The First Lesson – The Inner Flame
The dawn at the Silent Peak was not announced by a chorus of birds, but by a profound, resonant silence that seemed to vibrate in the very marrow of their bones. Mataji stood before them in a small clearing behind the huts, the first rays of the sun painting her wizened face in hues of gold.
"Prince of Neelgarh," she said, her eyes resting on Neel. "Your first lesson is to unlearn."
Neel, who had been avoiding Anal's gaze since his raw confession the previous night, looked up, confused. "Unlearn, Mataji?"
"You have spent years building walls around your heart, masking your true self behind a role," she said, her voice gentle yet firm. "You have learned to see your connection to Prince Anal as a chain of duty. To progress, you must first unlearn this. Go to the Stream of Reflection behind the ashram. Sit by its waters. Do not command them. Do not shape them. Simply listen. Listen until you can hear your own heart again, not the echo of your vow."
Neel bowed his head and left, the weight of her words evident in his slow steps.
Mataji then turned to Anal. Her gaze felt like a physical pressure. "And you, Prince of Tejgarh. Your lesson is to feel."
Anal stood straighter, expecting a lesson in control, in powerful new mantras to harness his fire.
Mataji pointed to a large, smooth, black stone at the center of the clearing. "Sit."
He did as he was told. The stone was cool beneath him.
"Close your eyes."
He closed them, his mind already focusing, ready to wrestle his inner fire into submission.
"You are not here to control the fire, Prince Anal," Mataji's voice cut through his concentration. "You are here to understand it. You fear its power because you see it as separate from you—a wild beast to be caged. It is not. It is you."
Her words unsettled him. His entire life had been about control, discipline, mastery.
"Feel the heat within you," she instructed. "Do not command it. Do not judge it. Simply observe it. Where does it reside? Is it a single ball of fire in your stomach? Or is it a network of embers in your very blood? Observe."
It was the hardest thing Anal had ever been asked to do. To simply feel without acting, to observe without controlling. It went against every instinct. He felt the familiar heat, the restless energy that begged for release. He clenched his fists, his brow furrowed in effort.
"Relax your hands, Prince," Mataji's voice was a calm anchor. "You are fighting yourself. Let go."
Hours seemed to pass. The sun climbed higher, warming his skin. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He felt frustration burn hotter than any flame. This was pointless. He was a warrior, not a meditator.
And then, in a moment of exhausted surrender, he stopped trying.
He stopped focusing, stopped wrestling. He just... existed.
And in that space, he felt it. Not as a terrifying inferno, but as a vibrant, living warmth that pulsed in rhythm with his own heartbeat. It wasn't just in his core; it was in his fingertips, in the soles of his feet, a golden, life-giving energy that was as much a part of him as his own breath. It felt... good. It felt like strength, like life itself.
A sense of profound peace washed over him, so foreign and startling that his eyes snapped open.
Mataji was smiling, a knowing look in her ancient eyes. "You see? The flame does not wish to destroy you. It wishes to live through you. You have spent your life building a dam against a river. Now, you must learn to be the riverbed, to guide its flow."
The lesson was a revelation. It was the complete opposite of everything Guru Vrish had taught him. Vrish had taught control. Mataji was teaching acceptance.
For the rest of the day, he sat, learning to simply feel the ebb and flow of his own power. It was exhausting, mentally and physically, but for the first time, it didn't feel like a battle.
As evening approached, Neel returned from the stream. He looked tired, but the haunted look in his eyes had softened. He didn't speak, but when his gaze met Anal's, there was a new kind of quiet understanding there.
They ate a simple meal of rice and herbs in silence. The air between them was no longer heavy with unspoken confessions, but with a shared, weary respect for the difficult paths they were walking.
That night, as Anal lay on his cot, he didn't fight the memory of Neel's pained confession. He let himself feel the weight of it, the immense sacrifice the other prince had made. The anger was gone, replaced by a complicated, aching gratitude.
He was just drifting to sleep when a sound jerked him awake. It was the soft, frantic scrabble of claws on their roof.
He sat up, instantly alert. Neel was already on his feet, a sphere of water shimmering in his palm, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.
The scrabble was followed by a low, pained whimper. Then, a small, dark shape fell from the rafters and landed with a soft thud on the floor between their cots.
It was a hawk, but unlike any they had ever seen. Its feathers were not brown or grey, but a deep, iridescent black that seemed to swallow the faint light in the hut. One of its wings was bent at a cruel angle, and tied to its good leg was a small, tightly rolled scroll.
The bird looked at them with intelligent, desperate eyes, and then went still.
As Anal cautiously reached for the scroll, the hawk's body suddenly dissolved into a wisp of shadow and vanished, leaving only the scroll on the floor—and the chilling realization that the message had not been delivered by a creature of flesh and blood, but of pure, concentrated darkness.