Ishaan - Bhaskar

He understood then. The other six observatories—Delhi, Varanasi, Ujjain, Mathura, Kanchipuram, and the lost one in Kabul—had each been activated by a keeper. Six people, chosen by blood or chance or fate, who had already taken their positions. He was the seventh. The one who had to walk the shadow.

And somewhere, in a future that had not yet been written, a compass needle spun once, twice, three times—and pointed, for the first time in its existence, directly at the truth. ishaan bhaskar

The drive from Delhi to Jaipur took five hours, but Ishaan made it in four. The highway was a ribbon of black asphalt under a bruised dawn sky, and he drove with one hand on the wheel and one hand on the silver box. It felt warm. It should not have felt warm. He understood then