PROLOGUE

Blood crawled slowly across the marble floor, slipping through the cracks between the dark tiles like veins spreading beneath skin.

The palace remained alive around them.

Its walls shifted faintly in the darkness, corridors bending where they should not have bent, shadows stretching unnaturally beneath the dim golden lights hanging high above. Every breath inside that place felt heavy, as though the palace itself were silently watching the final moments of its creator unfold.

The man collapsed weakly against the floor.

One trembling hand pressed desperately over the wound in his chest while the other reached toward the woman standing several steps away from him. His breathing had already become uneven, fragile, every inhale sounding more painful than the last.

She did not move.

Strands of dark hair clung against her damp face. Blood stained her trembling hands. Some of it belonged to him.

For the first time in two years—

her eyes showed relief.

The man noticed it immediately.

And somehow, that hurt him more than death itself.

“Naina…”

Naina’s fingers twitched faintly at the sound of her name.

“Please…”

His voice cracked painfully as he dragged himself forward across the bloodstained marble.

“Don’t go.”

His breathing shuddered violently.

“You’ll die out there…”

Naina stared at him silently.

The palace groaned softly around them, shadows shifting across the walls like living things responding to their creator’s suffering. The golden lights above flickered weakly, casting unstable reflections across the blood spreading beneath him.

Still—

Naina did not move.

The man’s trembling hand reached toward her again, desperate even now.

“I tried…” he whispered weakly. “I tried to save you…”

Blood spilled from his lips.

“Naina…”

And then—

for the first time—

Naina looked at him properly.

Not with hatred.

Not with pity.

Just exhaustion.

The kind that only came after suffering for far too long.

His tears streamed helplessly the moment he understood what that expression meant.

Even after everything—

her heart had never belonged to him.

A broken sound escaped his throat.

“Please…”

But Naina’s eyes had already drifted somewhere else entirely.

A memory surfaced suddenly.

A trembling voice.

Desperate eyes refusing to break even while standing at death’s door.

“I’ll remember you.”

Her breath caught sharply.

For a moment, the palace disappeared around her completely.

That voice echoed again inside her mind, softer this time, yet infinitely more painful.

“Even if you forget…

I’ll find you again.”

Her lips parted slightly.

“…Aditya.”

The name escaped her like something sacred.

Her eyes shimmered violently as tears blurred her vision once more.

For two years she had remained trapped inside this palace.

For two years she had forced herself to survive, forced herself to continue breathing even after losing the only reason she had ever wanted freedom in the first place.

And now—

standing there while another man died before her—

all she could remember was him.

The man on the floor watched her expression crumble apart quietly.

And finally understood.

He had lost long before today.

Naina stepped backward slowly.

Then another step.

The palace trembled harder around them now, cracks spreading across the ceiling while distant corridors twisted violently out of shape.

“Naina…” His voice broke completely. “Please don’t leave…”

She closed her eyes briefly.

Then she turned—

and ran.

Her footsteps echoed desperately through the endless corridors as the palace began collapsing behind her. Walls shifted violently beside her while golden lights burst overhead one after another, raining sparks across the moving shadows.

But Naina never stopped running.

Not when his broken voice continued calling after her.

Not when tears blurred her vision so badly she could barely see the path ahead.

Not even when her chest hurt from breathing too hard after years of confinement.

She just kept running.

Like if she stopped now—

everything inside her would finally shatter beyond repair.

And for the first time in two years—

Naina escaped the palace alone.