Chapter 18 - The betrayal.
FLASHBACK CONTINUES -
The room had gone too quiet.
Dhira stared at the water in the tub, his reflection broken, murky and shifting on the surface. His fingers twitched. Then slowly he closed his fist tight. "You won't say anything?"
From the corner a figure stepped forward as though he had always been standing there. Rajraj moved into the light, dust still on his shoulders, his eyes calm and fixed on Dhira. "You shouldn't have done that." His voice didn't need volume to carry.
Dhira looked back at the water. "How long have you been standing there?"
"Long enough."
"Why are you here? Come to watch? Or mock?"
Rajraj walked closer without hurrying and sat down on the bare stone floor beside the tub, legs folding naturally. No hesitation. No distance kept. "Both," he said casually. "And to see an old friend."
"You shouldn't be here. Didn't you hear? I'm contagious."
Rajraj gave a small huff. "I've fought worse things than rumors." He looked away briefly. Neither of them spoke. The lamp crackled faintly in the corner.
Then Rajraj said it. "You don't have any disease."
Dhira's fingers stopped moving in the water. He looked at him slowly. Something shifted in his eyes, not anger, not irritation. Something closer to hope. "Finally. Someone who actually knows something. Tell those idiots that I'm- "
"Don't get it wrong." Rajraj's voice was flat and calm. "What you have is far more dangerous than any disease." He held Dhira's gaze. "You are poisoned."
Silence. No reaction at first. Then the stillness outside became something else entirely inside. Rage surfaced slowly in Dhira's eyes, the kind that burns without rushing. "Who."
"I don't know." Rajraj said it plainly, with no apology in it. "When I first saw it I knew it was either a curse or poison. I know curses well enough. This wasn't one. That left poison." Dhira looked at him with barely contained irritation.
"That wasn't what I asked. Can it be cured?" "No. Not by me. Whoever did this would know how." Dhira's eyes sharpened further. "Any ideas?" Rajraj picked up a loose piece of dried herb from the floor and rolled it between his fingers.
"Could be anyone who considers you an enemy. Inside the kingdom or out. You haven't made yourself easy to like with the people above you lately."
"Say what you mean," Dhira said, his tone cutting. "I'm not in the mood. If you know a way to cure it, say it. Otherwise get out. Don't waste my time."
Rajraj chewed the dried herb slowly and said nothing for a moment. Then he looked at him.
"Your tone, Dhira. You've changed."
Dhira opened his mouth. Rajraj spoke first.
"Apologize."
The word stopped him completely.
"What?"
"I said apologize."
"To who? To you?"
"To Vijay." A beat. "And to Raavi. And Jigya." He held his gaze. "And while you're at it. Me too."
Dhira stared at him, Then laughed. Short and sharp. "You're joking."
Rajraj didn't smile. "Do I look like I'm joking?"
"You came all this way just to tell me to apologize?"
"Yes."
That single word was enough. Dhira stood from the tub, water spilling over the edges and herbs hitting the floor. His body looked weaker than it once had but the presence that came off him hadn't changed. The air in the room shifted. His hand lifted slightly and from the corner the mace trembled once and shot across the room into his grip, heavy and immediate. Water dripped from his fingers around the handle.
"What do you mean by that?" His voice was low. A warning.
Rajraj looked at him. Didn't move. Didn't flinch at the weapon. "You heard me."
Dhira stepped closer. "You think I need to apologize. For what? Winning? Fighting? Protecting this kingdom?"
"No." Rajraj met his eyes without looking away. "For forgetting why you started." The room went still.
"You've won every battle. That's true. But not because you're the strongest. You won because your enemies were weaker. You've never had to face something that actually challenged you."
Dhira's shadow fell over him. "And now?"
"Now you do." Rajraj tapped the floor once with one finger. "Not out there. In here." He pointed at Dhira's chest.
"That mace changed you. And for this battle you don't need it."
Dhira said nothing.
"You need to look at yourself." Rajraj pushed himself up slowly from the floor, unhurried, dusting his hands. "You've fought wars. Fought monsters. Fought armies." He turned toward the door and paused with his hand on the frame. "But this one won't be easy." He didn't look back. "You still have time." Then he stepped out and the door closed behind him.
Dhira stood where he was. Mace in hand. Murky water still dripping from his fingers. For once he didn't swing it. He just stood there and breathed.
King Satya moved quickly after that. The voices in the streets faded almost overnight. When Dhira asked what had happened Satya told him plainly, with no softness in it, that he had gathered the ministers and groups spreading the rumors and had them executed. "I showed no mercy," he said, standing straight before him, "because you are the face of Daansara. As long as your name exists enemies hesitate. I will not let that disappear." Dhira watched him quietly and said little. Satya then asked him to stay inside, out of public view, while he searched for a cure. Dhira didn't like it. He agreed reluctantly.
The first months passed tolerably. Some people still came. Old soldiers visited, standing a little further back than before. The king came a handful of times and so did Vijay once. They didn't talk much that time.
The servants still functioned. It felt close enough to normal. But slowly, without anyone announcing it, things shifted. Visits thinned. The king stopped coming. The soldiers disappeared. When Dhira asked for his brother he was told the same thing every time. Out on a mission. Busy. He didn't read much into it at first. Then weeks passed and the words kept coming and nothing else did.
The servants began avoiding his eyes. They answered when spoken to directly and left as soon as they could, their voices carrying a new quality that had nothing to do with fear and nothing to do with respect. Something colder. His body felt the change too, weaker in ways that didn't break him but made themselves known constantly. The itch never left. His patience thinned. The mace stayed beside him, the one constant in the room, solid and unchanged. He held onto that.
Then one day he asked for water and no one answered. He asked again. Nothing. The silence in the room felt different from ordinary silence. He stood up, ignored the weakness in his legs and walked out. No guards stopped him. No servants moved. The place felt abandoned. He stepped outside, spotted a man walking nearby and reached for his arm. The man turned, saw his face, and ran without a word. Just ran.
Dhira frowned. He moved forward. People saw him and the panic that spread was immediate and uncontrolled. Some screamed. Some dropped what they were carrying. Others turned and fled as though they had seen something wrong with the world. No one stayed. No one spoke. Confusion turned to irritation turned to anger and he kept walking, straight toward the palace.
The guards stepped forward when they saw him, weapons ready. "Stop."
He stopped and looked at them. "Move."
"State your name."
His eyes narrowed. "You don't know who I am?"
The guard hesitated. "No."
"I'm Dhira. The true warrior."
The guards exchanged a look. One of them spoke carefully. "I know that name. But why are you impersonating a dead man?"
Dhira went still. Just for a moment. Something clicked into place. His hand lifted without him looking and the divine mace cut through the air from wherever it had rested and landed in his grip with a weight that filled the whole street. The guards' faces drained instantly. They dropped to their knees. "My lord-" He walked past them without a word.
He entered the palace hall mid-session. The doors hit the walls and the echo sat there while every voice in the room stopped. Ministers turned. Guards stiffened. And there they were. The same ministers the king had told him were executed. Sitting. Breathing. Looking at the floor.
Dhira stood in the doorway for a moment. Then said one word. "Answers." It wasn't loud. It carried anyway.
He walked forward slowly, dragging the mace behind him, the metal head grinding against marble with a low continuous sound. The court stayed silent. He looked around at faces he recognized, faces that had smiled at him in this same hall, that had chanted his name. Now they found other places to look. He let out a short dry laugh. "You didn't think I'd make it through, did you?"
No one answered. His eyes settled on one minister in particular, the kind who had praised him loudest in public. The man examined the floor carefully. Dhira nodded to himself. "Makes sense."
The king stepped forward, voice lower. "I did what I had to do. For you. For Daansara."
"Did you?"
"Your condition. The rumors. The law—"
"What law."
"The old decree," the king said, keeping his voice steady with visible effort. "If a warrior carries a disease that threatens the kingdom he is to be exiled."
Dhira laughed once, short and without warmth. "Exiled. Is that the fate of me? The one this kingdom owes so much to? You announced me dead over rumors. We both know it wasn't contagious."
No one met his eyes.
Then the minister spoke from the side. "Exile is mercy. The kingdom owes you nothing. You were given status, respect. You served your purpose."
"Shut up." The words came out quiet and landed hard. "I'm speaking to the king." The minister stood anyway. "And I am speaking for the kingdom." Dhira's grip on the mace tightened. "Funny. I was told you were dead."
The tension in the room pulled tighter.
"Enough." The king's voice cut through. Everyone stopped. He stepped forward and looked directly at Dhira. "I did not execute them. I couldn't. I needed stability. Fear was spreading. If I exiled you openly it would have caused unrest. So I controlled the narrative."
"You killed me." The words came out flat. Factual.
The king didn't deny it. "I protected the kingdom."
The minister spoke again. "It was a rumor. People believed it." Dhira pressed the mace into the floor once and the marble cracked beneath it. "Am I less important than a law made generations ago?" The king didn't answer immediately. That silence said everything. Dhira smiled faintly. "Got it."
He looked to the side. Raavi stood with her arms folded and her gaze down. Jigya had one hand resting on her sword, not drawing it, but ready. Rajraj was the only one who looked directly at him. No expression. Dhira looked past all of them. "Where's Vijay?"
The king hesitated. One second. Dhira saw it.
"It was his idea."
The words came carefully, as though measured to land softly. They didn't. Everything arranged itself in a new order in Dhira's mind. The missed visits. The excuses. The silence that had stretched for weeks. His shoulders dropped slightly. "Of course."
The king began to speak about honor and sacrifice. Dhira stopped listening. The noise of the room faded into something formless. He looked down. Then turned. No anger on his face now. Nothing. He walked out the same way he had come in and no one stopped him. No one followed.
Outside the news had already moved through the streets. People stood back and watched. Some stepped away as he passed. Some pulled their children close. A woman shut her door at the sight of him. He kept walking and then he saw her, the same ragged young woman from before, standing still in the road watching him go. He couldn't read what was on her face as she watched him leave the kingdom he had sworn to protect.
He moved through those streets without looking at anyone. Didn't react. Didn't speak. The same roads that had once roared his name went quiet around him as he passed through them. The mace dragged behind him, its metal head scraping slowly along the stone. Heavy. Heavier than it had ever felt. For the first time since it had come to him, Dhira didn't put it on his shoulder.