The fire crackled low in the havan kund, casting ghostly shadows that danced across the mandap like spirits bearing witness. The priest murmured mantras no one truly heard, his voice barely audible beneath the weight of unspoken violence.

Heer sat still—but only in body.

Her mind screamed.

Her limbs trembled under the silk and gold wrapped around her like shackles. Every heartbeat thundered like a warning. Her throat ached from holding back the sobs that clawed to be free. And Aryaveer Raizada—her groom, her captor, her nightmare—stood beside her like a specter carved from wrath and vengeance.

She hadn’t looked at him again since he ripped the veil from her face. Not directly. But she felt his presence—cold, steady, unrelenting.

Her hands shook as the priest asked them to stand for the pheras.

The word echoed in her skull like a curse.

Pheras.

Seven steps toward ruin. Seven promises of powerlessness.

She staggered to her feet. Her knees barely held.

And then… she moved.

Not toward the fire.

But away from it.

A hush fell over the room.

Aryaveer turned his head, a sharp motion like a predator catching the scent of fear.

Heer stood a few feet from the mandap, spine trembling, voice shaking as it spilled from her lips, “I-I don’t want this. I don’t want to marry you.”

Her voice was soft. A whisper. But in that silence, it hit like thunder.

Gasps fluttered around the hall. Some maids flinched. A few men looked away.

Aryaveer’s expression didn’t change—but the silence deepened.

Heer took another step back, like a lamb inches from the edge of a cliff.

“I don’t want this,” she repeated, breathless, as tears welled up again in her eyes. “Please…”

Then a hand grabbed her.

Rough. Unforgiving.

One of Aryaveer’s guards clamped down on her arm, his fingers digging into her delicate elbow. He yanked her forward with brute force, dragging her toward the mandap like a ragdoll.

Her feet scraped across the marble. She cried out—softly, instinctively.

And Aryaveer moved.

Fast.

Lethal.

There was no warning.

Just the cold sound of a safety clicking off.

And then—

BANG.

BANG.

The room screamed.

Two clean shots.

The guard howled, staggering back, clutching his arms—blood seeping through the fabric like blooming poppies. He collapsed to his knees, screaming, sobbing.

The priest dropped his prayer book. The maids froze in horror. The flames in the havan flickered violently, almost afraid.

Aryaveer didn’t even blink.

He lowered his gun slowly, the smoke still curling from its mouth, his left hand steady as stone.

“I said,” he growled, voice low and deadly, “no one touches her.”

He turned his eyes back to Heer, who was trembling, paralyzed, her chest rising and falling like a caged bird in mid-panic.

That look—God, that look in his eyes. Not gentleness. Not remorse. But possession.

Not of her body.

But her fear.

He took a step toward her. She stepped back.

He didn’t stop.

“You run from me again,” he said coldly, “and I’ll break you in a way that you will wish for death”

She stared at him like a girl staring at the edge of a blade, knowing it would cut and still hoping—desperately—that it might miss her.

Her lips parted, but no words came.

Just the quiet sound of surrender.

She let the silk of her lehenga drag as she walked slowly back to the mandap.

Not by force.

Not by will.

But because the devil had spoken, and everyone knew—you didn’t defy Aryaveer Raizada twice and live with your bones intact.

The priest tried to compose himself, shaking hands flipping the pages again. The mantras resumed, broken and shaky.

And the wedding continued—rituals performed with hands that trembled and eyes that didn’t meet.

Heer sat beside him again, stiff and silent. Her tears had dried.

But her fear hadn’t.

And beside her, Aryaveer said nothing. Did nothing.

He didn’t need to.

His silence was enough to keep the world in check.

When the sindoor was applied, her eyes fluttered closed. Not out of devotion. But because it hurt too much to see the moment the last piece of her was stolen.

When the mangal sutra was tied, her breath caught—like a noose tightening around her soul.

And when the last mantra was chanted, and the fire roared one last time, Aryaveer turned to her with a look so cold, so calm, it could have frozen hell over.

“You’re mine now,” he said.

A declaration.

A sentence.

Not of love.

But of possession.

She didn’t reply.

She couldn’t.

Because Heer Khanna had just been buried alive.

And Mrs. Raizada was born.

»»————>

The last of the chants faded into silence. Smoke from the sacred fire coiled upward, trailing like the ghost of everything that had just died inside Heer.

The priest gave a timid nod, stepping back like even he didn’t want to be in the radius of Aryaveer Raizada’s rage. The hall had quieted, eerily so—only the crackle of the dying fire and the hush of fearful breath remained.

Then footsteps.

Measured. Confident.

One of Aryaveer’s men—dressed in black, a man whose face was forgettable but whose eyes held the terror of someone who'd seen too many bodies drop—approached with a leather file in hand.

The marriage papers.

No one spoke.

Aryaveer took them in his left hand, still holding the gun in his right, as if marriage was just another crime he had to sign off on. The flick of a pen echoed loud as a gunshot in the dead silence.

His signature—bold, brutal, final—was a death sentence dressed as a wedding vow.

Then, he turned toward her.

Heer.

The girl who trembled beside him like a candle on the edge of a storm.

She hadn’t lifted her head since the last mantra. Her eyes were glassy, distant, as though part of her soul had already drifted somewhere safer—somewhere far from him.

But Aryaveer didn’t allow escape. Not even in thoughts.

He leaned in, voice a whisper—low, jagged, and deadly close to her ear.

“Welcome to your ruin,” he murmured.

Heer stiffened.

His breath was cold steel against her neck as he added, “And I won’t stop... not until I’ve ruined every last Khanna. One by one. Your brother will know what it feels like to have everything ripped away. Just like he did to me.”

The words slithered into her spine like venom. She wanted to scream. To run. But all she did was freeze, her entire being locking in place from the weight of that promise.

Then he moved—fast, unrelenting.

He grabbed her by the wrist, hauling her to her feet. His grip bruising. His intention clear.

Before she could even breathe, his arm snaked around her waist and yanked her close. Her body collided with his, chest to chest, and a small gasp escaped her lips as she struggled, squirmed, tried to wrench free from his grasp.

“Don’t,” he said through gritted teeth. “You’ll only make it worse for yourself.”

She looked up at him then—just for a heartbeat—and what she saw nearly broke her.

Not just hatred.

Not just wrath.

But satisfaction. Cold, cruel satisfaction—like he’d finally set the first domino of his revenge into motion.

Her heartbeat pounded painfully against her ribs. Her skin burned where he held her. His touch wasn’t tender. It was possession. Domination. A reminder of her new reality.

He turned to his men, not even looking at her now.

“Click the pictures.”

A camera was raised. A flash fired.

One.

Two.

Three.

Each one a nail in her coffin. Each one a public declaration of the unholy bond that now bound them.

Heer tried to turn her face away, tried to hide even a sliver of her shame—but Aryaveer grabbed her jaw roughly and forced her chin forward, facing the camera.

“Smile for your brother,” he said coldly. “Let him know what it feels like to watch the only light in your life be dragged into hell.”

Another click.

Another photo.

Another scar.

The photographers stepped back.

Aryaveer finally let her go—but not gently. She stumbled slightly, catching herself just before she fell. Her breath was shallow, her chest heaving. She was choking on everything—on grief, on fear, on the ashes of the girl she used to be.

He didn’t say another word.

He didn’t have to.

Because with a single signature and a cruel whisper, he had declared war. Not with guns. Not yet. But with a wedding.

A public, humiliating, soul-shattering wedding.

And Heer... Heer had become his weapon.

But what Aryaveer Raizada didn’t know—couldn’t know—was that lambs who live in fire learn how to burn.

Just not yet.

Now, she would survive.

Silent.

Terrified.

Broken.

Until the day came when his war became hers.

______