The mark was moving.
Not glowing.
Not pulsing.
Moving.
Like something alive under Ayesha's skin.
Bharat watched through the contract vision—threads of binding energy crawling across her shoulder blade like worms burrowing deeper. The symbol that had been static an hour ago was now rotating. Slowly. Clockwise. Like a compass needle seeking north.
Seeking the temple.
"It's getting worse," Peacock said quietly.
They were in the safehouse.
Countdown: 9:14:37
Less than ten hours.
Ten hours to break two curses, win a legal case, and somehow stop a centuries-old temple from claiming both him and a fourteen-year-old girl.
Ten hours to do the impossible.
Again.
"How bad?" Bharat asked.
Peacock checked the thermometer she'd pressed against Ayesha's mark.
"Thirty-nine degrees Celsius. Two degrees hotter than an hour ago."
"That's not possible. Skin doesn't just heat up like that."
"Tell that to the magic curse brand burning into her nervous system."
Ayesha sat on the cot. Silent. She hadn't spoken since they'd arrived. Just sat there staring at nothing while her body betrayed her.
"Ayesha," Bharat said gently. "I need you to talk to me. Tell me what you're feeling."
Long pause.
Then:
"It's calling me."
Her voice was small.
Distant.
Like she was already half-gone.
"What do you mean calling you?"
"I can hear it. Not with my ears. In my head. Like someone whispering directions. 'Come home. Come back. You belong here.'"
Bharat's blood ran cold.
"How long has this been happening?"
"Since they marked me. But it's getting louder. And I can feel it now. Not just hear it. Feel it pulling. Like I'm tied to a rope and someone's reeling me in."
She looked up at him.
Her eyes were wet.
"I don't want to go back."
"You won't. I promise."
"You can't promise that."
"I know. But I'm doing it anyway."
Peacock moved to the other side of the room.
Giving them space.
Bharat sat beside Ayesha.
"Tell me what you know about the temple. About the marks. About how this works."
"Why?"
"Because if I understand it, I can break it."
She laughed.
Bitter.
Broken.
"You can't break it. Nobody can. That's the point."
"People said I couldn't save Priya. I did. People said I couldn't void temple contracts. I'm trying. People keep telling me what's impossible. I keep proving them wrong."
"This is different."
"How?"
She turned to look at him.
Really look.
"Because I wasn't just some random girl they grabbed off the street."
Long pause.
"I was one of them."
Silence.
Bharat stared.
"What?"
"I was a temple candidate. A holy maiden. Whatever you want to call it. They trained me. Prepared me. Told me I was blessed. Special. Chosen by the gods."
Her voice was flat now.
Empty.
Like she'd told this story so many times it didn't hurt anymore.
Or hurt so much she'd stopped feeling it.
"I was twelve when they took me. My parents sold me. Not directly—they called it a 'donation.' But everyone knew what it meant. The temple pays well for virgin girls from good families. Especially ones who can dance."
She smiled.
It didn't reach her eyes.
"I was good at dancing."
Bharat's chest tightened.
He thought about Priya.
About all the girls who'd been "chosen."
About how many of them had been SOLD.
"They kept us in the inner sanctum," Ayesha continued. "Six of us. All around the same age. They taught us rituals. Prayers. How to move during ceremonies. How to smile when men looked at us like we were meat."
Her hands were shaking now.
Not from the mark.
From memory.
"They told us we were lucky. That most girls would never get this honor. That we'd be blessed. Protected. Eternal."
"But you ran."
"I ran."
"Why?"
She looked at her hands.
At the calluses from years of dancing.
At the scars she'd never explained.
"Because I heard them talking. The priests. Late one night when they thought we were asleep. They were arguing about which one of us to use for the next harvest."
Bharat's blood turned to ice.
"Use how?"
"The ritual isn't just about married women. That's the main harvest—the public one. But there's another one. A private one. For the temple elite. The benefactors. The people who pay the most."
She swallowed.
Hard.
"They use virgin candidates. Girls who've been trained. Purified. Girls like me."
"And after?"
"There is no after. The ritual consumes you. Completely. Your life force, your soul, whatever you want to call it—it all goes into the altar. Into the god. Into whatever THING they're feeding in that basement."
Her voice cracked.
"I heard them say my name. Heard them schedule it for my thirteenth birthday. 'A perfect offering,' they said."
"So you ran."
"I ran."
She wiped her eyes.
Took a shaky breath.
"I stole a priest's robe. Walked out during evening prayers when everyone was distracted. Made it three blocks before they noticed. They chased me. I hid. Ran. Hid again. Ended up in the slums near the docks."
"That's where Mira found you."
"That's where Mira SAVED me."
Her voice was fierce now.
Protective.
"She didn't ask questions. Didn't make me explain. Just pulled me into her house, gave me food, hid me when the temple guards came looking. She risked everything for me."
"Why?"
"I don't know. She never said. But I think—I think she knew. About the temple. About what they do. Maybe she lost someone. Maybe she just hates them. But she protected me for two years."
"Until they found you."
"Until they found me."
Ayesha stood.
Walked to the window.
The mark on her shoulder was glowing now.
Faint but visible through her shirt.
"The thing about temple candidates," she said quietly, "is that we're never really free. Even if we escape. Even if we run to the other side of the world. They can always call us back."
"The marks."
"The marks."
She turned to face him.
"Every candidate gets one. A binding symbol. They tell us it's a blessing. Protection. But it's really a leash. A way to track us. Control us. And when they need us—when they're ready to complete the ritual—they activate it."
"Like they're doing now."
"Like they're doing now."
"How many?"
"What?"
"How many candidates are out there? How many girls have escaped and are walking around with these marks?"
She shook her head.
"I don't know. Dozens? Hundreds? The temple's been doing this for centuries. Some girls die in the ritual. Some escape. Some just disappear. But we all have the marks. And we're all on borrowed time."
Peacock spoke from across the room:
"You're saying there's a whole network of marked girls scattered across the country. All of them waiting to be called back."
"Yes."
"That's horrifying."
"That's the temple."
Bharat's mind was racing.
If Ayesha was right—if there were dozens or hundreds of marked candidates—then destroying the temple wasn't just about saving one girl.
It was about saving ALL of them.
"The marks respond to proximity," Ayesha said. "The closer you are to the temple, the stronger the pull. I felt it the moment they brought me back to Mumbai. Like a hook in my chest dragging me toward the sanctum."
"Is there a range? A distance where the mark stops working?"
"I don't know. I never got far enough to test it. Farthest I got was Pune. The pull was weaker there but still present."
"What triggers the activation? What makes them call you back?"
She touched her shoulder.
Flinched.
"Need. If they're running low on offerings. If a ritual fails and they need a backup. If they just feel like it."
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"Or if someone tries to destroy them. Then they call everyone back. All the candidates. All the reserves. One final harvest to empower the temple and crush the threat."
Bharat stood.
"That's what this is. The mark on you isn't random. They're preparing for war. They know I'm coming for them. So they're calling in reinforcements."
"Not reinforcements. Sacrifices."
"Same thing to them."
He turned to Peacock.
"We need to find the other candidates. Warn them. Get them out of range before midnight."
"That's impossible. We don't even know who they are or where they are."
"Then we break the marks. All of them. Simultaneously."
"How?"
"The same way I'm breaking mine. Void the foundational contracts. If the temple's legal authority collapses, the marks lose their binding power."
Ayesha shook her head.
"It won't work. The marks aren't contracts. They're BRANDS. Physical. Magical. They're burned into our skin, our nerves, our SOULS. You can't void them with paperwork."
"Then how do we break them?"
Long pause.
"Kill the source."
Bharat stared.
"What?"
"The marks are connected to the altar. To the god—or whatever THING is down there in the sanctum. If you destroy the source, the marks die. All of them."
"How do you destroy a god?"
"I don't know. But I know someone who might."
"Who?"
"Mira."
Peacock's phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Her face went pale.
"When?"
Pause.
"How many?"
Longer pause.
"Understood."
She hung up.
"That was my contact at the morgue. Three girls. Ages twelve to fifteen. All found dead in the last six hours. All with temple marks on their shoulders."
Silence.
Ayesha's legs gave out.
Bharat caught her before she hit the floor.
"They're killing the ones who won't come back," she whispered. "The ones who resist the call. The marks burn through them. Consume them from the inside."
She looked up at Bharat.
Eyes wide.
Terrified.
"I'm resisting. I can feel it. I'm fighting the pull. Which means—"
"Which means the mark will kill you if you don't go back."
"Yes."
"How long?"
"I don't know. Hours. Maybe less. It's getting hotter. I can feel it spreading."
Countdown: 8:47:29
Bharat stood.
Paced.
Thought.
"Ayesha. You said you'd teach me the temple rules. The loopholes. If you were trained there, you know things I don't. Things that could help me destroy them."
"What's the point? We're both dead in less than nine hours."
"Maybe. But I'd rather die fighting than waiting."
She stared at him.
Then:
Slowly:
She nodded.
"Okay. What do you want to know?"
"Everything. Start with the sanctum. The layout. The defenses. The rituals. Everything you remember."
She took a breath.
Closed her eyes.
Started talking.
For the next hour, Ayesha described the temple's inner workings:
The sanctum was three levels deep—
Level One: Public worship area. Open to anyone. Heavily monitored.
Level Two: Priest quarters. Restricted access. Requires blessing or bribe.
Level Three: The altar room. The REAL temple. Where the rituals happened. Where the god lived.
"Only the high priest and senior clergy can enter Level Three," Ayesha said. "And they only do it during rituals. The rest of the time, it's sealed."
"Sealed how?"
"Three locks. Three keys. The high priest holds one. The lead priestess holds one. The temple administrator—usually the richest benefactor—holds the third."
"Dev."
"Probably."
Bharat's mind spun.
Three keys.
Three locks.
Same structure as the legal case—three contracts, three benefactors.
The temple loved its trinity.
"If I get the keys, can I open the sanctum?"
"Theoretically. But you'd need all three simultaneously. And even then, there are wards. Protections. Things I don't understand. The priests used to talk about them in Sanskrit. Old words I didn't recognize."
"What kind of protections?"
"The kind that kill intruders. I saw it once. A thief tried to break in during the night. Made it past the first lock. The moment he touched the second door, he just… stopped. Collapsed. Blood coming out of his eyes and ears."
Peacock swore quietly.
"Magical defenses. Great. Just what we needed."
Bharat ignored her.
"Ayesha. Is there ANY way to bypass the defenses?"
She thought.
"Maybe. If you're authorized. If the temple WANTS you there."
"How do I get authorized?"
"Be a priest. Be a sacrifice. Or—"
She stopped.
"Or what?"
"Or be the Director of Temple Affairs."
Silence.
Bharat stared.
"My position. It grants access?"
"It should. The Director has oversight authority. In theory, you can inspect any part of the temple. Including the sanctum."
"In theory."
"In practice, no Director has EVER exercised that right. They're all on the payroll. They don't WANT to see what's down there."
"But legally, I could?"
"Yes."
A slow smile spread across Bharat's face.
"Then I just found my way in."
Ayesha's mark flared.
She gasped.
Doubled over.
"It's pulling. Now. Hard."
Bharat grabbed her shoulders.
"Fight it. Stay with me."
"I can't—it's too strong—"
"YES YOU CAN. Listen to me. You escaped once. You can do it again. Just hold on a little longer."
"How long?"
"Eight hours. That's all I need. Eight hours and I'll destroy them. I'll burn that sanctum to the ground and free every girl they've ever marked."
She looked at him.
Through tears.
Through pain.
"You really believe that?"
"I have to. Because if I don't, we're all dead."
"Okay."
She took a shaky breath.
"Okay. I'll try."
Peacock's phone rang again.
"It's Rajesh. The lawyer. Court hearing in ninety minutes."
Bharat checked his watch.
Countdown: 8:32:14
"I have to go. The injunction hearing. If I don't show, we lose everything."
"What about Ayesha?"
"Stay with her. Keep the mark cool. If it gets worse, call me immediately."
"And if it kills her before you get back?"
Bharat looked at Ayesha.
At this girl who'd survived hell.
Who'd escaped once and was being dragged back.
Who deserved better than this.
"Then I'll make sure her death meant something."
He turned to leave.
Ayesha's voice stopped him:
"Bharat."
"Yeah?"
"The. The thing that pulls us back." Recall mechanism
"What about it?"
"It's not just about proximity. It's about COMPLETION. The temple doesn't just want us near. It wants us INSIDE. At the altar. In position for the ritual."
"So if you don't go inside—"
"The mark keeps burning until it kills me. Or until I give in and walk through those doors myself."
She smiled.
Sad.
Resigned.
"Every candidate who's ever escaped ends up back there eventually. Either dead or at the altar. We ALL return."
"Not you."
"You can't promise that."
"Watch me."