Chapter Two: The Shape of History
Aryavardhan learned quickly that panic was useless.
If history had taught him anything—his history—it was that people who panicked revealed themselves. They made noise. They attracted attention. They were corrected, controlled, or erased.
So he did none of that.
For three days after the accident, he behaved exactly as Prince Aryavardhan Varma always had.
He spoke politely.
He listened more than he talked.
He allowed physicians to examine him, tutors to fret over him, servants to whisper prayers behind his back.
Only his eyes had changed.
They lingered longer on ledgers.
They tracked conversations others ignored.
They noticed dates.
Dates mattered now.
The palace archives of Varunadesh were not hidden. They were ceremonial—maintained to show legitimacy rather than secrecy. Thick bound volumes filled shelves from floor to ceiling: land grants, trade records, correspondence with British officials, treaties stamped with seals that had outlived the men who signed them.
Aryavardhan requested access on the fourth morning.
No one refused him.
He sat alone at a long wooden table, sunlight spilling across yellowed pages, and began to read.
Not randomly.
Systematically.
First: his kingdom.
Varunadesh had emerged in the late eighteenth century, a coastal Hindu kingdom built on maritime trade, shipbuilding, and agricultural surplus. Its rulers had been shrewd—allying early with the British East India Company, offering ports and logistics instead of resistance.
The reward was survival.
By 1938, Varunadesh existed as a princely state under British paramountcy—internally autonomous, externally obedient. Taxes were collected locally. Laws were passed locally. But foreign policy, military movement, and final authority rested elsewhere.
Aryavardhan closed the book slowly.
Colonized, he thought.
Just… politely.
Next: India.
The names were familiar.
Bengal. Bombay Presidency. Madras. Punjab. United Provinces. Princely states scattered like islands of illusion amid direct British rule.
Congress existed.
The Muslim League existed.
Protests existed.
Prisons were full.
Independence was not close.
It was approaching, but like a storm visible on the horizon—inevitable, destructive, and impossible to stop.
Aryavardhan exhaled.
So far, nothing had diverged.
That disturbed him more than if everything had.
He moved to global records.
Foreign newspapers were delivered daily to the palace—British, European, even American. He spread them out across the table, fingers moving quickly, eyes scanning headlines with surgical focus.
Germany.
Adolf Hitler had been appointed Chancellor in 1933.
The remilitarization of the Rhineland—1936.
Austria—Anschluss, March 1938.
Aryavardhan's jaw tightened.
Czechoslovakia was next.
He knew this.
He remembered the Munich Agreement. He remembered how the world would clap politely while handing over a country piece by piece.
He flipped another page.
British rearmament debates.
French political instability.
Japan expanding in China.
His pulse slowed.
The pieces are in place.
That night, Aryavardhan did not sleep.
He sat at his desk with a single lamp lit, writing dates on a blank sheet of paper.
Each number felt heavier than the last.
World War II had not yet begun—but it was already decided.
That was the most terrifying part.
Millions of lives balanced on diplomatic phrases and delayed courage. Empires about to burn, not because they were weak, but because they were slow.
He pressed the pen down harder than necessary.
If this world follows the same path…
India would be dragged into the war without consent.
Indian resources would fund Britain's survival.
Indian soldiers would die in foreign lands.
And afterward—
Promises would be made.
And broken.
The next morning, Aryavardhan requested a meeting with his father.
Not urgently. Not privately. Just… normally.
They sat in the western study, doors open, servants at a respectful distance. Rudradev Varma sipped tea while his son stood near the window, hands folded behind his back.
"Father," Aryavardhan said, "what would happen if Britain went to war again?"
Rudradev studied him carefully.
"Again?" he asked.
"A large war," Aryavardhan clarified. "In Europe."
Rudradev set the cup down.
"Then," he said slowly, "India would be asked to help. And Varunadesh would be expected to cooperate."
"Asked," Aryavardhan repeated.
"Yes."
"And if we refused?"
Rudradev's expression hardened—not in anger, but in experience.
"Then autonomy becomes a memory."
Aryavardhan nodded.
So that was the truth of it.
Autonomy existed only as long as it was convenient.
Later, alone again, Aryavardhan stood before a large wall map of the world.
He traced familiar paths with his finger.
Berlin to Warsaw.
Tokyo to Nanjing.
London to Delhi.
The routes of power.
He felt something strange then—not fear, not anger.
Opportunity.
World War II would drain Britain dry.
Gold would flow out.
Debts would pile up.
Control would weaken.
History had proven that.
But history had also proven something else.
Those who prepared early decided the future.
Aryavardhan stepped back from the map.
"This world hasn't changed," he murmured.
"But I have."
Outside, the palace bells rang for evening prayers.
The world stood on the edge of its greatest collapse.
And in a quiet coastal kingdom that should not exist, a fifteen-year-old boy with two lifetimes of memory began to plan—not to stop history…
…but to bend it.