~ "I've never seen his face… but his silence knows my sorrow."
✦ ──────────── ✦ ──────────── ✦ ──────────── ✦
Vikramaditya turned, grief and awe braided in his gaze.
"I need to meet him."
Rudrapratap bowed his head slightly, the sunlight catching in the silver threads of his beard.
"You will. But not here. Not yet. Let the time choose when and where. He is a storm in disguise—but he's also just a boy who's never known to world."
Samrat Vikramaditya looked upward—not toward stars, but toward the pale blue sky.
"Then let us be the ones to give it to him."
They stood in silence.
The sounds of the garden filled the space between them—birdsong, wind, and the faint echo of a temple bell in the distance.
The emperor's eyes remained on the distant sky, where clouds drifted like memories too stubborn to fade. For a long moment, it seemed as though the conversation had ended.
But then—
Something in him shifted.
Not loud. Not sudden.
Like a door opening inward, into chambers long sealed.
His hand lowered from the railing, falling loosely at his side.
He didn't look at Rudrapratap. He didn't need to.
The wound had opened, and the truth—tender, buried, long-denied—rose to the surface like breath after drowning.
Then his face clouded with grief long buried…
Vikramaditya exhaled—a slow, trembling breath.
He turned his face away, hiding something that flickered in his eyes.
A moment passed.
Then another.
Finally, in a voice brittle with what he had never dared to say before, he murmured:
"That boy reminds me of someone."
Rudrapratap blinked, confused. "Who?"
The emperor's fingers trembled—barely, but enough.
"Someone I failed to protect."
He set the cup down, its porcelain clinking softly against jade.
"I once swore… never again."
His voice cracked, then steadied like a drawn bow.
"That child—he doesn't ask for anything. Not even rest. Not even recognition. It's as if he's trying to outrun a shadow that none of us can see. And I… I can't help but feel that I know that darkness. I carried it once."
Rudrapratap leaned back slowly. Understanding was beginning to dawn.
"Vikram… who was he?"
But the Samrat did not answer.
Instead, he stood and walked to the edge of the fountain, where the morning light danced across the rippling water. His reflection shimmered—split, uncertain, like his heart.
"He has enemies within these very walls. They fear him because they cannot control him. Cannot own him."
He exhaled again, the pain buried in his voice no longer hidden.
"And if I show him favor too openly… they'll devour him from the inside. Turn him into a scapegoat. Or worse.
A pause. Then, almost a confession:
"I was afraid of that. That's why, with my own hands… when he was just two-and-two-months years old…
I hid him among the people.
So, he could grow up normal. Like others."
Rudrapratap rose beside him.
"Then you must protect him in the near future, Vikram," he said firmly. "If not with your throne, then with your truth."
The Samrat looked at his old mentor—his father in all but by bond.
And for a heartbeat, Vikramaditya Rajvanshi was no longer emperor. No longer Maharajadhiraj—
But a boy again.
Wounded.
Afraid.
Still searching for something he had lost long ago.
He nodded slowly.
"I will. Even if I must stand alone."
They stood in silence
The sounds of the garden filled the space between them—birdsong, wind, and the faint echo of a temple bell in the distance. The fragrance of sandalwood mixed with rosewater hung in the warm noon air.
Meanwhile, far from the court's politics and whispers of lineage—
In a quiet chamber where sunlight spilled across ancient stone…
The child they spoke of stood by a wooden window.
As if he sensed it—somewhere across the wind—that the two men, beneath the sun and fading memories, had spoken his name like a prayer.
And his heart stirred, though he did not know why—as if something distant had reached across time and touched him.
But something... had changed.
For a moment, all was still.
But as the weight of the conversation settled into their bones, something else began to stir—something older, deeper, long unspoken.
Vikramaditya remained quiet, the light shifting across his face as clouds passed overhead. His thoughts had turned inward, but Rudrapratap's eyes remained fixed on the rippling water of the fountain.
And then, as if carried by the same breeze that whispered through the ivy-wrapped columns, a new silence arrived between them.
Not empty—but waiting.
Rudrapratap's voice broke it—quieter now. Less a statement, more a surrender.
"He... Dev Narayan... helps without being asked. Without expecting anything in return. He's mastered every discipline he's touched—swordsmanship, medicine, spirit-forging, even enchantment engineering. He crafted guidance devices for lost soldiers... guided entire battalions back from fog-shrouded ruins."
He paused. His gaze dropped to the still surface of the rose-water fountain.
"He's the same age as my grandchild... would be. My daughter's child."
Vikramaditya turned his full attention to him. Something shifted—unspoken—between warrior and king, uncle and nephew, old friend and old wound.
"When he smiles with villagers—so easily, like he belongs—I feel warmth. But when he looks at nobles... when he looks at me, his eyes grow cold."
Rudrapratap's hands clenched lightly on the armrest.
"He nursed me through fever, stitched wounds I didn't even notice bleeding. He knows my routines. My morning chants. Even my favorite poem. He watches over me like..."
His voice trembled.
"... like a grandchild would."
Silence gathered, dense and sacred.
"And yet... I don't know him. Not truly. I don't know what he dreams of. What he fears. What he wants."
A pause.
Then, quietly, as if peeling open a part of himself, he had kept hidden even from the gods:
"I don't even know where my own grandchild is."
He turned away.
"I am... an incompetent grandfather."
The words hung there, bruised and raw.
Vikramaditya didn't interrupt. He let the silence cradle them both. The bright sunlight reflected in his eyes—eyes heavy with grief, yet gentle with understanding.
"You see him not just as a soldier, but as a ghost of someone you lost," the Samrat finally said, voice low and warm. "Perhaps... he sees you the same way."
Rudrapratap looked up—eyes weary, but no longer ashamed.
"Maybe. But I fear... the ghosts in both of us are too proud to speak first."
A breeze rustled the ivies climbing the alabaster columns. Somewhere, in a far corner of the garden, a bird stirred—then fell silent again.
Rudrapratap looked away again, his voice a breath against the silence.
"He feels like a stranger… and yet, not entirely. For the past three years, there's been this quiet pull. A familiarity I cannot explain."
He paused—eyes distant, chasing ghosts.
"Just like it was… ten years ago."
Vikramaditya stilled.
"The day everything changed."
Rudrapratap's fingers curled slightly around his cup, knuckles white with memory.
"My grandson was only four. Fragile. Innocent. A soft laugh that clung to the corners of the house like incense. I still remember the way he held my hand that morning... tugged at my cloak because he wanted to ride the warhorse."
His throat tightened.
"We were ambushed that day. They came without warning. Cloaked in black—two teams. One engaged me and my knights in a brutal diversion. The other…"
He trailed off.
"They vanished with him."
The garden's silence felt heavy, as if the trees themselves bowed in grief.
"We scoured the forests till dawn. The rivers. The hills. Found only one answer—that they'd passed into the shadowed valleys beyond Uttarakund. But no trail. No ransom. No message. Not even bones."
His voice dropped.
"It was like the world had swallowed him. Or worse—someone had erased him."
Deliberate. Surgical. Almost as if fate itself had been rewritten that day.
"Who were they? Why him? Why then?"
He looked to the sky, like chasing a ghost
"What happened to him after that? Was he sold? Raised under another name? Turned into… something else?"
His hand trembled.
"And the question that haunts me..."
He turned back to Vikramaditya—eyes wet but unbroken.
"Where is he now?"
A long silence fell. Not empty—but echoing with a thousand unanswered prayers.
Then Rudrapratap's voice, barely a whisper.
"Sometimes I look at Dev... and I feel it. The same look in his eyes. The way he grips his sword—not with pride, but with desperation. His scars. His solitude. His anger…"
A pause.
"Sometimes I wonder…"
He did not finish the thought. But he didn't need to.
Vikramaditya's gaze held his.
The idea had been planted.
The silence that followed didn't deny it.
"Tauji…?"
Vikramaditya leaned forward, concern tightening in his voice. "Rudrapratap ji!"
There was no response.
The old general stood frozen—his gaze locked on the fountain, unmoving, unblinking. As if caught between one breath and the next… in a place only he could see.
"Tauji!" Vikramaditya repeated, more sharply now.
Still nothing.
At last, the Samrat stepped closer and gently placed a hand on Rudrapratap's shoulder.
"Tauji… are you with me?"
For a heartbeat, the garden held its breath.
Then, slowly—like dawn breaking after a sleepless night—Rudrapratap stirred. His eyes blinked once, twice… and then focused on Vikramaditya. The haze of memory still clung to his expression.
"Haa... forgive me, Samrat," he murmured, voice rough. "I… I am not well."
He did not wait for permission. He simply adjusted his cloak in silence.
"May I be excused?"
And without another word, he walked away—each step quiet, each movement heavy with the weight of years.
Vikramaditya stood motionless, watching the figure recede into the dying light.
"Tauji… why do you still carry the weight of the past?" he whispered. "Can you not step forward… and embrace the present?"
His voice faded with the wind, unanswered.
The golden light of the setting sun painted long shadows behind Rudrapratap—shadows that trailed him like ghosts.
And the emperor, standing alone among the white flowers, understood something clearly for the first time:
The past was not dead.
It had only returned…
In a new shape.
With silver hair, a masked face—
And armor stained in the blood of monsters.
"…Tauji, why do you still carry the burden of the past?"
Samrat Vikramaditya's voice was little more than a whisper, meant for no one—yet heavy enough to follow Rudrapratap's fading steps.
The elder's figure moved slowly along the path, shadow stretching long beneath the amber light of sunset—drawn backward, it seemed, by years too heavy to forget.
Rudrapratap paused near the edge of the garden path, his eyes lifting skyward—toward a heaven that never answered. A sigh escaped his lips. Dry. Weathered. Ancient.
Vikramaditya stepped forward, catching up.
"Why not name Dev as your family's heir?"
The question hung in the dusk like smoke.
Rudrapratap's reply came quick, harsh—too harsh.
"Him?"
He turned slightly—not facing the Samrat, but enough that the bitterness in his voice cut through the air.
"I've never even seen his face."
A pause. A breath.
"How can I entrust a legacy to a shadow?"
Then he kept walking, the sound of his boots soft against the stone path.
Vikramaditya stood still, watching him disappear into the deepening twilight.
And though no words followed, a single unspoken thought drifted between them:
Perhaps… that shadow is all that remains of what was once lost.
But on the other side—
I worry… he'll be devoured whole by this court's politics—
just like it once tried to swallow my own blood.
Rudrapratap composed himself, drawing in a steady breath.
"Samrat," he said, his voice firm but low, "thanks to Dev, the northern incursion by those demon forces was thwarted today. But their failure does not mean their intent has ended. Only that it has been... delayed."
He paused, eyes narrowing as if seeing beyond the garden, beyond the palace walls.
"They will return. Once their strength is restored, they will strike again—not from the north this time, but from elsewhere. They seek not merely entry—but dominion."
His gaze lingered a moment longer—then he turned away. And with steps slow and deliberate, he disappeared from the Samrat's sight, leaving behind the weight of both memory and warning.