Devashree POV

"Pathetic! Pathetic...absolutely fucking PATHETIC!!"

I shouted at the mirror. My reflection didn't flinch. It just stared back at me, eyes swollen, nose red, lips trembling. A mess. A complete and utter mess!

It was absolutely deplorable.

I slammed my palms on the edge of the basin, gripping it so hard my knuckles turned white. My whole body trembled with the aftershocks of everything that had just happened. 

And I hated it.

I hated that I caved in and gave in to my emotions the moment I started shouting at him. Why was it so hard to control the tears? Why did the tears spill hot and wild whenever I was angry? 

It was happening again.

Tears spilled down, angrier this time, hotter. My breath heaved in and out of me like I was drowning in open air.

I let them run their course and then swiped them away furiously with the back of my hand. Like they were betraying me, those damned tears, always betraying me.

I gritted my teeth, forcing my gaze to hold steady against the mirror's accusing silence.

"You're supposed to be stronger than this," I whispered harshly. "You're Mahalakshmi, for gods' sake. You hold the balance of the world. You are grace. You are fury. You do not weep for a man who forgot what your love meant."

"And you do not break down in front of such a pathetic man!"

Thankfully, my tears had stopped. And it didn't look like anymore were coming tonight. I was tired of those. It dawned on her that this is all that she would ever do. 

Just suffer in every freking lifetime! Just agony for her that would reduce me to tears. And who gave me that pain and suffering? 

My beloved husband!

Beloved, my foot.

In every lifetime, I wait. I trust. I believe.
And what do I get?

Silence. Disregard. Worship thrown at others while I am expected to endure with poise and a smile.

"I'm done," I murmured. My voice sounded foreign, even to me.

"I am done waiting. Done forgiving. Done being the second thought, the afterword, the footnote in his grand schemes."

I stood, slowly. My reflection met my eyes again, and this time, I didn't see the mess. I didn't see the swollen eyes or trembling lips. I saw fury.

"If I have to spend the rest of this lifetime and the next stitching myself back together, so be it. But he will never again be allowed to tear me apart."

A knock sounded at the door, soft and hesitant.

I didn't move.

"Rajkumari?" Vrinda's muffled voice. "Should I bring the little Rajkumar? He's been fussy..."

"No. Don't bring him here. Put him in the cradle. I will be out in a moment."

I stepped out of the room, still trembling slightly, though my face had dried.

When I reached the door, I could already hear him.

Tanu.

My son's sobs punched through the quiet like cracks in glass—sharp, raw, relentless. I pushed the door open and found him there, writhing and crying in his cradle, his tiny fists flailing in the air, his face flushed and wet with tears.

My heart dropped.

"Oh, my Tanu..." I whispered, rushing forward.

I dropped to my knees and scooped him into my arms. His tiny body was burning with frustration, his cries sharp and broken as he pressed himself against my chest. The weight of him was so small, yet it felt like the whole world.

"I'm here," I murmured, rocking him. "I'm right here, baby."

But he didn't stop.

I tried everything, his peacock rattle, the carved one Krishna had made with such pride. I shook it gently, the bells jingling, but Tanu only wailed louder. I reached for the ivory-handled one. Nothing. The soft woolen deer he loved to sleep with? He shoved it away with a pitiful cry.

I was failing.

My hands shook. My heart felt like it was about to tear right out of my chest.

I looked down at him, his little face crumpled with sorrow too big for his small body. And I heard myself ask, in a voice so quiet I wasn't sure he could hear me—

"Are you crying for him?"

His sobs didn't stop. But they changed...slower, heavier, like he was grieving something he didn't even have words for.

"Are you crying for your Pitashree?" I whispered, kissing the top of his warm, damp head. "Is that it, my moon? You miss him? Do you miss Krishna?"

Tanu stopped for a moment and looked right in my eyes.

"Don't miss him, Tanu. You know why? I will tell you why. You shouldn't miss him so much because your father is just plain disappointing.

I couldn't believe that I had just told my son that his father...his powerful father was disappointing. But it wasn't my fault. I was just telling him the truth.

Tanu blinked up at me, those huge, tear-glazed eyes brimming with confusion, with want, with something far too heavy for someone so small. I tucked a curl behind his ear and sighed, cradling his head gently as his sobs slowly ebbed into hiccups.

"I know I shouldn't say this to you," I murmured. "But your father is just.....so puny. You remember you were calling out for him when he was asleep and wasn't waking up? You know what he did when he finally woke up? He didn't ask about you. He didn't ask about me. He didn't even look around to see if we were breathing. He went away to do a Rasleela with his Gopis."

"And now you might wonder...so what if Pitashree did a little dance with his friends? It's not just a dance, Tanu, not something innocent and sweet like the games you'll someday play in the courtyards. No. This one... it's intimate. It's for his precious gopis It's..."

I shouldn't be doing this. My mother would have words with me if she heard what I was telling my child. 

Tanu stared up at me with those wide, trusting eyes. Eyes that didn't yet know betrayal. Eyes that still believed his father was the sun itself.

How do I tell you, my love? How do I explain that the man you adore is the same one who breaks my heart over and over again?

"I can't tell you Tanu. This is not at all for your baby ears. God, I shouldn't be telling you this. You are too innocent and should remain away from your father's deplorable influence."

Especially his Rasleelas. 

The intimate, sacred, all-consuming dance he shares with women who aren't his wife.  He waits for the moon to rise. And then... he calls them. His gopis. They come to him, barefoot and breathless, their hair loose, their bodies trembling with devotion. They adorn themselves.....not just with flowers and jewels, but with vermilion, smeared across their breasts, their thighs, their lips. Marking themselves as his.

 And then... they dance. Not like the innocent swaying of the trees in the wind. No. They press against him, their hands roaming, their bodies arching into his touch. He lets them. He revels in it.

Like he had any right. Like they had any right. 

Tanu blinked again, a confused little hiccup escaping his lips. His hands, so tiny and warm, clung to the edge of my angavastra like he understood more than he should. Like he knew.

I pressed my lips to his forehead. "Your mother is no damsel in distress, Tanu. But I think these people have been developing the misconception that I have no courage of my own. They call me Jagjanani—Mother of the World—and assume that means I must be endlessly gentle, endlessly kind, endlessly forgiving. That no matter how deeply they wound me, I will simply smile and bless them, like some hollow idol carved from stone."

My fingers traced the curve of his cheek, my touch feather-light, though my soul burned with something far from softness.

"And perhaps I was, once. Perhaps I let them believe that. But there is a limit to everything, my love. Even a goddess's patience. I dare your father to come back. If your father thinks he can return and find me waiting with open arms, then he does not know me at all."

*****

Krishna flopped his head on the wall of the palace grounds, beating it. He was sitting on the ground at the back of the palace wall, nursing a glass of madira in his hand.

Mortals were very fond of that substance. And maybe it would work on him to forget the ache he was feeling. 

But damn it!

It didn't work.

Krishna groaned and let his head thunk back against the wall again, raising the glass to his lips.

The liquor burned going down, just like Shree's tears had burned his skin when they'd fallen on his hands. And did nothing to burn away the ache in his chest. No amount of the mortal drink could dull the echo of her sobs in his ears.

He had never felt more unworthy of the goddess who had once called him hers.

Krishna pressed the glass to his forehead but the cool rim was a poor balm. His lip still throbbed from Bhrata Dharmendra's blow, but that was nothing—nothing—compared to the wound her words had left.

 Nothing could compare to the devastation in Devashree's eyes when she'd said—

"Am I not your Lakshmi?"

His hand trembled.

"I protected what was yours."

"I have never given my love to anyone else."

He squeezed his eyes shut and slammed the glass down on the stone. It shattered. Shards skittered away, catching the moonless night like fractured stars.

Let it cut him. Let him bleed. What did it matter?

Gods weren't supposed to feel this. Not like this. Not the way he did when she looked at him like he had betrayed her very soul.

Krishna tilted his head back, resting it against the rough stone of the wall, gazing up at the stars. The night was moonless as if even the heavens couldn't bear to witness his shame.

Krishna bowed his head and muttered bitterly, "You fool. You absolute fool. God of love? Protector of dharma? Destroyer of evil?"

A hollow laugh caught in his throat. "What a joke."

He looked down at the drink again, then threw it aside.

"I would have taken a hundred more blows from her brother," he whispered," But not this. Anything but her tears."

 Krishna pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes until colors burst behind his lids. Mortals drank to forget, but gods had no such mercy. Every tear she had shed, every tremor in her voice, every broken sob...they were etched into him now, permanent as the scars on her feet from climbing that damned mountain for him.

He had broken her heart.

"Can you... please—just—leave?"

Not a command.
A plea.

And he had obeyed. Because even if it killed him, he would give her anything.

Everything. Anything but that. Because how do you leave when someone is your entire home?

"Please..." He couldn't do that. "Please...." He begged the moonless sky. A god begging to a void that would not answer.

He dragged his fingers down his face, the skin beneath his eyes raw. And then he looked up at the sky, starless and vast and merciless.

"She is my home," he whispered hoarsely. "My light. My breath. My Lakshmi."

If only he could offer her his pain .... let her carve her fury into his chest if it meant taking away the ache from hers.

But she hadn't even wanted that.

She hadn't wanted him at all.

Krishna closed his eyes again and leaned his head against the cold wall.

"Please..."
"Please forgive me."
"Please don't stop being mine."

He had to do something. He must, or he would lose everything. 

Like Ram had lost his Sita.

And wasn't that the cruelest irony of all? 

Ram had let her walk away. Had watched Sita disappear into the earth with nothing more than tears in his eyes and silence on his lips. Because for him, his rules, his principles, and his people had been everything. 

But he was no Ram. 

He would not stand by and watch his love walk away. He would not let duty or pride or even divinity steal her from him.

He was Krishna. 

The trickster. The lover. The god who refused to let dharma be a noose around the neck of those he loved. The one who danced through battlefields, who smiled charmingly even in the face of fate, and the one who bent the rules when they didn't serve justice, until they snapped and rewrote them.

She was his Lakshmi.
And he would find a way to deserve her again.

With that thought, Krishna pushed off the cold palace wall and stood. He took a step forward.

Then another.

The wind howled around him, as if the universe itself warned him to turn back.

He ignored it.

He looked up above towards her chamber. 

If he went inside the palace from the entrance, the guards would alarm her and then she would close herself again to him. He needed to be discreet. 

His gaze tracked the narrow ledge that ran beneath the arched windows of the palace. Her window was the one with the conch-shell engraving carved into the wood just below. The same one she had pointed out earlier through clenched teeth.

 She would kill him if she caught him doing this.
But he would take that sword across the chest with a smile if it meant being near her.

The courtyard was quiet. Guards had shifted to the outer gate. Quiet as shadow and swift as thought, Krishna moved, slipping through the hedges.

He needed to be clever. And if there was one thing Krishna had never lacked, it was cleverness.

His eyes traced the shadowed outline of the palace walls, memorizing the familiar bends, balconies, and ledges carved into stone. He had climbed to her once as her fiancé, sneaking into his beloved's courtyard and chamber. 

He could do it again now.

A loose vine clung to the carved reliefs of the palace exterior. Krishna caught hold of it and pulled himself up, muscle and memory guiding him. His bruised lip ached, but he welcomed it...it reminded him why he was doing this.

He climbed higher, his breath steady, until he reached the balcony carved with lotus petals and conch shells. Her window was open just a crack. 

He crouched at the edge and peered through the half-drawn curtain. The lamp inside flickered low. She was asleep, finally, though her breathing was uneven, and her fist remained clenched in the bedsheets. 

Slowly, he opened the window and swung his legs inside. His feet touched the cool stone floor without a sound.

He stepped closer to the bed. Devashree had ditched her clothes, replacing them with a golden robe. It was probably for the best. He didn't want her wounds to be infected like her feet because of the heat. 

The robe had slashed open in her sleep, and he could see her wounds. There was a deep slash that ran from her shoulder, down her collarbone to the middle of her breasts. The skin around it was bruised, angry red, and swollen where the bandages had slipped away. A faint shimmer of salve remained, but it was clear she hadn't tended to it again before collapsing into sleep.

He knelt beside the bed, eyes burning, and gently adjusted the edge of the robe to cover the wound again. His fingers twitched at his sides, aching to trace the hurt, to soothe it away.  But he didn't dare. Not when she'd likely gut him for touching her without permission.

Movement at the left drew his gaze towards his now-awake son. 

Pradyumna was watching him silently, one tiny foot stuffed in his mouth as he gnawed thoughtfully on his own toes. His dark eyes—her eyes—were wide, unblinking, but there was no fear in them.

A lump rose in Krishna's throat. He had missed so much.

Then Pradyumna pulled his foot from his mouth with a wet pop and reached out...not towards Krishna, but towards the wound on Devashree's chest.

Krishna caught him before he could touch it. "No, my little bean," he murmured. "That will hurt her."

 Pradyumna blinked, then offered him a drool-soaked fist.

A soft chuckle escaped Krishna's throat, torn and half-broken. He took the tiny hand in his own, cradling it like it was something sacred.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, barely audible. "I should've been here."

He picked him up in his arms and held his son close to his heart. The baby's head came to rest just beneath his chin. He kissed the boy's head, lips lingering longer than they should have for a father as deemed by society. The scent of milk and sandalwood clung faintly to the baby's hair. It was Familiar. Unbearably so.

He remembered he had enjoyed every part of fatherhood with Tanu the first time. A thousand images flickered in his mind...his Tanu curled against him after feeding, the way he'd gripped his finger with impossible strength for someone so tiny, the sound of his laughter when he'd tossed him gently in the air.

He had loved being a father. He had cherished every second with Tanu in Ksheersagara. 

Pradyumna yawned in his arms and snuggled closer, his chubby hands patting aimlessly at Krishna's chest before falling still. 

He may have missed these past months with his child, but no more. He pressed his lips to his forehead again and walked to the carved cradle nestled beside the bed. Gently, he lowered Pradyumna into it.

Then he stepped back, and his foot brushed against a small wooden toy.

It chirped.

 Devashree's eyes flew open, dark and alert in an instant. Before he could speak, she had already twisted, yanking the dagger from beneath her pillow and pressing it to his throat in one fluid motion.

"Get. Away. From. My. Son."

He met her gaze, and for a moment, the sheer force of it stunned him. Her eyes burned with something feral.

"Shree..."

"Say my name again and I swear I will slit your throat so cleanly, they won't find your tongue in the afterlife."

Krishna froze.

He'd expected her to be angry. 

He hadn't expected this. Not this blistering, animalistic fury that made even the god inside him take a cautious step back.

"You dare sneak into my chamber like a thief," she seethed, her arm shaking with restrained force, "hover over my child, touch him like you have any right left—"

"He's my son too," he tried, softly.

Wrong.

So wrong.

Devashree shoved him backward so violently he stumbled, hitting the stone wall with a grunt. Her blade followed, pressed once again to his throat as she stalked after him.

"Your son? Your son? You only remember that when it's convenient, do you? Where were you when he cried for you? When he whimpered in his sleep and reached out with those tiny fists, hoping his 'Pitashree' would come and hold him? Where were you when he burned with fever, when I sat beside him chanting a hundred names of Narayana while he shivered in my lap?"

Krishna opened his mouth but no words came out.

"How did you get inside?"

"I climbed the wall."

"You must have a death wish," she growled, voice low and lethal.

He should have stayed silent. He should have bowed his head and accepted her rage. But the fool in him—the part that still believed he could charm his way back into her heart—made him smile. That same reckless, boyish smile that had once made her sigh in fond exasperation.

"Only if it's by your hand," he murmured.

Her reaction was instant. A snarl twisted her beautiful face, her lips pulling back like a cornered tigress. "Spare me your poetry, Krishna. One more word and I will gut you like the lying, spineless, cowardly beast you've become."

The insult didn't wound him.

The disgust in her eyes did.

She was looking at him with such disgust on her face that he took a step back from the horror of it. She looked at him as if he were something foul, something unworthy of even her contempt. She looked at him like he was something vile. Like the very sight of him made her sick. And that—that was a pain no asura's blade had ever inflicted.

"I—"

"Shut. Up."

The command was a whip-crack, leaving no room for argument. He obeyed instantly, his jaw clamping shut.

"I don't want to hear your pathetic excuses," she spat. "I don't want your whispers or your charm or your fucking smile. I want you gone."

His chest ached. "Please hear me out."

"No!"

The force of her rejection struck him like a physical blow. He had faced armies, demons, death itself,but nothing had ever left him this helpless.

She turned away, her shoulders rigid, her breath coming in sharp, controlled bursts. The dismissal was clear. But he couldn't leave. Not like this. Not when every fiber of his being screamed to fall at her feet and beg.

He took a hesitant step forward. "Priye—"

"Don't," she warned, her voice dangerously soft. "Be gone! Not just from this chamber. Not just from this palace. From my life."

Gone.

The word echoed in his skull, relentless.

No. No, no, no—

Her rejection was absolute. Final.

But he was nothing if not stubborn. He took a step forward, hands raised in surrender. "Chanchale—"

"Don't," she cut in, "Don't make me hurt you, Krishna."

He almost laughed. Let her. Let her carve him apart if it meant she'd feel something—anything—other than this cold dismissal.

The warning should have stopped him. But he was desperate. Desperate to hear her call him Kanha again, desperate to see even a flicker of warmth in those dark, wounded eyes.

He reached for her hand.

The plate shattered against his chest before he even saw her move.

Shards of clay clattered to the floor, the remnants of whatever meal she had barely touched. The sting of impact barely registered....not when the true pain was watching her face twist in fury, in betrayal.

"Get. Out." Each word was a dagger.

He didn't move fast enough. She threw another place,

Another plate slammed into the wall beside his head, shattering. A sharp edge grazed his cheekbone, warm blood trickling down his jaw. He saw her picking up her dagger again and moving towards him. He retreated some steps.

And then—

The door slammed in his face, and he realized that his wife had thrown him out of her chamber.

For a long moment, Krishna just stood there, staring at the engraved wood, at the conch-shell carvings he had once traced with reverent fingers. He pressed his palm against the door.

Inside, he could hear the muffled sound of her pacing, the sharp clatter of something—another plate? A vase?—being hurled against the far wall.

 And for the first time in his immortal existence, Krishna felt something unfamiliar coil in his chest.

Fear.

Not of her. Never of her. Even now, even like this, she was his light, his breath, his very soul.

No, what chilled his blood was the finality in her eyes when she'd looked at him. As if he were already a stranger. A ghost in his own marriage.

He was afraid. No, he was terrified. 

Of losing her. Of the terrible finality in her eyes when she had looked at him.

His fingers curled against the door, nails biting into the wood.

"Shree..." His whisper was raw, torn from somewhere deep and broken inside him.

Silence.

Then...another crash. Another vase, perhaps. Or a lamp. The violence of it made him flinch.

He should leave. Give her space. Let her rage burn itself out.

But the thought of walking away now, when the wound was so fresh, when the gulf between them yawned so wide....it was unthinkable.

His fingers twitched toward the door again, hovering just above the wood.

Knock, begged his heart. Fight. Fix this.

His fingers twitched at his sides, aching to knock, to beg, to fix this. But for once, his silver tongue failed him. What words could undo the neglect? What apology could erase the hurt in her eyes?

None.

So he sank to the floor, his back against her door, his bloodstained cheek pressed to the carvings he knew by heart. Let the guards stare. Let the servants whisper. Let the whole world see the God of Love brought low.

He would wait.

Through her rage.

Through her silence.

Through the long, aching night.

However long it took.

Because walking away was no longer an option.

*****

Devashree's POV

"Pranam Rajkumari. Maharani has called you down for lunch."

I looked up from where I was writing a letter to Revati. "Tell Mata that I will take my lunch here in my chambers like usual."

"Forgive me, Rajkumari, but Maharani has insisted that you be present in the dining hall to receive today's guests."

Guests? It couldn't be my dear husband, could it? Note the sarcasm here. I refuse to sit at the same table as that lying, faithless—

"Rajkumari?"

"Do you know who these guests are?"

"I don't, Rajkumari."

No. It can't be Krishna. Pitashree would kill him on the spot. Not to forget, her brother would throw a fit, too. He would have Krishna's head on a platter if he dared show his face here after everything.

"Very well. I will be there in a moment."

I should have known that nothing was going to go my way because the moment I entered the dining hall, I saw Krishna. Seated at the right side of the table, like he had every right to be there

At the head of the table, my father refused to meet my eyes, his jaw clenched so tight I could see the muscle twitching. Coward. He could face down armies but not his own daughter's fury.

To his left, my mother—traitor—watched me with those pleading eyes. Don't make a scene. Not here. Not now.

Of course. Of course this was her doing. Always the peacemaker, my mother. Always believing that talking could fix what had been broken beyond repair.

And she'd stacked the deck against me.

The whole family was here. Even Pratap and Subhadra, the latter heavily pregnant, her hands resting protectively over her rounded belly.

I couldn't scream. I couldn't throw the nearest platter at Krishna's smug face. Not without upsetting Subhadra, and the gods knew I wouldn't risk her or the baby.

So I did the only thing I could.

I turned my glare on my father.

You could have stopped this.

He had the decency to look guilty, at least. His eyes darted to my mother, then back to me, a silent What was I supposed to do? written in the pinch of his brows.

Pathetic.

I took a deep breath. 

One meal.

That was all I had to endure.

I could do this.

Be a good girl. Conceal, don't feel. Don't let them know.

Where is my chair?  I scanned the dining hall, my gaze landing on the only empty chair—the one placed directly beside my beloved husband.

Oh, of course.

Because the universe clearly hadn't humiliated me enough today.

Krishna had the audacity to pat the seat beside him, as if inviting me to sit. As if I would willingly place myself within arm's reach of him after everything.

A slow, dangerous smile curled my lips.

"How thoughtful," I said, voice dripping with venomous sweetness. "But I think I'd rather dine in the stables. The horses are better company."

My mother's horrified gasp was almost worth it.

Almost.

Krishna, the bastard, just laughed as if I'd told some delightful joke instead of outright rejecting him. I felt like breaking his teeth;

"I've missed that sharp tongue of yours, Priye," he murmured, eyes glittering with amusement.

"And I've missed the silence of your absence," I shot back.

The table went dead quiet.

Even my father paused mid-sip, his cup frozen halfway to his lips.

Subhadra looked like she was torn between horrified fascination and the urge to flee.

And my mother?

She buried her face in her hands.

Good. That's what she gets for doing this to me.

I clapped to call a servant. "Rajkumari ki jai ho."

"Do we not have enough chairs in the palace?"

A nervous glance darted toward my mother, the obvious conspirator. She at least had the decency to look chastised, though her lips pressed into that stubborn line I knew too well. The "this-is-for-your-own-good" line.

Krishna leaned back in his chair. "Why go through the trouble of another chair, Priye, when this one is perfectly—"

I am a good girl, and good girls don't stab their husbands in front of pregnant sisters-in-law. But oh, how I wanted to.

"Bring me a chair. Now. And place it as far from that as possible." A deliberate flick of my wrist toward Krishna.

The servant paled. "B-but Rajkumari, where—?"

"At the head of the table," I said coolly. "Besides the crown prince."

My father snorted into his wine.

Subhadra made a sound halfway between a gasp and a laugh before clapping a hand over her mouth.

The servant scrambled to obey, dragging a heavy chair to the spot I'd demanded. I settled into it with regal grace, ignoring the way my father's shoulders shook with silent amusement.

Let them laugh.

I'd won this round.

The scrape of cutlery against fine porcelain was the only sound in the dining hall.

I didn't look up from my plate, where I was meticulously dissecting a piece of roti.

The meal began in suffocating silence.

Or rather, almost silence.

Because my mother—bless her relentless, meddling heart—would not stop.

"Krishna, darling," she said, voice dripping with false cheer, "didn't you bring those marvelous mangoes from Dwarka? Devashree adores mangoes."

I stabbed a piece of roasted eggplant with unnecessary force.

Krishna's smile was infuriatingly smooth. "Ah, yes. The sweetest ones, picked just for—"

"I've lost my taste for sweet things," I said flatly. "They tend to leave a rotten aftertaste."

Pratap choked on his wine.

Krishna leaned forward, undaunted. "Perhaps you'd prefer something spicier, then? I could—"

"What I'd prefer," I interrupted, finally meeting his gaze, "is to finish this meal in peace."

The silence that followed was glorious.

My mother plowed on, undeterred. "Krishna, tell us about your travels! Devashree loves hearing about—"

"I'd rather hear about the plague outbreak in Kashi," I said sweetly. "At least that would be useful information."

"Would you like me to describe the symptoms in detail, Priye? The vomiting was particularly—"

"We're eating," my brother snapped, finally breaking his silence.

Bless Pratap.

The rest of the meal continued in the same vein....my mother's increasingly desperate attempts to force conversation, my increasingly creative ways to shut it down.

By the final course, even the servants were sweating.

As the dessert was served—ugh, mango kulfi, really?—Krishna finally pushed his plate away and met my eyes across the table.

"Still hate me, then?"

I dabbed my lips with my napkin, taking my time before responding.

"Hate implies I still care enough to feel something."

"Enough, Devashree." My mother said. "I expect you and Shri Krishna to join me in the adjacent chamber."

My mother's voice had been quiet, but the steel beneath it was unmistakable. This was not a request.

For a moment, I considered refusing. Considered turning on my heel and walking out, consequences be damned.

But the look in her eyes—that mix of exhaustion and quiet authority—stopped me.

Damn it.

I lifted my chin. "As you wish, Mata."

It was extremely serious when I joined Mata, Pitashree, and Krishna.  Mata sat rigid on the divan. Pitashree stood by the window, his massive arms crossed, the muscle in his jaw twitching. And him—Krishna—perched on the edge of a chair, his usual effortless grace replaced by something tense, waiting.

I didn't sit.

"Well?" I said, my voice colder than I'd intended. "Let's get this over with."

Mata's eyes flashed. "You will not take that tone in this room, Devashree."

Yes. It was probably wrong of me to take it out on my mother. She knew nothing about what was happening here. She didn't deserve my scorn. She must think it's just a lovers' spat. She had no idea that it was so much bigger and so much larger.

"I apologise, Mata."

My mother reached out, her hand touching mine "Devashree... we know you are hurting. But this silence, this anger—it is destroying you. And him." She gestured to Krishna, who sat unnaturally still, his eyes fixed on me. 

"I expect the two of you to speak. Civilly. Like adults. Like husband and wife."

"We are past civility," I said, my voice low. "We are past words."

Mata pressed on, undeterred. "Your father and I had our share of battles too. But we faced them together. We spoke to each other."

"That's because Pitashree is a good man. A man who once cut off another's head for looking at you wrong. Not all men are like him. Some leave their pregnant wives alone in the jungle to fend for themselves."

Krishna inhaled sharply.

I refused to look at him.

"Devashree," Mata whispered, horrified. "That is a vile thing to say."

"It's the truth."

She blinked. "Who—who would do something so monstrous? Do you know this woman?"

"I do."

"Is she safe now? Did you bring her help? That man must be punished. Did she belong to any kingdom we know? Do we know her family? Surely—surely someone could have done something—"

"She had no one," I replied, still not meeting Krishna's eyes. "Except the man who abandoned her. And now she's dead. Back to the soil. Devoured by the wilderness that welcomed her better than her own husband did."

I still refused to look at Krishna. But I felt his gaze on me....searing, aching, desperate. Like guilt made flesh.

Still, I kept my gaze on Mata. On Pitashree. On anyone but him.

"That poor girl," Mata whispered.

Pitashree cleared his throat, gruffly. "We shall leave you to talk now." The door clicked shut behind them with terrible finality.

Leaving me alone.

With him.

Still, I refused to look at him.

Instead, I turned toward the window where the first drops of monsoon rain had begun tracing crooked paths down the glass. Like tears. Like the tears Sita must have shed when she realized no one was coming for her.

I swallowed once and said. 

"Let's talk."

******

Tell me what you think of this chapter in the comments.

 Also, what do you think about the change of perspectives? Is the 1st person better, or should I continue with third person like I always do?

And don't forget to vote! 

Until next time....❤️