The twins arrived at night.

  Dev and Nakshit stepped through the upper transit ring with travel-dust still clinging to their boots, hair wind-tangled, eyes too alert for men who’d crossed half the known world overnight. The Outer Reaches.

  Jiv spotted them first.

  “About time,” he drawled, leaning against the balustrade as if he hadn’t been watching the sky for hours. “I was starting to think the stars swallowed you.”

  Nakshit’s gaze flicked over him—and froze.

  “Oh,” he said slowly. Then he grinned. “So this is the face you’ve been hiding. Gods, Jiv. You look… serious.”

  Dev snorted, dropping his satchel. “That’s because he is serious. He just disguises it with stupidity.”

  “Rude,” Jiv said mildly. “And inaccurate. I disguise it with charm.”

  Nakshit stepped closer, studying him with the unblinking intensity of someone who healed people for a living—and therefore noticed everything.

  “You should’ve warned us,” he said. “Hard to joke at someone who looks like they’ve outlived entire civilizations.”

  “I have,” Jiv replied. “That’s why I joke.”

  He hugged his best friend, then nodded toward Dev.

  “The letter should’ve arrived ages ago. What took you so long? Swarit’s making Shreyas go insane, you know.”

  The brothers glanced at each other.

  “We came as quickly as we could,” Nakshit said. “The transit was slow. Jumping through space-folds isn’t easy, you see. Not to mention the Third Seer has—”

  “Enough,” Dev cut in sharply, throwing him a warning glance before he could finish. “Where are the healing wards?”

  Before Nakshit could respond, footsteps approached—measured, controlled.

  Headmistress Iravati and Sumayhu emerged from the inner corridor together, conversation already mid-thread. Iravati’s expression was composed, but Dev caught the tension in her shoulders immediately. Sumayhu, for his part, looked far too interested.

  “You’re both needed,” Iravati said briskly. “The East—as you must already know—has been compromised. Trouble is knocking at our steps. Not to mention hollowed bodies—”

  “The Gifted must know that, Ira,” Sumayhu said eagerly, a glint in his eyes as he looked at the brothers as if collecting them. “Convenient how one keeps all information to himself.”

  Dev bristled at the tone, narrowing his eyes.

  Nakshit turned to him. “And who might you be?”

  Iravati, already irritated by delay and worry, half-heartedly introduced the Grandmaster of the South.

  She started to speak—

  —and never finished.

  A boom rolled up from below, deep and resonant, like the earth itself flinching. A heartbeat later, black smoke clawed its way up from the forest edge, thick and oily, carrying a stench that burned the back of the throat.

  Fire was spreading down the cliff toward the river.

  Sumayhu exhaled, slow and sharp. “What excellent timing,” he murmured. “Visiting the river today of all days.”

  Iravati shot him a look that could’ve drawn blood. “Now is not the time.”

  “It rarely is.”

  They moved as one.

  The river below AstraVana churned.

  Students and villagers clustered along the bank, wards half-formed, shields flickering unevenly as something beneath the water hissed and writhed. Flames licked across the surface—not floating, not spreading, but burning downward, as if the fire itself were being pulled into the depths.

  One student lay collapsed near the treeline. Another clutched a burned arm where a shield had failed.

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  Dev knelt beside the fallen student instantly, hands already glowing, assessing damage with grim efficiency. Nakshit’s attention, however, remained fixed on the river—searching, listening, wondering if the nymphs had been hurt.

  The riverbank was already crowded.

  Students knelt at the edge, sleeves rolled, hands submerged despite the tremor running through the water. Villagers had been dragged close—too close—bodies laid half in the shallows, mouths open in shallow, panicked breaths.

  Healing sigils flared and collapsed the moment they touched the current.

  The water rejected them.

  It slid away from glowing palms, rippling back as if burned, the surface breaking into sharp, uneven patterns that did not belong to any natural flow.

  “Stop,” Dev said sharply, already moving. “You can’t take from it like that.”

  The river went cold—not in temperature, but in intent. Stones at the bottom rattled faintly. The reeds along the bank bent as though something vast had shifted below.

  Nakshit inhaled, eyes narrowing. “You don’t draw from healing water,” he said quietly. “It has to offer itself.”

  Jiv’s gaze darkened. “You’re aggravating them,” he muttered. “They’ve been patient long enough.”

  Sumayhu gleamed at the water and spoke out of turn.

  “Perhaps the healing river should aid us. I’ve heard you’re quite close with them. A bargain wouldn’t hurt now, would it?”

  The water surged.

  Already agitated by the crowd, it reacted violently to Sumayhu’s words.

  The nymph rose.

  Her form shimmered between liquid and flesh, skin translucent as moonlit water, hair flowing like ink through current. Her eyes burned a furious blue.

  “You dare,” she screeched, her voice echoing unnaturally, “come again with your filth and your fire and your broken promises?”

  The river boiled.

  “My sister burns beneath your negligence,” the nymph spat, water hissing violently around her. “You poison the land, break the wards, and now you ask for healing? Why must our waters mend your failures?”

  Fear rippled through the gathered crowd.

  Iravati stepped forward, calm carved into her posture. “This was not done by us.”

  “You always say that,” the nymph snarled. “And still the scars are ours.”

  Dev rose slowly, hands open, voice steady but firm.

  “This river is neither yours nor ours. It existed before any of us learned to name it. You are its guardian. We are its inhabitants. If it dies, we all do.”

  The nymph faltered—not retreating, but listening.

  Jiv nudged Nakshit, who had gone unnaturally still. He already knew what was happening and tried to shake him out of it.

  “Damn the blood moon,” Jiv muttered under his breath. “Tonight of all nights.”

  Nakshit stared up at the sky, pupils dilated, expression distant.

  “Tonight,” he said softly, almost to himself, “the stars were too close. Too loud.”

  “ Nakshit,” Dev warned.

  “The nymphs will matter,” Nakshit continued, unfocused. “In the coming war. They always do. Ignored at first. Needed at the end.”

  Whispers broke out instantly.

  “War?”

  “What war?”

  “Is he serious?”

  Sumayhu turned sharply, interest flaring. “Care to explain that, healer?”

  Nakshit shrugged, finally lowering his gaze. “Just what the stars told me. The time’s near.” A pause. “And far.”

  “Enough,” Dev snapped. “You don’t get to accelerate the inevitable.”

  “Ah,” Sumayhu said mildly, amused. “So you read stars as well. Iravati, you’ve gathered quite a collection—an astrologer, a seer, healers at that. The gods were generous to your family.”

  The nymph recoiled slightly, eyes narrowing. “War?” she echoed. “You bring war to our waters now?”

  “No,” Iravati said firmly, ignoring Sumayhu and his jabs. “We bring a warning. And a request.”

  The river calmed—not soothed, but watchful.

  Jiv hadn’t spoken once.

  Iravati noticed.

  “You’re quiet. That’s usually when you’re most concerned.”

  Jiv’s gaze stayed on the river, jaw tight.

  “This isn’t the first time something burned water,” he said at last. “It won’t be the last.”

  Nakshit looked at him sharply—but Jiv said nothing more.

  Above them, smoke continued to coil into the sky.

  By the time the commotion settled, other groups arrived to help. Aadyan and Swarit reached the river first, Shreyas close behind.

  Without preamble, they began tending the injured and questioning witnesses.

  Swarit had already decided to confront Jiv. The secrets had gone too far. People needed answers. He’d never trusted Jiv—not fully—but he’d stayed silent for Nakshit sake.

  Now, knowing Jiv was a relic himself, Swarit wondered whether he had seen this before.

  Or worse—

  whether he had been part of it.