Whispers of Maya
The glass towers of Delhi glittered under the cold moonlight, but inside the corner office of Ruan Publications, darkness reigned. Rudra Roy sat slumped in his chair, a half-empty whiskey glass in hand, staring at the numbers that mocked him: debts, losses, decline.
Ruan Publications had been his dream—his and Ananya's, built from scratch, a promise of something lasting. But in the brutal tide of digital media and ruthless competitors, the company was collapsing like sand slipping through his fingers.
The board whispered. Investors pulled out. Even Ananya, his closest friend and co-founder, had begun to look at him with pity.
And Rudra hated pity.
He ran a hand through his hair and leaned back, the leather chair creaking. "Maybe I was never meant for this," he muttered bitterly. "Maybe I should just let it all burn."
It didn't help that his father, Mritunjay Roy, still loomed large. MJ was alive, ruthless in business, adored by the world but feared by those who knew him best. Rudra knew his father's brilliance came with darker truths—betrayals and sins whispered but never spoken aloud.
Sometimes Rudra wondered if he had inherited his father's darkness, rather than just his ambition.
Restless, he wandered to the far end of his office, where boxes of old manuscripts gathered dust. Among them, he noticed a worn, leather-bound volume at the bottom of a pile. He didn't remember seeing it before. Its cover was blackened with age, bearing only an inscription that seemed to faintly glow under lamplight:
To those who yearn beyond desire, open and it shall be given.
Rudra smirked. "Sounds like one of those cheap occult gimmicks."
Still, his fingers lingered. The paper felt unnaturally fresh, the ink alive. Toward the end, he found an invocation:
By fire, by ink, by blood unshown,
Come forth the one I now must own.
Bound to my voice, in shadow and flame,
Appear before me when I call your name.
The words burned into him. Before he knew why, he whispered them aloud.
The lights flickered. The air thickened, pressing against his chest. His whiskey glass cracked on its own. Shadows bent unnaturally, curling like smoke.
Rudra staggered back, heart hammering. "What the hell—"
From the corner of the room, a figure began to form. At first, mist. Then, a silhouette. Then—eyes. Burning amber, glowing like dying embers.
She stepped forward, and the room seemed to tilt toward her. Long dark hair flowed like liquid shadow, lips curved in a wickedly beautiful smile.
"Who..." Rudra's voice caught in his throat. "...who are you?"
The woman tilted her head, never breaking her gaze. "You called me."
"This is impossible," he muttered.
"Impossible?" Her laugh was low, musical, dangerous. "Mortals always say that—until the impossible is staring at them."
Her heat pressed against him though she hadn't touched him. She leaned in close, whispering:
"And now, Rudra Roy, I am yours."
The air buzzed with unnatural electricity. The woman perched casually on the edge of his mahogany desk, her black eyes shimmering like pools of ink.
Rudra tried to steady his breath. "Why are you here?"
"You summoned me," she said simply. "I don't appear without reason. And when summoned... I stay."
Her words carried the weight of chains.
Rudra's eyes fell on the open book, its pages glowing faintly. The verse still hummed inside him, like a chord struck too deeply. And this time, when he looked, the last word was clearer, sharper, as if it had been waiting for him to notice:
By fire, by ink, by blood unshown,
Come forth the one I now must own.
Bound to my voice, in shadow and flame,
Appear before me when I call your name... Maya.
His breath caught. "Maya..."
She smiled, triumphant, as though the sound of her name bound her more tightly than chains. "Yes. My name is Maya."
The air between them thickened. The scent of ash lingered faintly, though the fire had long died in the grate. Rudra stood, chest still heaving, his eyes fixed on the woman who should not exist.
"You came... because of me?"
Maya tilted her head, a cold half-smile curving her lips. "You said the words, Rudra. That is the only reason I am here."
Her voice had no weight, and yet it filled the room like a hymn turned into a curse.
Rudra frowned. "That verse—I don't even know how I knew it."
She stepped closer, her whisper falling like frost:
I loved, I sinned, I fell to flame.
Bound by blood, consumed by shame.
A demon now, I walk in chains—
Love once lost, eternal pain.
The refrain seemed to hum through the walls. Rudra shivered.
"That is my tether," she continued. "Speak it, and I am bound. But you must remember this, Rudra Roy—" her eyes locked with his, dark wells that threatened to drag him under, "—I do not come without cost."
"What cost?" His voice cracked despite his effort to sound steady.
Maya's smile vanished. "The rules are simple. The one who summons me must never ask for what belongs to another. The one who summons me must never use me to harm an innocent. And..."—her eyes flickered, as if the memory stung her—"the one who summons me must never share my bed. I crossed that line once—with a married man. If I ever cross it again, if I take you as a lover..." She leaned in, lips grazing his ear, her voice a shiver of confession. "...I will be gone from this world forever."
Her last words echoed sharper than the others, as though carved into stone.
Silence stretched until he dared to speak again. "Who are you, really?"
At that, her expression shifted. A crack appeared in the mask of the demon, and for the first time, Rudra saw something else—pain, raw and almost human.
"I was no one," she murmured. "Just a girl once... young, foolish. Twenty-nine. I thought I had found love in a man who claimed to be broken."
Rudra's heart jolted at the tremor in her voice. He pressed, almost against his own will. "Who?"
Her lips parted as if she would confess, but then she closed her eyes and shook her head. "Not yet. You are not ready to carry his name."
"But he hurt you," Rudra said softly, reading the answer in her silence.
Her laugh was brittle. "He lured me with lies of an abusive wife, of chains he longed to escape. He made me believe I was saving him. And when I gave him everything—my heart, my body, even my child—he revealed what I truly was to him."
Rudra felt his chest tighten. "What were you?"
Her eyes snapped open, flames smoldering inside the black. "A game. A weakness. A mistake he could discard."
The room grew colder, shadows lengthening against the walls. For a heartbeat, Rudra thought she might vanish.
Instead, Maya whispered, almost to herself:
I loved, I sinned, I fell to flame.
Bound by blood, consumed by shame.
A demon now, I walk in chains—
Love once lost, eternal pain.
But this time, the refrain trembled, as though it bound her just as much as it bound her to him.
Rudra's fists clenched. His voice was rough when he finally said, "Tell me his name."
Maya looked at him, a tear threatening at the edge of her lash but refusing to fall. Her silence was answer enough.
And deep in Rudra's gut, a dangerous suspicion already began to coil.
Finally, she broke it with quiet, damning words:
"His name... was Mritunjay Roy."
Rudra froze. His father's name sat like a curse between them.
Long after Maya's voice went silent, he remained in his chair, the rules echoing like chains he had never asked to wear. He had summoned a demon—yes. But she was no faceless specter from myth. She was flesh and shadow, anger and ache, bound to him by words and wounds.
And then came her story.
MJ. His father.
Rudra's fist clenched until his knuckles turned white. He had always despised MJ's arrogance, his ruthless pursuit of power. But this—this revelation cut deeper. His father had preyed upon a young woman, twisted her love, left her to shatter into death. That was the seed of Maya's curse.
Rudra felt sick, a bile that was more shame than hatred. What kind of blood do I carry?
Maya watched his silence, her dark eyes steady. "You didn't sin, Rudra. He did. You are not your father."
Her words, meant to soothe, only carved deeper wounds.
"Not my father?!" Rudra snapped, voice raw. "His name is in my blood. His filth runs in my veins. If he destroyed you, then everything you are is because of him. Which makes me—" His voice broke, and he dragged his hand through his hair.
Maya studied him with strange patience. Then her lips curved in something almost human. "It also makes you the only man who can end his legacy."
The words struck cold. Perhaps her binding to him wasn't chance at all, but justice—fate with claws.
Days blurred. Rudra buried himself in work at the failing company, restless, haunted by MJ's shadow. That was when Maya revealed her duality. She appeared whenever he whispered the verse, her presence sharp as a blade.
At meetings, when Rudra faltered, her voice murmured unseen suggestions, tilting contracts in his favor. When authors hesitated, Maya leaned close, reminding him of their fears and desires. She understood people—their longing, their weakness—because once, she too had been human with dreams, before vengeance remade her.
Slowly, the company began to recover. Sales steadied. Investors circled back. Rudra's words carried new weight.
But at night, when the office emptied, he would whisper:
By fire, by ink, by blood unshown...Appear before me when I call your name... Maya.
And she would come.
In those hours, she was both his destroyer and his savior. She sharpened him with fire, yet steadied him with shadows. And against every warning in her rules, despite the voice in his head screaming danger, he felt the pull. Her nearness. Her voice brushing his ear. The storm in her eyes when she spoke of betrayal—and the softness, buried but there, when she spoke of him.
One night, unable to hold back, he asked:
"Maya... why are you helping me? You wanted ruin, didn't you? My ruin?"
She stepped closer, shadows curling around her form like loyal beasts. For a moment, she looked less like a demon and more like the woman she had once been, trembling on the edge of heartbreak.
"Because ruin and salvation are two faces of the same coin," she whispered. "And sometimes... both are necessary to kill a legacy."
Her words haunted him more than her touch ever could. And slowly, dangerously, Rudra realized he wasn't afraid of her anymore. He was afraid of himself—afraid he wanted to save her as much as she was saving him.
MJ had always believed power belonged only to him. For years he had buried the truth—that he had once lured a woman, used her, and driven her to death. When whispers reached him that Rudra had summoned that same shadow, terror clawed at his bones.
He would not lose his son to her.
By nightfall, the Roy mansion filled with hushed footsteps. MJ brought in a man cloaked in saffron and ash—a demon-slayer carrying an obsidian vial, crafted to imprison Maya's essence forever.
But Rudra had grown sharper than his father imagined. He followed unseen, watching the ritual begin. Symbols traced on marble, a circle glowing faintly, chants meant to drag Maya from his side.
And he saw MJ's eyes—cold, desperate, ready to sacrifice even his son's soul if it meant victory.
Rage consumed him.
"Maya!" Rudra cried, voice breaking through the circle. Panic and love surged together, undeniable. He spoke the refrain that had always brought her to him, voice trembling with need:
By fire, by ink, by blood unshown...Appear before me when I call your name... Maya.
The air shook. Shadows rippled. She appeared—lithe, terrible, beautiful. But the circle seared, choking her spirit. She staggered, writhing against the spell, as the slayer raised the vial.
"Rudra—go!" she screamed. "He will trap me!"
But Rudra did not run. He stepped into the burning circle, his skin aflame. He seized her face in his hands.
"Let him try. He won't take you from me."
Her breath hitched. "You don't understand—if you cross this line... if you break the third rule..."
He silenced her with his lips.
The kiss was fierce, defiant, burning with need. Fire roared higher as if the world itself resisted. Her body trembled in his arms, torn between surrender and fear.
"Then let the world burn," he whispered against her mouth. "I choose you."
The night grew thick with betrayal and desire. Upstairs, MJ conspired with the slayer. But in Rudra's chamber, fate bent.
Maya stood by the window, moonlight gilding her hair like a crown of shadows. "They want to take you from me," Rudra rasped.
"They cannot," she answered, her gaze mournful. "Unless you set me free yourself."
He crossed the space in a heartbeat, cupping her face. "I can't lose you. Not after this. Not after knowing who you are."
Her lips parted, but his mouth claimed hers before she could protest. It was no longer summoner and demon—it was man and woman, desperate, unrestrained.
The rules echoed: Though I am bound to be your demon... I cannot share your bed. If I take you as a lover, I will be gone forever.
And yet desire had already crossed that line.
Rudra's lips traced her jaw, her throat, igniting sparks beneath her skin. Her hands fisted in his shirt, torn between pushing away and pulling closer.
"Rudra," she pleaded, trembling. "If you take me now... I will vanish."
"Then vanish," he growled, lips burning her collarbone. "But not before I love you—truly, completely."
Her resistance broke. She melted into him, her kiss turning hungry, urgent. Clothing fell in frantic haste. Skin met skin—his touch reverent, hers fevered, both desperate to mark, to claim, to remember.
They moved together in rhythm, a storm of passion that blurred sin and salvation. Each gasp was a vow, each touch a surrender. Maya whispered his name like a prayer, her voice breaking with need and fear. Rudra answered with devotion and despair, as though he could keep her with sheer will.
And in the silence after, when their bodies lay entwined, Maya's form began to glow faintly, dissolving into moonlight.
"No..." Rudra's voice cracked, arms tightening. "Not now. Don't leave me."
Tears slid down her cheeks. She kissed him one last time, soft and searing.
"I was bound as your demon," she whispered. "But tonight... I was yours as a woman. Remember me not as what I was, but who I became with you."
And then she dissolved into light and shadow, leaving only emptiness where her warmth had been.
Rudra knelt, broken, clutching the sheets where she once lay. Something inside him shattered, but something else awakened—a man no longer under his father's shadow, no longer naive, scarred yet sharpened by love's most dangerous form.
MJ stood frozen at the door, horror etched across his face. Not horror at Maya's vanishing, but at the sight of his son—transformed, unreachable, weeping yet unbowed.
From that night, Rudra was never the same. He rebuilt the company with a strange calm, as if Maya's fire still burned in his veins. He no longer sought hollow victories. He carried silence, sorrow, and a fierce strength that unsettled even MJ.
He had loved a demon and lost her.
And in that loss, he had become more than mortal.
She was gone.
But she lingered in him still—curse and salvation, wound and weapon, forever.
------
The End.
Financial markets and global economy
Hindi TV Shows
Kabhi Neem Neem Kabhi Shahad Shahad
