Cold stone kissed my knees.
Not gently.
The guards did not lower me.
They shoved me down.
Pain shot up my legs as bone met unforgiving floor, the impact knocking a small, undignified sound out of my throat.
"Easy, man," I blurted automatically.
The words left my mouth before my brain could stop them.
Several bad things happened at once.
One guard stiffened.
Another looked offended.
A third tightened his grip on my arm like I had personally declared war.
Great.
Fantastic start.
Water dripped from my hair onto the stone below, each drop echoing far too loudly in the vast, torchlit space. My clothes clung to me, heavy and cold, my skin prickling as steam curled around my body and disappeared into nothing.
I forced myself to stay still.
Sudden movements felt like a terrible life choice.
The man in gold moved.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
He stepped out of the pool, water cascading from his clothes, dark fabric plastered to his frame. Someone approached him with a cloth. He ignored it.
His attention never left me.
Not even once.
I had the uncomfortable sense of being dissected.
Not physically.
Mentally.
Like I was a puzzle someone intended to solve whether I liked it or not.
He circled me.
Not fully.
Just enough to see.
My soaked shirt.
My unfamiliar fabric.
My shoes that definitely did not belong in this century.
My hair tied with an elastic instead of whatever intricate system everyone else here seemed to prefer.
His gaze lingered on my face.
Not with hunger.
Not with curiosity.
With assessment.
He spoke.
Longer this time.
Measured.
The sound of the language hit me like déjà vu.
My brain froze.
Then scrambled.
Then, slowly, terrifyingly…
Recognized patterns.
Not modern Hindi.
Not Sanskrit either.
Something older.
A transitional form.
A language used centuries ago.
Not dead.
But very, very outdated.
I did not understand everything.
But I understood enough.
Who are you?
How did you enter this place?
Who sent you?
My pulse spiked.
I swallowed.
If I answered in modern Hindi, I might sound insane.
If I answered in English, I would definitely sound insane.
If I stayed silent, I would probably be executed.
None of these were appealing options.
I forced my mouth to work.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Pulling from half-remembered readings.
Old inscriptions.
Texts I had studied out of academic curiosity.
My accent was wrong.
I knew that.
My grammar wobbled.
I knew that too.
But I tried.
"I… came here by mistake," I said, shaping each word with painful effort.
The sentence sounded clumsy.
Heavy.
Like I was wearing someone else's tongue.
A ripple moved through the men.
The man in gold did not react.
"How does one arrive inside royal grounds by mistake?" he asked.
His voice was calm.
That scared me more than shouting would have.
"I do not know," I admitted.
Truth felt safer than invention.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"You expect me to believe this?"
I hesitated.
"No," I said honestly.
Another ripple.
He studied me for a long moment.
Then:
"You are either a sorceress."
A pause.
"Or an assassin."
Every muscle in my body went tight.
Death had just been invited into the conversation.
I did not panic.
Not because I was brave.
Because panic felt useless.
If I was going to survive, logic was my only weapon.
I lifted my head.
"If I were harmful," I said carefully, choosing words like stepping stones over a river, "I would not appear in a bathing place."
Silence.
Of all the things I could have said…
This was the one my brain offered.
I continued, because stopping felt worse.
"I would choose a hidden place."
"A high place."
"A dark place."
Not here.
Not where I could be found in moments.
I raised my empty hands.
"I have no weapon."
No knife.
No poison vial.
No hidden blade.
"No backup."
No allies rushing in.
No signal.
No plan.
"Who attacks alone, unarmed, and soaking wet?"
The question hung in the air.
Even the guards seemed to hesitate.
The man in gold did not answer immediately.
He looked at me.
Really looked at me.
Not like prey.
Not like property.
Like a contradiction.
And I realized something cold and heavy settled in my chest.
I hadn't convinced him.
Not yet.
But I had, at the very least…
Interrupted his certainty.
Which, in a room like this…
Might be the only kind of victory available.