Eye of Karma

The fire hadn't stopped burning.

Even in sleep, Darian found no peace. The dream returned—no, not a dream. A vision? A curse? A memory? He wasn't sure anymore. The sky split open like a wound, stars bleeding down, and beneath it all, the battlefield where he once stood.

He saw again the inferno consuming bodies—noble and untouchable, soldier and child alike. Screams echoed across a red horizon as charred banners dissolved into ash. At the center of it all stood a towering, masked figure draped in black robes stitched with glyphs that shimmered like ancient scars. Its eyes were hollow, yet the weight of its gaze pressed on him like judgment.

And there—above it all—hung the Eye.

The Eye of Karma.

It opened slowly in the heavens, bloodshot veins webbing across its iris. It wasn't looking at the battlefield. It was looking at him. Piercing through time. Through soul.

Darian tried to scream, but his voice died as crows burst from the dead, black feathers choking the air. They swarmed him, pecking not at flesh, but at memory. Ripping moments from his mind—his father's sword, his mother's smile, Rian's laughter, Mira's lullaby.

"No—no!" he gasped.

The pendant at his neck glowed suddenly, faint yet sharp, like a whisper in a storm. A presence curled inside it. Familiar. Ancient. It pulsed once, and the dream shattered.

Darian awoke with a strangled breath.

Cold sweat soaked his tattered tunic. The dim morning light filtering through the slum's wooden slats was a mercy, but it didn't wash away the night. He sat up, clutching the pendant tightly as if it were the only thread holding his sanity together.

A whisper lingered in his ears.

"Those who see the Eye do not escape unchanged. What it sees, it judges. What it judges, it marks."

He remembered nothing after the light. Only pain. Only fear.

Then the scent of something warm pulled him back to the present.

Ravi's voice called softly from the other room, "If you're awake, there's food."

Elarin's Slums – Morning

The inside of Ravi's makeshift home was modest, yet surprisingly clean. Handmade shelves held spice jars and old scrolls, while faded tapestries hung over cracks in the wall. A kettle whistled faintly over a clay stove. Darian stepped out, barefoot, to find Rian and Mira sitting cross-legged, eating porridge with honeyed dates. Their faces lit up when they saw him.

"Bhaiya!" Mira ran to him, small arms wrapping around his waist. Her grip trembled. She had heard his screams.

He knelt down and held her tightly. "I'm okay, little flame," he whispered. "I'm still here."

Rian didn't speak. The boy sat stiffly, eyes wary but relieved. The trauma was etched deep already.

Ravi gave Darian a knowing look as he poured tea into wooden cups. "Nightmares?"

"Visions," Darian replied, voice hoarse.

"Ah," Ravi said. "Then it's beginning."

Darian narrowed his eyes. "What is?"

But Ravi only sipped his tea and said nothing.

Later That Day

Ravi left them with a task—fetch water from the nearby spring. A test of trust? Or a chance to breathe?

The road to the spring passed through the outer edges of Elarin's slum district. The caste lines were sharp here, even among the poor. Darian saw a man refuse water drawn from a well because it had been touched by a lower-born. Children played with broken dolls, but a Brahmin boy pulled his hand away when Mira tried to share hers.

Something in Darian stirred. A slow, boiling heat.

And that's when he saw her.

She was sitting on the steps of an abandoned shrine, sketching patterns in the dust with a twig. Her robes were clean but frayed, dyed in a shade of blue not commonly worn here. Her dark hair was braided tightly, and her eyes—sharp, alert, unreadable—watched everything, yet pretended to see nothing.

Leela.

She looked up as Darian approached. "You have the walk of someone who sees ghosts."

Darian paused. "And you speak like someone who isn't afraid to be heard."

She smirked faintly. "Fear's a currency. I'm just too poor to trade in it."

Mira tugged at Darian's hand. "Who's that?"

"I don't know," he said honestly. "Yet.

Leela closed her notebook and stood. "You're new to this corner of the world. Your feet don't drag, your eyes scan too much, and you hold that pendant like a wounded bird. Let me guess—disgraced noble, turned beggar?"

Darian met her gaze. "Close."

She arched a brow. "Really? Most people lie first."

"I don't have the luxury."

That seemed to amuse her. "Well then, fallen one, a word of advice. This slum runs on debts and whispers. Speak too loud, and even the gods go deaf."

Before he could respond, she turned and vanished into the alleys like smoke, leaving behind only the faint scent of sandalwood and dust.

Ravi's Home – Evening

The sun dipped low behind the cracked skyline of Elarin, turning the clay roofs gold. Ravi returned late, carrying bags filled with lentils, dried herbs, and—curiously—parchments sealed with wax.

"You met her," Ravi said without preamble, setting the parchments down.

Darian looked up from tending to Mira's scraped knee. "Who?"

"The girl with the storm behind her eyes."

"Leela."

Ravi nodded, though his expression darkened. "She's... use her words wisely. She speaks truths meant to be discovered slowly."

"You know her?"

"I know many things I pretend not to," Ravi said cryptically.

Darian waited, but Ravi offered nothing more. Instead, he handed Darian a scroll. Its seal was stamped with the symbol of a broken lotus.

"The caste records of Elarin," Ravi said. "The undercurrent that drags men under. If you're to survive here—no, if you're to rise—you need to know who stands where."

Darian opened it and frowned. "There are... karmic sigils?"

"Yes," Ravi said, pointing. "Each house is marked not just by name and caste, but by the karmic debt they carry. Publicly, it's ignored. But privately? It dictates everything."

"What's mine?"

Ravi looked at him long. Then said, "Your family name no longer exists in the ledger."

Darian felt a strange chill. "Erased?"

"Scorched."

That night, after the others had slept, Darian sat alone with a flickering oil lamp and the pendant in his palm. He ran a thumb over its surface.

The Eye. Always watching.

He remembered his father's last words. "Protect them. Even from yourself."

But what if the thing he needed to be protected from… was this?

Suddenly, he remembered something else.

A poem. Something his mother used to hum, long before the war. He had forgotten it for years—but now, it returned. As if drawn out by the pendant's pulse.

"In halls where karma weeps in chains,The silent truth wears seven names.One sees sin, one sees lie,One sleeps deep, one watches sky.One burns bright with hidden scar,One walks roads both near and far.And last, the eye that does not cry—It sees the end, yet won't deny."

He whispered the lines again. They stirred something in him. Not memory. Not quite prophecy.

A warning?

A map?

The Next Morning

Mira and Rian played quietly outside as Darian returned to the shrine where he had met Leela. She was there again, barefoot, feeding crumbs to crows.

She didn't look up. "So the pendant sings now?"

He tensed. "How do you know?"

"It hums. Only to those who've been marked." She looked at him then, and her expression had changed—less playful, more reverent. "You're an Unseen, aren't you?"

Darian hesitated. "What does that mean?"

Leela's eyes narrowed. "It means the Eye didn't just look at you. It passed through. You don't wear karma. You absorb it."

He frowned. "How do you know all this?"

She stood. "Because my mother died whispering your name. And I think the gods hate us both."

Darian stood frozen.

"Your mother whispered my name?" His voice was barely above a rasp. "Who was she?"

Leela's gaze turned distant. "No one. A washerwoman. Low caste. But her dreams... they were filled with fire and gold, masked men, a bleeding tree that dripped stars. And a boy with eyes that shone like broken mirrors."

She took a slow step forward. "She called you Darian. She called you the 'eye that would not cry.' I didn't know what it meant… until now."

Darian's throat tightened.

"How did she die?"

Leela glanced away. "The night before the last eclipse. Screaming your name in sleep. She coughed up black water and her eyes rolled white. They said it was sickness. I knew it wasn't. That was a curse—or a vision that broke the soul."

Darian clutched the pendant tighter.

A terrible silence fell between them, disturbed only by the call of distant jackals.

Leela looked at him again. "If your mother still lives, then she's not in this world. Not fully."

Darian stiffened.

"I never told you about my mother," he said slowly.

Leela simply smiled.

"You didn't need to."

Ravi's Home – Later That Night

Darian sat alone. Mira and Rian were asleep on a shared mat. The night pressed down like damp cloth, and the air in the room felt heavier than usual.

The pendant burned cold against his chest.

He whispered the poem again.

"In halls where karma weeps in chains…"

He closed his eyes.

And then—

He fell.

Nightmare Realm – Vision

The world was upside down.

A palace floated in the sky, built from obsidian and bleeding light. Chains of silver mist wrapped around it, like serpents coiled in agony. The stars above were wrong — not burning, but watching. Judging.

He walked across a plain of ash.

Each step revealed footprints glowing behind him — his karmic trail, visible.

A voice called out from the palace, soft and broken.

"Darian…"

He looked up.

A woman stood behind the chained lattice of the highest tower.

Her hair was like his sister's. Her eyes… reflected his.

"Mother?"

She reached for him, but the sky trembled.

Then a second figure emerged behind her — tall, cloaked in shadows, face hidden behind a pale white mask. Its arms were too long. And its presence—wrong.

It held a scale in one hand.

But on one side of the scale was his mother's heart.

And on the other—

His pendant.

Choose, the figure whispered, and the Eye on the pendant opened wide, swallowing the world.

Ravi's Home – Just Before Dawn

Darian shot up, drenched in sweat. The pendant was ice against his skin. He stumbled outside, gasping, and collapsed against the wall.

Ravi was already there, staring up at the stars.

"You saw it, didn't you?" Ravi asked, not turning.

Darian didn't answer.

Ravi continued, "The palace that bleeds time. The masked judge."

"You knew?"

"I hoped it would never awaken in you." Ravi finally looked at him. "But karma is cruel that way. It does not wait for us to be ready."

Darian sat down beside him, silent.

Ravi lit a small oil lamp and placed it on the ground between them.

"Karmic powers," he said softly, "do not come as blessings. They awaken through trauma, through imbalance. The Eye of Karma is rare… but those who bear it? They walk lives of ruin."

"Can it be removed?"

Ravi gave a bitter laugh. "Only by death. And even then, your soul would be weighed. Watched."

Darian stared into the flame. "The masked figure gave me a choice."

"Then you are already deeper in than you realize," Ravi whispered.

Later that morning, Darian sat between Mira and Rian as they hummed a childhood lullaby.

"The lotus sleeps where stars have died,And crows will caw where kings once cried.Don't lift the veil, don't chase the flame,Or you'll forget your father's name."

He joined in on the final line.

And somehow, that was the most terrifying part — that he still remembered.

That he still cared.

He looked at his siblings.

Then at the pendant.

Then at the morning sky — cloudless, yet shadowed in his mind.

The Eye was open now.

And it would never close again.