Reveal - Return

"Talking is a dangerous pastime ..."

- Sanskar

"You have a face for candlelight."

Sanskar hoped the conversation would anchor them, would anchor him. The conversation would keep him reminded of the bigger game at play, perhaps the most fragile and tender ploy he had ever embroiled himself in. It was one thing to study politics as it was played around him, by courtiers and warriors, who thought of him a little more than a boy, who always had interests worth guarding. All Vajra court ever needed was a little prod there, a little nudge here – the schemers would run the show themselves, thinking he was none the wiser to their little adventures but at the same time doing things exactly the way he wanted. Sanskar had never felt the need to indulge them, or involve himself in those almost childish ploys of power. But this – this was nothing but.

Everything, the fate of three races, the fate of his family, and everything he ever cared for, hang in the balance of this particular coup at Padmapeeta. All the world balanced upon one frail sickly woman – who may or may not serve his interests. Sanskar had a lot on his plate, and yet, all he could think of was the woman in his arms and how the candlelight softened and shaded her face in gold. How her eyes had a way of catching light to give the illusion of stars themselves.

"And you – my lord – have a way of always landing on your feet."

Her laughter rang in intimate peals of joy, a warmth that he fondly basked in. She twirled around him with an easy elegance of a routine dancer and Sanskar wrapped his arms around her when she came to stand before him again. The music floated in rising and falling waves, neither as slow as Nagas' nor as rowdy as battalion feasts of Vajras.

When the dance required them to step closer yet, Swara pressed a finger on his creased brow rather jokingly.

"What are you thinking?"

"Did you realize that perhaps we learned this dance from the same man?"

"Mohan?" They said simultaneously and Swara smiled. "Please," she said biting back a chuckle. "I need to get the image of you two dancing together out of my head!"

"Do you?"

The tenor of his tone dissolved her chuckles. Swara found herself unwittingly peering into those mountain lake green pools of his eyes, simmering invitingly. The shadows around them had deepened just as the green of his eyes had darkened. They were no longer dancing, but clasped in a loose embrace.

"I am obliged to help you with that aren't I?" Sanskar asked innocently, all the while dipping his head to nuzzle at the crook of her neck, one of his hands climbing leisurely along her spine. One of her hands clenched his, the other bunching the lush material at his back – slipping in an errant search, wandering along his nape.

"I don't think either of us are much good at this," she murmured, nose pressed against his throat. When he spoke, his breath tickled and burned her.

"At what?"

Swara cannot pin point the moment they had withdrawn from the assembly. But the shadows are cooler under the alcove, as cool as the marble behind her back. Candles burned around them casting diversions of shadows dancing in the faint traces of music.

"The dance." Her reply is a whisper dissolving into a pleasured sigh as Sanskar releases the hand clutched in his pressing a kiss on her wrist. Swara allowed her fingers to trace along the golden threads in his coat, coming to halt where she could feel the steady thump of his heart beneath her palm.

Sanskar regards her with those velvety green eyes. The decadent promise in them made her shudder a little.

"Or," he said contemplatively. Gentle fingers dug into a coiffure and ran along her scalp in tiny, soothing circles. "We are altogether too good at it. You know there are different purposes of music and merriment among the races. Nagas sing and dance to please their gods, Vajras do to celebrate victories and Anjanis..." he leaves a contemplative pause, reaching to plant a chaste kiss below her jaw. "You are beautiful tonight."

"And Anjanis?" Swara prompted him, wanting if anything to cling to her senses. His decadent laughter fills her ear, causing tendrils of pleasure to glide down her spine.

"For them dancing is food of love, a catalyst of intimacy so to speak."

"Oh!" she squeaked, cheeks heating up at his intonation. Sanskar grinned at her openly, taking a wicked pleasure at her flaming cheeks.

"Oh," he repeated wickedly taking her hand a pressing a kiss upon her palm, he pulled away, still watching her with that velvety gaze. "It is always a pleasure to dance with you, my lady."

"I meant to talk," Swara said quickly, rather afraid of the thickening atmosphere. There was a trance – like headiness in conversing with Sanskar that often escalated into her forgetting the turbulence they were in, to begin with. There was a war out there. A war that had torn into a once peaceful nation. A war that she brough upon them.

Sanskar raised a brow.

"Such a dangerous pastime," he replied plucking her hand once more to lead her into a new dance. "Talking," he inclined his head, "specially while conspiring."

"So, you don't mean to discuss?"

His lips quirk, almost as if he found her amusing.

"If I had to make a guess on what you spent your time in human world doing – I'd say you were watching their daily soaps."

"Huh," Swara made an indignant sound which made Sanskar chuckle. He twirled her with the same amusement.

"So – no – Swara. We won't discuss it like two villains who dissect their entire plot in the earshot of other people just so the leads get a wind of it. That's a particularly daily – soap – thing to do."

"Fine," she huffed and tripped over her step, stumbling back and brushing unintentionally against another dancer. The skin-on-skin contact had been unexpected as was the sudden flash of pain that shot through her. A searing, stinging sense of knowing burned itself into her conscience, tainted with the odor of certain death that it carried. The girl brushing past her, Swara watched as she laid – empty eyed and cold – on the marble soon to be blood washed. The scream torn from her throat couldn't be helped. Swara heard it as if she was another person altogether, the sound – ominous and blood curdling even as she recognized it as her own. Suddenly, her hands were clammy with sweat, her breath ending in short gasps and the ground below her swayed. She had never been more thankful for the arm Sanskar kept around her, anchoring her balance at the same time shielding her with his frame. Shaking and half sobbing, Swara buried her head against him.

"Pardon me darling," he said in the perfect conversational tone that carried over the assembly of on lookers, "didn't mean to step on your toe that badly."

They probably fooled none. At that precise moment, as Sanskar led her away from the dance floor, half supporting her weight – half carrying her, Swara didn't care much either. The vision – that glimpse into the immediate future had been too raw and horrifying.

Sanskar presses a goblet into her hands, its metal cool in a sickening way against her clammy palms.

"I take it," he added in a lower much serious tone, "it won't go down well."

"It wouldn't," Swara surprised herself by managing to speak at all. Her voice sounded rather faintish that Sanskar laid a cautious hand on her shoulder. She looked at him, still reeling from the shock. "People will die here...!"

Sanskar opened his mouth to reply but closed it promptly at the sound of ceremonial horns being blown. The queen had arrived.

Looking at her aunt, deathly pale face set in determination, Swara knew they had advanced too far in their coup to retreat. The queen was supported by two of her ladies in waiting, a third one trailing right behind to carry the jewel embellished train of her dress. Instead of taking the lower throne meant for her she went directly to the center of attention, intending to speak. Pratula looked mildly annoyed at her hording all the attention, but still managed to maintain a pleasant façade. One last time – he consoled himself – the dying woman deserved a good farewell.

Under the candlelight the queen looked more ghostly than live and breathing. Her face had taken a grayish sheen, there was a tremor at the corner of her mouth that never stopped. The horns finished announcing her arrival and the assembly turned to her with anticipation. Watching them one could see that despite the controversies and atrocities of her husband the queen was well loved. Now that her approaching demise is undeniable, it was apparent that Anjanis would mourn her.

The queen raised a hand in a known gesture of prayer and blessing towards her subjects and a reverent silence fell over them.

"It is strange how death gives us perspective. How mundane things start to seem precious – how each day feels heavier more glamourous – how each soul feels dearer." She paused at that and wiped an elusive tear. Beside her Swara felt Sanskar shift looking rather darkly impressed. One thing was apparent, the queen was not one to mint words. "These days being mystified by prospect of death I realized that things I've once held rather covertly means so little in the face of other things. Before loyalty and respect shown to me by my subjects the love of a mother that prompted me to act so – seemed almost, juvenile. Before my husband's ardent efforts to prolong my life – prolong our time together it felt criminal to withhold his son from him."

A hush fell over the assembly before whispers broke out, like the hiss of boiling water – incoherent voices rose against one another.

"Son?"

"Did she say -?"

"How come?"

"The prince -?"

"Prince lives?"

Suvanna shot to her feet, staring at her mother in a blank faced fury. Her fists clenched at her sides. Pratula wasn't as quick to notice the turn of tide, and the purplish anger took time to stalk through his features.

The queen had eyes for neither. Instead she continued, as if nothing she said had given cause for an uproar.

"May it be considered my last wish, my best deed or my final request – I wish to confess of this one thing I've done in the greed of a mother having failed to see the best of those around me."

"And here it goes," Sanskar said just as the doors to the ball room clicked open and were pushed in. "The Anjani elders," he provided in whisper for Swara's benefit, pointing out the group of ancient beings now entering in a title knitted hurdle of cloaks and beards. "If the kingdom falls to anarchy or a situation where the king is incapable of making decisions regarding the throne – they are empowered by the scriptures to act on his behalf."

"But the King is alright..."

"Ill- informed," Sanskar corrected her. "He has been ignorant of his heir all this time. Such grave ignorance renders him incapacitated in Anjani laws." He grinned at her expression. "They don't call Anjanis tricksters for no reason. The queen had surely considered this aspect when she decided to hide the existence of her firstborn. When she considers it the time for his return, the very fact of his existence would render Pratula incapable of casting him away or denying him of his rights. Do you realize now why he had jealously kept her away from politics – with a brain like that – with such scheming, she'd have stolen his throne without beating an eyelid."

"And all would be better off," Swara remarked darkly. The queen had by then finished narrating what she named the confession of her crime. She did not pay any attention to her furious husband or daughter and instead kept her attention on the Anjani Elders who were keenly listening to her recollection.

"I am aware," she said with a hint of regret, "that I am pulling an entire kingdom into the brink of anarchy, but this is a secret I find too heavy to carry to my grave. Without a moment's waste more, allow me to reintroduce my firstborn, heir to the lotus throne of Padmapeeta, future lord of Anjanis – Megha." 

**