His pov
Nine days had passed since the negotiations.
Not that time had carried any real weight lately. It moved, certainly—the sun rose, the council met, decisions were drafted and sealed—but something in me remained fixed, caught in a moment that refused to loosen its hold.
I sat across from my uncle—the king, Maharaj Mahipal Ishwadheer though the title had never felt as defining as the man himself. To the court, he was authority and legacy. To me, he had always been something steadier, something earned over years rather than inherited in a single word. He is my father's younger brother. He had never married, never allowed himself that life, choosing instead to raise us—my sister and me—as if we had always been his responsibility. After our parents, he made sure we never fell their absence. He loved us like their own child. The map between us stretched wide across the table, its edges pinned beneath carved weights. Lines marked territories, rivers, trade routes—decisions drawn long before we ever sat here to discuss them again.
“The shared confinement near Ishwardesh is the most viable,” he was saying, his tone thoughtful, measured in the way it always became when matters of expansion and alliance were involved. “A joint port there would benefit both kingdoms. Trade would flow without obstruction, and neither side would have cause to contest control.”
I nodded, my gaze following the boundary he indicated. “Provided the terms are drafted clearly,” I replied. “Shared authority tends to invite conflict where it intends balance.”
A faint smile touched his lips. “You have grown cautious.”
“I have learned,” I said simply.
And yet—even as I spoke, even as I traced routes and calculated implications—my mind betrayed me.
It drifted.
Not to strategy. Not to the map before me.
But to a voice that had no place reaching me here—and yet had.
I exhaled quietly, forcing my attention back. “If we divide oversight by function rather than territory—”
A knock interrupted the thought.
Measured. Formal.
Before either of us could respond, the attendant stepped inside, bowing with practiced precision.
“Pranam Maharaj,” he said, addressing the king first, as protocol demanded. “Commander Hriday has arrived.”
There was a brief pause.
My uncle leaned back slightly, exchanging a glance with me that carried both curiosity and quiet understanding. Hriday did not interrupt without reason.
“Send him in,” the king said.
The attendant stepped aside.
And a moment later, Hriday entered. Hriday entered with that peculiar balance he had always possessed—unhurried, yet swift enough to suggest purpose. I had never quite understood how he managed it, how his presence could feel both composed and urgent at once, as if he carried the weight of his duty without ever allowing it to show.
He bowed first to my uncle, as was proper, then inclined his head toward me. And back to my uncle “Pranam Maharaj.”
“Come, Hriday,” my uncle said, his voice warm in a way few ever heard from him. “What brings you here?”
There was familiarity in his tone, something that went beyond rank and position. My uncle had always held a certain regard for him—not merely as a commander, but as a man he trusted. At times, I suspected he admired him more openly than he ever did me, though I had long since stopped questioning it.
Hriday straightened, his expression steady. “I wished to discuss a matter … with the prince.”
I glanced at him then, noting the careful choice of words, the way he directed the request without overstepping. It was subtle, but deliberate.
“We can take it up after—” I began, intending to finish the discussion at hand before entertaining interruptions.
But my uncle had already leaned back.
“ohhh…We are done anyway,” he said, the faintest hint of knowing in his eyes, as though he had understood something I had not yet caught up to. “We will continue this later.”
Before I could respond, he rose.
There was no hesitation in the way he set the matter aside, no lingering attachment to the map or the conversation we had been having moments before.
As he passed Hriday, he paused just long enough to place a firm, approving hand on his shoulder—a gesture both simple and telling.
It was not something he did lightly. I knew my uncle loved him just as he loved me and my sister, treating him like his own son.
Then he left.
Just like that.
The doors closed behind him, and with them, the quiet authority he carried seemed to withdraw from the room, leaving behind something more contained, more immediate.
I let out a slow breath, my gaze shifting back to Hriday.
Hriday did not speak immediately.
He looked at me—really looked, in that unnerving way of his that seemed to peel past rank, past title, past whatever mask I chose to wear. There was something in his expression I could not place at first, something measured and almost… knowing.
“What?” I asked, more sharply than intended.
“So,” he said, and then the name followed, quiet but deliberate, “Aditya.”
It landed between us with a weight that did not belong in this room.
Only he used that name. Only he knew it in a way that mattered—knew it belonged to the man beneath the title, beneath Prince Ravi Raj Ishwadheer, beneath everything I allowed the world to see.
I held his gaze.
He leaned back slightly, as if settling into something far more casual than the moment allowed. “I did not expect this from you.”
A faint frown touched my brow. “Expect what?”
He did not answer immediately. Instead, he pulled the chair opposite mine and sat down as though we were not in the middle of a council chamber, as though this were some private exchanges carried out in a quieter, less consequential space.
“You have not even invited me to your wedding.”
For a second, I thought I had misheard him.
Then—
She is my wife.
The words came back, not spoken now, but remembered—my own voice, steady, certain, uttered without hesitation in a moment that had demanded conviction more than truth.
Barkha.
The name followed it, unbidden.
I stilled.
“What?” The word left me, but it carried something more than confusion—something sharper, something that had yet to form into understanding.
Hriday watched me closely, the corner of his mouth shifting just enough to suggest he had found what he was looking for.
“Oh,” he said lightly, though there was nothing careless about it. “So, you really got married.”
Whatever had flickered across my face, he caught it. He always did.
I straightened, pulling composure back into place with practiced ease. “How do you know that?” I asked, my voice even again, though the question held more weight than I intended to reveal.
Instead of answering, he reached into the fold of his cloak and placed something on the table between us.
A letter.
The parchment slid forward just enough to rest within my reach.
My gaze dropped to it.
The seal was unfamiliar—not royal, not formal, not anything that belonged within the usual channels of communication that reached this palace.
“What is this?” I asked, though something in me had already begun to tighten, to recognize the shape of what I had not yet read.
Hriday did not look away.
“I think,” he said, calm as ever, “that is your answer.”
My gaze remained on the envelope a moment longer than it should have, as if the answer might reveal itself.
“What?” I said at last.
Hriday did not reply immediately. Instead, he slid the letter toward me with deliberate ease, the faint scrape of parchment against wood sounding far louder than it ought to.
“A letter,” he said, watching me far too closely, “from your wife.”
The word sat there—wife—mocking in its familiarity.
Before my fingers could close around it, he pulled it back.
“Explain.”
I exhaled, leaning back slightly, resisting the sudden, unreasonable urge to snatch it anyway. “It is nothing,” I said, dismissing it with a wave that felt less convincing even to me. “A moment. That is all.”
“And you married in that moment?” he asked, one brow lifting with quiet precision.
I gave him a look. “I did not marry. I merely announced it.”
The distinction felt important, even now.
Though I was beginning to suspect it mattered far less than I had assumed.
In one swift movement, I reached forward and took the letter from his hand before he could pull it away again.
“Drama,” I muttered under my breath, more to reclaim control than to answer him. “I pretended to be her husband.”
“And she,” he returned smoothly, leaning back as though he had already won something I had not yet realized, “is sending a letter to her fake husband.”
I ignored the emphasis, turning the envelope over in my hand. “How did you even get this?”
“It arrived through the soldier’s post,” he said. “Addressed, somewhat ambitiously, to someone who does not exist.”
I glanced up at him.
“It has been there for six days.”
That made my grip tighten slightly.
“Oh!” I said quietly.
He studied me for a brief second before adding, almost idly, “There is no Aditya in our army.”
Of course there wasn’t.
That had been the point.
Or so I had thought.
I broke the seal, the faint tear of parchment sounding sharper than the silence around us.
“They were about to open it,” Hriday added, far too casually.
My eyes lifted at once.
He was watching me—no, enjoying this, in that restrained way of his that never quite crossed into open amusement but lingered dangerously close.
“But they did not,” he continued. “I happened to overhear. Intervened before curiosity turned into procedure.”
I held his gaze for a second longer, something unspoken passing between us—acknowledgment, perhaps, or warning.
Then I looked back down.
Carefully, I unfolded the letter.
I read the first line once.
Hey, soldier—
There was something disarmingly simple about it, almost careless, as if the words had not carried the weigh, I could already feel gathering beneath them. My thumb shifted slightly against the edge of the parchment, steadying it, though I had not noticed my grip tightening.
What was that?
A faint breath left me—soundless, restrained. If Hriday said anything, I did not hear it. The room had narrowed, the edges of it receding until there was only ink, and the voice within it.
No—don’t answer. I don’t even know why I am writing this.
There is no reason for me to be thinking about it, about you, about that moment—and yet it returns, uninvited, as if it refuses to leave me alone.
You had no right.
That, at least, was fair.
My jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
Do you understand that? No right to stand there and say those words as if they meant something. As if I… as if we—
It was nothing.
It should have been nothing.
So why does it not feel like nothing?
My gaze paused.
Something in my chest shifted—not sharply, not enough to break composure, but enough to register. A quiet, unwelcome recognition.
I did not linger on it.
I continued.
My eyes moved slower over the next lines.
Distance was meant to settle it. Instead, it has done the opposite. What should have faded has only sharpened, lingering where it does not belong—in thought, in memory, even in sleep.
The words carried something I had not expected—no dramatics, no indulgence, only a quiet certainty that made them heavier than any accusation.
And I found, somewhat inconveniently, that I believed her.
Do you find that amusing? Or was it so insignificant to you that you have already forgotten?
Because I have not.
And I do not understand why.
You will call it nothing, I am sure. Strategy. Convenience. A moment handled as any other. I told myself the same. It was the most reasonable explanation.
And yet— It lingers.
A faint, humourless huff might have escaped me then, had I allowed it. She was not wrong. That was precisely what I would have called it.
What I had called it.
And yet—
And yet—it lingers.
My gaze slowed again.
Like the daldal that tried to pull me under, your words have a way of holding on. I find them where they should not be, returning with a persistence that makes no sense for something so meaningless.
I saw you there.
Not as you were that day, distant and composed, but… closer. As if the space you placed between us had never existed.
My fingers stilled completely.
For a brief moment, the room returned—not fully, but enough for memory to sharpen alongside her words. The mire, the tension of it, the way it had resisted release.
I had pulled her out of it.
I had not considered that something of it might remain.
Do not mistake this for longing. I would sooner walk back into that mire than indulge such foolishness.
I did not realize I had stopped breathing until a quiet inhale followed, controlled, deliberate.
This—this was where the letter shifted. A muscle in my jaw tightened again, though not for the same reason as before.
Of course she would deny it. And yet, the very need to deny it suggested more than she intended to reveal.
But I will not pretend ignorance either.
You placed something upon me that day. A claim. A story.
And stories have consequences.
My gaze lifted briefly from the page, though I did not see Hriday, did not see the room. Only the weight of that statement lingered. The word consequence, it unsettled me more.
I do not know what right you think you have—to appear in my thoughts uninvited, to linger in places you were never given permission to enter. And yet, you take that space as if it was always yours.
I find myself questioning things I had no need to question before. That is your doing.
I am angry.
That, at least, I understood.
At you—for saying it.
At myself—for remembering it.
I exhaled slowly, my attention returning to the final lines.
So take this, since you seem so willing to take things without asking—
Take this unrest back with you.
My thumb pressed lightly against the edge of the parchment, as if grounding myself in something tangible.
I do not want it.
A faint, almost imperceptible expression crossed my face—something that might have been the beginning of a smile, had it not been restrained before it fully formed.
No.
That was not entirely true.
She would not have written if it were.
— ‘mute wife’
And this time, the reaction did not stay contained.
A quiet breath left me, softer than before, carrying something I did not immediately name. I read that line again.
Mute wife.
The title I had given her in passing—careless, convenient, necessary. Returned now, not as acceptance— but as answer. I lowered the letter slightly, though my eyes did not leave it.
She was angry. Confused. And for the first time since that moment, I found myself questioning—not what I had said—
but what, exactly, I had started.
I did not realize when my expression had begun to change.
By the time I reached the end, I had forgotten—momentarily—that I was not alone.
“—mute wife.”
The words lingered longer than the rest.
I folded the letter carefully, more deliberate than necessary, as though the act itself might conceal whatever had crossed my face while reading it.
When I finally looked up, Hriday was already watching me.
Of course he was.
“What?” I asked, my tone even, though I could feel the faint residue of that expression still lingering.
He did not answer immediately, his gaze assessing, almost curious. “Nothing,” he said at last, though the word carried far too much meaning to be taken at face value. “You were…”
He paused, then dismissed it with a slight shake of his head. “Forget it.”
I said nothing.
Instead, I placed the folded letter on the table beside me, my hand resting over it for a moment before withdrawing.
“I have informed them,” he continued, as if the interruption had never existed, “that any letter addressed to Aditya is to be brought directly to me.”
I nodded once. “Good.”
He leaned back slightly, studying me again, though this time with a different kind of intent. “There is no address in it,” he said casually. “Nothing by which she can be traced.”
I looked at him; the disbelief unguarded this time. “Have you read it?”
He met my gaze without flinching, entirely unbothered. “No.”
Of course he had not.
And yet, the mere thought that he might have was enough to make the question leave me before I could restrain it.
I exhaled quietly, more to myself than to him. He let it pass, as he always did—never pushing where it was unnecessary, never prying beyond the point of usefulness. It was, perhaps, the one quality that made him as dangerous as he was reliable.
“She is an attendant in Ishvardesh palace,” I said after a moment, my tone returning to something steadier, more controlled. “If I were to write, it would have to be addressed there.”
Hriday’s brow lifted slightly. “So, you intend to send a letter directly to the palace… addressed to an attendant?”
I held his gaze. “Not as a prince.”
He waited.
“As a soldier,” I clarified. “That is what she believes me to be.”
There was a brief pause.
Then, with quiet precision, he said, “A soldier of Aaryagarh writing to an attendant of Ishvardesh.”
The implications settled instantly.
Clear.
I closed my eyes for the briefest moment, a silent curse forming before I could stop it. Of all the oversights to make, this was a particularly inelegant one.
When I looked at him again, he was watching me with that same composed patience, as if he had expected me to reach this conclusion eventually.
Of course.
Of all the consequences I had failed to consider, this one should have been the most obvious. A letter, carelessly sent, could be dismissed. But a reply—especially from the wrong place, in the wrong name—would not pass unnoticed. It would raise questions she would have no answers for, suspicions she could not afford.
I leaned back slightly, forcing my tone into something lighter than my thoughts allowed. “I will write as her husband,” I said, as if the solution were simple, as if the title itself did not carry more weight than I had ever intended it to.
“Some commoner, perhaps.”
Hriday did not react immediately. He reached instead for the bowl at the edge of the table, picking a grape with idle ease before placing it into his mouth, his silence stretching just long enough to make the point before he spoke.
“It is nothing for you,” he said finally, almost casually. “But for her…”
He picked another, slower this time.
“A girl receiving letters from an unknown husband—it will create problems for her as well.”
I knew that. I had known it the moment the thought had formed.
And yet, hearing it spoken aloud stripped away whatever justification I had been holding onto. It left the truth bare, inconvenient and unavoidable.
My gaze dropped briefly to the folded letter beside me.
Her words returned, unbidden but precise.
Take this unrest back with you. I do not want it.
A faint, humourless breath escaped me. Of course she did not. This was never an invitation. It was a release.
A way to rid herself of something I had placed there without permission, without thought of what it might become once it left the moment it was meant for.
I had called it nothing. She had refused to let it remain so. And yet, even in that refusal, she had asked for no continuation—no answer, no extension, no consequence beyond the act of being heard.
I nodded once, more to myself than to Hriday.
“It should end here,” I said, my voice quieter now, steadier in a way that came not from certainty, but from decision.
He watched me for a moment, as if weighing whether I meant it.
“Knowing about her,” he said after a pause, the faintest trace of curiosity slipping through, “you are certain?”
I shrugged lightly, dismissing the question before it could linger. “It is enough.”
The words settled between us. Final. Or at least, intended to be.
My fingers brushed against the letter once more before I moved my hand away entirely, as though even that small contact might undo the resolve I had just claimed.
Some things were better left where they belonged.
In a moment. In a memory. In ink that had already been written—and would not be answered.
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