The rain did not stop for three days.
It came in long, slanting veils, drumming upon the palace roofs, the market awnings, the dusty roads that turned to rivers of mud. The downpour washed the heat from the air but left a strange heaviness behind, as if the sky itself rested its weight upon Rajgarh, waiting for something to break.
Inside the palace, the monsoon found its echo not in water, but in whispers.
Whispers of the Samrat's illness.
Whispers of British demands.
Whispers of a Crown Princess who now governed in his name.
And deeper still, moving below corridors and beneath silk screens, ran another thread — a hidden current linking Rajgarh with Bengal, quiet yet powerful, like the unseen pull of the tide beneath the ocean's surface.
A Kingdom Between Storms
Anushka Devi stood upon the balcony of the eastern wing, where the view stretched past the palace gardens into the misted plains beyond. The world was veiled in silver-grey rain, trees bending like supplicants before the wind.
Her hands rested lightly on the carved stone railing.
Her mind was far away.
Bengal.
Not only a place upon a map — a fragrance, a sound, a childhood memory of river-water lapping against ghats, of boats drifting like dark leaves upon shimmering currents, of a mother's songs in the quiet of evening.
She closed her eyes and for a moment she was there again:
wet clay between her toes
jasmine in her hair
laughter echoing across courtyards
Then she opened them and the present crashed back over her.
Rajgarh.
Rain.
Responsibility.
And the small, fragile life growing inside her, hidden beneath silks and discipline and fear.
She pressed a hand very gently below her navel. The faintest swell only she noticed, only she counted. Four moons, she reminded herself. I must leave before four moons pass.
A knock.
She straightened at once, composure returning like armor slipping into place.
"Enter."
A maidservant slipped in and bowed.
"Yuvrani-sa, the Queen Regent summons you to the War Council."
The phrase alone chilled the room. War Council. Even rain seemed to pause against the glass.
Anushka nodded.
"I will come."
The War Council
The great council chamber was illuminated despite storm-dark noon. Oil lamps flickered across polished stone floors and tapestries depicting kings long dead. Around the central table, the faces of nobles, generals, and advisors turned as Anushka entered.
The Queen Regent sat at the head.
She no longer looked like a woman who wept alone in the silent wings of the palace. She was carved of iron again, crown gleaming, gaze sharpened into something unyielding.
"Be seated, Crown Princess," she said.
Anushka obeyed.
Samrat Veer Singh's throne remained empty behind them like a silent accusation.
The British question hung between every heartbeat.
A map of the realm lay unrolled across the center of the table. Rivers coiled like blue serpents, passes wound through painted mountains, borders shimmered under lamplight.
One border glowed brighter than all others.
To the east.
Bengal.
A general cleared his throat.
"The British Resident has doubled the number of troops stationed along the trade routes," he said.
Another added grimly,
"And their caravans grow bolder, demanding escort rights. That means reconnaissance — or worse."
That unspoken worse chilled the chamber.
The Queen Regent's gaze shifted to Anushka.
"You wrote to Bengal," she said, tone neutral yet piercing. "You warned them."
It was not a question.
"Yes, Rajmata," Anushka answered calmly. "And they replied."
Eyes shifted. The council leaned forward as one body.
"And?" the Regent asked.
Anushka held their gaze without wavering.
"Bengal stands ready."
A murmur rippled through the hall — relief, fear, admiration, suspicion all mixed into one uneasy chord.
The Queen Regent's expression didn't change visibly, but something in her posture eased, almost imperceptibly.
"They would send troops?" a noble asked, incredulous.
"Troops if necessary," Anushka answered. "But not yet. They will not provoke war lightly. Instead—"
She touched the map, fingertip resting lightly upon the drawn river routes that flowed between Rajgarh and Bengal like veins across a hand.
"—they will send information. Grain. Physicians. Money."
The council fell silent.
It wasn't armies that built empires.
It was connections.
It was the flow of resources — of food, of knowledge, of secrets.
Rajgarh could not survive alone anymore.
Nor could Anushka.
The Regent's eyes held hers, unreadable.
"You have bound two kingdoms," she said quietly. "Be certain you do not break them in the process."
Anushka bowed her head slightly.
Gods, she thought, I am trying not to break even myself.
Messages in the Monsoon
Three nights later, the rain eased into fine mist. The moon hung full and low, blurred behind lingering cloud, its light diffused like milk poured across the sky.
The palace lay in deceptive peace.
But beneath it — in the tunnels and forgotten passages known only to those who trafficked not in ceremonies but in shadows — there was movement.
The Bengal connection had awakened.
They came not as armies, but as:
traders
pilgrims
musicians
wandering mendicants
boatmen who knew every hidden inlet of every river between the two realms
And among them slipped couriers bearing small sealed packets hidden in prayer beads, hollow flutes, the lining of worn shawls.
In a narrow, lamp-lit chamber beneath the palace temple, cloaked figures gathered.
The Benefactor waited.
Anushka felt the cool of stone through the soles of her slippers, the faint dampness of underground air, the rhythm of dripping water echoing like a heartbeat.
She wore her hood.
Her face remained in shadow.
Behind her stood the man who spoke for her, his voice low and controlled.
From Bengal had come:
coded letters
maps marked with British supply lines
lists of collaborators and spies
a message of love from her mother, folded small as a petal
But also news of danger.
The East India Company's claws dug deeper each month. Fortifications rose along riverbanks. Indian rulers were tempted with guns, gold, and promises that soured into shackles.
The Benefactor listened without revealing any flicker of emotion.
Yet inside her, the child turned again, as though responding to the word danger.
The man behind her spoke:
"You will continue routes through the jungle passes. Avoid plains roads. Use temple caravans as cover. The British are less likely to search offerings to gods."
The couriers bowed, absorbing every syllable.
"And if caught?" one dared to ask.
Silence fell like dropped silk.
The Benefactor did not speak, but her gloved hand moved slightly, a small gesture carrying absolute authority.
The man answered for her.
"If caught, you know nothing of Bengal. You know nothing of Rajgarh. You know nothing of us."
He paused.
"You know only God."
None protested.
They had chosen their fate the moment they entered this chamber.
Yet loyalty to her was not born from fear alone. It was born from what she had already done:
saving the Regent from assassination
redirecting food supplies to starving villages
protecting soldiers' widows from exploitation
standing unflinching before power
She had become to them both shadow and hope.
The Benefactor dismissed them.
They vanished into the night like mist.
Only then did Anushka allow herself to lean briefly against the cool stone wall, exhaustion pressing down in heavy waves.
Her hand slid again to rest over her womb.
"I will protect you," she whispered.
Not aloud.
Not even truly to herself.
To the tiny heartbeat deep within her that no one else yet knew.
Bengal in Her Blood
Later, in her private chambers, sleep did not come.
It rarely did now.
Instead she lit a small lamp and opened again the letter from Bengal, tracing the curve of her father's handwriting, the gentler loops of her mother's.
A folded slip fell from between the pages.
She frowned.
She had not noticed it earlier.
She unfolded it carefully.
It was not in royal script, not sealed, not formal.
It was her brother's.
Untidy.
Impetuous.
Burning.
"Little sister,They think I do not see the fear between your words, but I do.If they hurt you, if they so much as look at you wrongly, I will burn the world for you."
Her throat tightened.
He had always been like fire — impatient, fierce, protective to the point of recklessness.
Another line:
"If you must leave before four moons, send the white scarf mother embroidered. I will know."
Her fingers closed around the fabric at her shoulder as though feeling the weight of that unspoken pact.
Four moons.
She folded the note carefully and closed her eyes again, letting memories flood through her — her brother tugging her braids, racing her through palace courtyards, swinging sticks like swords and declaring himself king of the world while she sat beneath a mango tree and laughed.
She had been younger then.
Lighter.
Unburdened.
Now she bore crowns, secrets, and a life inside her that could topple everything if discovered too soon.
"Stay strong," she whispered to the child. "Stay with me."
Samrat in Shadow
She went to him at dawn.
The storm had passed. The world smelled of wet earth and new leaves. The palace garden shimmered, every petal and blade of grass jewelled with droplets that caught the rising sun.
Samrat's chamber was dimly lit when she entered, but he was awake.
He sat propped against cushions, color returning slowly to his face, though fatigue still etched faint shadows under his eyes.
He looked up when she came in.
For a heartbeat the mask of king slipped and only the man remained — relief softening his gaze, warmth flooding his expression.
"You should have summoned me," he said gently. "But instead you come yourself."
"I preferred to see you with my own eyes," she replied.
He smiled faintly.
"Am I still disappointing?"
"Always," she said softly. "You insist on frightening me."
His smile faded.
"I frightened you?"
The memory of his collapse surged over her like cold water. The hall. The panic. His stillness.
"You nearly shattered me," she whispered.
There were no courtiers here.
No audience.
No protocols.
Just two people bound by threads of love and fear and unshed words.
He reached for her hand.
She let him take it.
Their fingers intertwined with quiet familiarity, as though they had always done so.
"You carry far too much," he murmured. "My mother orders you to rule; the council tests you; the British circle like hawks — and still you stand."
And I carry a child too, she thought.
But she did not speak it.
Instead she said, "Someone must."
His gaze lingered on her as though seeing through layers of silence.
"And Bengal?" he asked quietly.
For a moment her heart stumbled.
He knew she had written.
She did not deny it.
"They will stand with us," she said. "As long as we do not fall upon our knees first."
He chuckled softly, then coughed, pain flickering briefly across his features. She leaned forward instantly, but he squeezed her hand lightly.
"I am fine," he said.
She didn't believe him, not fully.
But she let him pretend.
The silence that followed was not heavy this time. It was full — full of what they knew about each other, about the future, about the knife-edge they now walked upon together.
He spoke again, tone lower.
"Anushka…"
She looked at him.
"There is more you are not telling me."
Her breath caught.
For a moment panic flared — does he know? — but his next words eased that fear even as they deepened another.
"You move at night," he said softly. "When you think all sleep. Guards speak of shadows that walk like queens. Secrets gather around you like storms. I do not know your every step anymore."
His eyes held hers.
"Should that frighten me?"
She felt, absurdly, like a girl again, caught sneaking past curfew.
But she did not lie.
She had vowed she would not lie to him again.
"It should not," she whispered. "But it may."
He studied her long and hard.
Then, finally, he nodded once.
"I will trust you," he said simply. "Even in the dark."
Her vision blurred suddenly as tears she had not expected burned her eyes.
Trust.
More terrifying than suspicion.
More binding than chains.
She bowed her head briefly so he would not see the depth of her emotion — but his hand tightened around hers again.
He did see.
He always did.
The British Watch
Across the river, the Union Jack fluttered above canvas tents and wooden stockades. The British Resident's camp sprawled like a foreign scar across the landscape — angular, disciplined, alien among curved domes and banyan shadows.
Men in red coats moved with mechanical precision.
Ledgers replaced hearts.
Guns replaced words.
From his pavilion, the Resident watched Rajgarh through a spyglass, moustache twitching beneath a thin-lipped smirk. Rain had dampened his boots and his temper, but not his ambition.
"So the Samrat falls ill," he murmured.
"And the princess rules," his aide added.
The Resident's eyes gleamed.
"A woman," he said slowly. "A young one. Emotional. Unseasoned."
The aide nodded eagerly.
"Easier to pressure."
The Resident lowered the glass.
"No," he said thoughtfully. "More dangerous. Women who survive palaces learn quickly. And Bengal blood is in that one."
His mouth curved in a thin, calculating smile.
"Therefore…"
He turned to the table where maps lay — maps not just of geography but of power, of alliances, of pressure points that turned kingdoms into chess pieces on a board drawn far away across the sea.
"…we watch the Bengal roads."
The Bengal Network Tightens
News traveled not by drums or crier's bell, but by rice-sellers in muddy markets and boatmen drifting along swollen rivers, by women washing clothes whose songs carried coded meaning, by wandering bards whose verses spoke of heroes but counted troop movements in their rhyme.
Bengal listened.
Rajgarh answered.
Anushka directed.
The Benefactor moved.
Even while she sat upon the throne before nobles and ambassadors, advising the Queen Regent, answering petitions, issuing decrees, her other world thrummed alive beneath her composure.
She arranged safe houses.
She rerouted grain to famine villages so British merchants couldn't leverage hunger.
She set spies upon the Resident's camp.
She quietly paid for the treatment of wounded soldiers the treasury "could not afford."
All while hiding:
her true role
her condition
her growing fear of time running short
Three masks.
One face.
One heart bearing far more than it should.
The Pull of Two Worlds
Sometimes, late at night, she sat alone before the small household shrine in her chamber, oil-lamp flickering shadows across painted faces of gods.
She prayed — not as a princess, not as a benefactor, not as a queen-to-be.
As Anushka.
She prayed:
for her husband's life
for the child within
for Bengal, where her mother waited
for Rajgarh, which now depended upon her
And with the honesty only darkness allowed, she whispered the fear she spoke to no living soul.
"What if I cannot save them both?"
What if choosing Bengal meant abandoning Rajgarh?
What if choosing Rajgarh meant giving birth in danger, surrounded by enemies, her child a target before even its first cry?
The lamp flame flickered.
The rain outside had ceased entirely now; crickets began their songs.
She bowed her head until it rested upon folded hands.
"I will find a way," she murmured. "I must."
The Queen Regent Watches
The Queen Regent was no fool.
She had not ruled through decades of intrigue by ignoring shadows.
She saw the couriers that slipped into the palace at odd hours, the traveling monks who did not quite behave like monks, the way Anushka sometimes returned to her chambers with rain-soaked hem and eyes too bright.
She did not yet know the full truth.
But she sensed it — the movement, the design, the intelligence working behind veils.
One evening she summoned Anushka privately.
No guards.
No ladies-in-waiting.
No witnesses.
They sat opposite each other in a small chamber overlooking a lotus pond glowing pale beneath moonlight. The air smelled of night flowers and distant thunder.
The Queen Regent poured tea herself.
Anushka accepted the cup with both hands — respect, caution, acknowledgment of unspoken stakes.
"You remind me of myself," the Regent said at last.
The admission startled Anushka more than any accusation would have.
"When I was your age," the older woman continued, gaze drifting briefly over water lilies trembling lightly in the breeze, "I too fought battles no one knew existed. I too smiled by day and bled by night. I too carried secrets that could have killed men if spoken aloud."
Her eyes returned to Anushka's face.
"Do you think I do not see you walking the same path?"
There was no accusation.
No anger.
Only something like weary recognition.
Anushka did not lie.
She did not confess.
She held that gaze and said simply:
"I do what I must."
The Regent's lips curved — not into a smile, but something close to it.
"As did I," she said. "And sometimes, child, what we must do is exactly what others will later curse us for."
Silence stretched between them, filled with frogsong and shifting lotus leaves.
The Regent spoke again, softer now.
"Bengal will not abandon you. I know your father. He loves you more than his own throne."
Anushka's heart stumbled.
She had not expected the Regent to know.
But she should have.
This woman knew everything eventually.
"I do not blame you for reaching to them," the Regent added. "Only remember this — Rajgarh is now part of your blood as well. A queen rarely belongs to only one land."
Anushka bowed her head.
"I know."
She did know.
That knowledge was what tore at her day and night.
The Regent studied her one final long moment.
Then she said very quietly:
"Whatever path you choose before four moons pass…"
Anushka froze.
The cup almost slipped from her fingers.
The Regent continued as if she had not noticed the shock.
"…choose it fully."
They did not speak of pregnancy.
They did not need to.
Two women who had lived in palaces did not have to name such truths.
When Anushka left that chamber, her steps felt heavier, yet steadier somehow. The older woman's words had not relieved her burden — but they had acknowledged it.
Sometimes acknowledgment was the closest thing to comfort power allowed.
Bengal Draws Closer
Messengers from the east grew more frequent.
Some brought intelligence.
Some brought supplies.
One brought something that made Anushka sit upon her bed and laugh through sudden tears.
Mangoes.
Her mother's doing, no doubt. No matter that it was the wrong season or that transport was costly. They had been wrapped carefully in cool cloth and herbs to preserve them.
Her childhood had arrived in a basket.
She cut one open.
The fragrance hit her with such force she closed her eyes, dizzy with memory and unexpected hunger. She tasted it and nearly moaned aloud — sweet, bright, golden, indescribable.
The child within her seemed to stir in joy.
She laughed again, softer now.
"You see?" she whispered into the quiet room. "The world still has sweetness."
For a little while she let herself simply be a daughter again, sitting cross-legged on her bed, juice dripping down her fingers, rain-washed sunlight pouring through the window.
Then she washed her hands.
Set aside the peel.
And once again became Crown Princess, Benefactor, ruler, future mother — all the selves she now had no place to lay down.
Storms Ahead
The Bengal connection had been forged.
Not yet openly.
Not yet in the eyes of the world.
But in:
secret routes
coded letters
shared strategy
the promise of aid if she called for it
Yet with that connection came risk.
British eyes narrowed.
Palace factions stirred.
Time shortened.
The child grew.
And somewhere beyond the horizon, the King of Bengal waited for a signal only he and his daughter understood — a white scarf embroidered by a queen's trembling hands.
Rajgarh slept beneath starlight.
Samrat Veer Singh rested, strength slowly returning.
The Queen Consort still prayed.
The Queen Regent still watched.
The Benefactor still moved through shadow.
And Anushka Devi stood at the boundary between two worlds — Bengal's river songs calling to her, Rajgarh's throne anchoring her, the future inside her whispering with every tiny movement:
Decide.
Soon.
Before four moons pass.