His pov
The summons had come without explanation, which in itself was explanation enough.
I reached the courtyard before the others, though I could not say whether it was eagerness or unease that had drawn me there so early. The space lay open beneath the pale afternoon sky, the stone still holding the warmth of the sun, quiet in a way that felt deliberate—as though even the air understood that something of weight was about to unfold. I took my seat but did not settle into it; my posture remained attentive, my thoughts less so. They drifted, unbidden, toward ink-stained pages and a handwriting I had come to recognize before even finishing the first line.
I had told myself I would wait.
It had felt like the right thing then. It still did. And yet, patience is a far steadier virtue in thought than in practice.
The soft echo of approaching footsteps pulled me back. I turned just as Shiva entered the courtyard, her stride measured as always, her presence carrying that quiet awareness she never seemed to set aside. Beside her walked my grandmother, slower now than she had once been, her strength no longer in her steps but in the dignity with which she took each one. Behind them followed my uncle—the king—though he had not yet crossed the threshold.
For a moment, something inside me eased.
This was my world before it had become complicated. Before letters, before silences that spoke louder than words, before I found myself searching for someone who had chosen not to be found.
I rose without thinking and crossed the courtyard to my grandmother, offering my arm before she could ask for it. She accepted it with a small nod, her fingers resting lightly against mine, though I knew the effort it took her to walk unaided now. There was always something grounding in her presence, something that reminded me that not everything needed to be pursued—some things endured.
As we walked, I glanced at Shiva. “Do you know why we’ve been called?”
She shook her head once, a slight movement, but firm. “No.”
There was no curiosity in her tone, which, with Shiva, was often more telling than if there had been.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed my grandmother smile—subtle, but unmistakable. It was not amusement in the ordinary sense; it was the kind that comes from knowing more than one chooses to say.
I looked down at her. “What is it?”
She did not answer. Instead, a soft laugh escaped her, light and fleeting, as though whatever thought had crossed her mind was meant only for her.
That did little to ease my curiosity.
We reached our seats, and I helped her settle before taking my own place beside her. Hriday was already there, leaning back with the ease of someone who either knew what was coming or did not care to speculate. With him, it was often difficult to tell which.
The courtyard filled, not with noise, but with presence. Conversations were minimal, glances more frequent than words, each of us aware that this gathering was not incidental. It carried intent.
And then the king entered.
The shift was immediate—not dramatic, not loud, but unmistakable. Every gaze turned toward him, every thought momentarily stilled. He walked with the composure of someone accustomed to being observed, his expression measured, his silence purposeful.
In his hands, he held a royal scroll.
It was not merely the object itself that drew attention, but the way he carried it—not tucked away, not treated as formality, but presented, as though what it contained was meant to be heard, acknowledged, and perhaps… answered.
The king did not begin at once.
He allowed the silence to settle, as though he wanted each of us to arrive fully into the moment before he gave it shape. When he finally spoke, his voice carried neither urgency nor hesitation, but the steady weight of someone who understood that certain conversations altered more than they revealed.
“Matters of the court,” he began, his gaze moving across us, not lingering, yet not missing anyone, “are seldom as simple as they appear from the outside. Alliances are not only forged in councils and treaties, but in choices that bind families, strengthen trust, and ensure that what we build today does not falter tomorrow.”
It was not about politics alone.
It was never about politics alone.
He paused, not for effect, but to let the meaning settle where it needed to. Then, without further preamble, he extended the scroll toward me.
“Read.”
I rose instinctively and stepped forward, receiving it with both hands. The parchment was heavier than it looked, the seal already broken—so this was not news to him, only to me.
I unfolded it.
The words were clear, formal, and deliberate in their construction. An invitation from the king of Ishwardesh, written with courtesy but carrying unmistakable intent. A swayamwar. Their daughter, Megha Priya. My name placed within it not as a possibility, but as an expectation.
For a moment, the courtyard seemed to recede—not in sound, but in presence. The words remained where they were, yet my mind had already moved elsewhere, to a voice that never spoke plainly, to ink that carried more truth than speech ever could.
I folded the scroll back, slower this time, as though delaying the moment would somehow change what it contained.
When I looked up, the king was watching me.
Not impatiently. Not sternly. Simply… waiting.
For my answer.
And that was precisely the problem.
Because there was an answer. It had been there long before this scroll reached my hands, long before this courtyard, long before I had even understood it myself.
I cannot accept this.
Not when my heart had already chosen.
I felt Shiva’s gaze before I turned toward her. It was not intrusive, not demanding, but it was far from casual. There was a question in it—no, not a question. A recognition. She did not know everything, but she knew enough to understand that my silence was not uncertainty.
Hriday, on the other hand, remained still, his expression unreadable in the way only he managed. But I knew him well enough to see what lay beneath it. He knew the truth in its entirety, had known it longer than anyone else here, and yet he said nothing.
He was waiting.
Waiting for me to speak what I had not yet spoken aloud, not even to myself in full.
And then my grandmother’s voice entered the space, gentle, almost conversational, yet placed with a precision that was anything but accidental.
“Megha is a good girl,” she said, a faint smile touching her lips. “I have met her. She visited some days ago.”
I turned to her, the words settling uneasily within me.
She may be.
I did not doubt my grandmother’s judgment. I did not doubt that Megha Priya was everything a kingdom would want in a queen—graceful, composed, worthy.
But none of that mattered.
Because none of it was her.
Barkha.
The name did not leave my lips, but it filled every quiet space within me, steady and undeniable. It was not a fleeting thought, not a passing inclination. It had rooted itself too deeply for me to pretend otherwise, had grown in silence, in absence, in the spaces between words that were never meant to be spoken.
I lifted my gaze again, meeting the king’s eyes.
He had not moved. He had not repeated his question. He had not needed to.
He was still waiting.
And for the first time, I understood that this moment was not about whether I would answer, but whether I would answer truthfully.
The courtyard remained silent, but it no longer felt empty.
I looked at the scroll one last time, letting my eyes pass over the words as if they might rearrange themselves into something easier to accept. They did not. The ink held steady, unwavering in its intent, just as the expectations behind it did.
Folding the parchment carefully, I placed it back on the table between us, the soft sound of it settling against wood far louder to me than it should have been.
“I cannot accept this.”
The words left me calm, but they did not end there. They could not. The king’s gaze remained on me, steady and expectant, waiting for the rest of what I had begun.
“I do not wish to marry now.”
There was a brief pause, not of silence, but of consideration. He did not dismiss my words, nor did he accept them. Instead, he responded as I had known he would—with reason, with patience, with the quiet insistence of someone who believed he was guiding rather than forcing.
“This is the time,” he said evenly. “And she is… suitable. By all accounts, Megha Priya is everything a kingdom could ask for.”
I held his gaze, aware of the truth in his statement, and yet untouched by it.
“But she is not—”
The words rose before I could stop them, and I did stop them, cutting them short just before they could betray more than I was prepared to reveal.
Not her. At least not now. I drew a breath, steadier this time.
“She is not the one I wish to marry.”
The courtyard stilled, not in shock, but in attention. The difference was subtle, but I felt it.
The king regarded me for a moment longer, his expression unreadable, though not unkind. Then, quietly, he asked the question that had been waiting beneath everything else.
“Then who is it that you wish to marry?”
For the briefest instant, the world narrowed.
Her face appeared in my mind with a clarity that felt almost unfair—uninvited, unrestrained, undeniable. The way her words lingered even after they ended, the way her silence spoke more than certainty ever could.
I could say her name.
There was nothing unclear about what I felt. No confusion left to resolve, no doubt left to soften it. I loved her. That truth stood firm, unshaken by distance, by silence, by the fact that she had not yet said the same.
But that last part mattered.
Because love, when spoken aloud, ceased to belong only to oneself.
And she had not spoken.
Not yet.
“I will tell you soon”, I said, choosing each word with care.
Even as I said it, another thought surfaced—sharper this time, more grounded in reality than feeling. She was not who they would expect. Not someone whose name would sit easily within a royal discussion. She was an attendant to the very princess whose hand they were offering me.
The realization did not weaken my resolve, but it did shape it.
I did not know how they would receive it. I did not know how the court would respond, how the kingdom would weigh it.
But I knew this much—whatever resistance came, it would not be enough to make me turn away.
They might question it. They might oppose it at first.
But they loved me.
And that, I trusted, would matter.
Before the conversation could shift again, before persuasion could take root in softer tones and longer arguments, I stepped forward—firm, decisive.
“I will not accept this,” I said, more clearly now. “And for now, I will be leaving for the border fort. The construction there requires oversight. There are matters I need to resolve, and I will remain there for a few days.”
It was not an escape. But it was distance. And distance, at this moment, felt necessary. The king’s gaze lingered on me, not with disapproval, but with thought. Then, slowly, it shifted—past me, toward Hriday.
I knew that look.
It was not a command, but it carried expectation all the same. Speak to him. Reason with him. Bring him back to this.
Hriday, however, did not move immediately. When he did speak, his tone remained as it always was—measured, respectful, but entirely his own.
“I think,” he said, “we should let him decide this for himself.”
There was no defiance in it, no challenge—just quiet certainty.
For a moment, the king considered him. And then, with a small nod, he relented.
I let out a breath I had not realized I had been holding.
Of course.
If there was one voice he would yield to more easily than mine in this matter, it would be Hriday’s.
A faint smile touched my lips, unbidden, as the thought crossed my mind— He truly does favour him more. But there was no bitterness in it.
I rose from my place with a steadiness I did not entirely feel, but one I knew I had to carry nonetheless. The moment had already stretched longer than it needed to, and staying would only invite more words, more reasoning, more attempts to guide me toward a decision I had already made.
“May I take your leave?” I asked, my voice respectful, measured, exactly as it should be.
The king regarded me for a brief moment before giving a small nod. It was neither approval nor dismissal—just acknowledgment. For now, that was enough.
I inclined my head slightly and stepped back, then turned toward Hriday, meeting his eyes just long enough for him to understand.
“We need to speak before I leave.”
He did not question it. Instead, he glanced toward the king, seeking permission with the same quiet courtesy he always maintained. When it was granted, he rose and followed me without another word.
We walked out of the courtyard together, the weight of what had just transpired lingering behind us like something unfinished, something that would return whether invited or not. I did not look back, but I could feel it—Shiva’s sharp awareness, my grandmother’s quiet consideration, the king’s thoughts already moving ahead of us all.
They would talk.
Of course they would.
But I knew them well enough to trust one thing—they would not force me. Not yet. Not in this.
The corridor ahead stretched long and open, the air cooler here, quieter. It gave space for thought, though I wasn’t sure I wanted more of it right now.
A hand landed lightly on my shoulder.
I stopped and turned slightly toward Hriday.
He didn’t look at me immediately, as though he were choosing his words—or perhaps deciding whether they were needed at all.
“Any other letter?” he asked, his tone almost casual, as if it were an afterthought, something of little consequence.
I shook my head.
“No.”
He nodded once, accepting it just as simply as he had asked.
But it was not simple.
Because where he could say it like it meant nothing, like it was just another exchange among many, I felt the absence of it with a weight I could not ignore.
She hadn’t written.
And that silence… it did not feel empty. It felt deliberate.
For a moment, I looked ahead, my gaze unfocused, my thoughts drifting back to the last letter I had read, to the spaces between her words that had said more than anything written plainly.
“She might need time,” I said, more to myself than to him, though I knew he heard it.
Time to understand what she felt.
Time to decide what to do with it.
Just as I had.
The difference was—I had already reached my answer.
And now, everything else seemed to be waiting for hers.
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