Day Two
The Black Citadel stood silent yet defiant. Its outer walls, cracked and flame-scored, still held. The corrupted glyphs along its battlements flickered like dying stars—unholy light pulsing in rhythms that mocked the siege laid before them.
From atop a battered siege tower, Chitrāngadha watched the battlefield churn. Below, the camp lay in strained disarray—banners torn, formations ragged, the once-smooth command structures now held together by grit and memory. His sabers, Hridaya and Nidarsha, hovered at his sides like wary sentinels, their hums more anxious than resolute.
All around him, the spirit of the army burned fierce—but frayed. Veterans bore more than scars; they carried burdens. Young soldiers sat in stunned silence between formations, faces ash-smeared and hollow-eyed, lips moving silently through mantras they no longer believed in. A few wept—not from pain, but because they couldn't feel enough to cry.
The void cultists struck again at midday. This time, it wasn't a probing raid.
It was fury.
Black fire rained from the Citadel like molten night, striking siege engines and war-pavilions alike. One tower exploded into flaming splinters beside Chitrāngadha, the heat scorching his cheek. Shadow-beasts howled from the lower gates—half-formed things of sinew, teeth, and curse-silk, pulled from ritual wombs deep beneath the fortress. They struck without rhythm, without fear, devouring the front ranks before disintegrating into smoke and shrieks.
The Kuru lines buckled. And only Chitrāngadha's presence kept them from breaking.
But he did not charge immediately. Not this time.
He watched.
And waited.
His hands trembled—not with fear, but with the effort of control. His qi flared and dimmed, flared and dimmed, like a heart caught between beat and rupture.
Bhishma's warning, the dream's echo, still clung to him like a half-forgotten chant "Hold to the river."
But the fire in his blood whispered louder.
"You hold the sword."
Every wave of enemy cultists crushed beneath his blades felt like a victory — yet also a fracture.
Am I the healer, or the destroyer? The question clawed at him as sharply as any blade.
When Captain Yagni came to his side, his voice was grim but steady. "The citadel's wards grow stronger. We must break them soon—or risk being caught in their shadow traps."
Chitrāngadha's jaw clenched. The lesson of the river was clear: fire without purpose consumes even its bearer. But how could he wield restraint when the enemy dealt in shadow and corruption? When every hesitation meant more death?
Captain Yagni knelt beside Chitrāngadha as the fire burned low.
The flames barely lit the edge of the war map now—just enough to make out the jagged silhouette of the Black Citadel in the distance, wrapped in unholy shadow. The wind carried ash and silence in equal measure.
Yagni placed a bundle of sealed parchments at the prince's side—some edges scorched, others pristine, bound in imperial wax and sacred twine. Replies from the Soul Formation and Nascent Soul Elders.
Chitrāngadha's golden eyes scanned them briefly. He did not reach for them.
Yagni exhaled through her nose, bitter as old iron. "They won't come."
She continued, "They know," she said quietly. "All of them."
She did not name the elders. She didn't need to.
"They were warned," she continued. "By Bhīṣma himself. They see the Citadel for what it is. They know what stirs beneath it."
Chitrāngadha exhaled slowly.
"And they wait," Yagni said. "Not out of doubt. Out of restraint."
His gaze dropped to the unbroken seals. "They will not step onto the field unless I truly fall."
Yagni nodded once. "If they intervene too early, the Citadel answers. If they come in force, the seal responds. So they watch. And they measure."
Chitrāngadha's jaw tightened.
"They've decided this war must be mine," he said.
"And that your breaking," Yagni replied softly, "would be the signal they fear most."
Chitrāngadha said nothing for a long moment.
Then, softly:
"They watch."
He turned his head, not to Yagni—but toward the Citadel, where evil bled into the clouds.
"From mountaintops. From sacred groves. From behind veils of prophecy and principle. They say this is my trial. That if I fall, Dharma falls with me. And if I win…"
He looked at the unbroken wax of Arthan's scroll. His hand hovered over it—then drew back.
"Dharma may still fall."
Yagni did not speak. He didn't need to.
The silence between them carried every judgment the heavens had withheld.
The fire popped once—soft, weak. Dying.
"They fear the fire," Chitrāngadha whispered, voice like a drawn blade, "but not the shadow we march against."
Yagni hesitated—then added, "It is more than fear."
She drew a folded scroll from her sleeve, edges charred as if burned by cursed wind. "This came from Lady Devika herself. From her hermitage in Vaivaswati."
Chitrāngadha unfurled it, eyes scanning the elegant script inked in glacial blue.
"To enter the field now," it read,
"would awaken the Wards of the Deep Vault. The Citadel was built not just to repel armies, but to trap them in mirrored realities. The seal upon the Heart of Naraka responds to Soul Formation pressure. If any of us cross that threshold—"
He paused, eyes narrowing at the last line.
"—the Citadel will awaken the Calamity Below."
Yagni's voice was dry. "They call it a seal. Others call it a caged god."
He tapped one of the unopened messages.
"Taaragni confirmed it. So did Vakranatha. They say the void beasts are sleeping. Watching. Bound beneath the fortress, waiting for someone like Lady Devika or Commander Arthan to step onto the battlefield. The moment they sense a peak cultivator's qi—"
"—they will awaken," Chitrāngadha finished, low and hard.
He crushed the scroll in his fist. "So they ask me to bleed alone. To fight without fire—because theirs burns too brightly."
Yagni gave a bleak nod.
"You are still their gambit, Prince. You are powerful—but not enough to trigger the vault's awakening. You're their scalpel. We—" he looked around the quiet camp, lit by dying embers and warding lanterns "—are the wound they hope to cut open. Quietly. Without waking the beast inside."
The silence between them stretched—deep, bitter, brittle.
"And if you win," Yagni said, voice hoarse, "they will call it wisdom."
The Black Citadel stood.
And still, the elders did not come.
His hands tightened around Hridaya's hilt. "Then we burn brighter."
That night, Chitrāngadha stood apart from the campfires, gazing toward the citadel's black silhouette.
The weight of Bhishma's vision pressed down. He saw his reflection—flame and shadow fused—but could not turn from the fire that promised victory.
His hands ached.
His heart trembled beneath the weight of unspoken names.
But still he stood. Unmoving. Resolute.
The fire within him curled tighter. He could feel it—not as rage, but as inevitability. As memory.
He raised his gaze to the horizon. The Black Citadel waited. And behind its walls, the vault.
And beneath that—the thing no one dared name.
Chitrāngadha exhaled.
"Let them wait."
His sabers stirred. The army behind him rose.
"I'll walk the fire first."