jaipur. We have to see it for ourselves. And then you'll understand why the past won't let either of us go."

His hand reached out, offering.

Maya looked at the photograph of her grandmother with the red laser dot on her forehead. She looked at the peacock feather turning to ash in her other hand. She looked at Rohan's desperate, honest face.

And she made a choice.

She took his hand.

Poll Time: Is Rohan really a "Shadow Executioner," or is Vikram playing a high-tech mind game? Vote in the comments! 🗳️!!!!

Catch you all in the next chapter!!!xoxo