Monsoon rains withdrew as if the skies themselves were tired of weeping.
The clouds broke, and Rajgarh bathed once more in sunlight. Brass bells sang in temples. The air smelled of sandalwood, wet stone, and marigold garlands strung across wide gates. Everywhere, white cloth canopies rose like tents of cloud across courtyards, erected carefully to shade nobles, envoys, generals and priests.
Yet beneath all the gold and ceremony, the palace heartbeat was uneven.
Because the time had come.
The Crown Prince would become King.
And beside him — the one the kingdom now placed its trust in during the Maharaja's illness — would stand Anushka Devi, to be crowned Queen Regent of Rajgarh.
Samrat Veer Singh woke before dawn.
He stood in silence at the balcony, palms resting against the carved railing. The wind tugged gently at the ends of his shawl, lifting it in pale banners. For once he wore no armor. No jewelled sash. Only simple white — the color of vows, of beginnings, and sometimes of endings.
He looked at the palace below.
At the domes that had guarded his childhood.
At the courtyards where he had played with Aarav.
At the long corridors where he and Aditya had sparred and laughed and bled together.
This place was about to become his burden fully.
Not tomorrow.
Not someday.
Now.
A soft knock broke the quiet.
He didn't turn. He already knew the touch.
"Come in, Anu."
Her anklets chimed lightly as she approached. The early light drew a faint halo around her — pale gold on cream silk, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She moved slower these days, but carried herself with the same fierce dignity.
She stood beside him.
No crown yet.
Not on her head.
But already in the steadiness of her gaze.
"They've begun decorating the south courtyard," she said gently. "Priests from Kashi arrived at midnight."
"And the British envoy?"
"In attendance," she replied, something steeling in her voice. "Of course."
They fell quiet again.
A lone bird cut across the golden sky.
Samrat finally spoke, voice barely above a whisper.
"I dreamed of my father again."
Her hand closed over his.
"Was it the fire dream?" she asked softly.
He nodded.
The torches. The collapsing dais. His father's voice calling his name through smoke — always stopping just short of finishing the sentence.
He swallowed.
"I don't know if he wants me to take this crown," he confessed. "Or if he is warning me."
She turned toward him fully.
"He wants you to stand," she said. "Because kings do not choose crowns. Crowns choose kings when time demands them."
His jaw tightened.
"And what about you?"
"Me?"
"You did not dream?"
She held his gaze for a heartbeat too long.
Yes.
She had dreamed.
She dreamed of waves and river lamps carried away in dark currents. She dreamed of a child crying in her arms whom no one else could see. She dreamed of long roads stretching east beneath banyan shade.
She dreamed…
of leaving.
But she only smiled faintly.
"I dreamed of the rehearsal."
He laughed despite the heaviness in his chest.
"Of course you did. You're the only person in this palace who rehearses a rehearsal."
"That," she said with mock dignity, "is how kingdoms survive."
His laughter faded into something quieter… warmer… aching.
He touched her cheek gently, thumb brushing away a strand of hair.
"You will stand beside me."
"As I have always stood."
He nodded.
"And they will call you Queen Regent of Rajgarh."
Something trembled deep inside her.
Not fear.
Not pride.
Something older.
Something that knew crowns are not ornaments—they are trials carved into gold.
She answered simply:
"Yes."
By midmorning, the palace had become a living tide.
Silk rustled like wind through fields.
Drums echoed.
Conches blew.
The Council of Nobles gathered in the audience hall beneath banners embroidered with suns and lions. Maharani Aishvarya Devi – the Queen Regent in power still – watched over arrangements with eyes that caught every flaw.
She looked like stone carved into grace.
She was pleased by little.
Today, she was pleased by nothing.
"The dais is too low," she said sharply. "Raise it by two steps. A king must be looked up to, not looked at."
Servants bowed and hurried.
She turned to Anushka.
"You will walk twelve steps behind him at first. Then the Vedic chant will begin. When they place the Amrit kalash before you, you will step equal."
Anushka inclined her head.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Their eyes locked.
There was so much unspoken between the two women — steel recognizing steel, wound recognizing wound. Aishvarya Devi saw the circles beneath Anushka's eyes. The faint paleness that no lotus paste could hide. The breath that trembled just a fraction shorter than it once had.
"You must not faint," the older Queen said bluntly.
"I will not," Anushka replied just as directly.
"And you must not cry during the vows."
"I do not cry."
Aishvarya's gaze softened in a way she would never admit aloud.
"Exactly why I say it," she murmured.
Rehearsal began.
The temple priests raised their hands and the chant deepened, Sanskrit rolling across stone and water like thunder spoken aloud.
Samrat stepped forward.
Ruby light fell through the stained glass, igniting the jewels at his collar. He moved without hesitation — every lesson drilled into muscle since childhood guiding him.
He bowed before the sacred flame.
He bowed before his mother.
He bowed last before the throne.
"Samrat Veer Singh," the head priest intoned, "son of Maharaja Virendra Dev Raj, do you accept the responsibility of kingship?"
"Yes."
"Do you vow to protect dharma, people, and land?"
"Yes."
"Do you understand that crown and sacrifice are one?"
His gaze flickered to Anushka.
"I do."
"Then you shall wear the Crown of Suns."
The golden circlet was lifted.
Anushka watched the moment in silence — breath held not from awe but from something deeper and lonelier. For with every inch that crown descended, the distance between them grew into a law older than either of them:
The king belongs to the world.
And the woman he loves must learn to let go.
The coronation rehearsal continued.
Priests turned toward her.
"Anushka Devi, daughter of Bengal, wife of Samrat Veer Singh, do you accept the regency of Rajgarh while the Maharaja's strength remains unsteady?"
Her throat tightened.
This was not the true coronation—but vows spoken even in rehearsal already weighed like chains.
"I accept."
They anointed her brow with vermilion and sandal paste.
They draped her in the mantle of regency — white silk bordered with emerald and sun-thread.
They placed in her hand the Seal of Rajgarh.
Power is heavy.
She did not tremble.
But inside, something broke quietly.
Because she knew what no one else did:
Two moons remained.
Two moons to rule.
Two moons to stay.
Two moons before she would disappear under night sky, leaving husband… crown… and child's future to fate and Bengal's protection.
Tonight the decision hardened into steel inside her.
If I am to leave, I will not flee as a coward.I will leave as a crowned Queen.I will do my duty — then vanish.
When rehearsal ended, applause thundered.
Musicians struck jubilant ragas.
Envoys praised.
Ministers bowed.
But Samrat saw only her.
He read the exhaustion she hid behind perfect posture. The tightness around her smile. The hand pressed too often briefly to her abdomen when she thought no one watched.
He took her aside the moment formality loosened.
They stepped into the Hall of Mirrors where light fractured into infinite reflections of them.
His hand gently turned her to face him.
"Tell me what you hide," he whispered.
Her heart stumbled.
"I hide nothing."
"You hide everything."
His voice broke — not in anger — but in fear.
"Anushka… do you regret marrying me?"
The question struck like lightning.
She grabbed his wrists.
"No!"
The word escaped too quickly — too raw — to be diplomacy.
"I regret nothing that has your name in it," she said fiercely. "Nothing."
His eyes closed in relief.
"Then why do you look toward the east every time the dawn comes?"
Her breath stopped.
He had seen.
He always saw.
She placed her forehead against his.
"Because the east is where rivers begin," she whispered. "And someday all rivers must return home."
He didn't understand the full meaning.
Not yet.
But he felt the edges of departure in her voice and panic flashed through him like a boy losing the only hand that had ever steadied him.
"Promise me," he whispered hoarsely. "Promise me you will stay after coronation."
Her nails bit into her palm beneath the folds of silk.
I will not lie to him.But I cannot tell him truth.
"I promise," she said softly,
and her heart shattered,
because her promise was not to stay—
it was to love him until the last step she ever took away from him.
That night rain came again.
Soft.
Persistent.
The palace slept.
She did not.
Anushka sat at her writing desk, moonlight turning her pages silver. The Seal of Rajgarh lay beside her hand. The regent cloak hung across the back of her chair. She touched her abdomen gently — protective, instinctive — the movement of every mother since time began.
Two moons.
Two moons before they would know.
Two moons before the palace whispers turned into knives.
She could already see it:
A foreign queen.A hidden child.A kingdom in storm.
She closed her eyes.
"I will not risk you," she whispered to the life inside her.
She opened the drawer beneath the desk.
Inside — carefully folded, perfectly clean, deadly quiet —
lay the hooded cloak of The Benefactor.
She touched the fabric.
No one would ever know.
No one must ever know.
By day she would rule as Queen Regent.
By night she would move as shadow.
And when coronation came…
She would place crown upon her own head, smile before the world, and when Samrat slept at last in peace—
She would walk barefoot through the secret tunnel beneath the palace and vanish toward Bengal before the fourth moon rose.
No one would stop her.
Not because they could not.
But because she would not let them see her go.
She pressed her forehead to the desk and finally allowed herself what she had forbidden for months.
She cried silently.
Not as queen.
Not as shadow.
As a woman who loved one man enough to leave him,
and one unborn child enough to do whatever fate demanded.
The kingdom woke again at dawn.
Drums resumed.
Priests rehearsed final chants.
The coronation was still two moons away.
Yet destiny had already shifted.
The British envoy did not smile.
The Queen Regent in power watched with hawk-like calm.
Aditya sharpened his sword and waited for enemies he knew were coming.
Samrat loved his wife and did not know he was already counting his last nights with her beside him.
And Anushka Devi — Crown Princess now formally named soon-to-be Queen Regent — stood at the threshold of everything she had ever been taught to be…
and the road that would one day take her away.
She lifted her face to the rising sun.
"Two moons," she whispered.
The light broke fully across the palace.
And preparations for the true coronation began.