Prologue

The shadows reached Gopal long before the tiger did.

The farmer grunted, his fingers digging into the cracked earth as he pulled another weed. His back, a withered map of knotted aches, screamed in protest. Even the shade of his thin rumaal, wrapped around his head, offered little comfort. The drone of insects were his only companions, a relentless hum that was all too familiar.

Once, the jungle had spoken to him with clarity. The hush before the monsoons. The sudden stillness of birds. The shift of wind when something large moved unseen. These signs had guided him all his life. The land had been his companion, his teacher, shaping his days as surely as the seasons shaped his fields.

But age had softened that bond. Sounds reached him slowly now. Shadows blurred at their edges. What once felt like the earth’s voice had become a distant murmur.

Tonight, that hush should have stopped him. Instead, he mistook it for peace.

The farmer sat in the dirt and pressed his calloused hands into his sore calves. The soil still held warmth, and he lingered longer than he should have.

Dusk crept in quickly. His sight was not what it once had been, and he knew Radha would scold him if he returned late and let his dinner go cold.

Besides…

Kalraksh.

Gopal shivered. Messenger after messenger had passed through the village, urging the community to stay alert. They spoke of a tiger that did not flee—one that prowled near homes, a killer ravaging the kingdom.

The farmer had listened, like the rest of his village. Then he had returned to his work. Fields did not tend themselves. Vasanti’s marriage was approaching, and the dowry that went with it.

Gopal pushed himself upright with a groan. Sweat slid down his temples and vanished into the thirsty earth. He tipped his matka, letting a stream of cool water spill from the clay pot into his mouth. He spat, wiped his chin, and smiled faintly as he imagined his wife chiding him for his tardiness, wagging her smallest finger.

Cut short years ago from a snakebite, Radha had never concealed the amputation. Instead, she wore it with pride.

During festivals, she dipped her palm in sindoor and pressed it into the ground, leaving a red handprint unmistakably hers—one finger shorter than the rest.

Gopal’s smile widened as he started for home. The path was a familiar comfort beneath his bare feet, worn smooth by his own passage over time.

As he trekked, Gopal surveyed the fields around him. The whispers of Kalraksh followed him from his hut to the furthest edge of his land. Men he’d known his whole life now walked with their shoulders hunched, their eyes scouring the tree line. They spoke of it in hushed tones, as if naming the beast would summon it. Gopal had scoffed, mostly to himself.

A tiger is a tiger.

A creature of instinct, not malice. It was hunger that drove it, not some dark spirit as the community whispered. Fear was a greater sickness than any fever, and he would not let it take root in him.

The rustle of a mongoose in the undergrowth made him glance aside. For a breath, his heart knocked against his ribs. He saw only the flicker of a tail, small and grey, vanishing into the brush. He let out the breath, a quiet laugh at his own foolishness.

He was becoming a child, startled by shadows. He thought of Radha again, and swallowed. The fear he felt was not for himself. It was for her, for the thought of her waiting for footsteps that would never come.

But the land had always provided. It had taken, yes—it had taken his brother in a flood, his firstborn in a fever—but it had always provided. He would trust it still.

His joints creaked in time with the rising chorus of insects. Once, he had walked this road beside his father and grandfather, singing harvest chants carried on dusk air. Now he hummed alone.

Wood smoke drifted across the field. Dinner fires were being lit. He wiped his face with his rumaal, the cloth already damp with a day’s sweat.

The insects faltered.

One by one, their sound thinned, until only the scrape of his own steps remained.

The birds fell silent.

The jute stalks ahead rustled, though no breeze stirred them.

Gopal slowed. He did not see the blur of black and orange slipping through the brush. He did not notice the jute part, then settle again.

When motion finally reached his eye, he turned—and froze.

For a moment, he thought the heat had deceived him. Then the tail lifted. Slow. Deliberate.

Something tightened around his chest.

Kalraksh.

The tiger was larger than any tale had dared to claim. It stood utterly still, watching him with an unblinking focus that rooted him in place. Stories surged back—mangled bodies, villagers who never returned, cries cut short and swallowed by the dark.

Then Gopal’s eyes widened.

Radha.

If he did not return, she would come looking.

No.

He could not allow that. He had to keep the beast focused on himself.

Kalraksh shifted, lowering closer to the ground. Muscles rolled beneath its striped fur, coiled and controlled. When Gopal dared meet its gaze, he stumbled back.

The tiger’s lips were curled into a wet, blood-slick grin.

Tigers don’t smile.

The teeth widened, sharp in the failing light. Blood clung to its mouth, dark against pale fur.

Can it sense my fear?

His legs would not move. His breath thinned to shallow pulls. The tiger’s eyes gleamed like polished stones—steady and fixed.

Then he saw it.

Pressed into the tiger’s white chest was the imprint of a hand, dark with blood. One finger shorter than the rest.

No…

A sound tore from him. The tiger stepped closer, drawn to the fracture of his grief.

Tears blurred the world.

He never saw Kalraksh leap.

The trees swallowed his scream.

By the time the insects dared resume their song, the fields were empty. The moon climbed higher, indifferent, its pale light silvering the tips of the jute stalks. A lone nightjar called from the darkness, a question with no answer.

A trail of deep, round pugmarks marred the neat lines of the tilled earth, leading from the field that had been so carefully tended.

Near the edge of the path lay an overturned matka, its remaining water sinking silently into the dust.