**Author's Note – The Unstoppable Queen Aish 👑🖤**
Welcome, my bold little sinful ShadowHearts. You've turned the page into Chapter 8, where blood isn't the only thing that stains and curses don't always wait in the shadows.
Tonight, we carve truths in bone and cradle secrets in silence. So hold tight to your breath. Not everything buried stays dead.
---
**Recap of Chapter 7:**
Aanya and Veer, now under the same roof, began to uncover not only the mystery of the whispering girl and the mirror boy—but also pieces of each other. Aunt Ira Verma's name surfaced like a bruise beneath the surface, and the house seemed to remember something Aanya was still trying to forget.
---
**Aanya's POV**
The rain had stopped, but inside, the air still dripped. Cold. Heavy.
Aanya sat cross-legged on the old woven carpet. A cup of untouched tea cooled near her hand. She hadn't slept. Not after the whispers grew louder in the walls, curling her name like a promise and a threat.
She wore a pale lavender sweater—one Veer had handed her the night before. His. It still smelled like smoke and metal. Underneath, her black leggings clung to her skin like a second layer of warning.
And still… she felt exposed.
"Aanya?"
She turned. Veer stood by the doorframe in loose grey pants and a half-buttoned maroon shirt. His silver ring—etched with symbols still unreadable—glinted beneath the morning light.
"I couldn't sleep either," he said.
She nodded. "The whispers… they feel closer now."
He stepped toward her. Quiet. Controlled. And yet there was a rawness to the way his eyes searched hers—as if looking for something buried.
"I found something last night."
Veer knelt, brushing aside the carpet. The floorboard creaked as he lifted it with practiced ease.
Inside was a weathered tin box.
Aanya reached for it, fingers trembling.
Inside: a child's bracelet. Pale blue. Tiny. Still warm.
"This belonged to… Naira," Veer whispered. "She used to wear it always. Aunt Ira gave it to her."
Aanya touched the bracelet.
And the world *shifted.*
---
**Flashback: Naira's Tears**
The garden under a full moon. Naira—no older than ten—crying, clutching her bracelet.
"Why do they say I'm cursed?"
Aunt Ira stood behind her. Cold. Beautiful. Dressed in grey silk and black pearls.
"Because they're afraid of the bloodline."
"What bloodline?"
Aunt Ira leaned down, whispering something into Naira's ear.
Aanya couldn't hear the words. But the girl's scream rang through her bones.
---
**Back to Present**
Aanya dropped the bracelet. Her breath caught.
"There's something about Naira... something the house doesn't want me to forget."
Veer touched her hand. The contact—brief but electric.
"There's more."
He pulled a folded parchment from beneath his shirt. Yellowed. Smelling of rot and rosewater.
A **bone-etched symbol** drawn in black ink. It pulsed faintly. Like a heartbeat.
"This was inside Aunt Ira's diary."
Aanya's skin prickled. "It's the same as the one I saw on my pillow this morning."
They both froze.
"The curse," Veer said. "It wasn't broken. It was transferred."
---
**Veer's POV**
He remembered the night he first saw it—the symbol—drawn behind Aunt Ira's mirror in her study. Carved deep, with something sharper than a blade.
And Ananta…
"Ananta warned me once," he whispered to himself. "He said the house never curses without reason. It punishes memory."
He had never told Aanya what really happened the night Ananta vanished. Because it wasn't just a disappearance.
It was *erasure.*
And now…
The pendant Aanya once shattered?
It had begun to *repair itself.* Slowly. Like bone stitching itself together.
---
**Later That Night – **
She was in a hallway.
Lined with mirrors. All reflecting *different versions* of herself.
One wept. One bled. One screamed.
And one… smiled.
Wearing the **bone-carved symbol** like a crown.
"Aanya…" a voice whispered. It wasn't hers. It wasn't Naira's.
It was **Ananta.**
"You need to remember who I was."
And then—
The walls cracked.
A flood of names poured through. One of them scratched into her arm in her dream.
**Ira.**
---
Aanya woke up gasping. Her arm stung.
She looked down.
The name *IRA* was bruised into her skin.
And her mirror?
It was fogged from the inside.
A message scrawled into the glass:
"You are next."
---
**Author's Note – Aish, Your Sinful Flame of Truths 🔥**
My fierce little readers, did the symbol call to you? Did Aunt Ira's presence raise your pulse?
We are deeper than ever. The whispers grow louder. The bracelet. The bone. The name carved into skin. All of it is real… and none of it forgives.
Who cursed whom?
Who still remembers?
And is the mirror a doorway… or a warning?
Next Chapter: *"When Shadow Imitates Love"* — where romance sharpens its claws and shadows become too soft to be trusted.
Vote. Gasp. But don't forget:
**The curse still breathes.**