The palace had always been alive at dawn, but on this particular morning it did not merely wake — it braced.
Birdsong fluttered uncertainly through the banyan branches. The first rays of the sun slid across the marble floors like cautious messengers. Even the palace cats, usually bold prowlers of kitchens and courtyards, moved silently, tails low, ears twitching as if they sensed the shifting heartbeat of the kingdom.
For the first time in nearly two generations, the Queen's Regent Council had been summoned.
Not officially, of course. Officially there was only the King's Council — ministers, generals, traders, priests. But beneath that visible engine of governance existed another body entirely: quieter, older, and far more dangerous.
It had been born in the years when one king lost himself to opium, another to grief, and yet the kingdom continued to function. It had grown roots when men went to war or drowned themselves in wine, and women, left with temples and children and markets and estates, learned to wield power not through speeches…
…but through decisions.
The Queen's Regent Council was not carved into law.
It was carved into necessity.
And when such necessity arises again, it remembers how to wake.
Crown Princess Anushka stood at the balcony overlooking the Lotus Courtyard, hands resting lightly upon the carved railing. Below her, women in silks of many colors crossed the space like moving petals. Regents of distant provinces, widowed dowagers who controlled agricultural expanses, senior priestesses, scholars, and trusted matriarchs — all summoned under the veil of ritual and the pretense of a women's religious conclave.
No drummer announced them.
No court herald recorded their names.
Yet together, they carried half the kingdom's land titles, three-fourths of its temples, and nearly all of its futures.
Behind Anushka, soft footsteps approached.
The Pink Queen.
She had prayed all night, and the traces of it lingered around her like incense — not exhaustion, but a deep, glowing solemnity. Her pink saree was simpler than usual today, almost austere; her power came not from ornament but from faith that had grown teeth.
"You did not sleep," she said gently.
Anushka smiled without humor. "Sleep is a luxury reserved for those whose kingdoms are not being written into someone else's ledger."
The Pink Queen moved to stand beside her.
The Lotus Courtyard spread beneath them — circular, enclosed, protected from the prying eyes of men by high walls perfumed with flowering vines. No male guard stood within; this space belonged to the queens and had for centuries. It was here girls learned their first prayers, women discussed births and deaths, and — when needed — empires.
One by one, the council gathered.
There was Rajmata Devyani, the King's widowed aunt, her hair silver yet tied in a warrior's knot, eyes sharper than a scimitar. There was Lady Sharda of the Eastern Marshes, thin as a reed but known to have starved two rebellions simply by redirecting food stores more intelligently than any general moved troops.
There were scholars who could debate philosophy until suns died.
There were estate leaders who knew every grain barn and riverbed.
There were healers who understood people's pain better than any court doctor.
They were not ornamental women.
They were statecraft wrapped in silk.
A servant girl approached and bowed. "It is prepared, Your Majesty."
The Council Chamber of Queens was not large. No gold-plated throne dominated its center; instead, a round stone table waited, etched with carvings of vines and constellations. Cushioned seats circled it equally. No one sat higher than another.
Equality was not a gesture here — it was a weapon.
As the women took their places, whispers subsided like waves calming before a storm. Anushka entered last. Not because she craved spectacle but because timing is its own language.
Every gaze turned toward her.
She did not wear a crown.
She did not need to.
She sat.
The Pink Queen took the seat at her right. Rajmata Devyani sat opposite her, unblinking. Others adjusted their shawls, straightened backs, let silence anchor them.
When the Queen regent finally spoke, her voice was low yet carried effortlessly to every corner of the chamber.
"The Treaty of Salt and Silk has been signed."
The statement dropped into the room like a stone into deep water. It didn't shock; these women already knew. It rippled — outward, inward, into each thought that had kept them awake the previous night.
"They will build garrisons," Rajmata Devyani said, her voice like gravel smoothed by years. "They will station soldiers who salute our King in public and write to their governors in secret."
Lady Sharda's thin fingers tapped the table. "And they will not leave."
The Pink Queen closed her eyes a moment, as if steadying herself against the tide of inevitability.
Anushka nodded.
"Yes. They will not leave because treaties are chains woven from polite words. And our people — farmers, weavers, salt workers — will not understand why their lives are no longer truly theirs until the change is already rooted."
A younger woman, Lady Rehana — newly widowed yet already executor of five large estates — leaned forward.
"Then why did we sign?"
Her question was not disrespectful. It was honest agony.
The Queen held her gaze.
"Because the King-- no, the Kingdom---we are not prepared for open war. Not yet. The British have rifles that fire faster than our muskets. Cannons that do not crack after repeated shots. Ships that spit thunder. We have fields to protect, children to feed, villages not rebuilt from the last famine."
"So we bow?" Rehana whispered, bitterness trembling in her voice.
"No," Anushka said sharply. "We bend."
Silence again — but a different silence, one sharpened by curiosity rather than despair.
Rajmata Devyani's lips curved faintly.
"The banyan that survives the storm," she murmured, "is the one that bends without breaking."
Anushka inclined her head.
"Exactly."
She lifted her chin slightly, and for a moment the chamber felt like the inside of a drawn bow.
"We do not have the numbers yet. We do not have modern factories or enough trained soldiers. But we have time. And time — when properly used — is power."
The Pink Queen murmured, half prayer, half strategy, "And while they believe us obedient…"
"…we prepare," The Queen finished.
The council leaned forward.
Preparation.
The word glowed like banked coals.
"What must be built first?" Lady Sharda asked.
"Not armies," Anushka replied softly. "Memory."
The women exchanged glances.
She continued.
"They will bring schools. They will insist their language is necessary to trade, to governance, to advancement. They will convince our children that to be respected, one must become like them. And the moment a child is taught to be ashamed of his mother tongue…"
"…he ceases to belong wholly to his land," Rajmata Devyani murmured.
Anushka's eyes gleamed.
"So we will build parallel schools — temples of learning where our scriptures, histories, sciences, and legends are taught beside arithmetic and geography. If our children must learn English to survive negotiation, they will. But they will not forget who they are."
The council hummed with awakened energy.
"And the salt workers?" another regent asked. "Their fields will be taxed more heavily now."
"Yes," The Queen acknowledged. "So we will establish trusts. Silent fundings. Grain reserves controlled not by the King's visible treasury but by temple estates and women's land endowments. When the Empire tightens the rope, the poor will not starve first."
Lady Rehana's grief-bright eyes filled with respect.
"And the soldiers?" Rajmata Devyani asked mildly. "Theirs will march the roads. Ours will watch?"
A slow smile curved Anushka's mouth.
"Ours will learn."
She turned to the Pink Queen.
"Your temple schools already teach discipline. We will expand them quietly. Wrestling grounds disguised as festival activity. Archery revived as 'tradition.' Horse training framed as 'ceremonial.' Every year, thousands of boys and girls will grow strong, coordinated, unafraid — and no British official will think twice, because their imagination does not consider women potential warriors."
Laughter rippled softly through the chamber — not amused, not mocking. Predatory.
The Pink Queen's prayer beads clicked gently.
"Strength wrapped inside devotion," she murmured. "They will not see it until they feel it."
The Queen regent continued.
"And we will record everything. Land seizures. Tax injustices. Burnt fields. Humiliations. Not in official ledgers they can seize — in quilts, in songs, in temple murals, in bedtime stories. We will make memory contagious."
Rajmata Devyani chuckled darkly.
"Empires fear archivists more than rebels."
One of the priestess-scholars spoke for the first time.
"And the King?"
The air tightened.
Then,
The council Spread. It was stewardship.
After the Council, Maps were unrolled.
Secret communication routes were drawn using festivals as cover. Widow estates would serve as safe meeting grounds — less likely to be monitored by suspicious British officials who immediately dismissed grieving women as powerless.
Codes were chosen.
Certain flowers placed in market stalls would mean garrisons were moving. Certain drum rhythms at weddings would announce a tax collector's cruelty. Colors of temple flags would warn of famine in specific districts.
They were not inventing rebellion.
They were preparing dignity.
By midday, the chamber air had thickened with resolve.
Markets continued.
Children chased kites.
Monkeys stole guavas from palace gardens.
On the surface, nothing had changed.
But beneath that surface…
Secret schools would soon open.
Grain reserves would slowly fill.
Young bodies would grow stronger in the name of festivals.
Stories would be told that remembered everything.
And across the ocean, a faraway empire logged another treaty into its archives, unaware that the women of a "soft" kingdom had just chosen a weapon whose edge does not dull:
Time married to memory.
Act I continued to breathe, gathering momentum.
The King ruled kindly.
The British watched smugly.
The princes trained silently.
And in the heart of the palace, in a council chamber filled with carved vines and constellations…
a group of queens had set history on a path that would one day break chains.