When the Gods went Silent

The gods are bound by cosmic contracts. The Avantika Empire is rotting under a tyrant. And nineteen-year-old Vaidehi just wants to survive.

Raised in the harsh, saltwater crucible of the Tapovan coast, Vaidehi learned to fight the ocean's undertow before she learned to fight men. Now, she travels to the brutalist iron capital of Indrakatha to sell salt and run heists. She keeps her head down, avoids the heavy-armored guards, and tries to forget the night Emperor Agnimitra burned her childhood ashram to ash.

Her pragmatic life fractures when she agrees to smuggle a woman in royal silk out of the locked-down city. The woman is Maya, the hunted princess of the empire.

Maya needs a guide to Tapovan because she is searching for the lost daughter of Acharya Bhairav, the only living heir to the Samhara Purana, the sacred text of absolute destruction. Maya thinks Vaidehi is just a local who can point the way. She doesn't know she has already found the heir.

But with the Emperor tightening his grip on the empire, hiding is no longer an option. To survive the journey ahead, Vaidehi must finally embrace the brutal physical arts of Shastra-Vidya. Magic in this world is not a gift. It is the exact science of tearing your own muscles to redirect kinetic force. And Vaidehi will need every ounce of it to break the empire.