The heavy, ornate doors of the grand court of Tejgarh closed behind Agnivat with a final, resonant thud that seemed to echo the closing of a cage. The day had been a tapestry of thorny disputes, the petty grievances of nobles woven with the grim reports from distant borders. The air in the chamber still smelled of polished wood, cold stone, and the faint, lingering tension of unresolved conflict.
Back in the sanctuary of his personal chambers, the last slivers of sunset bled through the high windows, painting the white marble floor with pools of dying gold. Agnivat shrugged off the weighty royal cloak. It fell in a heap of embroidered silk, and with it, he felt the oppressive mantle of princely duty slip away only to be replaced by a heavier, more personal weight that settled directly on his heart.
In the center of the room, a small, five-faced brass lamp a panch-mukhi diya burned steadily. Its ghee-fed flames were five points of unwavering light, a symbol of clarity and the five elements. Yet as Agnivat stood before it, his breathing still uneven from the day's frustrations, the flames seemed to shudder in sympathy, their light wavering, casting frantic, dancing shadows on the walls.
He lowered himself to the floor, crossing his legs in a meditative pose. He closed his eyes, seeking the inner stillness he had mastered in the Gurukul. But tonight, his mind was not a placid lake. It was a torrent, and crashing through its currents was a single, unwavering image: Neeravrah.
Not the prince of Neelgarh. Not the heir to an enemy kingdom. Just Neer. The boy who had been his shadow and his sunlight for ten years. Neer' laugh a sound that could unravel his fiercest concentration. Neer' eyes, holding depths of playful cunning and a stubborn loyalty that ran quieter than any river. That particular, infuriating smile that seemed to say, I see right through you, Agnivat, and I'm still here.
And then, the memory that was a fresh wound beneath the scar: their final, bitter words at the Gurukul gates. The things said in the heat of a pain neither fully understood. The words hung between them now like a blade, and every echo in the silent chamber was its sharp edge.
[Flashback — Years Ago, Gurukul]
The air in Acharya Vrishyan's cell was thick with the scent of aged parchment and the faint, sweet smoke of nag champa. It was the calm before the storm. Neeravrah had just left, his usual bravado slightly dimmed by the weight of the impending mission. Agnivat had turned to follow when the Acharya's voice, low and deliberate, stopped him.
"Agnivat. Stay a moment."
The old teacher's eyes, like chips of obsidian, held him. "You are a scion of the Agni-tattva. Your soul does not just wield fire; it communes with it. Remember this, for a day may come when words fail, and distance mocks you. If you ever need to reach someone whose spirit is entwined with yours… you must become the message."
Agnivat frowned, the student seeking clarity. "Become it, Guruji?"
"When a flame burns for you," the Acharya said, his finger tracing the unwavering fire of the single lamp on his desk, "and for them, pour your consciousness into it. Not your thoughts. Your essence. Your regret, your longing, your unspoken truth. Fire is the oldest messenger. It carries feeling to its sibling flames across any divide."
Agnivat's practical mind raised a barrier. "And if the other heart… refuses to listen? If it has built walls against me?"
A mysterious, almost sad smile touched the Acharya's lips. "Fire carries only what is true, Agnivat. And truth, when born of a pure heart, does not ask for permission. It arrives. A heart that yearns to hear… will feel the warmth, even if the mind denies the source."
[Back to Present — Tejgarh]
Agnivat opened his eyes. The memory was a lifeline in his turmoil. The Acharya's words were no longer just philosophy; they were a desperate, tangible hope.
He focused, drawing his awareness inward, past the noise of the court, past the bitterness of history, down to the raw, aching core of his regret. He didn't form sentences. He poured the feeling the hollow silence where Neer's laughter should be, the sharp regret over their last words, the simple, profound longing for his friend's presence into the flame of the central lamp.
He closed his eyes again, visualizing Neer's face with an intensity that bordered on pain. The flame before him flared, not with heat, but with a sudden, vibrant pulse of light. A subtle, invisible vibration, a ripple in the fabric of the element itself, leapt from the wick. It was a signal fire of the soul, launched not into the night sky, but into the interconnected web of fire itself, arcing across the miles toward the sea-kissed kingdom of Neelgarh.
---
Neelgarh…
The air in the northern courtyard was cool, tasting of salt and coming rain. Neeravrah moved through his sword forms, a solitary figure against the vast, darkening expanse of the sea. His body was a symphony of controlled motion, sweat glistening on his skin, each strike against the imaginary foe a release of coiled energy. An old iron torch, bolted to the wall, burned with a low, steady flame, painting his determined face in warm, shifting tones.
In mid-swing, at the apex of a particularly fierce slash, his entire body froze.
A sensation, not from without, but from within, gripped him. It was a sudden, deep warmth that bloomed in the center of his chest, spreading outwards like a drop of honey in hot milk. It was comforting and agonizing all at once—the feeling of a hand he knew reaching out to brush his heart.
The torch flame beside him jumped. It swelled, not with the wind, but with an invisible surge of energy, burning a fierce, clean blue at its core for a single, impossible second.
And in that second, a voice resonated in the silent chamber of his mind. Not in his ears. Deeper.
"Neer…"
It was Agni's voice. But stripped of all its princely restraint, its warrior's edge. It was raw. It was soft. It was sorry.
"I… am sorry. Do not… stay angry with me."
Neeravrah's sword arm dropped to his side. His gaze, wide and unseeing, lifted from the torch and swept over the black, murmuring sea, as if he could find the speaker standing on the horizon. Then his eyes snapped back to the flame. In its dance, for a fleeting moment, he didn't see light. He saw a presence. A shadow sitting cross-legged in a room far away, head bowed, his essence flowing into a sibling flame. Reaching out across the void.
The name left his lips on a breath, pulled from him by a force stronger than will.
"Agni…"
In that instant, the hundred leagues between Tejgarh and Neelgarh collapsed. The torch in Neelgarh and the lamp in Tejgarh were not separate. They were two points on a single, living thread of fire, and along that thread, two hearts had just touched.
---
Neelgarh, Night…
Rest would not come. The strange, soul-deep warmth Agni's message had left behind had mutated into a restless, churning disquiet. It felt less like comfort and more like a warning tremor deep in the earth of his spirit. Had Agni's apology carried a shadow? Or was his own heart, now stirred from its defensive numbness, sensing a danger that had nothing to do with them?
He walked the torch-lit corridors back to his chambers, the flames on the walls seeming to watch him, their light feeling accusing, not guiding. A cold bath did nothing to quell the inner heat. The water ran over his skin but could not touch the fever in his blood.
He lay on his bed, hair damp against the pillow, and commanded himself to sleep. "It is just his foolishness," he muttered to the dark ceiling. "His fire-magic and my stirred-up memories. Nothing more."
But deep within, the echo of that voice "Neer…" lingered. A ghost-call hanging in the silence of the room, a warmth that had now turned into a prickle of dread on the back of his neck. Sleep, when it finally came, was a thin and fractured thing, offering no refuge.
---
[The Next Day – Neelgarh Royal Court]
Dawn in Neelgarh was usually a gentle affair of pearl-grey light and the cry of gulls. This morning, the light falling on the palace courtyard stones felt brittle, the air taut as a bowstring.
King Vyomesh sat upon the Sea-Throne, carved from driftwood and coral, but there was no peace in his bearing. Before him stood Commander Vrajanath. The man was a pillar of Neelgarh's defense, his face a topographic map of old battles, his eyes the cold grey of winter seas. Today, they held a storm.
"The report is confirmed, Maharaj," Vrajanath's voice was a gravelly rasp, cutting through the formal quiet. "The merchant caravan was ambushed not by scavengers, but by wolves in sheep's hide. The weapons left behind were not the crude tools of bandits. They were… military. Our scout troop sent to investigate has vanished. No traces. No signals."
Vyomesh's face, already lined with care, seemed to deepen with every word. He steepled his fingers, a gesture of pained control. "Open war is a tide that drowns all boats, Vrajanath. We are not ready to be swept away. Your task is reconnaissance. Take a small, swift team. Find proof. If they are common thieves, cleanse the route. If they wear another kingdom's crest… you are to see, and return. You are not to engage. Is that clear?"
Vrajanath bowed, but the line of his shoulders was rigid, unconvinced. "Your command is my path, Maharaj. I will bring back the truth. Even if it is a truth written in blood."
---
[Scene: A Storm of Blood at the Border]
The borderlands between Tejgarh and Neelgarh were a place forgotten by gentle seasons. It was a narrow, fog-choked valley where the last chill of autumn clung to the bones of the land. Tall, silent Sal trees stood like sentinels over a carpet of rotting leaves, their branches weaving a ceiling that muted the dying light of the late afternoon sun. The wind here didn't whistle; it sighed, a cold, damp exhalation that carried the scent of wet earth and something metallic.
Commander Vrajanath advanced with the silent precision of a predator, his ten best men flanking him. The only sounds were the soft crunch of hooves on decay and the occasional creak of leather.
A young lieutenant brought his horse abreast. "Commander, the border stone is just ahead. Tejgarh patrols are thick here. If they see us…"
Vrajanath's eyes, scanning the grey gloom, were hard. "We are shadows today. We find the vermin who attacked our people, we identify them, and we melt back. That is all."
The rustle was so faint it was almost part of the wind. A whisper of movement high in the dense canopy. A shift of a shadow against deeper shadow.
Then, a fall.
Not a jump. A strike. A figure detached from the high branches and descended not with weight, but with lethal purpose. It was Raghuvir, Commander of Tejgarh's Western Shield. His face, illuminated by a single shard of slanting light, was a mask of cold, surgical fury. In his hand, a curved blade caught the same light a fleeting, murderous star.
The world slowed. Vrajanath's head began to turn, his mouth opening to form a warning.
"Crr-ack!"
The sound was not loud. It was horribly intimate. The clean, wet fracture of spine and sinew. Raghuvir's blade completed its arc. Vrajanath's head, its expression frozen in a split-second of dawning, impossible comprehension, toppled from his shoulders. It hit the carpet of leaves with a soft, final thump. The body remained upright in the saddle for a grotesque second before slumping sideways, a fountain of arterial blood arcing into the cold air, steaming, painting the grey leaves a shocking, vibrant red.
The metallic scent of blood exploded, drowning the damp earth smell.
Neelgarh's soldiers stood petrified, the reality too monstrous to process.
"Raghuvir…! You… you dog of Tejgarh!" one soldier finally screamed, the spell of horror breaking into rage.
"AFTER HIM! DON'T LET HIM ESCAPE!"
But Raghuvir was already a phantom. He landed lightly, scooped up a fallen helmet as if retrieving a discarded tool, swung onto a waiting black horse hidden in the brush, and vanished into the thick fog and gathering twilight, leaving behind only the brutal evidence of his act.
---
[Neelgarh Royal Palace]
The soldiers who returned to Neelgarh were not warriors; they were ghosts carrying a nightmare. They brought with them the chill of the valley and the pervasive, sweet-iron stench of their commander's blood. Vrajanath's body, carefully shrouded, was laid before the throne. When the shroud was drawn back, the court gasped as one a horrified, sucking-in of breath. The head had been crudely placed with the torso, a macabre mockery of wholeness. The dark stain on the marble seemed to grow, a Rorschach blot of war.
King Vyomesh rose from his throne. The sorrow in his eyes was incinerated by a rising, white-hot fury. His hands gripped the coral arms of his seat so fiercely it seemed they might pulverize the stone.
"Tejgarh's blade," his voice boomed, no longer that of a king but of an elemental force, "has crossed our border not to challenge, but to murder. They did not attack a fort. They assassinated my commander on a mission of peace! This is not a provocation. This is a declaration!"
The hall, moment before stunned to silence, erupted. Nobles slammed fists into palms. Ministers shouted, their voices weaving into a single, thunderous cry.
"WAR! WAR! WAR!"
The word became a chant, a drumbeat of doom. The fragile peace was not broken; it was obliterated. And the silent, heartfelt apology that had flowed from a lamp in Tejgarh to a torch in Neelgarh just the night before now hung in the air between the kingdoms, a beautiful, bitter irony a whisper of regret drowned out by the roaring tide of freshly-spilled blood. The rift between the two friends was no longer a personal wound. It was now a canyon carved by the swords of their fathers, and its depths echoed with the coming thunder of armies.
As the war-cry thundered through the marble halls of Neelgarh, drowning every last echo of reason, a lone torch flickered violently just for a second.
Far away in Tejgarh, at the exact same moment, the panch-mukhi diya in Agnivat's chamber trembled with an unnatural shiver… as if the flame itself knew that the next message carried through fire would no longer be of apology
but of blood.
And neither Agni nor Neer had any idea…
that the first sword drawn in this war
would be pointed at one of them.