The Agni's Return
Prince Agniveer's arrival in Tejgarh wasn't witnessed; it was felt. The capital didn't greet him it combusted. Every archway was a blaze of marigold and flame, every torch burned in broad daylight, their sandalwood smoke choking a sky already vibrating with the thunder of war drums and the shriek of shehnais. The air didn't shimmer; it writhed with heat.
At the path's head, King Tejendra and Queen Aarunya stood. Their regal masks dissolved as he approached through the deafening roar. He didn't wave. He moved with the lethal grace of a unsheathed blade, stopping three paces short. Then, he knelt. Not a bow. A surrender. His forehead met the sun-scorched stone at their feet.
A soft, shattered sound escaped the Queen. Petals from the balconies caught in his dark hair like embers. The King's hand, descending to his son's head, trembled. The city's frenzy redoubled—a rain of copper, a flood of sweets, a thousand silent offerings laid beside evening hearths.
Yet, behind the Prince's polished smile, his eyes—molten amber—held a stillness the celebration couldn't penetrate. The calm at a forest fire's heart.
That night, in his new chambers smelling of fresh plaster and distant herbs, his mother entered. No queen. A woman. She crossed the room and crushed him in an embrace that spoke of ten years of hollow nights. Her kiss on his brow was cool, desperate.
"Agni, my heart," her voice frayed at the edges. She pulled back, her eyes mapping his face—the new sharpness, the disciplined angles. "They fed you knowledge but starved your soul. I will fix this. Tell me," her whisper was raw, "was the loneliness… bearable?"
His smile was a conscious softening of carved stone. "I am well, Mother. The Gurukul lacked for nothing."
A breath, heavy with released dread. "Good. Rest now." Her jasmine scent lingered like a ghost long after she left.
After the purifying bath, the private meal. No gold. Broad banana leaves. The three joined palms. The world shrunk to the crackle of the central hearth.
"O Agnipursh, Pavak of the world, accept our gratitude and our need."
Only then did they eat, the silence thick as sacred smoke. After, hands joined again, a wordless thanks to Bhojdevi, sustainer of life.
Dawn found him in the subterranean temple of the clan's fire-god. The air was a solid wall of heat and ancient burnt offerings. He spoke no prayers aloud. Only a deep, tectonic gratitude for the flame within, now a honed scalpel instead of a wildfire. He asked not for power, but for the spine to carry its weight.
Days became a new rhythm. He walked his kingdom not as a prince, but as a receptacle. He stood in sun-blasted squares and under village banyans, his silent attention pulling confidences about blighted crops and stolen goats. He solved problems with a quiet finality that left seasoned ministers blinking.
But evenings… evenings were a different country. In the palace hush, solitude wrapped him tight. Then, the Gurukul would ambush him. Not lessons. Presence. The exact pitch of an irrepressible laugh against stone. The scorching heat of a competitive glare across the sparring circle. The unspoken pact in a shared nightmare's wake. A faint, unbidden smile would ghost his lips, there and gone.
It was during one such silent meal that the world cracked.
A guard captain entered, armor a discordant jangle. "Jai Tejgarh! Prince Neervrah of Neelgarh has returned from Gurukul."
The King's nod was a blade falling. "Acknowledged."
Agni looked up, a line forming between his brows. "Father… why do we spy on Neelgarh's prince?"
King Tejendra's face hardened into familiar, unforgiving granite. "Neelgarh is not a neighbor. It is an adversary. Its worms must be watched."
The word adversary hung in the air, toxic and final. "Why?" Agni's voice was low, a cold dread seeping into his veins. "What history demands this?"
"That," the King said, rising, his chair screeching like a wounded beast, "is a tale for another day." He left, the door a punctuation mark.
Agni sat, frozen. The Queen's hand settled on his arm, a frail anchor. "Let it lie, beta."
"No, Mother." His eyes were fixed on the empty doorway. "I will know. Now."
Queen Aarunya studied him—the man's resolve etched over the boy's need. She sighed, the sound of an old tomb opening. Her gaze turned inward, seeing ghosts.
"Your father and King Vyomesh… they were not allies. They were one soul in two bodies. Forged in the same Gurukul fire." Her voice grew thin, careful. "Your aunt… my sister-of-heart, Aparna… was betrothed to Vyomesh. The wedding day was a sunrise we thought would never end."
She paused, gathering bones. "The groom's procession was due at sundown. We waited. The sacred fire leapt. The mantras rose. But the road from Neelgarh remained… empty. Hours bled. Smiles stiffened, then curdled into pity. The whispers began. 'Rejected.' 'Disgrace.' In the terror of that mounting shame… before hands could catch her… Aparna took her life."
The air in Agni's lungs turned to stone. He stopped breathing.
"When Vyomesh's procession finally arrived, near midnight, delayed by a convenient landslide… it was to a palace of wails, not music. Your father didn't just lose a sister. He lost his own reflection. The betrayal… it became the aquifer feeding the hate between our lands. Since that day, Neelgarh's name here is spoken with ash."
A single, scalding tear traced a path down Agni's cheek. Then another. They fell onto his clenched fist on the table.
"So that," he whispered, the words sandpaper on his soul, "is the root."
He stood, movement jerky. A stiff bow to his mother, then he walked away. The city's joyous sounds below now sounded like laughter at a funeral.
In his chamber, the silence was absolute. He went to his Gurukul sword, drew it. The familiar steel felt alien, poisoned. He stared at his reflection in the blade—the prince's face, the boy's shattered eyes.
His grip tightened until the leather creaked in protest. Slowly, with a control that broke something inside him, he sheathed the blade.
The vow, when it came, wasn't spoken to the room. It was etched into the silence, a scar upon the future.
"Neer… I will never forgive you. Or the blood you carry."
---
Neer's Homecoming
Neelgarh's welcome was a different beast a crashing symphony of waves on the ceremonial pier, clanging harbor bells, the riotous, salt-stained chaos of a maritime people. Garlands of shell and kelp flew, the air thick with ozone, fried fish, and sheer, undiluted joy.
Neer leapt from the chariot before it halted, his energy a spark in tinder. His bow to his parents was deep but swift, then he was swallowed. Queen Vaibhavi's embrace crushed the breath from him, her tears mingling with the sea spray on his skin.
"Mother! Ten years is an ocean! The Gurukul had everything except your voice."
King Vyomesh's laugh was a rolling wave. "And I am just driftwood?"
Neer spun, throwing arms around his father in a hug that was all fierce, unprincely joy. "You I missed most, you old tidal wave!"
The welcome was a whirlwind playful shoves, a messy tilak, laughter as loud as the surf. His bath was in sun-warmed seawater and lime, shedding the forest's dust like a second skin.
Later, on their private balcony facing the endless sea, the three stood. Together, they poured a libation of milk and fresh water into the crashing waves below a silent offering to Jalpurush. The meal was loud, filled with his animated tales, his parents' smiles fond and weary.
At dawn, he led the procession to the seaside temple, its spire spearing the mist. The priests' blessings were a cool sprinkle, a homecoming that seeped into his marrow.
Then, he was unleashed. He moved through the stinking, vibrant fish markets and upland villages with the same ease. He settled a dock dispute with a joke, hauled nets with laughing fishermen, scattered sweets from his own pocket to wide-eyed children. His people didn't love their prince; they claimed him as their own wild kin.
Yet, in the lulls watching boys play-fight on the beach, hearing friends bicker his mind would stutter. A familiar, serious face flashed behind his eyes: dark eyes, a slight frown. A hollow, shaped exactly like Agni's silence, opened in the laughter's heart.
I wonder what the stone-statue is doing now, he'd think, the old tease a phantom limb that ached.
The next afternoon brought a welcome sight: Merchant Brajesh, his face a map of sea routes. And beside him…
"Akash!" Neer's grin was instantaneous, solar. "By the tides! You surfaced!"
Brajesh explained, arm around the young man. Akash was his adopted son, found under circumstances glossed over with a merchant's vagueness. Akash bowed, voice thick. "You are my only father."
After formalities, the King waved. "Neer, show your friend our nest."
Neer needed no urging. He swept Akash through pearl-cool corridors, the map room with charts of every current, up to the wind-whipped terrace overlooking Neelgarh's dazzling sprawl sapphire bay, white city, green hills.
"Well? What do you think?"
Akash gazed out, pale eyes reflecting the vast sky. "It is… more beautiful than Vijrathgarh," he murmured, almost to himself.
Neer blinked. "Vijra-what?"
Akash snapped back, a faint, practiced smile replacing the lapse. "I only meant… it steals the breath."
As they descended through a courtyard of tide-mimicking fountains, Akash asked, tone deceptively light, "And… did you see Agni? Before leaving?"
Neer's laugh was a cracked bell too loud, too sharp. "Why would I seek out a statue? If the great Prince of Tejgarh wants my company, he knows where the sea is."
The conversation flowed on, but the question hung like a coming storm.
Later, after tales of eastern trade winds, the visitors departed. At the gate, Neer clapped Akash's shoulder. "Take care of him, Uncle. Akash return soon. The sea air mends souls."
Akash's smile was a quiet, sad artifact. "I will, friend."
---
Bhoomipur
In her sunlit, earth-scented chambers in Bhoomipur, Princess Dharaaya sat by the window. Her gaze was on the stable hills, but her mind was leagues gone. The familiar weight of home now felt like a vessel waiting for a specific echo.
Her sister, Pratha, burst in like a sunbeam given mischief. "Aha! The bedrock princess is adrift! The very soil must be jealous!"
Dharaaya started, a blush blooming. "No one. Remembering."
"Remembering who?" Pratha singsonged, plopping down. "It's written in your eyes, di! Who cracked the stone?"
"The Gurukul," Dharaaya said, voice softening, drifting. "Morning drills. Wet soil after rain. The earth's pulse… and… meeting someone. Days where a glance was a conversation. Worrying when he was hurt…" Her voice faded, lost in the current.
Pratha's eyes shone with triumph. "So it's true! My sister's heart is claimed!"
Dharaaya reached, pinching her sister's ear with gentle authority. "Quiet, you little weed! Don't start."
Pratha yelped, giggling. "Let go! You're blushing!"
"Go. I need rest."
"Rest?" Pratha danced to the door, throwing the word like a challenge. "Or dream of him again?"
Dharaaya made a playful throw with a cushion. "Go!"
With a final laugh, Pratha vanished.
Alone, Dharaaya lay back, closing her eyes. The moment darkness took her, his face was there—waiting. Not memory. Presence. The steady grey of his eyes, the way his hair lifted in a non-existent breeze, the solid safety of him between her and danger. A deep, quiet longing, patient as roots seeking a deep aquifer, settled in her chest.
She wasn't remembering the Gurukul.
She was haunted by its absence.
---
Night fell across the three kingdoms like a great, silent cloak.
Tejgarh burned with contained fire.
Neelgarh shimmered with restless tides.
Bhoomipur breathed with the slow heartbeat of stone.
Three princes.
One princess.
Three thrones now holding the ghost-shaped hollow of a lost "us."
But in the unmapped space between these lands—
where fire, water, and earth yielded to a deeper dark—
something shifted.
A windless tremor slithered across the seam of worlds.
In the dead of night, when even gods sleep, a figure coalesced atop the hill where the five last stood united.
The same figure from their departure.
The same ancient, silver eyes.
It raised a single hand.
Between its fingers, the sky cracked.
Not light. Not magic.
A fracture—as if destiny itself were brittle glass.
Through it, a whisper seeped into the void:
"Hate has returned to one heart.
Love, unrecognized, to another.
The girl walks toward a dream not her own.
The wheel turns."
The crack pulsed.
A second split jagged beside it—a lightning bolt of potential ruin.
The figure stepped back, watching the sky tear, and murmured the true warning:
"When these cracks meet…
one crown will shatter.
And one love will break before it can breathe."
The fractures glowed—a sickly triad of fire-red, sea-blue, earth-brown.
Then—
Silence. Total, devouring.
The cracks vanished.
But the echo remained, vibrating in the stone of every palace, in the core of every beating heart:
"Choose your loyalties, heirs of the Pentad.
Your hearts will not survive the coming storm."