The next morning did not arrive with sunlight.
It arrived with ash.
A gray dawn spread over Kashi like a funeral cloth, heavy and silent, as if the city itself had been wounded and could not lift its head. The sky was dull, the clouds low, and the air smelled of burnt wood even before the pyres were lit. Along the banks of the Ganga, thin columns of smoke rose from multiple ghats, curling upward in slow spirals, twisting like prayers that could not reach the heavens.
Kashi was performing too many cremations at once.
The main cremation took place at Dashashwamedh Ghat.
The King and Queen of Kashi were brought there with the full rites of royalty, but even royalty looked small beside death. Priests stood in a circle, their foreheads marked with ash and sandal paste, chanting mantras in low voices. Their words floated above the river, mixing with the sound of the current and the crackle of torches.
A handful of surviving soldiers stood nearby, their armor still stained, their faces hollow. Many had bandages wrapped around their arms and shoulders, but none of them seemed to feel pain. Their eyes were fixed on the pyres, unblinking, as if they feared that looking away would make everything real.
Prince Indraverma stood at the center.
He looked older than he had the day before.
His face was pale, and there were shadows beneath his eyes that no sleep could erase. Yet his back remained straight, his chin lifted, his expression forced into composure the way a crown forces dignity upon a man even when his heart is breaking.
He had no father to guide him now.
No mother to whisper courage into his ear.
Only duty.
Only the weight of Kashi's throne pressed down on his shoulders like a mountain.
The priests handed him the torch.
Indraverma's fingers tightened around it. The flame trembled slightly in the morning wind, but his hands did not shake. He stepped forward, reciting the mantras with a voice that tried to remain steady. Yet every few words, the grief slipped through, and his voice cracked like a branch under snow.
When he finally touched the torch to the first pyre, the ghee caught immediately. The sandalwood followed, eager to burn. Flames rose in bright orange tongues, licking upward, devouring cloth and flesh without mercy.
Indraverma lit the second pyre next.
He didn't hesitate. He didn't pause to wipe his eyes.
His jaw clenched hard, and he spoke the mantras again, this time with a bitterness in his voice that made even the priests lower their gazes.
Sparks flew upward as the flames strengthened.
The smoke grew thicker.
The wind carried it across the river, across the ghats, across the city that was now mourning its rulers.
Karna stood away from the royal circle.
He did not stand with the soldiers. He did not stand with the priests. He remained half-hidden among a group of pilgrims and ascetics, men who had wandered into Kashi seeking moksha and found the smell of war. Some of them murmured prayers. Some simply watched, their eyes dull, as if they had seen too many funerals to feel anything new.
Karna wore plain clothes, his hair tied back, his face unreadable. The clay urn he had carried for so long was now empty and tucked into his bundle. It felt strange, like a weight had disappeared from his shoulder, yet somehow the emptiness felt heavier than the burden ever had.
His gaze stayed fixed on the pyres.
As for Mrinalini, she wasn't present and forced to stay at the royal palace as tradition forbade it.
As Karna's eyes stared at the flames that climbed higher, his mind drifted to Gurudev Parashurama. The Avatar of Narayana had once cleansed this land twenty-one times, wiping out adharmic kings and their bloodlines. Twenty-one times, the axe had fallen. Twenty-one times, the earth had drunk royal blood.
Yet here it was again.
Adharma rising like weeds after rain, stubborn and endless.
Karna's jaw tightened.
No matter how many times a man cuts a poisonous plant, if the roots remain, it will grow back. The faces change, the kingdoms change, the banners change, but the rot beneath the soil remains the same.
Perhaps, merely eliminating evil isn't enough. Establishment of righteousness is needed in this Dvapara Yuga as the man becomes more selfish and greedy.
To erase it completely, a righteous emperor was needed.
Not a mere king.
Not a noble warrior.
An emperor who could bind all of Bharatavarsh beneath dharma with a single throne strong enough to crush rebellion. A man whose principles would become law for every lesser ruler. A man who could force the land itself to straighten its spine.
But Karna knew the truth.
He was not that man.
His path was different. His duty was not to rule Bharatavarsh. His duty was to strip away the mortal attachments, and as long as he is here, he just has to do good deeds and influence people to make the right choices.
Karna didn't know where to find that righteous emperor that this land needed, but until then, he had to do whatever he could.
And the first thing that he needed to do was to erase Kamsa from the face of the earth, and then later stop Jarasandha from walking in the path of darkness. With the two mightiest kingdoms coming out of darkness, perhaps, the other kingdoms will take it a lesson and start mending their ways.
Karna's fists slowly unclenched.
*
A few days later, the ashes of Vritraketu reached Mathura.
Karna had known it would take time. News traveled slower than death, and even death needed roads and horses to reach distant kingdoms. But he had made sure the message would arrive properly, not as a rumor whispered by frightened merchants, but as a wound delivered directly into Kamsa's hands.
Vitraketu's cremation had been done quietly by the ascetics, as Karna was left with no choice. It could take several days or even weeks to transport the dead body to Mathura safely. Neither Kashi is willing to give such preferential treatment to this killer, nor is Karna willing to make such an effort for an evil person.
Hence, the least he could do is to make sure Vitraketu's cremation process has gone through proper traditions.
Afterward, Karna asked Indraverma's help to transport the ashes to Mathura.
But Mrinalini interfered and took the responsibility. She summoned her trusted messenger and passed a specific set of instructions. The instructions were strict. The urn was to be delivered only to the palace gates. Not inside. Not to any minister. Not to any priest. The messenger was not to wait for a reply. He was to hand it over, leave immediately, and not speak a word to anyone inside the city.
She also attached a formal letter, although on behalf of Karna, as his words were carried in that letter.
The letter had been short. It had not carried poetry or threats dressed in fancy words. It was written plainly of how and why Vritraketu was killed. While it wasn't stated who killed Vitraketu, at the end of the letter, a line was added: After the thirteenth day is over, Maharaj Karna will come to Mathura in person to take your life. Consider this a declaration of war against adharma.
When Kamsa read that line, something inside him broke.
He did not order an army to march immediately.
He wanted to.
He wanted to storm Dakshina Kalinga, burn Kanipura, slaughter Karna's people, and carve the king's name into the ashes of his own city. But his spies brought the truth quickly.
Karna was not in Dakshina Kalinga.
Karna was in Kashi.
However, Kamsa did not rush to attack Kashi either. He knew a direct assault would bring the wrath of Lord Shiva, as it was well known that Kashi is the favorite place of Lord Shiva.
But at the same time, Kamsa also knew some extent of Karna's strength, and as a cautious person, the King of Mathura summoned his asuras to make preparations instead, then spent the next few days in mourning for his departed son and the heir.
*
In Kashi, the thirteenth day arrived like a quiet sentence being completed.
The city had not truly slept for twelve nights.
Even when the lamps went out, the mourning did not.
The streets remained subdued, the markets half-open, the temple bells softer than usual, as if even the priests feared waking the dead. Every house carried the smell of smoke in its clothes, and every ghat carried the memory of bodies turned to ash.
Before sunrise, Karna went to the Ganga.
Karna stepped into the water without hesitation, wading until it reached his waist. The current pushed against him, tugging at his clothes as if trying to drag him downstream, but he remained steady.
He closed his eyes and let the river wash over him.
The ash from the cremations, the blood from battle, the smoke that had clung to his hair and skin, all of it felt like it was being pulled away. The water did not forgive, but it cleansed. It took without asking. It swallowed grief the way it swallowed everything else.
When Karna finally stepped back onto the stone steps, water dripping from his arms and chest, the first light of the sun began to appear on the horizon. He knelt and performed surya arghya, cupping water in his palms and pouring it forward in a steady stream. His lips moved quietly with mantras, but his mind was not in the words.
It was in the memory of a face he had never seen clearly, yet had carried his whole life.
"Father," Karna whispered, his voice barely louder than the river's breath. "I need your blessings for what I am about to do."
The rising sun brightened in response.
Then the world suddenly flashed gold.
It wasn't lightning. It wasn't fire. It was something purer, something divine, as if the sky itself had cracked open and spilled sunlight. Karna's eyes snapped open as the brightness flooded the ghat.
A sound followed.
Seven horses neighing together.