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Chapter Text

Flames lick metal, and her stranger is gone, as surely as if Amarendra Baahubali had killed him himself. An unreasonable thought, unbefitting of a princess, but impossible to deny. Devasena knew the man who watched for her every smile, whose touch made her skin glow with pleasure, who fought by her side as an equal; she is not certain she can say the same for the future King of Mahishmati, although she has promised him her hand.

No one else understands. Her ladies-in-waiting giggle to themselves over the impending wedding, Sumitra bustles about to see to their guests' comfort, and her brother beams: "What more could you wish for, Devasena?"

She cannot fault them for it. Her stranger had been hers alone to delight in, and so hers alone to mourn.

He finds her on the eastern wall. Of course he does; if anyone would know what her stranger had been to her, it is he. She staggers forward into the circle of his arms. Of course she does; a warrior's instinct is to cradle an injury close to the heart, and her heart is still with him.

Cheek against his chest, she admits: "I would have wandered with him, wherever he wanted to go."

Her stranger whispers against her hair: "He would have been happy here, spending the rest of his life by your side."

In silence they grieve a shared stillborn dream; afterwards, Devasena raises her head to smile at Baahubali--no longer a stranger but still hers.

Chapter Text

1. Swan (Cygnus olor)

Bibhatsu lands at her feet with a final furious flap of snow-white wings, and Devasena laughs with satisfaction. "That was further apart than we've ever managed before," she says. "Anni would say it was impossible."

For that matter, Sumitra also worries that Bibhatsu settled at so early an age, but all the court physicians remained unconcerned. The rajmantri theorizes that it signifies that Devasena knew herself sooner than most. Devasena suspects Bibhatsu, having found the form that would suit him best, felt no need to experiment further. 

Bibhatsu snorts, an incongruous sound given his pristine appearance. "The more skills we master, the better - no use looking to this lot for protection. Now," he shakes out his wings and prepares to vault into the sky once more, "send an arrow my way this time and we'll see what I can do with it."

He soars once more. Devasena raises her bow. 

2. Lioness (Panthera leo persica)

Chanda doses in the sunlight, and Bhalla explains: "She's resting, to prepare for the responsibilities of the coronation." Did Mother know that lionesses sleep in preparation for the hunt? It is so; Chanda slept for a full day before the Kalakeya invasion, to ensure her strength would be adequate to cut down the invaders to their homeland, to sink her claws into the neck of their leader: that prize that should have decided a king but didn't. But leaving that aside: once well-rested, lionesses take up the scent of their prey once more, the promise of blood already thick on their tongues, their movements precisely planned to plant their prey in a trap of their own making. Chanda follows her fellows in this --Mother should not mistake her lack of activity for indolence. 

Chanda doses in the sunlight, and only in the infrequent twitch of her tail is her anger apparent.

3. Dog (Canis lupus familiaris)

Urvi spends the last week before she settles as a mare whose coat shines like bronze, and Kattappa lets himself dream. It would be practical, after all, in that the state would not have to arrange for his transportation afterwards when he could ride Urvi instead. What a thing for Mahishmati to boast: that even their slaves manifested such brilliant forms that the world should envy them. 

His father says nothing in response, only looks at him with the weight of generations of servitude behind him: Kattappa can see a genealogy written in daemons that vary from dholes to jackals to the occasional wolf. None of his ancestors have escaped their curse. There is no reason Kattappa should be the first. 

Urvi shifts into the form of a sway-backed mongrel of uncertain breed and unenviable color; with it comes the weight of finality. Kattappa tells himself he expected nothing different.

4. Krait (Bungarus fasciatus)

There was a time when Kamna hid away beneath Bijjaladeva's shawl, concealed along with his crippled arm. Certainly his father had hated the sight of either, and once the old fool's opinion had mattered enough to him that such secrecy had felt absolutely necessary.  Now he is tired of the ruse, and shows both snake and arm equally: so what if one or both had lost him the throne? 

But years of rejection have taken a toll on Kamna. Where she once reared up proudly, she lolls in his lap weakly; her fangs run dry and useless; and her voice, once high and piercing, is reduced to the barest whisper. He chuckles without mirth: two of a kind, both of them. 

Snake, arm, or both had cost Bijjaladeva the throne. He swears to himself that his son will never fear rejection for either--and have the throne to show for it.

5. Eagle (Clanga hastata)

When the last of the spectators disappear, Sivagami holds out her arm and Kshitij descends from his roost. His talons flex around the golden work of her throne; his presence is a comfort. After so many years, Kshitij does not ask questions, only bends down to rub his beak against her forehead to soothe the ache starting there. 

"Will they hate me?" she asks, now that they are alone. 

Kshitij does not pause. "Of course not," he says. "There was no other choice. We see more than others do, don't we, from where we sit? But in the end, they will agree with us." He slides his beak against her hair affectionately. "Bhalladeva will do well enough as king. The citizens will understand."

Sivagami closes her eyes, tries her best to believe him, and bites back the correction that the citizens had not been the "they" to whom she'd referred.

6. Monkey (Semnopithecus dussumieri)

Shivudu sits on the ledge to one side of the waterfall, letting his legs swing over the edge. "Mother says there are demons at the top of the waterfall," he reminds Arushi.

She doesn't stop throwing twigs towards the ledge on the other side, the one goal that had thwarted them utterly throughout his young life. Every one falls short. "So?"

"I don't think she'd like it if we tried again," Shivudu says, uncomfortably aware of how dull he sounds. He expects an argument, but Arushi only sighs and sits down next to him. He runs his fingers through her fur as an apology. 

They share an unhappy silence, until Arushi ventures: "But if there were demons--"

"Really ferocious demons, the worst kind--"

"They might even attack the village some day!"

"Unless someone traveled there to defeat them all before then."  

They smile at each other. They jump as one. 

7.Hummingbird (Anthracothorax nigricollis)

"What are you?" Avantika shrieks, vaguely aware she's behaving in the most undignified manner possible but too distraught to care.

"I don't know!" Madhu shrieks back, except now his words emerge as an odd buzz. His wings work up and down even more rapidly due to his agitation, but that makes everything worse, because the sun hits them in exactly the wrong way, revealing new colors every time. 

"An enemy will see you," she says miserably. "A half-blind, eighty-year-old enemy will see you from a thousand paces away! The chief will never forgive us. He'll send us packing. He'll tell us we're a disgrace to Queen Devasena. He'll--what are you doing?"

Madhu drops the corpse of the bee he speared out of thin air. "It made me feel better," he says, sounding ashamed, but she hadn't even seen the bee before Madhu attacked it. 

"Maybe he won't," says Avantika slowly.

8. Smooth-coated otter (Lutrogale perspicillata)

 Baahubali thanks the guardsmen who help carry him home through an affected stammer, a process complicated by the fact that Dharini has been chuckling to herself for the last hour. "Stop that," he says exasperatedly when they're alone. "You'll give us away."

"As though I could!" Dharini gasps. "Kings must be accompanied by mighty beasts, after all." Her voice is a perfect mimic of Bijjaladeva's, her mockery the balm for a thousand childhood slights. 

"An elephant, at least," he agrees, and that sends Dharini into new paroxysms of laughter. 

"Could you imagine? We couldn't go anywhere. You'd have to take up residence outside the palace because I wouldn't fit inside."

"The Crown Princess suspects something," he warns, or tries to; his voice is entirely too tender when speaking about Devasena.

"Then you'd best clutch your shoulder again, and soon,"she retorts, a wicked gleam in her eyes. "Here she is."  

Chapter Text

When her ladies-in-waiting call for her so urgently, Sumitra expects to find nothing less than a catastrophe. Instead, what faces her is nothing more than her sister-in-law, covered in mud from head to toe with clothes dirty and torn. What's worse, her chin juts out defiantly, and her eyes blaze. Sumitra bites back a groan.

The hints given to her at her wedding come to mind, that she might be able to take the princess under her wing and curb some of her wilder tendencies. It is a difficult task to ask of anyone, but complicated by the fact that Sumitra hadn't seen that Devasena had any tendencies that needed curbing. This, though; this will require some managing.

"One of the hounds from my brother's pack got lost while we were hunting and was trapped on the wrong side of the dam," Devasena announces without Sumitra having to ask, as though making an official military report. "He isn't much more than a puppy and wasn't clever enough to see how to come to the other side. So I had to help him."

"I see," is all Sumitra can think of to say.

Devasena indicates her ruined clothes with a careless hand. "I suppose you will say it wasn't worth this?"

A challenge, Sumitra recognizes belatedly, and steels herself to meet it. Devasena has been perfectly pleasant so far, but it's only to be expected that she would harbor doubts as to how a new sister-in-law would treat her.

"That depends," Sumitra says calmly. "Did the dog survive?"

Devasena nods, still watching her warily.

"Then absolutely it was worth any number of ruined clothes." Devasena relaxes and regards her with new respect; Sumitra is almost sorry when she has to continue; "But. Thanks to your actions, the laundresses will have to stay later than they planned to wash your silks again. The seamstresses will have to strain their eyes to repair ever small rip and tear."

"There's no need for that," Devasena says quickly. "I have so many others. They need not go to such trouble."

"And all of those fine things come from the taxes your people pay while they make do with two or three saris. Is it just, then, that their Crown Princess treat her belongings with such disregard?"

Devasena considers this with a frown before coming to a decision. "If it was my fault that the clothes were ruined, it should be my hands that repair them. But--" she hesitates, "I don't know how."

Sumitra's breath comes more freely; it seems without entirely realizing it, she had had her own doubts and fears about whether or not she could ever come to love her new sister. Those doubts are all proven false today. "Then that is why I am here, my dear," she says, and beams as Devasena gives her an uncertain grin in response.

Chapter Text

What is death?

The tunnels are dark and, to Sivagami who until today knew of them only from that information her father-in-law bequeathed her from his deathbed, seemingly endless. The walls seem to press in on either side; there is a rumbling that could be either water nearby or a rockslide. She has never spoken to anyone of her terror of small, closed-off spaces, but she supposes nothing can be hidden from the Lord. He has judged her, and found her wanting, and this is her punishment. Not merely to be here, in this place that makes her heart pound with alarm, but to be alive at all, rather than dead in place of her son.

To think that the enemy is stronger than our resolve, that is death.

She has lost her way in these tunnels, just as she lost her way in judging those around her. Trusting Bhalladeva and his quiet compliance over Baahu's loyalty--did ever such a fool live? She has been complacent in her own cleverness and her own ruthlessness, forgetting that Bhalladeva shared all those same traits. Who's to say that when they emerge--if they emerge--he will not have sent his own men ahead to find them? Who's to say that this one way she can atone for her sins won't be unsuccessful as her reign ultimately was?

Living on as a coward is death! Letting the man live who insulted my mother, instead of throwing his decapitated head at her feet, and turning and fleeing instead is death.

She will have to raise this child, too, with all the love her broken heart can muster. She already knows it will not be enough. She will have to teach him how to live as a prince, who to choose right from wrong, how to be the warrior he will need to become to take back his birthright, all while knowing that she had erred so terribly before. She will have to do this for Baahu, who waits for her apology in the afterlife, and his Devasena, who will wait for her son, and she will have to survive.

Sivagami has never faltered from her path in her life. She falters now.

No one can harm my mother or my mother-land while I live. I going to destroy that death. I am going to prove this to the enemy.

The baby--Mahendra Baahubali, King of Mahishmati while not yet a day old--wails, and Sivagami soothes him with the same whispers she used with his father. Just like Baahu, he quiets and peers up at her trustingly. Her doubts flee; it doesn't matter that Bhalladeva has proven that he can outmaneuver her easily, or that she cannot imagine a world in which she raises this boy to be half the man his father was. Mahendra Baahubali must live, come what may, and if there is no one else to protect his life at the cost of her own--

Who will come with me? Who will die with me? Who will overcome that death and become immortal with me?

--Sivagami will.

Chapter Text

"Bhalla!" Baahu calls again, impatient as ever, and Bhalla scrambles up the last few feet to join him at the top of the wall overlooking the city. Baahu is already pointing as he joins him. "There, you see? That's where it should go." Bhalla follows the direction of his finger and swallows a laugh. Is Baahu joking? He's selected no place but the pavilion where kings are crowned. He can't have suggested such a thing to Mother.

"Haven't informed Mother yet about your brilliant idea, have you?" Bhalla asks snidely, and is rewarded by the sight of Baahu losing at least some of his exhausting enthusiasm.

"Well, no..." Baahu hedges before brightening once, "but she should see that's where it has to be. If it's not in the very center of the city, how will anyone know it's there?"

Bhalla resists the urge to roll his eyes. "As always, you have a particularly low estimation in the skills and survival ability of the general public. They lived without you, and they'll live on once you're gone. You should worry about them less."

"And you should worry about them more," Baahu retorts, but it is too early and too warm a day to have the same old tired argument that neither of them ever win. They laugh together instead, Baahu first and Bhalla joining him, and for a few seconds, Bhalla finds himself at peace, standing there in the sun beside his brother.

"Still," says Baahu, ruining the moment with his single-mindedness as always, "someday, I'll tell Mother that we really do need to build a public granary, open to all, and she'll agree with me."

Every time he speaks so, all Bhalla can hear is the damnable refrain of when-I'm-King, when-I'm-King preceding his statements. It's enough to drive a man mad. His hands curl into fists.

"She will not," Bhalla points out, "as that is a stupid idea."

Baahu laughs. "She will," his voice is piercing in a way Bhalla doesn't remember it ever being before, "because she loves me better. They all do. Don't you remember?"

"She does not!" Bhalla roars. He is acting like a child, and he doesn't care. "You take that back!"

Baahu turns and Bhalla can see the marks gouged into his shoulder. "I can't," he says lightly, and there's that sarcastic curl of his lips that Bhalla hated so,"as I'm dead. You should have thought of that before you killed me, Bhalla."

With a snarl, Bhalla lunges forward, hands reaching for Baahu's neck--

--and he awakens to find nothing more than the remains of a pillow in his grasp. That's right. It was a dream, only a dream, brought on, he supposes, by the conversation he had the previous night with the treasurer. There was no money left for Bhalla's project, the weak-willed fool had prattled on, the citizens had none to spare.

Well. If Baahu had asked it of them, they would have found funds somehow, or else Baahu would have dreamed up some way to transform cow dung into gold. "Go on!" he had barked at the treasurer. "Tell my citizens I want no more excuses!" And then he had stumbled into his bed, mind unsettled by the invocation of Baahu, even in the privacy of his own thoughts, and so produced such a dream.

That is all. Nothing more. Bhalla forces his attention out the window to the site where a younger Baahu had hoped to put his foolish plan of a public granary, where Bhalla will build his statue instead. It will stand in the center of the city, he promises himself, and everyone will know it is there.

(And in the courtyard, Devasena silently celebrates the twenty-fifth birthday of her son.)

Chapter Text

On rainy days, everyone knows the King always visits his prisoner.

Out of pity, a newcomer to the King's guards suggests, to make sure she does not suffer too badly? He is met only by sniggers from those with a better understanding of their liege, though it's true he's always allowed her to be treated by the court physician whenever she takes ill from the wet and the cold.

Out of hope, another ventures, that she'll let go of her dreadful stubbornness at last. The King doesn't expect marriage anymore; no one would, not in the condition she's in. A King deserves a wife he can take pride in. But a word, a smile, the barest silent acknowledgement of his sovereignty--the stupid old crone won't give him even that much. So easy it would be to end her suffering and still she refuses. His Majesty is too clever, however, to expect her to bend at last, and so that suggestion, too, is shouted down.

Out of pleasure, says the last, and ah, that's the most likely! To see her, rain-sodden and shivering, while he stands above, shielded from the elements by the regal umbrella. She could have had that too, had she chosen differently all those years ago. But she made the fool's decision to love the lesser prince, and now it is too late for her to change her mind. Let her rot there forever, a warning to all who see her not to repeat her mistakes.

When Bhalladeva looks at her, he does not think of pity or hope or pleasure. He sees her face turned up to the sky, eyes closed, lips forming the ghost of a smile. He does not have to ask why. His broth--the fool Amarendra Baahubali had loved the rain, almost as much as Bhalla had hated the misery of it. Baahu had laughed to see lightning, smiled at thunder, and watched storms through their nursery window all night long, wide-eyed and wondering. On the night Bhalla had him killed, he relishes the fact that the last thing Baahu saw was the rain beginning to fall, bringing destruction and doom with it rather than the hope and happiness Baahu always expected.

In the midst of a downpour, Devasena feels Baahu's presence still with her; and through her, he lingers with Bhalla, too. Bhalla will content himself with that much.

Chapter Text

When Bijjaladeva is informed that he is to wed, Father does so with only these perfunctory words: “Your wife will bring you treasure beyond worth.”

That is all. No words of comfort, of explanation, or even of reassurance regarding his future wife’s worth. A cowherd, a street-sweeper can know whether he is to expect beauty in his bride, or obedience, or companionship, but not the misshapen son of the King of Mahishmati.

His brother makes a show of sympathy, but Bijjala knows exactly what his pity is worth. His brother has the throne and a wife whose status is befitting that of a prince and future king, while Bijjala is thrown away like so much trash to a woman who would never have dared raised her eyes to the royal house in better times. From his father’s perspective, Bijjala supposes it makes sense: one son must make the sacrifice, and who better than the son with no one to speak for him?

He contents himself with the thought of treasure —nothing eases the way to a courtier’s ear so well as coin, and if all the power he can claim is that born of whispers and favors and secret smiles, then he must gather as much of it as he can. But his bride’s dowry is paltry at best, consumed by the cost of drinks at the wedding banquet alone. The jewelry she wears is plain and practical, and no promised inheritance awaits them.

Perhaps, Bijjala wonders hopefully, his father meant the metaphorical. But he sees no diamonds in his wife's eyes, no gold in the hue of her skin: she is attractive enough not to shame him, no more. She pays his words no more heed than she would the buzzing of a gnat beside her; she shrouds herself in a silence he instinctively mistrusts.She has no skill at winning followers to his cause; her speech is so straightforward as to make him cringe.

Leave it to Father to marry him to the one person in the world more worthless than Bijjaladeva himself.

Fool that he is, his final hope is for likemindedness—but that possibility dies the first time he tries to make her understand his anger, his frustration, his heartbreak at the injustice with which he has been treated and finds only surprise and disgust instead. She recoils at his spite, she will say to explain herself, at his treasonous thoughts; but Bijjala, studying his shriveled arm, knows the truth. He resigns himself to loneliness.

The King of Mahishmati dies, and Bijjaladeva mourns him with torn clothes and tear-tracks: he is as skilled at deceit as his sire, it seems. His brother succeeds to the throne that should have been Bijjala's own, and, one or two tart remarks aside, Bijjala allows this without protest. Anger requires effort, thinking a strength he possesses no longer. Fatigue and indolence claims him; when his wife announces she is with child at last, even the satisfaction of having beaten his brother at this one milestone is muted.

It is also short-lived, as a few short months later, the Queen announces that she is carrying the heir to the throne. Bijjala, by now entirely inured to his fate never to possess any joy his brother does not share a thousandfold, only regards the remainder of his wife's pregnancy with the utmost apathy. He attends her labor because he must; as soon as he confirms that he has a son, as expected, he retires to his bed, consigning the child to the care of his nurse and his mother.

Until his brother dies, and his sister-in-law falls ill, and Bijjala, so very confused and concerned at this sudden turn of events, finds himself alone in his wife's chambers. His intent is to instruct her to make a good show of caring for the Queen; but that much at least, she does not need to be taught. At least that is where he believes she has gone— even were he to be told she is at the ministers' council, he would no more expect to find her there than on the moon.

That does not explain the roaring that echoes throughout her rooms. Despite himself, his curiosity is piqued. Upon investigation, he finds the source to be none other than his own son, left behind by his mother, abandoned by his nurse who now attends to the ailing Queen, and left with only a witless serving girl to tend to him.

Bijjala knows little about infants, but he does know something about being alone. Gingerly, gracelessly, he picks up the screaming Bhallaladeva and shushes him, as memory tells him one is meant to do to babies. He is grateful that the serving girl is the only witness: if this ends badly--and he is sure it will—at least he can ensure she won't go telling tales.

Against all likelihood, Bhalla falls silent—and not only that, but reaches out trustingly to his father. His features smoothen out into a smile, his eyes flutter shut. And in repose, his tiny fingers clutch Bijjala's arm: not the well-formed arm that supports him, but the withered one that no one before him has ever been able to look at without a shudder, much less touch. Bijjala's heart twists.

Treasure beyond worth, the old man had promised. For once he had not lied.

Chapter Text

It could have happened like this: Kattappa, kneeling by Baahu's body in Bhallaladeva's wake, hears the faintest intake of breath-- a gasp, a laugh, enough to know that against all odds, his Baahu lives.

"Old man," Baahu says, and when his voice shakes, it is only with amusement, "don't tell me you worried. Don't tell me you thought my strength so middling."

Instead: Baahu's face remains frozen in its terrible half-smile, and Kattappa stares, disbelieving, until he must accept that the spirit that animated it has long since left it behind. His hands are wet with blood, his heart is empty.

For the first time he can remember, his Baahu has disappointed him.

*

It could have happened like this: Sivagami, no longer as infallible as the Queen Mother had once been but still a power to be reckoned with, manages the impossible and again quenches a rebellion armed only with her determination and righteousness. Even her will cannot reclaim the dead, but she can see justice served and all guilty parties punished--and chief among them, Karikala Kattappa Nadar, murderer of the one thing in this world he had loved.

Even when Sivagami takes the infant King and flees, Kattappa keeps faith. It is not so hard to wait for the woman who had carved a place for herself on Mahishmati's throne to achieve the impossible. It is not so hard to endure until the guilt that torments him comes to an end.

Instead: the body of the Queen Mother washes up on the banks of the river, and Kattappa is the one sent to identify it. Bhallaladeva does not go himself: some lingering filial feeling, perhaps, gives him a distaste for that particular duty. But Kattappa has no right to refuse, and so his fingers are the ones that examine Sivagami's waterlogged features and nod confirmation to the minister sent to investigate.

Even this deliverance is denied him.

*

It could have happened like this: He steals into the palace courtyard one night and undoes Devasena's chains. She is surprised, and rightfully suspicious of him, but still she follows him out beyond the city walls. He leads her out towards--Kuntala, Kuntala would be safe. With every mention of Kuntala, even now, comes the terrible joy of pretending Baahu to be his own in truth, and he reminiscences with her until it drives the hardness from her face. A life for a life, he will tell himself without really believing it when he brings the Princess safely into the protection of her family; and when he meets Baahu again at the end of his days, he will still have no choice but to look away.

Instead: Devasena turns her face away, silent and stubborn.

"Please, my lady," he begs, and, desperate, adds: "They found the Queen Mother's body two days ago."

There is a catch of breath from the cage, and Devasena says, "Should I pity her or envy her, to be with him sooner?"

Katttappa has no answer for her. Instead he says, "So you see, my lady, the time is now. If you will come with me--"

"No, Kattappa." Her voice is gentle, but he is already familiar with her insistence that the infant that died the same night as his father will fulfill his promise. He does not think he can bear to hear it once more.

"Did you not understand?" His voice trembles with frustration. "The Queen Mother is dead, my lady. She failed in her mission--"

"Her body--" Devasena breaks off. "She was found alone, was she not? That my mother-in-law could have failed to achieve what she set her mind to, I can believe. But not that she would allow herself to be separated from the son I left in her charge, even in death. Mahendra lives, even if she does not. And when he returns in search of me? Where other than here will he know to seek me?"

"Lady--"

"I will not leave without him," says Devasena with finality, and Kattappa despairs.

*

It could have happened like this: Somewhere, even in the body of the cruel King Bhallaladeva, is the heart of the boy Kattappa knew and trained and loved, if not so much as his brother. Somewhere, there is the man that Kattappa believed would make a fine warrior and a honor to his royal line. Somewhere, there are the vestiges of the child Sivagami herself had raised to know right from wrong.

He will search for the soul of that man, trapped within the tyrant. Perhaps Bhalla feels no obligation to pay the guru-dakshina that Baahu had returned a thousandfold in love; but he might honor a promise given, or a reward for faithful service, and thereby give Kattappa the chance to redeem him.

Instead: "Kill Devasena and give her the greatest freedom of all," sneers Bhalladeva, and Kattappa knows the boy he had watched grow is long gone.

*

It happens, in the end, like this: a long lean body jumps over him and draws the sword of Amarendra Baahubali in the blink of an eye, and as Kattappa sprints forward to avenge the death of the Crown Prince, lightning illuminates a face not seen in Mahishmati for twenty-five long years.

Mahendra Baahubali lacks his uncle's upbringing, his mother's courage, his grandmother's force of character, and his father's spirit, but this much Kattappa must allow him--where everyone else had failed Kattappa, Mahendra alone had not.

That, he thinks, will simply have to be enough.

Chapter Text

“Ten years,” Devasena hisses as she enters the kitchens, “ten years, without a word, and then—“ She forgets herself; she collects as much composure as she can muster and focuses her attention on the other occupant of the room.

“My greetings, Kattappa,” she says, praying she appears accustomed to entertaining renowned heroes in her kitchens, of all places. “I trust your journey was comfortable?”

By his surprise, Devasena realizes that he doesn’t expect such treatment: Mahishmati and the way they treat their so-called slaves will never change. “Pleasant enough, Crown Princess,” he murmurs quickly before hesitating. “May I offer you a moment or two of privacy?”

He is gone before she can decide if she would respond in the affirmative or negative, leaving her alone with the man lounging at his ease on the cot before her: Amarendra Baahubali, future king of Mahishmati in all his glory.

The speech she had so carefully constructed on her way deserts her. All she can think to say is, yet again: “Ten years.” It stands as an accusation on its own.

Baahubali sits up. “Surely not without any word—“

“I don’t mean asking after my health from our ambassador, or sending along your formal regards with him,” Devasena tells him flatly. She has done that, too: endured Kalyan’s knowing looks at the most innocuous of questions, lingered in hallways to listen to the ends of diplomatic envoys, scrutinized official messages for the slightest hint of a deeper meaning. It has been nowhere near enough.

“I am sorry,” he says at last. “I wanted—I wanted many things that never came to pass.” His eyes are dark with genuine regret. It should not be enough to mollify her. It is.

Devasena raises her head a fraction too high instead. “You are very fortunate,” she replies, “that I don’t inform my brother of your identity at once.”

Her reward is the return of laughter to his eyes. “Certainly he’s recognized me already. I entered the palace under his gaze, after all.”

“Certainly he does not,” Devasena corrects. “You’ve grown….taller.” And broader, and handsomer, and altogether different in a number of interesting ways. Devasena suspects she might have failed to recognize him herself, had she not caught sight of his face when he’d first seen her. She’s only seen reverence like that once before, on the face of a boy who had staggered to one knee before her—but best not to dwell on that now.

“Moreover, if my brother did know you, rest assured that he would—“ She wishes desperately she had a more formidable threat to offer than immediately relocate you to rooms befitting your status. “—hardly approve.”

“That would be unfortunate,” Baahubali drawls, “as gaining your brother’s approval has a great deal to do with my purpose in arriving here.”

Devasena has the distinct impression of losing control of the conversation once more.

She rallies: “I think he’d be hard pressed to refuse the hero who routed the Kalakeyas anything,” she says, and laughs to see the expression on his face. “We do hear some news, up here in our mountains. But tell me now: how did you do it?”

The warmth in her voice, she assures herself, could easily be taken for sheer military interest.

Baahubali, at least, does not seem to make any untoward assumptions. “The trident formation,” he tells her.

“Risky,” she murmurs, coming to perch on the other end of the cot, “to split your forces in three.”

“We were outnumbered anyway. But three flanks, one each surrounding the enemy on either side—“

“—And one in the middle, shoring up the city’s defenses, until the others could have a chance to take the enemy by surprise,” she finishes. “Very clever. But how did you kill the leader?”

“I didn’t. Bhalla did.”

Devasena frowns. “Bhallaladeva? But we had heard that the Queen Mother had set the challenge for the future king to be the death of that man in particular. Unless you aren’t—“

“Would it matter?”

“Not to me,” Devasena says, seizing upon the easiest part of the question to answer. She is tempted to stop there, to keep him with her, but duty forces her to continue: “To Mahishmati, it must. No one could know you and think your brother would make a finer king.“

His gaze is direct. “A king cannot rule alone. Devasena, I—“

She knows what he will ask, just as she knows what her answer will be, in the face of all conventions and common sense. Ten years apart convinced her that she was unlikely to meet anyone she wished to marry as much as the man before her; ten minutes in his presence confirm that her memories of the boy she knew match the man he has grown to be. But to make an admission, she thinks, would leave him entirely too satisfied, and besides, if she could wait ten years to hear a word from him, he can certainly wait a little longer to hear her decision.

Kumar Varma’s impatient shouts for the blockhead he’s adopted are her unlikely savior. “By no means would I keep Kumar from his newest protege,” she tells him with no little amount of malice as she rises. “Nor such an eager student from his lessons.”

His chuckle follows her as she makes her escape.

Chapter Text

The carpenters’ guild meets with her at morning. At first Sivagami assumes, foolishly, that they mean only to discuss the repairs to the pillars of the east veranda, after she had been so careless as to allow her husband to have a drinking-party there without the proper supervision.

She greets them, therefore, only with a casual request to perhaps consider replacing the sandalwood with a less expensive teak this time, and so she is completely taken aback when they announce they mean to go on strike.

Sivagami blinks, but recovers quickly. “You will have to address your concerns with the King,” she says, a secret weapon if ever there were one. The number of individuals able to resist Baahu at his most charming is limited. But should these men count among them --she’ll have to arrange for alternative forms of repair for the people until the strike is resolved. Hopefully Jayasena can be counted on to be accommodating for his sister’s sake. “I’m sure you can come to some satisfactory compromise. But I implore you to consider the effect this will have--”

“You misunderstand, Queen Mother,” the head of the guild tells her apologetically. “It’s not the kingdom we mean to refuse our services to. It’s your family specifically.”

Sivagami arches her eyebrows. “I am afraid I don’t understand.”

“Pillars!” exclaims the man, gesticulating rather unnecessarily in Sivagami’s opinion. “Tables! Beds! Is there nothing your family won’t destroy on a weekly basis?”

A question Sivagami herself has pondered, only producing unsatisfactory answers, but to admit such a thing in public is impossible.

“The royal family is gifted with extraordinary strength, the better to protect its people. Living with that requires….certain accommodations.”

“Be that as it may,”the man shakes his head firmly, “we must unfortunately refuse our cooperation with the royal family until our creations are treated with the respect they are due.”

It is only the beginning, most unfortunately, of a long and trying week.

*

“I didn’t know!” Mahendra wails, screwing his eyes shut.

Sivagami prays for patience. “These twin statues,” she forces out, “have stood at the gates of the war fields for time immemorial. They are a part of Mahishmati’s history, a representation of its strength and power--”

Mahendra opens one eye cautiously. “I knew that,” he admits. “That’s why I didn’t think it would fall.”

“Clearly,” says his father, biting back a grin, “you were mistaken.”

Sivagami fails to see anything quite so amusing in the situation; and if there’s anything to be said for Mahendra at the moment, it’s that he doesn’t seem to, either. His eyes are wide and wet, his lips curved downwards entreatingly. It is altogether too convincing a picture of misery to be sincere and an eerie imitation of his sire--though where the child got the impression that such a production would cause her to take mercy on him, she hasn’t the faintest idea.

Mahendra sniffles. Sivagami sighs.

“If you’d been hurt, Mahendra,” she says, rather more gently than she’d intended.

“I wasn’t, though! I made it almost all the way to the soldier’s shoulder. But--” Mahendra peers speculatively at the fallen statue’s twin. “That one looks much sturdier. I think, if I tried, I could make it all the way to the very top--”

“No,” say his grandmother, both parents, and the exasperated crew of workmen assigned to repair the wreckage as one.

*

“That was a priceless artifact presented to us by the Raja of Azamgarh,” Sivagami feels the need to point out, although she’d hated the thing since it had come into her possession. “I don’t know how we’ll manage to replace it before he pays us a visit in the spring.”

Her daughter-in-law nods solemnly. “And it gave its life for a noble cause. Certainly the Chalukya ambassador must agree.”

Sivagami screws up her forehead, trying to remember if there had been an assassination attempt on the man’s life she’d somehow missed. Not that it would be a personal loss by any means, but the political implications could be devastating. She admits to some surprise that her daughter-in-law should take such care for his life, though, particularly after the ambassador had loudly and publically questioned the Queen’s ability to give reliable advice while in an advanced state of pregnancy.  

Then, of course, understanding sinks in.

“Devasena!”

“It was the vase,” Devasena says serenely, “or the blockhead’s skull, and I judged that the former would leave less of a mess for the servants to clean afterwards. If you object, however, I’m happy to rectify my mistake.”

Sivagami presses her lips together, hoping to project a disapproving air. At length, though, she pronounces, “It was rather ugly, was it not?”

“Indeed,” Devasena says, and smiles in agreement.

*

Approximately once a fortnight, Bhalla presents himself before his mother to offer a list of reasons why he feels he is better suited to the throne than his brother. Sivagami would be more concerned if she suspected he were halfway serious.

This is one of the times he’s come prepared with copious notes from which to read his arguments. Sivagami’s heart sinks.

Bhalla clears his throat. “Mother,” he begins, as he always does. “I know your decision was made years ago, but that does not mean it cannot be altered. Particularly considering--”

“Complaints about Baahu’s son are not admissible,” Sivagami says wearily. “Hardly fair, considering one cannot predict what sort of offspring you might produce.”

Bhalla’s shoulders slump, and he rifles through his notes to abandon roughly half of them.

“Ahem. Yes. Have I mentioned that--”

“Nor,” Sivagami adds, “are those about his wife. Devasena may have her flaws, but she performs admirably as Queen.”

A further two-thirds of the remaining notes are hastily discarded. “Er. I can promise you that I will assuredly not have any brilliant ideas for building projects to benefit the people that end badly.” He folds the lone page left to him. “Unlike Baahu.”

“I am certain that...incident could have happened to anyone,” Sivagami says. “Or that no one at all could have predicted that leading a herd of cows to stampede in order to pull up the tower in question would end badly, I’m sure.” The corners of Bhalla’s mouth turn up in triumph; quickly, Sivagami adds, “On which note, Bhalla, you are aware there are fifteen bulls in our cowshed currently?”

He blinks. “I’m certain there are, Mother.”

“Yesterday there were sixteen,” she says flatly, and Bhalla clears his throat once more.

“Pardon me for leaving so soon, Mother, but there’s a new shipment of weapons arriving that I must supervise. Directly. At once.”

In the wake of his hasty retreat, Sivagami studies a satisfying fragile statuette sent from Singhala with not a little temptation. Devasena might have been onto something after all.

*

“This is becoming ridiculous, Kattappa,” Sivagami says sternly. Before her, Kattappa droops and Sivagami’s insides twist with guilt. She hates reprimanding him—but the people have spoken, and their complaints must be respected.

Kattappa rallies enough to say, “Forgive me, Queen Mother, but I act only in the defense of Mahishmati. If we were to be taken unawares, I mean to ensure that we have weapons to hand—“

“Or foot,” Sivagami remarks dryly. “In the cases of those villagers who have trodden on what they thought a harmless mound of kungumam, only to discover a knife, or an axe, or—“

“But what better way to conceal them? Hidden cleverly in plain sight, where the enemy will never find them!”

Sivagami sighs. “ Somehow I suspect a bright red mound might still stand out to unfriendly eyes—“

Kattappa blinks in clear confusion. “Red?!”

*

“Insurance,” Sivagami repeats the unfamiliar word carefully.

“Yes, Queen Mother,” says the man before her brightly. “Quite a simple thought, really: for the price of two hundred gold coins per month, our company is prepared to assume responsibility for any and all damages caused by your family.”

“For two hundred gold coins a month?”

The agent affects an apologetic expression. “I know it may seem a steep price, but what is that compared to a good night’s sleep?”

“And talking to angry craftsmen, arranging for replacements, holding awkward conversations about what they are and are not allowed to do—“

“—will all be performed by us. You need not worry about a thing.”

He need not say anything more to convince her, but honor demands that she ask: “Have you met my family, sir? Or heard of their reputation?”

For the first time, the agent’s toothy smile falters. “Well….no. But how much trouble could one family be, don’t you think?”

“How much indeed,” Sivagami murmurs, and excuses herself before laughter betrays her.

Chapter Text

Such is the force of Mother’s personality, her confidence in her children, that Bhalla spends that first morning on the road convinced he will return, Saket in hand, by dinner time. Reality intrudes unpleasantly when the sun sets, and Bhalla must admit to hunger at last. Baahu makes a show of declaring that the horses deserve a rest—as though he’s not tired himself!—and they settle in for lunch.

Bhalla studies the packet Baahu passes him suspiciously. “What,” he asks, “is this?”

“Soldiers’ rations,” is the cheerful reply. “Uncle smuggled me additional ones from our stores.”

He knows he will regret it from the first sight of the dry roti, but that first bite is an unpleasant shock nonetheless. “This is—“

“Less stale than usual,” Baahu agrees. “Uncle was too kind.”

“I wouldn’t feed this to a goat,” Bhalla snaps.

“Of course you wouldn’t! Goats eat….” Baahu frowns with sudden confusion. “Other things.”

Other things, indeed. Bhalla flings the food away with a scowl, ignoring Baahu’s reproachful look. 

“I’d rather starve,” he declares haughtily. Missing a few meals never did anyone any harm, and besides, how long can Saket evade them, anyway?

*

When, not if, Saket finally comes within his reach, Bhalla swears he’ll strangle him with his bare hands. Stealing the secrets of Mahishmati be damned; Bhalla demands, no, deserves the scoundrel’s blood for being subjected to…this.

Dinners haunt his dreams, spiced and varied and utterly unlike the stale rotis that are their only option other than the occasional fruits they find. Oddly enough, goat features heavily, too, though he can’t remember what would cause such a craving. He’s never had any particular partiality for it before.

Baahu returns from a detailed discussion with a middle-aged laundress and her children, looking far too pleased with himself, and Bhalla allows himself to feel hope for the first time in hours.

“Well?” Bhalla barks. “Where is he?”

“Oh, she hasn’t the slightest idea. But,” Baahu adds, “she did invite us to share the noontime meal with her family.” 

He smiles beatifically, as though offering the greatest of gifts, but Bhalla can’t bring himself to object. “Why didn’t you say so earlier?” he grumbles, in hopes of keeping away the grin that threatens to betray him entirely.

His euphoria lasts until he sees the meal the woman offers them: mango pickle, curd,….and more rotis.

“Freshly made!” says Baahu. “We cannot thank you enough for your generosity.”

Bhalla opens his mouth to disagree—when his gaze falls upon the creature tied up in the courtyard of the laundress’ small house. She notices where his attention has gone and smiles.

“My children have raised that goat since he was newly born,” she says fondly. “By now, he’s almost a member of the family.”

“A magnificent creature,” Bhalla agrees, nodding. “Absolutely deserving of the honor of providing a meal for a prince of Mahishmati.”

There is a short, appalled silence. One of the brats at the laundress’ side starts to sniffle. “You’ll have to excuse my brother,” Baahu says at last. “He’s fond of making jokes. Ones not as clever as he thinks they are.”

He pairs this with a significant look at Bhalla, one that Bhalla takes great pleasure in ignoring.

*

They resort to seeking Saket at taverns along the way. “He was a great drinker,” Baahu says casually. “All the servants mentioned that. He’ll stop at the wineshops if he stops anywhere.”

Relying on the words of servants seems suspect, but Bhalla knows enough from watching his father to remember the shakes and short temper a man used to strong drink must endure if he does not satisfy himself. Baahu’s logic makes as much sense as anything else—and besides, taverns at least offer the lure of edible food. 

Or so Bhalla supposes, naively, before he realizes the plan is for Baahu to go in and charm the crowd into passing on information, while he, Bhalla, searches the cellars like a common servant, far, far away from any refreshments. The injustice of this grates, but still Bhalla waits patiently until the pattern repeats thrice over before he voices his concerns in a calm and reasonable manner.

Baahu blinks. “I hadn’t realized you minded,” he says mildly. “Of course we can do things differently if you want. You don’t have to shout.”

At the next tavern, Baahu manages to find a servant in the stables who remembers that the man who had paid with the coins minted by Mahishmati for the fastest possible horse had been traveling south. Bhalla, when he finally hears of this, fails to appreciate it as he should—but that is perhaps understandable when dealing with the fallout from a twenty-person brawl, a roof set aflame, and an innkeeper who feels the inexplicable need to throw a barrel and bawl, “And stay out!” as Bhalla departs.

Baahu raises his eyebrows.

“Do not,” Bhalla warns, “say a word.”

*

With time Saket learns to turn away from the taverns, and bury his trail among the forests instead. He does not show his accursed face to any who remember it; he transforms into the ghost he should rightfully already be.

“Uncle’s been teaching me to track,” Baahu says with a confidence Bhalla should know better than to trust. Instead he wonders spitefully at Kattappa’s continued partiality. “Let me see what I can do.”

Baahu’s idea of tracking involves a great deal of nodding intelligently at crumpled leaves and hoof prints that seem no different from any others on the ground, but it’s not until Bhalla looks around and sees nothing around him but unforgiving stone that he thinks to demand: “You haven’t the faintest idea where we are going, do you?”

There is a suspiciously long pause. “We’re following in Saket’s footsteps, and that’s all that matters.”

By which he means: not at all. Bhalla groans.  

*

Baahu wakes up in a disgustingly cheerful mood; something that is usually the case, but even more unbearable since they are in the middle of nowhere.

“We’re not in the middle of nowhere,” Baahu corrects. “We’re in— Kuntala, I believe. If I remember Mother’s maps correctly.”

“Clearly, the mistake is mine,” Bhalla snaps, “in forgetting that the royal cartographers decided that ‘Kuntala’ took up less space on a map.”

Other titles the cartographers must have rejected include “godforsaken country where no public guesthouses are to be found” and “wretched wilderness where every rock in the vicinity crawls under a man’s blankets”. Some day, when Bhalla is King, he swears he’ll raze this ridiculous nation to the ground in recompense for his present state.

He has never been more miserable in his life, and Baahu, at the moment, has started humming happily under his breath.

Bhalla doubts that he could possibly hate him more.

*

He’s proven wrong mere hours later when Baahu insists on stopping to help a farmer whose cattle have been stolen. Bhalla understands the duties of a prince well enough, but these people are not their own; besides, Mother, Kattappa, and Baahu’s usual crowd of adoring commoners  are nowhere nearby to notice or care. Worst of all, Saket is speeding away in any direction he pleases, escaping their grasp forever, while Baahu chooses this moment to play the hero. 

“It won’t take long!” Baahu calls over his shoulder, and Bhalla sucks in a scream.  

His unlikely savior is the farmer himself, who appears…unexpectedly unconcerned about the situation. Perhaps he’s come to the conclusion that cattle-farming is honestly not the occupation he would have chosen for himself. Perhaps they’re lacking in common sense, so far from civilization. 

“Oh, they’ll have taken the news up to the Crown Princess,” he says, settling down on a tree stump as though without a care in the world. “She’ll have them back by nightfall.”

“Really–” Baahu leans closer, curiosity piqued all the more now that there’s a woman involved. That’s all he manages to get out, though, before Bhalla grabs him by the arm and drags him away. 

“Once,” he growls, “only once, can you not go three days without picking out someone to charm?”

Baahu has the gall to look innocent, and then indignant. “You can’t be serious. If ever I did cross paths with the Crown Princess, I’d only want to convey my respect for her reputation among her people. In a completely platonic fashion.”

Bhalla can hear him now: Why, do you waste your time worrying over worthless peasants? What a coincidence; so do I! By all means, feel free to join the ranks of those who fawn over me for no good reason at all. 

“Of course you would.” He snorts. “And I’m a monkey’s uncle.”

“You have been looking hairier than usual,” Baahu says, all too seriously. “I hadn’t wanted to mention it before.”

And now he’s subject to Baahu’s questionable sense of humor. Bhalla closes his eyes and tries not to weep.

*

Saket has taken refuge in Singapuram; the one piece of useful information the farmer was able to provide was that another man had ridden this path before them. He had begged food from the farmer, and announced his intentions to hide from certain unsavory villains pursuing him in the most dangerous city in the world. 

“A city,” Bhalla repeats in wonder. An actual city, with buildings and beds and basic amenities necessary for survival. His vision blurs for a moment. 

“Yes,” says Baahu, staring at him as though Bhalla’s gone mad. 

“The dust from the road entered my eye,” Bhalla says thickly in answer to the question Baahu is pointedly not asking. “Did you find us some new clothes or not?”

Baahu nods, producing two bundles. “Green or yellow?”

 Bhalla’s always preferred a fine gold to anything else. “Yellow,” he grunts, and unwraps the bundle only to find a garish garment of rough cotton instead of the silk he had expected. 

The only consolation is that Baahu’s green is, if anything, just as poorly made. This is what Bhalla gets for allowing Baahu to go and purchase their disguises. 

Baahu, when confronted, shrugs unapologetically. “This is what simple merchants wear,” he offers by way of explanation. “It would seem suspicious to appear in anything else.”

Bhalla bites back the urge to point that simple merchants also don’t go around carrying a small fortune in gold coins with them; common sense is lost on Baahu. He dresses himself in the disgraceful costume, much as it offends his every sartorial sense, and allows himself the petty revenge of pointing out that simple merchants also wear the hats they have been provided.

Baahu glowers but places the objectionable item on his head; Bhalla calculates it will be a quarter hour at best before he forgets and pulls it off again. 

Nonetheless, it’s worth it. At least that will make for a quarter hour that Baahu  suffers alongside him.

*

“A curtain,” says Baahu flatly. “He threw a curtain in your face, and you lost him.”

“It took me by surprise,” Bhalla says with all the dignity he can muster. “Besides, he didn’t so much throw it so much as attempt to smother me with it.” Your concern is appreciated.”

Baahu rolls his eyes. “You seem to have survived the ordeal with only minimal injuries. The curtain, on the other hand, will never be the same again.”

“Nor will your face when I’m done with it,” snaps Bhalla, the sting of humiliation making him revert back to boyish taunts. 

He wishes Baahu’s smile wouldn’t only grow wider in response.

*

“Maybe Kattappa should add that to his training curriculum,” suggests Baahu as they ride. “How to defend against attack by curtain.”

Bhalla grits his teeth.

“Death by silk gauze is a terrible fate, indeed,” Baahu pronounces solemnly.

Fantasies of fratricide dance before Bhalla’s eyes, more alluring by far than any of the beauties that Singapuram boasted. 

*

“There he is,” mutters Baahu, reining in his horse, as though Bhalla can’t see Saket’s silhouette outlined before them on the mountaintop. “I’ll take the rope, you take the sword. Who knows if you should need to cut yourself free if he should have any more curtains tucked away?”

Enough is enough; Bhalla’s infinite patience having come to an end. Clearly it is beyond any reasonable expectation to endure him any longer: even Mother or simple-minded old Kattappa cannot begrudge him drastic measures in the face of such clear provocation.

Baahu dives off the cliff, an idiot to the end. 

Bhalla takes up the sword, and grins.

Chapter Text

“Baahu!” calls Bhalla’s voice, imperious and impatient as always, and Baahubali fights down a surge of uncharacteristic irritation. He slumps lower against the trunk of the tree, hoping to remain concealed for a few instants longer, but too late: Bhalla’s keen eyes focus on him.

“There you are,” he says. “Come on already; old Kattappa won’t take us swimming if you don’t come along, too.”

Baahubali says nothing. Ordinarily, an outing to the river would be the greatest of treats, particularly considering the summer heat. Today is not ordinary. Today he stumbled across his uncle, well into his cups, who made clear something Baahubali should have realized long before.

“What’s wrong with you?” Bhalla frowns.

For an instant, Baahubali considers pretending that all is well; but Bhalla’s curiosity, once stirred, will not rest until the secret is uncovered. Once it is, Baahubali doesn’t doubt that Bhalla’s interest will wane: this has nothing to do with him, but is Baahubali’s burden alone to bear.

So, as always, Baahubali gives way. “I’m not your brother.”

Bhalla leans back, clearly startled. “Of course you’re not,” he replies. “Why would you think such a thing?”

He knows without having to ask what prompts Bhalla’s surprise. It is no secret that Bhalla’s father despises Baahubali; clear not only from the look of disgust that crosses Bijjaladeva’s face as Baahubali crosses his path, but also from the countless disparaging comments he makes. That is nothing, a discovery with as little power to hurt Baahubali as his uncle’s feeble words. What has sent him scurrying to seek solace in the gardens is something else entirely.

“Mother—The Queen Mother Sivagami is not my mother,” says Baahubali, looking away. “She’s yours.”

And he has no words to explain the worst of it: that his place in this family is not as assured as he has always believed. That he has no real right to Mother’s affection. That he is capable of terrible envy, simmering somewhere deep within his soul, at how easily Bhalla belongs, how much he is loved.

Bhalla considers this, apparently without the least suspicion of Baahubali’s shameful thoughts. “It might be worse,” he offers at last. “You are still a Prince of Mahishmati, not a grubby peasant laboring in the mines.” Baahubali turns to him with some surprise, and Bhalla laughs. “What, did you imagine Mother would turn you out just because you aren’t her own?” He pauses; when he speaks again, his voice is taut. “She wouldn’t hear of it, not when she tells all and sundry that she has two sons, not one.”

His mouth twists in a frown, but Baahubali holds his tongue rather than reply. Bhalla is as harsh as ever, but honest. Better the truth, however bitter, from his mouth than any well-intentioned comfort from Mother’s.

But Bhalla only tosses his head. “Besides, think of it this way: at least now you need not be the younger brother any longer.”

The thought surprises a laugh out of Baahubali. “That is true,” he says, and adds, daring greatly: “Bhalla .” He likes the way it sits on his tongue, resting there much more easily than Elder Brother ever did.

“Don’t grow too accustomed to that,” Bhalla says hurriedly. “I’m still your elder”; but too late. Baahubali’s sense of humor finds such a way to tease Bhalla far too appealing.

Leave it to Bhalla, he reflects happily, to raise his spirits as always. One day, he swears, he’ll do the same for him in turn; but what need could Bhalla, with his parents and his position and self-possession, ever have of such a thing? Only those moments, few and far between, when Bhalla’s face darkens, when he falls into sudden sullen silence: hardly significant.

“Last one to the river has to kiss Kattappa!” calls Bhalla before breaking into a run. With a shriek of joy, Baahubali follows, his earlier foreboding forgotten.

Chapter Text

The first few years of Bhallaladeva’s reign are not so easy as might be expected. True, the young King has an impressive martial reputation; but true, too, that his equally skilled brother and brilliant mother both tragically pass away within a year of his ascension to the throne. Under such circumstances his neighbors cannot be faulted for trying their luck against the recently bereaved kingdom.

Bhalla is perhaps less distressed at the prospect of war than anyone else in the kingdom. Battle is easy, he thinks longingly; battle does not leave you with an emptiness in your chest.

Battle makes Kattappa speak his first words to the King in more than a year.

If the old man suspects that his silence carries any weight with Bhalla, his wits have wandered more than ever. Bhalla welcomes the lack of pedantic instruction, the freedom from the foolish prattle fostered by the rest of his family so long ago. Bhalla is grateful for it, so grateful that the twist in his stomach when Kattappa enters the throne room and bows a hair too deferentially is due to disappointment.

“My King,” Kattappa says gravely, and once more Bhalla remembers that one golden instant when the crown settled upon his head, before he was robbed of all his satisfaction by the cheers of the crowd.

Kattappa has no head for statecraft, just like any other slave, but the art of war he understands and appreciates. That is why no matter how much he may disagree with Bhalla’s decrees, he maintains a healthy respect for his tactical decisions. That much, at least, remains. The old man scans the proposed map of the battlefield and even nods his head in silent agreement when Bhalla suggests the use of the vajra formation.

There was a time when Kattappa’s approval had meant the world, because it meant Mother’s as well by association. There was a time when Kattappa’s approval had always been just out of reach. Now Bhalla has the throne, though, and it is meaningless.

Kings do typically not lead their armies into war, their lives being valued too high, but this tradition Bhalla defies. He cannot deny himself the thrill of bloodlust, the satisfaction of slaughter. He will not force himself to stand by and watch as another man strikes the killing blow—not again, never again.

“You would fight alongside your men as an equal,” responds Kattappa, a little desperately, as though he needs to believe such a thing is true. Bhalla allows the old man this delusion; his dog has earned that much.

The battle, when it comes, is brutish and bloody and only barely won. The invading army is well-prepared to overcome the vajra formation; Bhalla bellows for the ranks to fall into the cobra formation instead in the nick of time. They are well-trained, or frightened enough of their King and commander, to obey at once, and the forces of Mahishmati constrict and cut down the enemy easily.

Nevertheless defeat had seemed certain for a moment, and it shakes Bhalla. When Kattappa comes to him, he expects only more of the recriminations that echo in his own mind: why had he not been faster, cleverer, better? But all Kattappa tells him, gravely, is: “Remember that you did realize your mistake, and rectify it. Remember that in the end, the battle was won.”

For a dizzying instant, Bhalla is lost in the memory of a world framed by fire, and his own words to Kattappa: I was wrong to suspect you. You are mine—

And the next, the dog ruins it when he dares to place his hand on Bhalla’s shoulder, as a slave never should his sovereign, as a father might his son. Suddenly Bhalla knows, deep in his bones, that even the comfort Kattappa offers is because he imagines another in Bhalla’s place. Try as he might, Bhalla will never be the one Kattappa wishes to see before him.

An imperious look is enough to make Kattappa withdraw the offending hand, and a curl of Bhalla’s mouth suffices to set Kattappa’s shoulders stooped and his head bowed. Kattappa is a slave, nothing more; he is already Bhalla’s completely. He must remember that.

“See to the captives,” Bhalla barks. “I want none left alive.”

If Kattappa finds such a duty distasteful, he does not betray it by word or deed. Instead he only bows again, from the waist this time, and retreats from the royal presence. Bhalla watches him go, marveling that even chains that are invisible can feel so sweet—for satisfaction must be the twist in his stomach that follows, the slight increase in his heartbeat.

He can linger no longer. Father will have prepared a grand banquet to celebrate his victory; his guests will be waiting. In the distance, Kattappa disappears into the darkness on the King’s business, and Bhalla turns back to the warmth of the palace, content.

Chapter Text

"Baahu. I have already given your brother my word that he will marry Devasena--"

*

“Even if she is already the wife of another?”

The voice that speaks is calm and assured; Devasena requires an instant to recognize it as her own. Those who hear her are no less startled: Kattappa’s shoulders sag with surprise, Sivagami rocks back in her throne, and the elder prince’s face goes curiously blank. Devasena does not quite dare to look at Baahubali’s face. She cannot be certain what she might find there.

The Queen Mother, as is only to be expected, is the first to regain her composure. “Is this how things are done in Kuntala? With so little respect for propriety?”

Devasena only presses her lips together, ignoring the clear provocation. “We spoke vows,” she says carefully, “before holy flame, in the presence of my family. How could such a thing not be proper?”

“Be that as it may—” the Queen Mother begins, and falters. Even Mahishmati, autocratic and arrogant though it may be, is not so audacious as to separate a wife from her spouse. They have not forgotten morality so thoroughly.

“The King-to-be will need an heir,” the Queen Mother decrees instead, and Devasena closes her eyes with something that could be mistaken as relief. Instead it is sudden, desperate planning. Kattappa hopefully loves them well enough to hold his tongue, and her ladies-in-waiting can be trusted to keep the secret. If Baahubali had intended to contradict her, he would have spoken long before.

But her brother and sister-in-law must be offered some explanation for the lack of the expected ceremony. Even should that satisfy them, one day, sooner or later, one or another of her countrymen and -women will come to visit her, and she will greet them with dread rather than delight. She will, she knows, live the rest of her life wondering which stray word will mean her undoing—but what other choice does she have?

Baahubali’s eyes meet hers, helpless and resigned, and Devasena knows his thoughts mirror hers. She climbs the dais again, more slowly this time, to stand beside him. He takes her hand under cover of the drape of her sari and squeezes it: a gesture meant both to comfort and commiserate.

A lie, after all, is a heavy burden to bear; she can only hope a child will be easier.

*

“Why?” asks Devasena, and the hall falls silent.

“Because,” says the Queen Mother, with no little amount of irritation, “my son has asked to wed you. As his mother, how could I allow such a simple request to go unfulfilled?”

“No,” Devasena says, far more patiently than she feels, “that I understand. What I mean is: why does he want to marry me? ”

The Queen Mother raises her eyebrows, but her elder son is the one to answer.

“Because,” he says, “of your beauty and spirit—“

“I thank you,” Devasena replies, “But I cannot remember that we have ever met.”

“I was given your portrait, which so captivated me that I fell in love,” the prince forces out between gritted teeth. He seems aware that his tone is hardly that of the ardent admirer, because he adds: “You appeared…quieter.”

It is on the tip of Devasena’s tongue to suggest sweetly that he marry the portrait instead — paint and canvas could be just as silent as he clearly prefers — when the solution occurs to her, elegant in its simplicity.

“Queen Mother,” she addresses her future mother-in-law once more, “it seems to me that you promised your son the woman he envisioned when he first saw my portrait — but he can admit himself that she and I are not the same. He sought an illusion, and you cannot satisfy him with my hand in marriage instead. You incur no blame for breaking your promise, for it is one impossible to fulfil.”

The Queen Mother looks to her firstborn; he averts his eyes but does not disagree. Beside her, Baahubali beams down at her. Heartened, Devasena continues.

“But now your younger son presents a similar proposal to you, but one intended for a woman who lives and breathes. As his mother, how can you allow such a simple request to go unfulfilled?”

The Queen Mother considers; the Queen Mother smiles. Slowly she nods her assent.

*

“In Kuntala discussions within the family are best held in private, not in the midst of the royal court for all to hear,” Devasena says coldly. “I cannot imagine Mahishmati is much different.”

The Queen Mother regards her with clear dislike, but does not argue. How could she? Once the Queen Mother began convincing her beloved son to forsake his betrothed, this conflict became as personal as it was political, and best held behind closed doors. Suggesting that Kuntala’s sense of decorum was superior to that of Mahishmati had only ensured the Queen Mother’s compliance.

The court is dismissed with a sweep of the Queen Mother’s arm so that the royal family can retire to a chamber of their own. Devasena lingers awkwardly, unsure of where to go until Baahubali gallantly deigns to guide her. And well he might, she thinks bitterly; she is still his charge, at least until he bows to his mother’s wishes and surrenders her to his brother.

They walk in silence until Devasena decides at least some warning as to what will inevitably follow is warranted. He might be so obedient as to sacrifice all his happiness; she is not. Her earlier words were meant only to delay conflict with the Queen Mother, not diminish it.

“I have no intention of being forced to wed Bhallaladeva,” she states baldly, and Baahubali stops, surprised.

“I would not,” he rumbles in response, “let such a thing happen.” He does not insult her by inquiring if she wouldn’t prefer that it be otherwise. Devasena is satisfied.

“Your mother won’t be pleased,” she warns.

He smiles ruefully. “I imagine not. Still,” the corners of his mouth turn up, “between the two of us, I have no doubt we will find some way to convince her otherwise.”

They have overcome invaders together; how much more difficult can coaxing a single woman out of her stubbornness be? Baahubali offers her his arm. With a smile, Devasena takes it.

*

“You find yourself in quite a predicament, Queen Mother.” The words taste like ashes in Devasena’s mouth. “I offer my sympathies and take my leave.”

All four members of the royal family who stand on the dais stare at her, shaken. “Devasena!” The Queen Mother roars. “How dare—“

There is a sudden sort of detachment that comes with understanding that some dreams are not meant to be. This keeps her voice even as she replies, “You are due, I believe, an apology for my harsh words. That I have given you. What other demand can you have of me?”

“That you marry my son, as he desires.”

Devasena laughs without mirth. “But which one should it be?” Before the Queen Mother can reply, she goes on: “Either way you decide, you cause the heartbreak of one son, and it seems so you should be grateful to me that I choose to marry neither of them. I have made restitution for my arrogance: now I am free to return home.”

She expects at least some argument and finds none. Apparently the Queen Mother finds it simplest to deny both her sons Devasena’s hand, perhaps hoping that disappointment will bring them together. And Baahubali—now that Devasena has made it clear that she wishes to be released from her prior promises, he will press no further claim on her. She knows this. She only wishes it wouldn’t hurt so much.

Hearts are resilient, though, as Sumitra always says. Her heart will heal, and even if it does not, she will not be the first Queen of her line to rule alone. Until then, there is still Kuntala there to welcome her. There will always be Kuntala there to shelter her.

She takes some comfort in that.

*

Nothing.

Devasena says nothing, and the Queen Mother continues: “Whatever your feelings may be, I have faith that you will not disappoint me.”

Devasena says nothing, and Baahubali speaks at last. “I would rather face death than the thought of disappointing you,” he tells his mother, “but I cannot imagine you, in your wisdom, would decree unhappiness upon three lives at once.”

Devasena says nothing, and the elder prince rises to his feet. “Baahu!”

Devasena says nothing, and Baahubali continues, “I will happily obey you, Mother, if you are certain this is what you desire.”

Devasena says nothing as the debate rages on around her. Dully she wonders if she ought not to be grateful that the Queen Mother does not decide to do as Kunti once did and dictate that all things should be shared between brothers. Her ladies-in-waiting adjust the gifts sent from Kuntala to Mahishmati nervously as they listen; and she, Devasena, is just one more among them, with as little of a say as to where and to whom she goes.

Devasena says nothing, and at last the Queen Mother comes to a conclusion. “Perhaps, despite my earlier words, it is more imperative that Mahishmati should have a Queen before any other wedding can occur. Bhallaladeva shall have five thousand gold coins added to his yearly income as well as the governorship of the mines of the northern mountains, and Baahubali shall marry the Princess of Kuntala. This is my word, and my word is the law.”

Devasena says nothing as the Queen Mother smiles benevolently upon her. Bhallaladeva slumps into his seat, his father gnashes his teeth, and Kattappa grins from ear to ear. Baahubali looks upon his bride, face bright with triumph and no little relief.

Devasena feels nothing.

Chapter Text

Sanga, handsome, clever, and as rich as it is possible to be in a fishing village of no particular significance, lives nearly one-and-twenty years in the world with very little to distress or vex her. Save, that is, for the existence of:

“I wonder,” she pronounces haughtily, “why your parents even bothered naming you. They might as well have called you ‘Don’t, Sanga.’ I never hear you say anything else.”

Prasanna only smiles indulgently in the manner she’s half-convinced he knows irritates her the most. “Don’t you, Sanga?” he says deliberately, and somehow manages not to laugh even when she sticks out her tongue in frustration. Life, she thinks, not for the first time, was far easier when she was eleven and he was fifteen and she could grind his face in the ground when angered. Now she is considered a woman and he the village chief’s son, and such childish behavior is beneath her—but oh, how tempting!

This in no way excuses him for his faults. Sanga might have to flounce away rather than fight, but she and Prasanna have been friends for long enough that she knows her displeasure will have been noted. That is one of the nice things—the many nice things, if she’s truthful with herself—about Prasanna. He is sensitive to the slightest shift of emotion in those around him, without being subject to the ebbs and flows of Sanga’s temper. It’s calming, being around him, like sitting on the banks of the river and staring at the bottom. Someday she might even tell him so.

Not today, though, she doesn’t think. Today Prasanna looks too pleased with himself, well-named indeed, and that too when all he’s done is spend an idle morning by her side. Far too lazy for a future chief, and Sanga begins to tell him so, frowning.

Prasanna only laughs at her without bothering to open his eyes. “Don’t, Sanga,” he pleads, and goes back to sleep.

*

The blessing of Sanga’s life is Haritha, who is five years younger than she and whose background is charmingly unknown. Royal women have been floating babies down the river since the days of Queen Kunti, and Sanga is certain that Haritha must be one more of those long-lost heirs. How else can one explain the aristocratic tilt of her nose, the copper tint of her skin, the thick dark curls that tumble down her neck?

One day, Sanga knows, Haritha’s family will come searching for her, and until then, it is Sanga’s duty to prepare her for her destiny. Sanga plaits her hair, sings her to sleep, and tells her stories of great kings and queens. At sixteen, so far as Sanga can determine, Haritha is poised for adventure and meant for greatness.

“Be sensible,” Prasanna grumbles. “You would see that she’s only one more unwanted and inconvenient child, if you allowed yourself half the chance.”

But it is Sanga, not Prasanna, who has a particular talent for telling people what to do, and so she only tosses her head.

Prasanna cannot respond, because before he can, his father comes upon them and demands: “You’re not troubling our Sanga, are you, boy?”

Sanga beams at him. Prasanna’s father is fond of her, which she knows because he constantly bewails the mistake of fate that led to her not being born his daughter. “At least,” he will say, with a pointed look at Prasanna, “it is not yet too late to remedy that.”

And curiously enough, Prasanna will turn crimson, every time. Today is no exception. By such time as Prasanna’s complexion has regained its natural state, he has forgotten what he meant to say in the first place, and Sanga is free to continue making plans for Haritha’s future to her heart’s content.

“Don’t, Sanga,” Prasanna warns; she ignores him.

*

Then comes the day Haritha tires of waiting. If her family will not find her, she must find them instead. (Wonderful! Sanga exclaims.) If she does in fact have a birthright waiting for her, she must claim it, by force if necessary. (Well done! Sanga applauds.) If she takes a boat and goes down the river to discover from where she hails, will Sanga come with her?

(And: P-Perhaps, stammers Sanga. I can’t be sure.)

Her father is her first concern. He is old and frail, but as talented as ever at weaving fishing nets; and there are many who would care for him out of love for Sanga. He might rail and rant about his weary bones, but he does not need her as much as he believes he does.

He will not keep her here, in this sleepy village.

Her fears of the unknown are her second concern. Here she is safe and praised, the darling of her neighbors’ eyes; elsewhere she will only be one more young woman of hundreds. But Sanga made herself admired by all once: she can do so again, even among strangers.

That will not keep her here, in this lonely village.

Prasanna comes to her, the night before she and Haritha plan to depart. His eyes are dark; he rests his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t, Sanga,” he says: a question, not a command. An order she would have refused without a second thought—the longing in his face as he looks at her renders her helpless.

When Haritha leaves the next morning, she does so alone.

*

Nearly thirty-five years pass and Haritha does not return. At first Sanga insists on postponing the formal celebration of her marriage until Haritha can be present, but weeks turn into months turn into years, and there is no word from her. Sanga refuses to admit despair, even when everyone else has given up hope, but sometimes in the evenings, Prasanna returns to their home to find her wringing her hands, dry-eyed.

“Don’t, Sanga,” he whispers sadly, and it is enough for her to know she is not alone in her grief.

A new infant is found on the river, one who Sanga refuses to lose as she had the other, but fate does what it will, and Sanga and Prasanna find themselves the beloved parents of the new King of Mahishmati. Among the many guests at his coronation are a whole host of visiting dignitaries, and among those: “Haritha!”

“Sister!” replies the Queen of the Hoysalas, and runs into her arms. Slowly, the story emerges, of how Haritha won herself a queenship, by hard work and hardship as much as heritage. Sanga laughs and weeps at once, and her heart is full.

Only when they are alone does Prasanna admit at last: “I suppose you were right after all.”

Sanga clucks her tongue, every bit as smug at five-and-fifty as she was at one-and-twenty. “Am I not always?”

“Don’t, Sanga,” Prasanna laughs, and as always, she ignores him.

Chapter Text

In her father’s house women are meant neither to be seen nor heard, but even such measures cannot suffocate their stories. They trade shrill voices for sharp needles, and not even the thickest cloth can blunt those points. Two of her stepmothers, locked in an eternal battle for her father’s affections, work competing stories of the Parijatam blooms on their petticoats, for everyone to see when their laundry is displayed.

She learns to hold a thimble by her third birthday, and to sketch out the image she wishes to make by her fourth. She means to have worked out an image that will represent her by her ninth, but no, says Mother. That is meant only for those who have married; she will not come into her own until then. So she embroiders nothing but mango-leaves and love-knots, and waits until she will be counted old enough in the women’s quarters to be allowed to tell her own tale.

Frustratingly, when she is wed, it is so far away that all of her needlework is unknown, and its significance lost. She puts her thread and needle away, for lack of anyone to appreciate it; if her fingers itch for lack of purpose, her mind has far more important concerns.

Only when her womb swells does she remember her legacy. At first she thinks it might be a daughter, to whom she might teach such skills; but then her husband dies, and she knows her child must be a son. She works feverishly, more certain by the day that she will never live to create anything more.

She sets the last stitch as her labor pains start, and takes a moment to smoothen out her handiwork: Mother Kaushalya’s face is serene as she bids farewell to her son, and Rama’s visage always smiling. It is benediction and apology both; she hopes her son will have sense to understand it.

If he is worthy of her, he shall.

Chapter Text

When she lived, Vaishali’s mother always told of how Vaishali was born to follow Avantika wherever she led. Mother might have conceived first, but Vaishali lingered in the womb stubbornly until Avantika drew breath. Avanti always laughs at that; “As though either of us had any say in the matter,” she scoffs, but Vaishali feels the truth of it, deep in her bones.

Avanti believes in nothing but freedom and fire and the vengeance the chief promises, but that is all right: Vaishali believes in Avanti and their fellowship enough for the both of them. Avanti rises through the ranks, going on mission after mission, and Vaishali follows behind. She earns neither glory nor approving smiles from the chief--but Avanti lives, which makes it worthwhile.

But then Avanti goes on one last adventure, and returns with the long-lost heir to Mahishmati in tow. In the blink of an eye, things change; now Avanti is to be Queen, and daughter-in-law to Devasena herself. She will hardly need yet another to trail behind her; better by far that Vaishali stay behind in the newly recovered Kuntala, and do what she can to be useful

That is why it is such a surprise when Avanti comes to her and offers her a sword.

“A Queen,” she says, “can hardly serve as captain of her own guard.”

Vaishali cannot help but gape at her. Avanti only laughs.

“After all these years, how I could take a single step without you with me?”

Chapter Text

Unlike the mountains of Mahishmati, those of Kuntala have no all-enduring ore or priceless treasures; but that does not mean they are entirely without value. Rare veins of silver stretch within them, and a few stray rubies; these, however, are long gone to years of mining on the part of the Kuntalans. All that remains of these prizes are to be found in the crown of Kuntala, the most precious of all its artifacts.

Jayasena knows this well. Just as well he knows that a disagreement with his sister is inevitable when she advances on him with a frown like that, her short frame stiff with anger.

She hardly crosses the threshold of his chambers before saying, "The Prime Minister told me you'd given orders to have Mother's crown locked away again. Why is that?"

"Because," says Jayasena patiently, "now that the coronation is over, I don't mean to wear it again."

"But--but--" Devasena splutters. "But you are King now! You must wear it!"

"I am King," Jayasena agrees, and that means I can wear whatever I please. Such as this turban. Father--" he swallows, forces himself to continue, "Father used to wear one like it, don't you remember?"

"Father," Devasena says, "was different."

He knows what she means: Father had been Regent of Kuntala, and before that only Royal Consort; but Jayasena, unlike his sister, remembers Mother for more than the stories she would tell, and knows all too well how impossible it will be to replace her, particularly by a stripling who's barely grown his first beard. He will make no promises to his people that he cannot possibly keep.

"It's not right," Devasena snaps into the silence when it's clear he won't respond. "What good is a king without a crown?"

She forgets, though, that Jayasena is every bit a child of the mountains as is she: if Devasena inherited their brittle beauty, Jayasena lays claim instead to the stone underneath, cold and implacable. Particularly when his mind is made up, as it is now. That, more than any metal or brightly colored stone, is the mountains' true gift for its people; that is the relic they must protect. 

"We shall simply have to find out together," he tells her calmly, and with a last disgruntled look in his direction, Devasena subsides.

Chapter Text

Baahubali has never before known anything for his uncle but a sort of resigned resentment, but today he thinks he might pity him. Bijjaladeva’s cheeks are still marked by tears; his hair matted and untidy where he has pulled at it; and both his hands, sound and shriveled alike, still cling to the corpse of his son. Mother is little better, of course, and there is a knot of misery in Baahubali’s chest, but they speak of their grief. Bijjaladeva does not. 

What he does do is start at Baahubali’s approach, moving protectively closer to Bhalla. 

“Forgive me,” says Baahubali. “I wanted to see him before he--before the funeral.”

He half-expects angry accusations, the usual sneers, but instead Bijjaladeva shuffles aside so that Baahubali can kneel beside him. Instantly, the knot in Baahubali’s chest unravels, and his eyes burn once more; he thinks of the Kalakeya warlord catching Bhalla’s mace and using it to drag Bhalla off his feet, directly into the path of a Kalakeyan spear. He wonders what might have happened if he had been only an instant faster--

“Bhalla should have been King,” Baahubali finds himself saying.

At that, Bijjaladeva laughs--if that is what one is to call the cracked sound emerging from his hoarse throat. “He would have been,” he replies, the first words he has spoken in almost a day and a night’s time; “and the finest King Mahishmati would have known, if I’d anything to say about it. But I see it will be you now. That is the bargain Sivagami had made, is it not?”

The thought hadn’t occurred to Baahubali at all, and almost he wants to refuse it: what sort of crown is won with a brother’s blood? But there is no one else, and he knows what Mother will say. Some things are more important than grief, and even love, and one of those is their duty. 

Instead he offers: “You do not mourn alone. Mother knows your grief--”

“Sivagami? Sivagami knows nothing of my pain. Sivagami still has a son remaining to comfort her.”

“As,” Baahubali says firmly, “do you.” 

He holds his breath. As a general rule, he has never made a habit of emphasizing their shared kinship to his uncle, father’s brother though he is; it never seemed to count for much with Bijjaladeva, and truthfully Baahubali guesses he does not much care for the reminder. But now, amazingly, Bijjaladeva catches his breath and, bright-eyed, turns to look at him as though he had never seen Baahubali before.

“You and I, boy,” he breathes. “There’s no one else left in all the world who shares our blood.”

Suddenly, as though presenting some sort of challenge, he loops his withered arm about Baahubali’s neck; and Baahubali, after the initial surprise, closes his eyes and does not flinch away from it. 

“Only us, now,” says Bijjaladeva, and his voice hitches on a sob. 

Behind him, he hears Uncle’s quiet cough, come to take him away from this tent and back to his responsibilities; Mother has as much need of him as does Bijjaladeva, if not more. Baahubali half-rises, but Bijjaladeva lets out a cry of protest, glaring at Uncle with all his usual ferocity. Uncle, much to Baahubali’s surprise, is glowering back for once, instead of merely lowering his head. 

“I’ll return as soon as I can,” Baahubali promises, the better to diffuse the sudden tension between the two, and Bijjaladeva, satisfied, releases him to sink back to the floor. 

He falls into step beside Uncle, but it’s not until they’re almost twenty lengths away that Uncle whispers at last: “My Baahu, what have you done?”

Baahubali wants to protest that he had done nothing at all, save comfort a grieving man, but then he remembers the look in Bijjaladeva’s eyes as they’d walked away: no longer dull and disconsolate but dark with sudden greed. 

“I’m not certain,” he says instead, and tries--but fails--to ignore his growing unease.