The rains did not pass with the execution. They lingered, clinging to the palace walls like unspoken words, soaking the gardens of Rajgarh in the scent of wet earth and wrung-out dreams. The skies themselves seemed undecided — whether to weep, or to hold their breath.
Inside the inner palace, the princes gathered beneath a canopy of gold brocade stitched with the ancient Sun Banner — emblem of their line since forgotten dynasties had ridden across the plains in chariots and war elephants. Lamps burned low, a circle of fire about them, and beyond the pillars the monsoon wind rattled the carved jali screens like a drum of warning.
Yuvraj Aditya Pratap Singh, eldest son, Armed General, stood first.
Beside him stood Samrat Veer Singh, the Crown Prince — a storm caged in human form, eyes burning, shoulders straight beneath the weight of a kingdom already leaning toward him. At the far side, a little behind, still half boy, half man, was Rajkumar Aarav, the youngest son, his mischief replaced — for once — by solemn gravity.
The Maharaja slept fitfully in distant chambers; the Queen Regent watched from shadow.
Tonight was not for mothers or queens.
Tonight was for sons of the Sun Banner.
A ceremonial sword lay on the dark sandalwood table before them. Its hilt was wrapped in red silk, its pommel carved into the blazing disc that marked the House of Rajgarh. The blade gleamed wickedly in the lamplight — not as a weapon of war, but as an instrument of oath.
Aditya spoke first.
"Brothers," he said quietly, "our world moves toward upheaval. The British Resident grows bold. The nobles grow fearful. The people grow restless. Father grows weaker."
He did not soften the words.
Truth among princes must be flint.
He turned toward the banner raised above them.
"Our house has endured famine, invasion, and civil war. We have knelt only to dharma and never to foreign crowns. Tonight we bind ourselves — to each other and to Rajgarh — until the final ember of our bloodline is ash."
Samrat inclined his head once.
Aarav swallowed hard.
Between them lay not rivalry, but something more dangerous — love sharpened into vow.
They each pricked their thumb upon the blade — Aditya first, then Samrat, then Aarav — crimson beads rising like tiny suns. They pressed their blood to the silk-wrapped hilt, staining it dark.
Aditya spoke:
"By Surya Dev, who watches kings."
Samrat followed:
"By Dharam, which binds king to people."
Aarav's voice shook, yet steadied:
"By our mother's tears and our father's name."
Together they said:
"We swear —To defend Rajgarh with our lives,To stand as three pillars of one throne,To let no foreign rule chain our land,To betray neither brother nor kingdom,Until the rivers dry and the sun is ash."
The lamps guttered. The wind howled through the lattice as if the gods themselves had heard and taken note.
Some oaths echo.
Some shape history.
This one would do both.
Far beyond the princes, at the edge of the city where banyan roots twisted like old stories and the stone steps of the ghats met swollen river water, stood an ancient temple of Shri Krishna — small, whitewashed, crowned with a shikhara that pierced the low hanging clouds.
Anushka Devi — Crown Princess of Rajgarh, princess of Bengal by birth, and Benefactor in shadow — walked barefoot there, the rain soaking the red silk of her sari until it clung like a second skin. Her veil was plastered against dark hair undone by wind. Bangles chimed as she climbed the temple steps, each step a prayer she could not speak aloud anywhere else.
The night was lamp-lit and lonely.
Inside, the murti of Kanha sat adorned in peacock feathers and yellow cloth, eyes mischief-gentle, smile eternal. The scent of ghee lamps, wet incense, and rainwater mingled like memory.
She knelt.
Her hands trembled and then steadied as they came together in namaskar. She did not speak for a long time. She simply breathed — and the silence answered. When words finally came, they came as song.
She sang not like a courtesan of court, not like a trained performer — but like a child who had spoken to God before she had spoken to men.
It was a Meera bhajan, old as longing, addressed not to a distant deity but to a beloved.
Her voice rose —
low at first, then clear, then carrying through the rain:
"Kanha… Kanha…"
She did not sing in full courtly verses that the palace musicians rehearsed; she poured her heart into the name, repeating it, weaving grief and love into sound. She sang of surrender, of walking unafraid into storms if His flute called, of the sweet pain of devotion and of the world's chains breaking with a single glance from Him.
Her voice cracked once.
She kept singing.
She sang for Rajgarh.She sang for Bengal.She sang for the child she carried unseen beneath her heart.She sang for the man she loved and would one day abandon.She sang for the shadow self — Benefactor, conspirator, future queen of fire.
Rain lashed the temple court, and yet she did not move inside.
The lamps flickered.
Her strength slipped somewhere between breath and prayer.
The world tilted.
The last note broke like glass in her throat, and darkness swept in gentle as a monsoon tide.
She collapsed upon the stone floor, cheek resting near the hem of the deity's altar cloth, rain drenching her through the open doorway. The storm kept singing over her, and the bells above the sanctum chimed with wind, not hands.
No one found her.
Not that night.
Not the next morning.
Rajgarh slept and woke and whispered, unaware that its future queen lay motionless at the feet of God.
They noticed she was missing only at dawn when a maid brought warm milk and cardamom to her chamber — and found the bed untouched, the pillows cold.
The tray shattered on marble.
Within moments, the palace awoke like a struck snake.
"Search the gardens!""The women's wing first!""Check the libraries—""The prayer pavilion—""Tell the Crown Prince—"
They didn't need to.
He was already there.
Samrat Veer Singh stood in the center of her empty chamber, every nerve sharpened into blade. His gaze moved over discarded anklets, folded shawls, the open window through which the wind flung restless curtains like white flags of alarm.
"Where is she?"
No one dared answer quickly.
The world had learned by now that when Samrat grew quiet, fear was wiser than noise.
He tore through the palace himself — past peacocks scattering in the courtyards, past startled guards, past pillars and pools reflecting grey sky. He searched the gardens where she liked to sit with lotus in hand. He searched the libraries scented with sandalwood and old paper. He searched the terrace from which she watched the horizon.
He called her name.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
The sound echoed through corridors — Anushka — breaking servants' hearts like clay pots dropped upon stone.
By the time night fell, torches burned along the palace walls and horsemen fanned out toward the city gates.
"She would not simply vanish," Aditya said quietly beside him.
"No," Samrat whispered, jaw clenched. "She would vanish only for a reason she refuses to burden us with."
"You think she's in danger?"
"I think she believes she is the danger."
His voice cracked for the first time.
He did not sleep that night.
Nor the next.
On the second day, the rain softened into steady weeping from clouds. Samrat's eyes were bloodshot, his voice hoarse from ordering, pleading, threatening, praying. He had ridden as far as the river road and back.
Every shrine.Every ghat.Every side street where a veiled woman might pass unnoticed.
The Queen Regent said little.
But she watched her son and felt her own heart tear.
Maharani Lalima Devi lit lamps in every window, whispering Charumati's and Aarav's names alongside Anushka's.
Mrinalini wrote prayers onto palm leaves and cast them into temple pools.
Aarav refused food.
Rajgarh held its breath.
On the morning of the third day, the temple pandit entered the sanctum at dawn to relight lamps washed out by rain. He was old, bent like a question mark, his beard silver, his steps slow and practiced upon stone.
He stopped.
For at the foot of Kanha's altar lay a young woman — drenched in rain, sari clinging to her, lashes stuck to pale cheeks, breath shallow as prayer smoke.
"Beta…" (Child...)
He hurried as much as old bones allowed, kneeling beside her. Her skin was hot — fever burning beneath the chill of rain. He touched her forehead, then her wrist. Life flickered — faint but stubborn.
"What storm have you walked through alone?" he murmured.
He sent the temple boy racing down the steps toward the city.
"Go to the palace. Call the guard. Tell them the Crown Princess lies in the Lord's arms."
The news flew faster than horses.
Within an hour, palace elephant bells and cavalry harnesses clanged along the road to the temple. The guard captain himself climbed the steps with reverence and terror intertwined.
When Samrat arrived, he did not feel the steps beneath him.
He only saw her.
He fell to his knees beside her, heedless of the mud soaking his royal silks.
"Anushka…"
He gathered her against him with hands that shook despite training that had steadied them in countless battles. He pressed his forehead to hers — fever scorched him.
"You walked into the storm alone… why?"
Her lashes fluttered, but she did not wake.
He lifted her gently, cradling her as though she were made of glass and light. As he descended the temple steps, the banner of Rajgarh snapped in the wind, rain gilding everything into memory.
The city saw their Crown Princess carried home from a temple like a fallen star.
And it whispered.
The court physicians gathered instantly.
The Queen Regent raised her hand.
"No."
They paused, bewildered.
"She has forbidden physicians," she said. "And I will honor her order."
"But Rajmata," one protested, "the fever—"
"I said no."
There was steel in her voice; they did not argue again.
So they did what ancient palaces had done before medicine had names: cool water cloths, neem leaves, whispered mantras, shaded lamps, and vigil.
Anushka lay as though afloat between worlds.
Five days.
On the first day, she burned like a sacred fire.On the second, she murmured words none could decipher — Bengali and Sanskrit tangled with names of gods.On the third, she fell into stillness that frightened even the bravest guards.On the fourth, her fingers curled as if holding an invisible hand.On the fifth, her breath deepened — steadying, quieting, like a storm passing across the sea.
Samrat did not leave her side.
He slept in a carved chair, boots still on, head in his hands, rising at every change in her breathing. Sometimes his palm rested lightly against her wrist, as though to anchor her back to life.
The Queen Regent came often — sometimes to stand, sometimes to sit, always to watch with an expression no court painter could have captured.
Lalima wept behind her veil.Charumati brought flowers.Mrinalini brought scriptures.Aarav brought silence, which he wore like armor.
None spoke of the British.
None spoke of the Benefactor.
None spoke of shadows.
They spoke only of her.
The princes' oath meets love
On the evening of the third day of her sleep, Samrat rose and walked out onto the balcony, the Sun Banner snapping above him, the scent of wet jasmine thick in the air. Aditya joined him silently.
"We swore to protect Rajgarh," Aditya said.
"Yes."
"That includes her."
Samrat did not answer at once.
Then softly:
"It includes especially her."
Aditya nodded. "Then our oath stands doubled tonight."
They clasped wrists — soldier's grip, brother's promise.
Below them, the city lights flickered like prayer lamps floating down the river.
Above them, an unseen future gathered itself.
Waking
On the fifth dawn, as the first rays broke through monsoon clouds and turned the curtains into pale gold, Anushka's lashes trembled like wings.
Her fingers moved.
Her lips parted with a breath deeper than any in days.
Samrat was already leaning forward before her eyes opened; some part of him lived entirely attuned to her now. When she finally looked at him — hazy, confused, alive — he exhaled a breath he had held for days.
"You came back," he whispered.
She frowned faintly. "I went… to the temple…"
"Yes," he murmured. "And you forgot to return."
Tears blurred her vision unexpectedly.
Not from weakness.
From the unbearable tenderness in his voice.
The Queen Regent stepped forward then, relief hidden beneath composed dignity.
"You gave this palace five days of fear," she said softly.
Anushka tried to sit; Samrat's hand stopped her gently.
"Rest."
She closed her eyes for a moment, not in faint but in surrender.
She still felt the rain in her bones, the music of the bhajan echoing in her chest, the warmth of life beneath her ribs — hidden, precious, her secret star.
No one must know.
Not yet.
The Regent's gaze lingered upon her, perceptive, suspicious, protective all at once.
"From now," the Queen Regent said, "you will not walk alone into storms."
Anushka smiled faintly.
I will walk into greater ones, she thought.But I will choose the storms myself.
She whispered only:
"Yes, Rajmata."