The night wind crept through the palace like a thief.
It stirred banners, rustled half-closed curtains, and whispered secrets along the marble floors polished so bright they reflected every lamp like molten stars. Outside, the city slept under the weight of history and expectation. Within the palace walls, however, no such sleep existed.
Rajgarh never slept anymore.
Too many things moved in the dark.
Too many fears wore crowns.
Too many secrets wore smiles.
And one secret wore a veil.
Anushka Devi stood at the upper balcony of the women's wing, the faint glow of torches flickering far beneath her. From this height she could see the main palace courtyard, the statues of long-dead kings standing sentinel at the gates, the giant peepal tree swaying gently as though it too listened.
She wrapped her shawl more closely around her shoulders.
Her hand rested unconsciously against her abdomen again.
The dream still clung to her like perfume she could not wash away — the two moons, the temple of light, the child who called her Amma. Every time she closed her eyes, she felt his small arms around her, heard his laugh, felt the crushing fear of losing him.
Two moons.
Two moons before everything changed — before coronations and departures and heartbreak braided themselves into reality.
Below her, guards marched in quiet rhythm. Ministers whispered in corners even at this hour. A palace full of people… and yet, for the first time in her life, Anushka had never felt more alone.
Except she was not alone.
She was the Shadow.
The court had given that nameless figure many titles:
The Benefactor.
The Whisper in Darkness.
The Shadow Over the Throne.
They spoke of this person with dread and grudging awe — an entity that moved unseen, who knew too much and struck with perfect precision.
They feared a man.
They pictured daggers, scars, and cloaks dripping with danger.
Not once did they imagine the gentle-faced Yuvrani who bowed respectfully in the court, who sang bhajans softly in the temple, who smiled politely at the queens and touched the feet of elders. Not once did they suspect the young woman who seemed too dutiful, too quiet, too breakable.
That was her greatest shield.
Nobody looked for a storm inside a lotus.
A faint rustle of cloth announced a presence.
From the shadows beneath the archway, a figure in plain servant attire stepped forward and bowed. His face remained lowered.
"The final preparations are complete," he murmured.
"Good," Anushka replied softly without turning. Emotion was not permitted here; softness was for Samrat, for dreams, for prayer — not for this world of knives. "And the message?"
"It has been delivered… without leaving a trace."
Her eyes did not blink.
"Then the minister will speak tomorrow," she whispered.
"Yes, My—" he hesitated, then corrected himself quickly, "—Mistress."
A faint breath escaped her — not quite a sigh, not quite a word.
He melted back into the darkness, gone as though swallowed whole by the night. No footstep sounded. No echo betrayed him. They were ghosts, all of them — people she trusted because they owed their lives to the unseen hand they served.
Her hand.
She remained a moment longer, staring at the courtyard.
"I am the shadow over the throne," she thought bitterly, not proudly. "And the throne is the cage of my life."
The Court the Next Morning
Morning arrived with fanfare.
Drums rolled. Conch shells were blown. Curtains were drawn back to bathe the palace in honey-colored sunlight.
The Maha Sabha convened.
Courtiers gathered like peacocks, bright silks layered over darker ambitions. Gold flashed. Diamonds did what diamonds always do — distract men from their own mortality.
Samrat Veer Singh sat on the high seat.
He looked stronger these days, the shadow of his recent illness fading from his face, though not yet fully gone. He wore white and crimson, the colors of balance and power. But his eyes kept drifting — searching the rows automatically.
Searching for her.
He found her.
Anushka entered quietly, her veil modestly lowered, jewels light, posture a perfect lesson in grace. She sat slightly behind and to the side — close enough to be seen, far enough to be underestimated.
The court buzzed to life.
Accusations.
Disputes.
British Envoys whose smiles never touched their eyes.
Subtle threats wrapped in polished English.
Whispered complaints of taxes, rebellions, grain, border raiders.
But beneath it all lay something deeper, pulsing like a hidden river — a feeling that some unseen presence guided things they could not name.
"A shadow watches," one noble muttered under his breath.
"A demon moves in the night," another replied.
"A savior," whispered one of the younger officers, quickly silenced with a glare.
The Regent Queen's gaze swept the room sharply. Her mind worked always — measuring, controlling, suspecting. Even love for her son sat carefully folded beneath layers of politics.
Anushka felt that gaze like a blade.
She lowered her eyes demurely.
Behind that veil of modest silence, her thoughts moved like lightning.
Ministers loyal.
Ministers bought.
Ministers pretending.
Every passage of the palace mapped in her mind from the secret maps.
Every guard rotation memorized.
Every weak link quietly strengthened.
It was never about destroying the kingdom.
It had always been about protecting it — even against itself.
And protecting the child she carried.
The British Envoy rose.
"We have reason to believe," he said in polished measured tones, "that someone within this palace orchestrates movements beyond Your Majesty's knowledge. Someone powerful. Someone dangerous. A shadow."
Whispers exploded.
The words seemed to freeze the air.
Eyes turned everywhere at once — toward generals, toward ministers, toward rival princes.
Not one toward her.
Not one toward the quiet queen who lowered her lashes just enough to hide the spark within them.
Samrat's jaw tightened.
"If such a shadow exists," he said calmly, "we will find him."
Anushka's fingers curled in her lap.
Him.
The pronoun saved her more than any disguise ever could.
The Regent Queen's gaze lingered again.
Too long.
Too sharp.
Something cold crawled down Anushka's spine — not fear for herself, but fear for her secret, for the life within her, for the web she had woven so tightly now that one thread pulled wrong might unravel everything.
Night Again — The Cloak Returns
That night, the palace slept restlessly.
Thunder growled beyond the horizon.
In a hidden chamber beneath the old prayer hall, lamps burned low, throwing long wavering shadows on stone walls.
A hooded figure stood at the center.
Black cloak.
Face veiled.
Voice absent.
She did not speak.
She never did.
The man behind her — tall, wrapped in shadow — spoke for her as always, his tone carefully even.
"The plan advances," he said to those kneeling before them. "The ministers who held back grain will confess in the coming days. The envoy's false tariffs will be exposed. And the message sent to the soldiers' families has already restored loyalty in the north."
Murmurs of awe.
Fear.
Devotion that bordered on worship.
They knelt not to a queen, but to an idea.
The Benefactor.
The unseen guardian.
The shadow.
Anushka's heartbeat echoed in her ears. She said nothing because words would betray softness — and softness killed leaders before blades ever did.
Yet she was tired tonight.
Bone-tired.
A fine tremor ran through her hand beneath the cloak — unseen.
One of the men dared to ask:
"Why do you help us? Who are you truly?"
The shadow man behind her answered calmly:
"She is the one who carries the kingdom's burden so you do not break beneath it."
Her throat tightened.
If they only knew how true those words were.
Her child shifted.
Tears stung behind her eyes — unseen, unfallen.
The meeting ended.
They dispersed like smoke.
The man behind her turned, concern flickering briefly through his usually unreadable face.
"You should rest," he murmured so only she could hear.
"I cannot," she replied at last, her voice low, the cloak making it sound like it came from another world entirely. "The throne sleeps lightly now. And shadows are not permitted sleep."
He bowed.
She slipped away through forgotten corridors only she knew fully, emerging at last into the temple courtyard. Rain had begun to fall — soft at first, then in silver sheets that drenched the earth in moments.
She tilted her face up into it.
The storm hid her tears.
Elsewhere, a lamp still burned.
Samrat Veer Singh stood alone in his chamber, the rain drumming the windows like impatient fingers. He had spread parchments before him — reports, letters, strange coincidences all pointing toward a hidden hand in the palace.
A hand that did not seek gold.
Did not seek power.
Did not leave bodies.
But moved.
Always moved.
A hand That seek Freedom.
"Who are you?" he whispered into the empty room.
A strange unease crept through him — not fear, but recognition, like standing in a dark room you know but cannot see.
And then, very softly, another thought he did not want:
What if the shadow is someone within the palace council?
He shut his eyes.
Lightning flashed.
For a heartbeat he imagined the Queen consort standing in the corridor, her veil lifting in stormlight.
He shook the thought away.
"No," he murmured. "She… she is incapable of such darkness."
Lightning answered him again as if the heavens themselves disagreed.
He did not yet understand:
The shadow was not darkness.
The shadow was the shield.
Back in her chamber, Anushka finally removed the heavy cloak, folding it with the reverence of ritual and hiding it beneath the false panel of the chest at the foot of her bed.
The palace thought her asleep.
The kingdom thought her fragile.
The ministers thought her obedient.
The British thought her naive.
The Regent Queen thought her dangerous — but not yet why.
Only the gods knew she was all of these things and none.
She sat before the small mirror, touching her stomach slowly, almost wonderingly, whispering words meant only for one tiny listener.
"You are my light," she murmured. "And I will cross fire and shadow both to keep you safe."
Thunder rolled like distant drums of war.
Somewhere deep within the palace, bells tolled midnight.
The coronation approached.
Departure approached.
Choices sharpened like blades.
And above the throne of Rajgarh, unseen by everyone who slept under its shadow, the true architect of fate moved silently — not enemy, not savior, something more complex:
A queen
A mother
A weapon
A prayer
A shadow.
And her name was Anushka Devi.
The rain cleansed the city during the night, but by morning it had not washed fear away.
If anything, fear had settled deeper — like water soaking slowly into the foundations of the palace itself.
Servants whispered.
Soldiers prayed more than usual.
Ministers watched shadows as though expecting them to reach out and strangle.
Rumours did what rumours always do — they became living beings, fed by imagination, fed by tension, fed by the inability of powerful men to accept that someone moved beyond their reach.
They said:
The Shadow walked on the ramparts at night, invisible to guards.
The Shadow drank no water and ate no food.
The Shadow could speak in a hundred tongues.
The Shadow slipped through walls.
The Shadow was the ghost of a former king.
The Shadow was a demon blessed by Kali.
The Shadow was British.
The Shadow was an ascetic saint.
The Shadow… was everywhere and nowhere.
Anushka passed through these same corridors where whispers curled like incense smoke. Veils fluttered as she walked. Heads bowed to her with respect — respect she had earned, respect she had paid for, respect mixed with curiosity and an increasingly soft warmth.
To them, she was the dutiful Crown Princess.
The lady who sang bhajans.
The wife who watched her husband with eyes full of quiet devotion.
The daughter–in–law who bore burdens silently.
No one noticed the faint fatigue deep around her eyes or the way she sometimes pressed her palm to her side when she thought she was alone. No one counted the hours she slept at odd times. No one marked the way she sometimes paused mid-sentence because her breath caught.
No one except, sometimes, Samrat.
He noticed everything about her — not because he was suspicious, but because love makes the smallest changes enormous.
That evening he found her in the inner gardens, where jasmine spilled fragrance thickly into the air and soft golden lamps lit the pathways.
She was sitting beneath the ancient neem tree.
Alone.
Or so she appeared.
Her hand rested upon her lap, fingers absently moving in circles. A book sat open beside her — poetry in Sanskrit, unread. The sound of fountains mingled with the chirr of night insects.
He did not announce himself.
He simply stood there a moment and watched her — the tilt of her head, the fall of her hair, the vulnerability of someone who thought no one was looking. His heart tightened with an emotion too large for simple words like love.
"Anushka," he said softly.
She startled — just a fraction — then smiled up at him, and the world steadied around him.
"Samrat," she replied gently. "You should rest. Tomorrow is a long court."
He came to sit beside her.
"Tomorrow is always a long court," he said with quiet bitterness. "But this is… peace."
He didn't take her hand immediately. He waited — he always waited — until she either withdrew or offered. Tonight, after a heartbeat of hesitance, she let her fingers slip into his.
His warmth surrounded her.
His presence steadied her.
And that made everything far harder.
Because the more she loved him, the more dangerous the future became.
He studied her face more closely now.
"You look tired," he murmured. "A kind of tired that sleep does not cure."
For a moment she almost said it.
Almost told him about the child.
About leaving.
About the cloak hidden in a chest and a map hidden in her mind.
But fate has its own timing.
Her lashes lowered.
"I am well," she said softly. "There is simply… much to think about."
Thunder muttered far away again — as if the heavens laughed.
He squeezed her hand.
"You do not have to think alone."
She turned her face away so he would not see the storm in her eyes.
I do, she thought. Because if I do not, everything we love burns.
The Regent Queen Watches
From a window above, unseen by them both, the Regent Queen watched.
Her face was unreadable marble, carved by years of duty and sacrifice. She was mother, monarch, strategist — and tonight, something else:
A woman who had learned how dangerous love could be in palaces.
Her gaze remained fixed not on Samrat — but on Anushka.
There it was again.
Stillness.
Depth.
Silence that hid things.
Not rebellion — the Queen Regent knew rebellion when she saw it, and Anushka was not a rebel.
No, this was something older, weightier, more dangerous than rebellion.
This was purpose.
And people with purpose were unpredictable.
She turned from the window.
"Keep discreet watch over the women's wing," she instructed her most trusted maid quietly. "No alarms. No accusations. But open your ears. The wind carries more than fragrance lately."
The maid bowed.
The Queen Regent remained alone.
Her fingers tightened around the railing behind her. For the first time in all her years of ruling men who thought themselves lions, she had encountered something she could not yet name.
She spoke softly into the silence.
"Daughter," she whispered, not without affection, "who are you really?"
The British Residency glowed with imported glass lamps and heavy chandeliers that looked as though they feared nothing, least of all gravity.
Inside, men in crisp uniforms stood over large maps of Rajgarh like surgeons preparing to open a living body. Their words were cool, polite, deadly.
"The Maharaja weakens," one said flatly.
"The Crown Prince rises."
"And someone else rises with him."
They all knew of the Shadow too.
To them, the shadow was not myth.
To them, the shadow was a threat to control.
"Find this Benefactor," the envoy said, folding his hands behind his back. "Break his network. Make him visible."
"And if he does not reveal himself?"
The envoy smiled.
"Then we will do what we always do," he said lightly. "Squeeze the throat of the kingdom until even a shadow needs breath."
Outside, rain fell harder, as if the skies mourned futures not yet born.
The Temple Flame
Anushka returned once more to the temple that night — not as Benefactor, not as Crown Princess, but simply as herself.
Alone.
She lit a single diya.
The flame wavered in the breeze then steadied, offering small defiance against the darkness.
She bowed.
"Give me strength," she whispered. "Not for crowns. Not for glory. But to walk the path I have chosen and to carry what I must."
Lightning flared.
For one heartbeat she felt eyes upon her — not mortal eyes, but something vast and ancient as the land itself.
The shadow stretched behind her on the floor — long, sharp, unmistakable.
It reached toward the inner sanctum like a living thing.
And in that moment, if any poet had been there to see it, he would have sworn the temple itself recognized her.
Not as destroyer.
Not as savior.
As something inevitable.
The Shadow over the Throne