Draupadi

CHAPTER XIX

"The flower that blooms in fire is the one that learns to make ashes a throne."

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The Year of Sahadeva

The year with Sahadeva slipped past me like smoke — visible for a heartbeat, then gone. He was the quietest of them all, but never hollow; with him, silence had weight.

One evening, I sat cross-legged with fabric in my lap, my needle rising and falling in rhythm. Across from me, Sahadeva's gaze had drifted far, to someplace I could not follow.

"There was nothing," he murmured suddenly, voice so soft it almost disappeared into the hum of the room. "An abyss. I stood by a pond in the dark. Then—out of the void—this flower emerged. Its leaves were emerald, the blossom white as moonlight. But as it bloomed, the whiteness bled into red. Dark, violent red. And with that change, everything collapsed into chaos."

His words faltered, but the weight of them lingered. My needle stilled. Without speaking, I reached for the red saree at my side, fingers tracing the white blossom embroidered upon it. "Like this?" I asked.

He looked at it, then at me, with a smile that was not joy but recognition of something inevitable. "Yes. Exactly like this."

I wanted to brush it away — call it a dream, a trick of the mind — but the foreboding in his eyes stilled my tongue. "Does this trouble you?" I asked instead.

He sighed, a sound heavy enough to belong to an old man. "These visions come and go. But the feeling they leave behind... it stays."

I placed my hand on his. "Then let it stay," I said quietly. "We will meet it when it comes."

His eyes lifted, dark and searching, as though my voice had cut through fog. "I'm grateful for you," he whispered, and then, with a suddenness that almost startled me, leaned forward, brushing his lips against my cheek. His next words were stripped bare: "I love you."

For a moment, prophecy and fire and kingdoms fell away. There was only this man, haunted by visions, and me, marked by destiny. "I love you too," I said.

And we sat in silence, but not the heavy kind. It was a silence that knew it had been heard.

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The Fire

I stepped into the flames as though into memory. Their heat curled around me, fierce and intimate, like an embrace that both seared and soothed. They knew me — the fire always knew me.

It licked at my skin, not to destroy, but to polish. To remind me of who I was before silk and throne and the hundred eyes of Hastinapur. The crackle of the embers was not noise; it was recognition. Each spark whispered my name, each blaze traced the prophecy written on my birth.

For a heartbeat, I let it consume me — the molten orange and crimson rushing through me, refining, reshaping. I closed my eyes and let the fire tell me what I had always known: I was not meant to fade quietly into the margins of anyone's story.

When I stepped out, the red of my garments had deepened, as though they too had remembered where I came from. My skin hummed with the touch of Agni, and I could feel the mark of the flames settling into me like a vow.

I had not been reduced. I had been sharpened.

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"When joy knocks, grief often waits in the shadows, ready to follow it inside."

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The Return of Arjuna

Thirteen years vanished like a cruel trick of time. In that span, I bore sons for each of my husbands — save Arjuna. Always Arjuna.

The day of his return, I stood in the kitchen, stirring payasam. Its sweetness rose in clouds of steam, and I laughed softly at myself, at how girlishly giddy I felt. Me, queen of Indraprastha, blushing like a maiden again at the thought of him.

I had learned the shapes of my four other husbands' love. Yudhishthira's quiet attentiveness. Bhima's loud, boundless devotion. Nakula's youth-tinged ardor. Sahadeva's poetry and haunted silences. But Arjuna... he was the absence threaded through them all. The wound and the hunger both.

"Amma! He's here!" Prativindhya's voice rang out, bright with joy.

My hands trembled as I lifted the aarthi plate. At the gates, my heart thudded as the chariot halted and he stepped down. Stronger than before, the years carved into his body but not dimming that smile — the smile that could undo me.

But before I could lift the lamp, his voice rushed out, hurried, unsteady. "Wait. There's someone with me — my wife, Subhadra. Krishna's sister."

The lamp nearly slipped from my hand. Wife.

Out of the chariot she came, small and glowing, her skin kissed by sun, her smile wide and unafraid. Her doe-like eyes flicked to me, not in challenge, not in apology, but simply being.

I turned back to Arjuna. My voice cut sharper than the lamp's flame. "And?"

He flinched.

"What do you expect me to do?" I asked, my tone low but laced with fire.

The air thickened. My heart beat not with maiden's giddiness now, but with the raw, familiar burn of betrayal. The prophecy whispered again in my bones: I had been born to set kingdoms aflame. And even in love, I could taste the ashes.

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I hope you enjoyed this chapter. It's a bit longer than the previous ones, as I wanted to delve deeper into the complexities and emotions of this pivotal moment. Your feedback is incredibly valuable to me, so please don't hesitate to leave your comments. Your thoughts and reactions help shape the story and guide its development. If you felt engaged with this chapter, I would greatly appreciate your vote-it motivates me to continue weaving this narrative and to explore even more intricate layers of the story.Thank you for taking the time to read and immerse yourself in this chapter. I look forward to hearing from you and am excited to continue sharing the journey with you. Until then, take care and see you in the next chapter!