The Council of Mistrust
The war council chamber in the Moon Palace felt like a cage. Sunlight, usually so gentle through the pearl-inlaid windows, felt harsh and interrogating. It glinted off the polished surface of the long, obsidian table around which the most trusted advisors of Chandrapuri were gathered. At its head sat Maharaja Rohit, his face a mask of regal composure, but the tension around his eyes was unmistakable. To his right sat Mrinal, her posture ramrod straight, the newly appointed emblem of the Commander of the Royal Guard gleaming on her breastplate.
And to his left sat the storm.
Prince Devansh did not slouch; he was too controlled for that. But he sat with a new, unnerving stillness, his fingers steepled before him. The usual gentle light in his blue eyes had been replaced by a cold, assessing sharpness, like shards of glacier ice. Vani, in its silken shroud, was propped against his chair, a silent, brooding presence.
The topic was the future security of the kingdom in the wake of the Mayapuri threat.
"The borders are secure for now, Your Majesty," a senior general was saying, pointing to a map. "But we must increase patrols, strengthen our watchtowers. A defensive, vigilant stance is—"
"A defensive stance is an invitation to be conquered."
Devansh's voice cut through the general's explanation, flat and final. All eyes turned to him.
He leaned forward, his gaze sweeping the room, dismissing the general with a glance. "We are discussing this like frightened deer. They struck at our very lifeblood. They will strike again. Waiting for them to do so is a fool's strategy." He tapped a finger on the map, right over the cursed region of Mayapuri. "We must take the fight to them. A targeted, pre-emptive strike to cripple whatever festering power remains. Burn the roots, and the weed cannot grow back."
A stunned silence blanketed the room. Pre-emptive strikes? Aggressive warfare? These were the words of a Suryapuri battle-hardened general, not the Melody Prince of Chandrapuri. It was a philosophy that went against centuries of their kingdom's peaceful, defensive doctrine.
Mrinal's stomach tightened into a cold knot. This wasn't strategy; it was a vendetta. It was the same reckless energy she had felt from him since his return, now dressed in the language of tactics.
"Prince Devansh," she began, her voice calm but firm, forcing his icy gaze to shift to her. "A direct assault into a magically blighted, uncharted territory is a logistical nightmare. We have no intelligence on their numbers, their capabilities. We would be leading our soldiers into a deathtrap, blind. Our strength has always been in our resilient defense and the strategic advantage of our terrain. We should focus on—"
"You speak of defense and terrain as if we are hiding behind our walls, hoping the wolf will tire of scratching at the door."
The words were not loud, but they were laced with a condescension so sharp it felt like a physical slap. Mrinal flinched as if struck.
His eyes, those frozen shards, bored into hers, stripping her of her title, her rank, her years of training. He saw only a obstacle.
"Your sentimentality for a handful of soldiers' lives blinds you to the larger threat, Sister," he said, the familial title twisting into a weapon on his tongue. "This is not a game of swords in the courtyard. This is the survival of our civilization. And you are advising us to wait patiently for our own extinction because you lack the stomach for what must be done."
The air rushed out of Mrinal's lungs.
Sister.
The word echoed in the dead silence of the room, but in her mind, it was overlapped by another memory, another voice.
"Didi! Look! I didn't drop it!"
A seven-year-old Devansh, his small face beaming with pride, holding up a practice sword almost as tall as he was. He had found her trying to lift it, her own arms trembling. Instead of telling their father, he had spent the entire afternoon helping her, his small hands steadying hers on the hilt.
"You'll be the best warrior ever, Didi," he had whispered, his faith in her as pure and solid as the moonstone their palace was built upon. "I know it."
That boy, that unwavering belief, that protective love—where was he?
The man before her now saw not a future commander, but a sentimental girl. Her strategies were not logic, but weakness. Her care for her soldiers was not a leader's duty, but a liability.
The heartbreak was a clean, sharp cut, deeper than any blade could ever deliver. It wasn't the public humiliation that shattered her; it was the utter annihilation of the bond she thought was unbreakable.
She did not look at her father. She did not look at the shocked faces of the generals. Her eyes remained locked with Devansh's for one more agonizing second, searching for a flicker of the brother she knew and finding only a cold, calculating stranger.
Without a word, she pushed her chair back. The sound was unnaturally loud in the tense silence. She stood, her movements mechanically precise, and walked out of the council chamber. Her head was held high, her back straight—a commander's exit. But everyone in the room knew what they had just witnessed was not a strategic retreat. It was a fracture in the very foundation of the royal family.
And from the shadows of the corridor, the unseen observer smiled. The seeds of mistrust were sprouting, and the first flower of discord had just bloomed, beautiful and poisonous.