Her pov
He drew back slowly, as though even the smallest distance between us required care, as though breaking the closeness too abruptly might fracture something that had only just begun to take shape. The world narrowed—quietly, completely—until it was only him and me.
I felt it happen, the way everything else slipped out of reach. The palace, the night, the reason I had even stepped out of my chamber… all of it faded until there was only the space between us.
His forehead came to rest against mine first, and even that felt like a question—as if closeness, for him, was never something taken, only something offered… and waited for.
His breath brushed warm against my skin, uneven—not hurried, not careless, but restrained. Like he was holding something back, something that pressed too close to the surface.
A damp strand of my hair clung to his cheek, and he stilled.
For a moment, I remained exactly as I was, caught in that fragile stillness, our breaths still uneven, mingling softly in the narrow space between us. The corridor seemed to recede into something distant and unimportant, its shadows and silence no longer pressing against me in the same suffocating way, because all I could feel was him—his presence, his warmth, the quiet steadiness that seemed to anchor everything around him.
“You are not fine,” he murmured, his voice low, close enough that it brushed against me rather than simply reaching my ears.
I shook my head almost instinctively, the denial forming before I had even allowed myself to consider the truth of it. “No… I’m fine.”
Even as I said it, I knew it was not convincing, not to him and not even to myself, but there was something within me that resisted admitting weakness, resisted letting this moment become anything other than what it was.
He did not argue.
He did not question.
He simply straightened slightly and lifted his hand, placing his palm against my forehead, and the moment his skin met mine, I felt the difference with startling clarity.
His touch was cool.
Mine burned.
I saw it in his expression before he spoke, the quiet shift, the certainty settling into his gaze.
“You have a fever.”
And with that, everything I had momentarily forgotten returned all at once, not gradually, not gently, but with a clarity that felt almost jarring. The dull ache in my limbs, the heaviness that made each movement feel deliberate, the dryness in my throat that burned with every breath—it all settled back into me, as though it had only been waiting for acknowledgment.
A soft laugh escaped me then, unsteady and faintly disbelieving, as though I could not quite reconcile what I felt with what had just happened. “The daldal… then the waterfall…” I murmured, the words slipping out in fragments that seemed disconnected and yet somehow deeply tied to everything I had just lived through.
His hands came up to my face then, holding my cheeks with a kind of fond exasperation that felt so achingly familiar it made my chest tighten, and he gave my head a light shake, as though I were something both troublesome and dear all at once.
“You really do attract trouble.”
Despite everything, despite the fever and the confusion and the lingering haze that refused to clear completely, I made a faint face in protest, something instinctive, almost childish in its reflex.
“I do not—”
He laughed softly, the sound low and warm, breaking through the strange stillness that lingered in the corridor, and for a fleeting moment it grounded me more than anything else had.
“Come,” he said, already reaching for my hand again, his fingers closing around mine with a familiarity that should have unsettled me but instead felt… right, in a way I could not explain. “Let’s get you medicine. The physician is right here, isn’t she?”
I nodded.
And only after I nodded did the thought come to me.
How does he know that?
It slipped into my mind quietly, almost hesitantly, as though unsure whether it was welcome, and yet it lingered just long enough to disturb something within me. It should have mattered more. It should have made me stop, question, hesitate—but it did none of those things.
Because he was already leading me forward.
Because my hand remained in his.
Because letting go felt far more impossible than any doubt that tried to surface.
The door to the physician’s chamber opened with a soft creak that seemed to stretch longer than it should have, the sound echoing faintly in a way that felt just slightly… wrong.
I stepped inside.
And stopped.
The room was not empty, but it was not as it should have been either, and that realization settled into me slowly, unevenly, as though my mind was struggling to keep pace with what my eyes were seeing.
The physician was not there. Instead— Vimoksha stood near the centre of the chamber.
Too composed.
As though he had not simply been present, but waiting.
For me.
For us.
His gaze fell first to our hands, still joined, still held in a way that now felt suddenly exposed, undeniable, and then it lifted slowly to Aaditya’s face.
The shift in his expression was immediate and sharp, like something breaking cleanly in two.
Rage.
Cold, controlled, but unmistakable.
“Leave her.”
The words were quiet, but they carried a weight that did not need volume to be understood.
Aaditya did not move.
If anything, I felt his grip tighten slightly, not in hesitation, not in uncertainty, but in something that felt almost like resolve.
“Leave her,” Vimoksha repeated, the restraint in his voice thinning now. “Now. And this ends here.”
“Moksha—” I began, the word escaping before I could shape anything else around it.
His gaze snapped to me.
It was only a single look, but it was enough to still me completely, my voice faltering before it could become anything more.
Aaditya spoke, his voice calm in a way that felt almost too composed for the moment, as though he had chosen each word with deliberate care long before this confrontation had taken shape.
“I haven’t held this hand to leave it.”
For a brief, unguarded instant, something inside me softened at that, something quiet and painfully sincere that responded to the certainty in his tone, to the way his fingers remained wrapped around mine as if that alone was enough to stand against everything else.
And then, almost immediately, a completely misplaced thought slipped through with startling clarity—
He could have said that better.
The absurdity of it nearly unsettled me more than the situation itself, because of all the things to notice in that moment, of all the ways my mind could have reacted, it chose that. It lingered just long enough to feel ridiculous, to feel real, and then everything shifted before I could make sense of it.
“I said leave.”
This time, Vimoksha moved.
Not gradually, not in any way that followed the natural rhythm of motion, but with a suddenness that felt almost unnatural, as though the moment itself had skipped something in between. One second his hand was empty, and the next—
There was a sword.
I did not see him draw it, did not see where it came from, and for a fleeting second it felt as though it had simply appeared because the moment demanded it. The lamplight caught its edge in a sharp, almost exaggerated gleam, as if even the light had chosen to emphasize what was about to happen.
Beside me, Aaditya shifted slightly, his grip tightening just enough for me to notice, his other hand lifting in a subtle motion that clearly asked me to step back, to move away from what was coming.
I didn’t.
I stepped forward instead.
“No,” I said, my voice unsteady, but holding, even as something in my chest tightened. “You can’t do this.”
Vimoksha’s eyes met mine, and whatever I had expected to find there—anger, frustration, restraint—none of it matched what I saw.
This was something deeper.
Something sharper.
Something that did not pause to reconsider.
“I absolutely can.”
The certainty in his voice unsettled me more than the sword itself, because it carried no hesitation, no room for doubt, and in that moment, he felt less like my brother and more like someone I did not entirely recognize.
“I have talked enough,” he said.
And then he raised the sword.
Time did something strange then, not quite slowing and not quite moving forward, but stretching in a way that made every second feel heavier, as though it carried more than it should. I did not think, did not weigh the consequences or question what I was doing.
I simply moved.
I stepped in front of Aaditya.
And then—
Pain.
It came without warning, sharp and immediate, tearing through me with a force that stole the breath from my lungs before I could even react. For a moment, I did not understand what had happened, not because it was unclear, but because my mind refused to accept it, lagging behind the reality my body had already begun to register.
And still, a strange part of me lagged behind it, struggling to catch up, as if the pain and the understanding of it belonged to two different moments that refused to meet.
Voices broke through.
Not clearly, not all at once, but in fragments—overlapping, pulling, colliding without forming anything whole.
“Barkha—”
“Megha—”
Both names felt like mine.
Neither felt certain.
Hands caught me as my balance slipped, not falling, not steady, just… shifting, as though the ground beneath me had forgotten how to remain still. The world tilted, but not in any direction I could follow, and for a disoriented second, I could not tell whether I was collapsing or being held up.
“Stay with me—”
“Get up—”
The words stretched, thinned, lost their edges, until they became something distant and hollow, like echoes arriving too late to belong to the moment that created them. Something warm touched my face.
A drop.
Then another.
Tears.
I could not tell whose they were, only that they felt real in a way everything else did not.
The pain did not fade, but it began to lose its place, as though it no longer belonged to my body alone. Everything around it dimmed unevenly, pieces of the world slipping away one after the other, not in order, not with reason, leaving behind fragments that no longer connected.
The voices went first.
Then the hands.
Then the light.
And somewhere in between losing all of it, I had the fleeting, disjointed thought—
This is not ending properly.
And then—
Nothing.
—
The breath that returned to me felt forced, dragged into my lungs as though it had been waiting elsewhere and arrived too late.
I gasped, my eyes opening too quickly, my chest rising in uneven pulls as if I had forgotten how to breathe and was relearning it all at once.
My chamber.
My bed.
The ceiling above me.
Everything was where it should be.
And yet—It didn’t settle.
The carvings above me seemed too still, too precise, as though they had been placed there only moments ago and had not yet learned how to belong. The air felt real, but not entirely mine, and for a lingering second, I had the unsettling sense that if I moved too suddenly, everything might shift again.
I didn’t move. Because something hadn’t followed me back. Or something had.
I couldn’t tell which. My body felt… whole. Unbroken. Untouched.
There was no pain, no wound, nothing to match what I remembered—and yet the memory did not feel like memory. It lingered beneath my skin, sharp in a way that refused to soften, as though it had not yet decided whether it belonged to the past or the present.
Vimoksha sat beside me.
I turned toward him too quickly, the motion coming from somewhere deeper than thought, something closer to instinct than awareness.
“Aaditya—where is he?”
The thought came before realization. Gauri stood nearby, Bhabhi beside her. I could see them speaking, their expressions shifting with concern, but the sound did not reach me in time, as though their words were moving through something thicker than air, arriving too slowly to make sense.
I blinked, once, twice, trying to steady the moment, trying to gather it into something complete.
And then— It returned. The realization. Not all at once, not clearly, but in pieces.
The kadha.
The faint bitterness at the back of my throat. The heaviness in my limbs. The way sleep had taken me without asking, without warning. Sleep.
The word settled into place, but it did not bring clarity.
A dream.
My heart was still racing as if it had never stopped.
Because my hands still felt as though they remembered something they should not.
Because even now, sitting here, awake, unharmed— Nothing aligned cleanly. The room was real. My body was real. But something of me was not entirely here.
It felt less like I had woken up and more like I had been pulled away, unfinished, as though the moment I had left behind had not ended, only paused without me.
The realization did not arrive all at once—it unfolded slowly, like something surfacing through deep water. A weight shifted near me, and before I could steady my thoughts, I felt it—Vimoksha’s hand against my forehead.
His palm was warm. Too warm. Or perhaps it was I who was burning.
“What happened?” he asked, his voice low, careful, as though even sound might disturb something fragile within me.
I tried to answer.
The effort rose in my chest, formed into words and broke apart before it could reach my lips. No sound came.
Not even a whisper.
His hand stilled slightly at that, and when I forced myself to look at him, I saw it clearly—the concern he did not try to hide. It rested openly in his expression, in the slight tightening of his jaw, in the way his gaze searched my face as though the answer might be written somewhere there.
“It’s alright,” he said again, softer this time.
His fingers moved, not withdrawing, but easing—his palm brushing lightly across my forehead in a gesture that felt both grounding and unfamiliar.
“It’s alright. You must have seen a dream.”
A dream.
The word pressed against me, but I did not trust it. Still, I nodded. Because it was easier than explaining something I could not name. Because even now, I was not certain where that dream had ended… or if it had.
Bhabhi’s voice reached me next, clearer than before, though still edged with worry.
“Are you alright?”
Gauri stepped closer, her movements quick but careful, as though afraid I might break if she came too fast.
“You were feeling cold,” she said, her brows drawn together. “Your body was shivering when we found you.”
Cold.
The word felt distant compared to the heat now pressing beneath my skin. Vimoksha exhaled slowly, his gaze shifting briefly toward them before returning to me.
“You have a fever,” he said, more firmly now, as though placing order over uncertainty. The room seemed to settle around that statement, as though it needed something simple—something tangible—to hold onto.
Gauri did not waste another moment. She turned and hurried toward the doorway, the soft rustle of her dupatta trailing behind her. The corridor beyond briefly revealed itself—stone walls, shadowed and cool, a faint draft slipping through before she disappeared from sight.
For a few breaths, there was only the quiet again. Not empty this time. Waiting. Then footsteps approached—measured, practiced.
Gauri returned, and beside her walked the physician. They both bowed respectfully as they entered, the faint clink of bangles and the soft rustle of fabric grounding the moment in something real, something structured.
Vimoksha did not return the gesture immediately. His attention remained fixed, sharp, unwavering.
“What happened to her?” he asked directly. No hesitation. No softness now. Only demand.
The physician inclined her head slightly. “Let me examine her first.”
Vimoksha rose from the bed without argument, though the movement carried a quiet reluctance—as though stepping away required more effort than he allowed anyone to see. The space he left behind felt suddenly cooler.
The physician took his place. Her hands were steady when they reached for mine. Clinical.
She turned my wrist gently, her fingers pressing lightly against my pulse. I became aware of my own breathing then—uneven, warmer than it should be. She studied me in silence for a few moments, her gaze moving from my face to my eyes, then briefly to the slight tremor still lingering in my fingers.
When she spoke, her voice carried the calm certainty of someone accustomed to being listened to.
“She has a fever. A cold.”
Her touch shifted slightly, assessing, confirming.
“Prolonged exposure to cold and wet conditions has strained her body. It has reduced her resistance and triggered these symptoms.”
The words settled into the room with quiet weight.
“It is a combination of cold stress… and likely a viral upper respiratory infection.”
Her gaze lifted then, moving past me to where Vimoksha stood.
“This is no passing illness,” she said, her tone firm now. “Her body is strained from what it endured.”
Silence followed. But this silence was different. It was no longer uncertain. It carried understanding. Concern.
And something else—something unspoken, yet present in the way the room held itself still, as though everyone now understood that what had taken hold of me was not as small as it had first appeared.
The physician let the words settle, not hurried, not softened, as though she intended them to be understood fully before anything else could follow.
“She needs complete rest. Warmth. Care.”
There was a brief pause—measured, deliberate—and in that pause the room seemed to draw tighter around us, every presence sharpening in quiet attention.
“If this deepens… it may turn to pneumonia.”
The word lingered longer than the others. It carried weight. Not loud, not dramatic—but heavy enough to shift something in the air.
She continued, her tone steady, though her gaze flickered briefly toward me. “She had not taken medicine earlier. That allowed the condition to worsen.”
Something changed.
Not visibly at first, not in a way that could be named immediately—but I felt it, the way one feels the air before a storm breaks.
Vimoksha’s stillness hardened.
“Why was she not given medicine earlier?”
His voice was not raised.
It did not need to be.
It cut cleanly through the room, direct and unyielding, leaving no space for evasion. The physician stilled, her hands pausing where they had just been adjusting the edge of my sleeve. For a fleeting moment, hesitation crossed her face—subtle, but unmistakable.
“She… she said it was alright,” she answered, her voice quieter now, careful in a way it had not been before.
I felt Vimoksha’s gaze shift to me.
I did not need to look at him to know it had changed. It rested on me now—not harsh, not accusing—but searching, as though measuring something he had not expected to find.
He exhaled slowly and lifted his hand, pressing his fingers briefly against the bridge of his nose, a small gesture that spoke of restraint more than frustration.
Then, without looking away for long, he said, “Give her the medicine. Now.”
There was no room left for delay in his tone.
No space for argument.
Bhabhi’s voice followed almost immediately, softer but edged with something far more familiar—concern shaped by knowing.
“What is this, Megha?” she said as she moved to the other side of the bed, the rustle of her saree grounding the moment in something warmer, more intimate. “You know how prone you are to cold. You could have paid attention.”
She sat beside me, the mattress dipping slightly under her weight, and placed her hand against my forehead.
Her touch lingered.
Then she sighed.
“You really have a high fever.”
The words were not a reprimand, not entirely—but they carried the quiet weight of care that had been given too many times to be dismissed lightly.
I could feel Vimoksha still standing there. Silent now. Watching. Not intervening. But present in a way that did not lessen simply because he was no longer speaking.
The room seemed fuller with that silence than it had been with words.
The physician moved to prepare the medicine, small metallic sounds breaking gently into the quiet—the opening of a vial, the clink of a spoon against glass, the faint, sharp scent of herbs rising once more into the air.
My throat burned.
Not sharply—but persistently, raw from something unseen.
I swallowed, the motion slow, deliberate, as though even that required more effort than it should have.
As though the moment had shifted once more, and everyone now understood that this was not simply about illness. And somewhere beneath the weight of fever, beneath the voices and the care and the concern— that unfinished feeling still lingered.
But then the thought came … negotiations.
“There is…” I began, my voice catching almost immediately. I paused, drawing in a breath that did little to ease the dryness.
“There is a negotiation meeting… tomorrow morning.”
Each word felt pulled rather than spoken. My throat burned with the effort, the sentence leaving me uneven, incomplete in breath if not in meaning. The room stilled again. Not the uncertain stillness from before— But something more aware.
The words left me with effort, each one scraping against the rawness in my throat as though it resisted being spoken at all. By the time the sentence was complete, my breath had turned uneven, and a dull burn lingered behind every syllable.
The physician did not respond immediately. She studied me for a brief moment, her expression thoughtful but firm, as though weighing not my words, but my condition against them.
“I don’t think you will be able to attend that, Princess,” she said at last, her tone calm yet resolute. “It is more serious than you believe.”
A faint refusal rose within me before I could reason with it. I tried to shake my head, the motion slow and heavy, as though even that simple denial demanded more strength than I possessed.
Before I could attempt to speak again, Vimoksha’s voice cut through the moment.
“I will handle that.” There was no hesitation in it. No negotiation. It was not a suggestion—it was a decision. I turned my gaze toward him, something tightening quietly in my chest. The word sorry formed before I could stop it, instinctive, fragile in its intent.
“I…” My voice faltered, barely holding together. “Sorry…”
It was hardly audible, more breath than sound, but it reached him. I saw it then—the shift in his eyes. Care, unmistakable.
Concern, steady and unguarded.
And beneath it, something sharper… a quiet frustration, not directed at me, but at the circumstance itself, at the fact that there was nothing he could do in this moment to change what had already taken hold.
His expression softened just enough to hold that tension without letting it break.
“Just rest,” he said quietly. “I will manage this.”
There was no weight placed on my apology, no insistence on it. Only reassurance—firm, deliberate, as though he intended to remove that burden from me entirely.
The physician turned then, addressing Gauri. “Bring the medicine from my chamber.”
Gauri nodded immediately and left, her steps quick but controlled, disappearing once again into the corridor beyond.
The physician returned her attention to me, her voice gentler now. “For now, take these medicines. We will assess again in the morning.”
I nodded faintly, though even that small movement felt distant from me.
Bhabhi spoke next, her tone quiet but certain. “I will stay with you tonight.”
I turned my head slightly toward her, meeting her gaze for a brief moment. There was comfort in it—steady, familiar—but I did not have the strength to hold onto it for long.
Footsteps approached again, and Gauri returned, carrying what the physician had asked for. The faint scent of medicinal herbs grew stronger as she entered, sharper this time, grounding the room in something practical, something immediate.
The physician helped me sit just enough to take the medicine, her hand steady at my back, the other guiding the cup toward my lips. The liquid was bitter—more so than the kadha had been—and it lingered unpleasantly, coating my tongue and throat.
I swallowed slowly, forcing it down despite the discomfort.
“That will help bring the fever down,” she said, her tone reassuring, though still firm in its certainty.
She turned then to Vimoksha. “I should take my leave now.”
Bhabhi nodded before he could respond and looked toward Gauri. “Check on Rudra.”
Of course.
Rudra. My nephew.
The thought surfaced faintly through the haze. If he had been here, he would not have allowed this quiet to exist for even a moment. He would have filled the room with questions—endless, insistent, impossible to ignore.
How did this happen? Why is everyone here? Why didn’t anyone call me?
The corners of my thoughts softened slightly at the imagined sound of his voice, but it faded just as quickly as it came.
Gauri nodded and left once more, the doorway swallowing her presence along with the faint echo of her steps.
The room grew quieter again.
Not empty—but settled.
Vimoksha remained where he was for a moment longer. I felt his gaze before I fully lifted mine to meet it. It lingered, steady and unreadable in its depth, as though there were words he chose not to speak.
Then, without breaking that stillness, he inclined his head slightly and turned away. He left without another word.
Bhabhi adjusted the blanket around me, her movements gentle, practiced. She pulled it higher, tucking it carefully at my sides as though ensuring the warmth would not escape.
Her hand rested briefly against my arm—a quiet assurance—before withdrawing.
The room dimmed gradually as my eyes grew heavier, the edges of everything softening, losing their sharpness. The carved patterns of light on the walls blurred into something indistinct, and the distant sounds of the palace faded into a low, distant hum.
The last thing I was aware of was the warmth around me.
The weight of the blanket.
And the quiet presence beside me.
Then even that slipped away—
and sleep claimed me once more.
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