~ "In courts of gold, they questioned his absence. In fields of blood, he earned his name."
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"The Rajvansh Samrajya stood at a critical turning point. A storm was approaching."
"But with warriors like Rudrapratap Chauhan... and a prodigy who defied fate itself..."
"The empire would not fall."
Yet even the strongest walls invite questions. And within the walls of the great Rajvansh court—where ambition and honor wrestled behind jeweled smiles—the whispers grew.
The Samrat's proclamation had lit a fire. But not all flames bring warmth.
Some… consume.
Then came a voice—sharpened like a blade, polished with courtly decorum, yet unmistakably laced with disdain.
"Samrat, forgive the interruption," said Samanta Ramachandra Mehta, stepping forward with the slow deliberation of a man who relished every word he planned to speak. His robes—trimmed with silver and navy—flowed like ink in motion. "You speak of a bright future, but forgive me for asking... what sort of child chooses a battlefield more hellish than Narak Lok over the halls of a respected academy?"
A ripple of murmurs danced through the court—quiet. Like sparks flicking across dry grass.
"And I've heard," came another voice—measured, respectful, yet thick with the weight of something planned, eyes never lifting from his folded hands, "that this prodigy—this child so worthy of legend—abandoned his entire team mid-battle."
He let the words linger. Then, softly:
"Yet somehow, he returned alone. His black hair soaked in so much blood that the villagers began calling him Safed-Kesari Rākshas."
The name slithered through the air like poison.
Even the most stoic nobles shifted in their seats. The praise that had once filled the court's breath now turned bitter on the tongue.
And before the air could clear, yet another voice rose—a familiar one.
A voice the court had come to associate not with diplomacy, but with velvet poison.
Angadpratap Chauhan, draped in muted peacock hues with gold threads coiling through the silk like serpents, leaned forward—just enough to command attention, yet not enough to show deference. His attire belied the sharpness of his tongue; his posture poised between elegance and challenge.
"Indeed," he said, the word drawn out like a blade from its sheath. "On one hand, he's accomplished incredible feats. On the other, he is infamous among our noble class. A child who hides his face, refuses to attend banquets, and avoids all ceremonial summons, and has declined—not once, but thrice—an invitation from the imperial family itself. Such behavior borders on insubordination, does it not?"
He let that settle before wisting the knife. His voice turned sharp with amusement.
"Some say children weep when they glimpse his back—so twisted and monstrous is his form. That he wears a mask not for humility… but to spare us the horror."
A ripple of unease stirred through the court. Some nobles chuckled—nervous, brittle. Others shifted in their seats, eyes flicking toward the Samrat in quiet panic. But the emperor's face remained unreadable—a face carved from centuries of rule.
And then, as if moved by an unseen tide, every gaze turned to Rudrapratap Chauhan.
But the warlord did not rise in anger. He did not bark nor bristle, nor unsheath word or blade.
He paused.
Mid-sip.
With deliberate grace, he placed his emerald-etched wine glass onto the jade inlay of the table. The motion was quiet—yet it rang with the finality of a slammed gauntlet.
Slowly. Precisely.
And the air changed.
Like the hush before a storm.
Like the moment the earth holds its breath before it splits.
Then came his voice.
"Are you… questioning that child's loyalty?"
It was calm—
But the calm of an executioner's silence before the axe falls.
His gaze swept across the chamber—not with fury, but with a stillness so absolute it unmanned arrogance and stripped away pretense. In those eyes was winter—piercing, still, final.
"You've heard the story," he continued, voice low and deliberate, "but only half of it."
Silence fell like snowfall.
Not a fan fluttered. Not a whisper dared breathe.
Even the seasoned Mahāsamantas watched now—not in judgement, but in something else.
Something dangerously close to respect.
Then, with a voice as steady as a blade drawn in prayer, he said:
"Oh, it's not your fault… if you lack the depth to understand the weight of silence."
And a hush spread—slow and biting—like frost crawling across marble.
Rudrapratap didn't rise.
He didn't need to.
Even seated, he was a mountain—immovable, immemorial.
"He did not forsake his comrades," he began, his voice level, his gaze sweeping the room like a slow blade. "Amid the clash of steel and the stench of blood, when wounds carved their bodies like divine inscriptions of sacrifice... he stayed. He waited. For the rescue party. For hope."
Vishwanath Kala shifted in his seat—not from guilt, but from something colder. The kind of truth that presses along the spine and leaves no room for rebuttal.
"But fate... faltered," Rudrapratap continued, his tone as sharp as tempered steel. "No banners came over the hills. No horns. No help. Only night… and the howl of circling beasts."
He set his cup down—softly. Deliberately.
Even the silence recoiled.
"So, he bore the burden of a hundred broken men—wounded knights, dying squires, half-conscious soldiers. Through cursed terrain and demon-infested ravines, he carried them. On his back. In his arms. Dragging them when he had no breath left to speak. With nothing but a bloodied blade… and a will that refused to break."
He paused.
"The blood that stained his armor?" His voice didn't rise. It clarified.
"Not his comrades'. Not betrayal. But the monsters he slaughtered—so they could live."
He remained seated—still, composed, unshakable. Not in rage.
In reckoning.
"What you've heard… was not untrue," he said at last, his eyes glinting like obsidian under torchlight. "But it was incomplete."
"And incomplete truths…"
He let the weight settle.
"…are more dangerous than lies."
Then he turned—slowly, like a general surveying a battlefield scattered with broken illusions. His gaze locked onto Ramachandra Mehta, whose jeweled seat now seemed far too grand for the man who occupied it.
"You call him Safed-Kesari Rakshas[1]—"
Rudrapratap's voice sharpened—not in volume, but in precision.
"But at the borderlands, among those he saved, among those who live because he would not leave them to die… he is called something else."
A beat passed.
Then the name:
"Kesari Rakshak[2]."
"Safed Rakshak."
The silence was complete.
Heavy.
Almost holy.
No voice rose in rebuttal. No scoff dared break the stillness.
Because deep down, every soul in that grand hall—from veiled ministers to smirking Mahāsamantas—knew the difference between courtly propaganda… and living legacy.
And the boy they had mocked?
He was no myth.
He was coming.
Rudrapratap's voice remained steady, but a storm now rumbled beneath it—like thunder rolling toward a battlefield.
"Yes," he said, "he was far too young to step onto that cursed battlefield."
He let the words breathe. Let them conjure fire, blood, and screams in the minds of those who'd never known war beyond polished maps.
"But if he hadn't," he continued, voice sharpening like drawn steel, "we would not be here—debating his virtues over wine and luxury."
"We would be counting our dead. Rebuilding villages razed to cinders. Mourning sons and brothers whom no rescue team would have reached in time."
"He brought tools no scholar could craft. Medicines no Rajya-Vaidya could formulate. He forged solutions while others clung to excuses."
Then, leaning forward ever so slightly, his gaze narrowed:
"And you may even call him Safed-Kesari Rākṣasa. Perhaps your titles protect you here in the capital… or perhaps your walls are high and your gates gilded."
A pause. Then:
"But if you ever find yourselves in the Northern Borderlands—where wind bites and shadows hunt—you'd pray that demon finds you."
"Because if he doesn't…
you may not live to see the next morning sun."
And then—unmistakably—his gaze turned to Angadpratap.
"He did not wish to be a sheep among sheep," Rudrapratap said, voice low but ringing with conviction.
The silence in the court deepened—thick as ritual smoke, as if the very walls leaned in to listen.
"He chose to be a wolf. Not of savagery, but of freedom."
"He works when others sleep. He heals while others grieve. He invents while others complain. He's sacrificed rest, comfort—every shred of what should have been his childhood."
He stepped forward once—just once—and his voice rose, not in anger. But in an echoed like a judgment.
"And yet…" his voice rose, slicing clean through the tension in righteous clarity, "you mock him. Because he missed a banquet or two?"
Now his eyes blazed—not with anger, but with something rarer. Something sacred.
Truth, raw and undeniable.
"Are your minds so fractured, your souls so dulled… that you cannot connect the dots?"
The final words cracked through the air like divine thunder beneath temple bells.
A silence followed—stunned, reverent, and absolute.
No rebuttal from Angadpratap.
No muttering from Vishwanath.
Not even Ramachandra dared exhale.
And the Samrat?
Still.
Because in that moment, Rudrapratap Chauhan was no longer merely a war hero.
He was the conscience of the empire.
And the court—draped in jewels, drenched in protocol—had just been measured.
And found lacking.
The court sat frozen.
Not in fear—
but in realization.
Now they understood why earlier the Samrat had not interrupted. Had not rebuked the veiled insults. Had allowed the court to dig its own grave in whispers.
Because the boy had never been required to attend.
The emperor had granted him the freedom to be where he was needed—or where he chose not to be.
A quiet breath stirred the golden drapes of the Rajya Sabha Darbar as Samrat Vikramaditya Rajvanshi leaned forward, his palms rested gently upon his sinhasan. The light of the late morning filtered through intricate jali screens[4], casting geometric shadows upon the marble floor—an echo of the patterns unraveling within the court itself.
His voice, when it came, was low—measured, almost reverent. And yet, it carried through the chamber like scripture, each syllable settling over the nobles and courtiers like the toll of a temple bell.
"I've heard those tales too."
The murmurs that had stirred moments earlier died into stillness. It was no longer a monarch who spoke—but a man, a leader, a father figure. Not one bound by crown or lineage alone, but by the weight of truth and memory.
His eyes did not waver. His tone, stripped of the veneer of royal formality, now bore the warmth of someone who had seen too much to be surprised—and had endured too much to be swayed.
"I've heard of how he stayed beside plague-struck soldiers when even our most learned Rajya-vaidyas had recoiled. Of how he treated them not as burdens to be quarantined, but as lives to be saved—each one precious. When others hesitated, he stepped forward."
He allowed a pause to linger, letting the court absorb the weight of what was being said.
"How he healed wounds no one else dared touch—wounds of flesh, yes, but also wounds of fear, of despair. How he scoured ancient manuscripts, crushed herbs with his bare hands, brewed tinctures by moonlight—not for recognition, nor reward, but because someone had to."
There was a hush in the room now—not just respectful, but reverent. Even those who had whispered and doubted found their eyes lowering.
"And when the beasts came—the ones not born of man's kingdom, but of nightmare and shadow—it was he who stood. Not for title. Not for land. Not for favor."
The Samrat's voice grew quieter still, but somehow it filled the chamber all the more.
"He fought because it was needed."
He exhaled—a quiet sound, but it seemed to carry the weight of a hundred decisions made behind sleepless eyes.
His gaze turned from the distant ceiling, carved with stories of ancestors long past, and fell upon the gathered assembly. There was something in his eyes now—a softness that cracked through the layers of duty and distance.
"His methods may be unorthodox."
A breath. A heartbeat.
"But his loyalty… his service…"
His shoulders straightened. The softness in his gaze gave way to the iron beneath.
"…It is beyond reproach."
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[1] Safed-Kesari Rakshas (काला-कैसरी राक्षस): Safed = White, Kesari = Crimson/Saffron-like, Rakshas = Monster
Safed-Kesari Rakshas = White-Crimson Monster.
[2] Rakshak (रक्षक): Rakshak = Guardian/Protector
Kesari Rakshak = Crimson Guardian.
Safed Rakshak = White Guardian.