The night was still.
The palace breathed in silence, its torches dimming one by one as the moonlight claimed the halls. In his room, Rudura lay half-awake, eyes staring at the ceiling. His breath came soft and steady, but his mind was far from calm.
The exhaustion of training had claimed his body, but not his thoughts. Slowly, his eyelids closed. The world around him blurred. The cold marble under his bed, the whisper of the night wind—all faded away.
And then, the memories began to stir.
The First Cry
Warmth. Blinding light. A gentle voice.
Rudura's very first memory wasn't of swords or fire—it was of touch.
His mother's hands, trembling as she held him for the first time. The faint smile through tears. A voice whispering his name.
"Rudura," she said softly. "A name that will carry the strength of fire… and the heart of peace."
Behind her, Chandragupta Maurya stood proud yet quiet. His gaze was not of an emperor, but of a father—measured, calm, and filled with something rare for a man of his stature: tenderness.
Malavatas had been there too, though Rudura hadn't remembered it until now. Standing in the shadow of the pillar, a faint smile tugging at his lips. His voice echoed in the chamber like calm thunder.
"He's got your eyes, my Emperor," Malavatas had said.
"And perhaps," Chandragupta replied, "he'll inherit your patience."
They had all laughed then. Even his mother, whose laughter sounded like the wind through a blooming garden.
It was the kind of sound Rudura could never forget—even after ten years.
The Palace Years
The palace was not only his home—it was his world.
He remembered its sandstone walls glowing gold in the morning, the courtyards alive with birdsong, and the way the guards bowed whenever he passed. Yet, behind all that grandeur, his world was simple: his mother's embrace, his father's quiet teachings, and Malavatas's constant shadow.
His mother taught him how to read before he could walk properly. She would hold scrolls in one hand, guiding his finger across the letters.
"The sword and the mind must grow together, Rudura," she'd say. "A warrior without wisdom is just a weapon waiting to rust."
He hadn't understood it then. He only liked hearing her voice—soft, warm, filled with love.
His father's lessons were different. Chandragupta never raised his voice, never showed anger. But his presence alone carried the weight of empires.
"Every decision carries a thousand echoes," Chandragupta once told him in the garden. "When you rule, even silence can speak louder than words."
Even at six, Rudura could sense the quiet burden his father carried. A burden of lands conquered, of people united under one rule, of enemies watching from beyond mountains.
It fascinated him, and frightened him at the same time.
The First Sword
It was Malavatas who first placed a wooden sword in Rudura's hand.
He remembered that day vividly—the smell of dirt underfoot, the bright morning sun burning down on the royal training ground.
"Hold it," Malavatas said.
"It's heavy," Rudura had complained, his tiny hands trembling.
"Then grow strong enough to carry it," Malavatas answered, his eyes steady. "Don't ask the world to lighten your burden. Learn to carry it."
Rudura didn't know it then, but that line would carve itself into his soul.
For days he had trained, swinging the wooden blade until his arms ached. He had fallen countless times, bruised himself, bled on the dirt—and still picked it up again.
Malavatas never coddled him, never praised him. He just watched, corrected, and moved on.
But every night, Rudura would find food waiting near his door. Fresh fruit, a small bowl of milk, a folded towel. He never knew who placed them there—until one night, he caught Malavatas leaving silently.
"You're… watching me?"
"I'm making sure you live through your own stubbornness," Malavatas replied with a small grin. "A teacher's job doesn't end when the lesson does."
A Mother's Eyes
As he grew older, his mother's health began to waver. Nothing serious at first—just moments of weakness, days when she stayed inside the palace gardens instead of joining them for breakfast.
But Rudura noticed.
He always did.
One evening, as the sun bled across the sky, he sat beside her near the lotus pond. She was humming softly, her hand brushing through his hair.
"You look like your father when you frown," she teased.
"Do I?" he smiled faintly.
"Yes. And like me when you care too much."
There was silence between them for a while, broken only by the chirping of birds.
Then she said something that never left him.
"When I'm gone, don't carry grief like a sword, Rudura. Carry it like a torch. Let it guide you, not burn you."
He didn't understand what she meant at that time.
But the memory burned brighter than ever now, even ten years later.
The Emperor and the Student
Rudura had always admired his father, but never understood him completely.
To the world, Chandragupta Maurya was a conqueror—a man who had united half the known world under one empire. But to Rudura, he was a quiet storm.
He never shouted, never scolded. But when he spoke, even the walls listened.
Once, when Rudura had skipped training to sneak into the palace library, his father found him reading war journals by candlelight.
"What are you searching for in those scrolls, my son?"
"How you won," Rudura said honestly.
"You'll never find it there," his father replied. "Victory doesn't live on paper. It lives in the choices you make when no one's watching."
That line had stayed with Rudura forever.
Now, as he dreamed, he saw his father's figure fading into the shadows of his memory—always calm, always distant, always unreachable.
The Shadow of Malavatas
Rudura's training grew harsher with each passing year.
Malavatas no longer treated him like a child. The iron sword had replaced the wooden one, and with it came pain—real, heavy, bone-deep pain.
There were days Rudura could barely stand. Yet Malavatas pushed him further.
"You think strength is about swinging harder?" Malavatas once snapped. "Strength is about surviving your own failures."
But behind that harshness, Rudura sensed care. Malavatas never admitted it, but he was proud. Sometimes Rudura would catch his teacher staring at him silently after a spar—expression unreadable, almost wistful.
In this dream-memory, Rudura finally saw what he had missed back then.
Malavatas wasn't just training a student—he was protecting a legacy. The son of his closest friend. The heir of an empire. A boy carrying both the fire of Chandragupta and the warmth of his mother.
The Spark of Fire
The dream moved faster now. Years passing in flashes.
Eight. Nine. Ten.
Sweat. Steel. Blood.
Every day blurred into the next—swing, fall, rise, repeat.
He remembered crying once, when he was alone in the training field. His hands blistered, his knees trembling. He had thrown his sword down and shouted into the wind.
"Why do I keep failing?!"
And then, from somewhere deep inside, his father's voice echoed through memory.
"Because you're still learning how to rise, my son."
That was the moment Rudura stopped measuring progress by victories. He started measuring it by how quickly he could get back up.
Waking Flame
The images began to fade now. The palace, the garden, the sound of his mother's laughter—all slipping away.
He stirred in his sleep, a soft groan escaping his lips. The faint glow of dawn began to break through his window.
Rudura's eyes opened slowly.
For a moment, he just lay there, staring at the ceiling. His chest rose and fell. The world outside was still quiet.
He could feel the weight of his body—aching, heavy, but alive.
He exhaled softly and whispered to himself:
"Ten years… and still so far to go."
But there was no frustration in his voice this time. Only quiet resolve.
He looked toward the sword leaning against the wall—its edge faintly catching the morning light.
He smiled faintly, a whisper escaping his lips.
"I got to become better… for them."
Outside, the first rays of sun lit the palace grounds, and the echoes of his decade-old memories faded gently into the dawn.
(Continued in Chapter 41)