The monsoon rain came not as a gentle weeping, but as a furious roar - a storm that cracked the skies and spilled over the city of Pataliputra like a divine lament. For three days, thunderclouds mourned over the capital, flooding alleys, drowning market squares, and turning the sacred banks of the Ganga into wild, frothing beasts. Beneath this storm, the heart of a young temple dancer lay shrouded in a grief far more tempestuous.
Devika sat hunched beneath the high lattice windows of her chamber, the dim oil lamp flickering like a dying hope. The walls were painted with dancing apsaras, their hands frozen mid-flight, mocking the stillness that now consumed her. Aarav was gone. Slain in a skirmish at the northern frontier - news that arrived with no ceremony, only a blood-streaked letter delivered by a trembling hand.
She hadn't screamed. She hadn't wept. She simply folded the letter and pressed it to her heart until the ink smeared with her tears. The words etched themselves into her very soul:
"Forgive me, Devika. I go where I must. If I do not return, know that I loved you in every breath, in every heartbeat, and I will find you again - beyond time, beyond death."
Days passed. Meera tried everything - coaxing, praying, even smuggling sweet rice soaked in milk - but Devika neither spoke nor moved. Her hair, once bound in elaborate temple braids, fell unkempt around her shoulders. Her feet, the envy of dancers across the empire, were cracked and swollen from pacing in sleepless circles.
"You must live," Meera begged one night, kneeling beside her.
"I have," Devika said hoarsely. "And I died with him."
The temple priests noticed her fading presence. Whispers filled the hallways: 'The goddess is displeased.' 'She is cursed.' 'The northern boy stole her soul.' Acharya Suman summoned her.
In the candlelit sanctum, where the scent of jasmine mingled with old incense, he confronted her with the scorn of a wounded god. "Your mourning pollutes these sacred walls. The goddess does not tolerate defilement by mortal love."
Devika looked him in the eye, unblinking. "Then let the goddess strike me herself."
The slap that followed echoed like a war drum. A cut bloomed on her cheek, but she did not flinch.
"She is possessed," the priestesses whispered. "By sorrow... or by sin."