"Pain is the hammer God uses to break a dead resistance in mortal's heart."
– Sri Aurobindo Ghosh (Savitri)
Those beautiful pink eyes seemed to hold within them the shifting mysteries of the universe itself, as if every star had drowned there and been reborn as light. Beside them, the black man appeared sculpted out of darkness, a human figure carved from the void, fingers moving slowly over the holes of a flute. His long black hair fell like strands of black pearls hanging from an invisible thread, each movement making them sway softly in an unfelt breeze. He sat on a rough grey stone, one leg folded up on the rock, the other hanging down lazily, toes just brushing the earth as if he were half‑rooted in another world.
I forgot to breathe. Every sense I possessed narrowed and fixed on him alone, as if the rest of reality had been gently erased. I could not think; even the act of blinking felt like it would be an unforgivable sin, a crime that would steal him away from my eyes. My heart began to hammer inside my chest, desperately demanding air, but my lungs refused to obey, caught in the same enchantment that held the rest of me. All my senses converged on that one figure, as if my entire existence had been lived only to see him once, as if something infinitely dear that I had lost long ago had finally appeared in front of me again. I felt myself dying, but I did not mind; the only thing I struggled to do was to burn his image into my mind forever. Before I could finish even that feeble attempt, the world tilted and I collapsed into darkness.
"Ahhhh—"
I jolted awake, my body snapping upright as if pulled by an invisible string. My heart pounded violently against my ribs, each beat echoing in my ears, which were ringing like distant bells. Sweat poured down my back and forehead in rivulets, soaking the rough cloth of my clothes and making it cling to my skin. Only then did I feel the cold bite of metal around my wrists and ankles—the chains binding my hands and legs together.
Other people sat cramped in that closed room with me, pressed shoulder to shoulder, their own chains rattling softly whenever someone shifted. A few of them glanced at me when I screamed, their eyes briefly curious, measuring whether my panic meant anything for them; then, with the indifference of those who had already seen too much, they turned away and returned to their blank silence
My head throbbed with an unbearable pain, as if someone had lit a fire inside my skull and left it to burn. Heat radiated from my skin; I was running a fever, my body shivering and burning at the same time, but no one cared enough to ask if I was alive or dead.
I tried to recall the man from my dream—the black figure and those impossible pink eyes—but the memory slipped through my fingers like water. For several days now, that strange dream had been chasing me; almost every night, I came close to dying inside it, and every time the dream was the same. The black man, absolute black, as if the void itself had taken human shape, always holding a murali in his hands. Whenever he appeared, my senses refused to obey me; my entire being became enchanted by him, as if some lost part of my soul had recognised him and knelt down in surrender.
While I was still tangled in that half‑remembered vision, the heavy gate of the room screeched open. A pair—a man and a woman—stepped inside.
The woman was fairly young, her features delicate and fine like carved porcelain, but her eyes were sharp and cold, taking in every prisoner in a single measuring sweep. Her long blond hair reached all the way to her waist, tied at the end with a simple black band, the simplicity of it somehow making her presence more severe.
The man beside her was older, his back straight as a drawn sword, the left side of his chest glittering with medals that clinked softly when he moved. An eye‑patch covered one of his eyes, but it could not fully hide the vicious scar running across his face, a jagged reminder of some battle he had survived. His single visible eye scanned the whole room, cold and uncompromising, and when he spoke, his thunderous voice struck the air like a hammer.
"All of you, form a line and follow me."
The people with chains linking us together rose slowly, some stumbling, and began to shuffle toward the doorway in a crooked line, following the old military man like sheep driven toward an unknown slaughter house.
We emerged from that huge, suffocating room and stepped into a broader space: the metal deck of a gigantic spaceship. The air felt different here, raw and sharp, and for a moment my legs trembled, unused to open space after being locked in the dark.
A wide ramp led down from the ship's belly to the ground below, and one by one we were pushed down the stairs until the cold land met the soles of our feets
It felt foreign.
All around us, there were soldiers in crisp military uniforms, standing in clusters or marching in formation, weapons gleaming under the harsh artificial lights. Many more spaceships rested at a distance like enormous metallic beasts slumbering with one eye open. Perhaps this place was some kind of military port, a throat where ships came and went between worlds.
The soil underfoot was the colour of ash, dry and powdery, as though this land had once burned and never quite recovered. Above, there were no gentle clouds, only the black of space strewn with twinkling stars, and the atmosphere felt thin and desiccated, every breath scraping the inside of my lungs.
Before I could fully grasp my situation, a whip cracked across my back.
The pain was so chilling, so sharp and sudden, that a raw scream tore itself from my throat before I could bite it back. My body arched, falling forward onto my knees, and my whole being felt as if it were being split open from spine to ribs; fire ran along my back, and I could feel warm liquid—my own blood—sliding down in thin streams beneath my shirt.
"Woohoo, now that's a good toy to play with," a young male voice crowed behind me.
Gritting my teeth, I turned my head toward the source of the voice.
A young man in a crisp military uniform stood there, a satisfied grin stretching across his face, a whip coiled lightly in his hand, its end stained with my blood. His eyes shone with amusement, like a child discovering a new favourite game. He seemed pleased by my reaction and lifted his arm again to strike, anticipation bright on his face.
Before the whip could fall a second time, the old officer's thunderous voice crashed down over the landing field.
"Enough! Arav, put that thing down and help me load these into the vehicle."
"Tch, it was getting fun just now," the young soldier—Arav—muttered, but his hand lowered, and he reluctantly stepped back.
We were then driven toward a waiting ground vehicle, a truck‑like machine with a huge metal cage bolted onto its backside. The gate of the cage yawned open like a hungry mouth. One by one, we were shoved inside, stumbling over each other as our chains clanged and tangled.
The three military personnel responsible for our transport climbed into the front compartment, slammed the doors, and the engine coughed to life with a low growl. The vehicle lurched forward, carrying us away from the port and deeper into whatever fate the Empire had prepared
Inside the cage, the air was thick with the smell of rust, sweat and dried blood. For a long while, no one spoke. The silence pressed on my ears until I could not bear it.
"Where are we going?" I finally asked the man sitting nearest to me.
He was old, his hair thin and grey, his skin wrinkled like worn leather, but his eyes still held a faint warmth that the years of imprisonment had not completely extinguished. When he turned those eyes toward me, they narrowed, not in suspicion, but in a strange, tired kindness, as if he saw in me a reflection of the boy he himself had once been.
"Lad, you are far too young," he said softly, his voice rough with age. "Why is someone like you here?"
"I don't know," I replied, and that was the purest truth I had.
My name is Karan.
Once, I was not a chained prisoner shoved into a metal cage, but a trained butler serving a small barony in the Capital of the universe. The Capital—crown of the Empire, highest‑grade inhabitable planet, where the Imperial Family resides and from where every decree and decision flows outward like rays from a blazing sun. There, one could find resources and relics that no other star or world in the universe would ever see, things that would be worshipped as miracles anywhere else.
For a boy like me, taken from the forgotten layers of the lower wards, being chosen and trained as a butler was a miracle in itself. I was taught how to stand without swaying, how to walk without sound, how to listen without ever appearing to listen. I learned to remember every face and every preference: who liked their tea strong, who hated the colour red on their plate, who always asked for precisely three ice cubes and no more. There was a right way to place a plate, a right distance between fork and knife, a right speed to pour wine so it neither splashed nor insulted by being too slow.
I thought that if I kept every rule perfectly, if I was invisible and flawless, perhaps I could slowly climb out of the mud of my past.
But one day, I made a mistake.
Her Imperial Highness—whose coming‑of‑age ceremony was to be celebrated that day—was the star of the banquet, the very axis around which the entire evening turned. Banners bearing the Imperial crest hung from vaulted ceilings, chandeliers blazed with captured starlight, and the great hall was dressed in silks and rare flowers gathered from a hundred worlds. We were drilled mercilessly to serve the scions and great names attending, until our feet bled and our backs ached, but no one dared complain; to serve here was an honour and a test.
Just as we were making final preparations, an older butler from another house approached me. His hair was neatly combed back, his gloves immaculate, his movements graceful with the confidence of decades of service.
"You there," he said, his tone kind, almost friendly. "Help me with setting up the plates at Her Highness's table. I need to attend to something urgent in the washroom."
I went with him at once, feeling a small, foolish pride that someone so senior had singled me out. Together we began to arrange the plates and goblets at the princess's place with meticulous care. After a few minutes, he pressed his hand lightly to his stomach and made a pained face.
"Ah, forgive an old man," he murmured with a rueful smile. "This age of mine… I must go quickly. Finish these settings for me, will you? You seem like a diligent boy. I will not forget the favour."
At that time, I did not know that the result of my kindness would become my greatest mistake.
He turned and walked away at an unhurried pace, disappearing around a marble pillar. I stayed and completed the arrangements, aligning each plate and polishing each glass until the crystal was flawless and the silver caught the light like captured lightning.
When I was finished and stepped back, I saw him returning from the far side of the hall. He smiled at me, the same gentle, approving smile, and placed his gloved hand briefly on my shoulder.
"Thank you," he said. "You have been very helpful."
I bowed slightly and moved away, thinking that perhaps one more small step toward recognition had been taken.
When the party finally started, everything seemed to be going perfectly. Her Imperial Highness shone like a star at the centre of the hall, her gown a cascade of rare fabric that caught every colour from the chandeliers. Nobles laughed and toasted, music flowed like water between marble columns, and we servants glided through it all like shadows, refilling glasses and replacing dishes with practiced, silent precision.
Then, without warning, Her Imperial Highness swayed.
Her fingers loosened around the stem of her goblet. Her eyes went unfocused for a heartbeat. The crystal slipped from her hand and shattered against the polished floor, scattering fragments that glittered like broken stars.
The jolly atmosphere twisted abruptly into screams and panicked shouts. Musicians stopped playing mid‑note; chairs scraped and toppled; some guests rushed forward while others shrank back, as if the very air around the princess had turned poisonous.
The king and guards surged to her side with terrifying speed, forming a living wall around her. Medics and royal healers appeared from the shadows of the hall, their hands already moving, voices low and urgent as they laid the princess down and began treating her. Glowing instruments hovered over her chest; faint glyphs flickered in the air above her skin.
In a few long, agonizing minutes, her breathing stabilized and some colour returned to her lips, but the terror in the hall did not recede. The king straightened slowly, turned toward the doors, and his voice rang out like a command to the universe itself.
"Lock the hall. No one leaves."
The great doors swung shut with a booming finality. Guards took positions along the walls. No one dared move.
The king ordered everyone to remain where they were, and the searching began, systematic and merciless. Weapons, rings, amulets, even decorative pins—everything was inspected. One by one, nobles and servants were checked, scanned, probed by detection spells and devices. For a moment, it seemed they would find nothing, that the culprit had been a ghost.
Then the same older butler I had helped stepped forward and bowed deeply.
"Your Majesty, if I may," he said, his voice smooth and respectful.
And with those few words, the jaws of fate closed.
The hall had never felt so small.
"Poison," one of the royal healers whispered, his fingers still pressed to the princess's throat as a thin veil of light hovered over her chest. "A subtle, delayed variant. If we had been half a minute later—"
"She would have been dead," another healer finished grimly.
A wave of horrified murmurs rippled through the nobles. The king's face turned to stone. His eyes—eyes that had once watched battles between fleets and seen stars burn—now burned with a pain far more personal.
"Two daughters," he rasped, almost to himself. "One already lost to that cursed corruption... and now this."
For a heartbeat, the hall fell silent. Even the chandeliers seemed to hold their light a little tighter, as if afraid to drip it.
The older butler took a single step forward.
"Your Majesty," he said, bowing low, his voice perfectly measured. "I... I fear I may have witnessed something suspicious."
The king's gaze snapped to him like drawn steel.
"Speak."
The old man's shoulders trembled just enough to look convincing.
"It shames me to say this, but a boy assigned as temporary assistant at Her Highness's table was acting... unusual. He insisted on finishing the arrangements alone. I thought it eagerness at first, but then—then I saw him hover near her goblet when he thought no eye was upon him."
My breath caught.
He was talking about me.
"That's a lie," I blurted before my mind could warn my tongue. My voice cracked, thin and small in the vast hall. "Your Majesty, he asked me to stay back and finish the settings. He went away first. I only did as I was told."
Dozens of eyes turned toward me, pinning me in place more surely than any chain.
The old butler's expression folded into wounded sorrow.
"Your Majesty," he said, "I am old, but not blind. I have served in this court longer than that boy has been alive. The goblet was clean when I left. When I returned, the aura around it had changed."
A murmur of fear and anger spread like smoke.
The crown prince moved before anyone else.
He strode across the polished floor, boots ringing like hammer-blows. In a single movement, he seized me by the front of my uniform and lifted me off my feet.
"You dare," he snarled, his face inches from mine. I could see the wildness in his eyes: not the reckless rage of youth, but the agony of an elder brother who had watched one sister wither away and now saw the other collapsing before him.
"Your Highness, I swear—" I began.
The first punch stole the rest of my words.
Pain exploded through my jaw. My head snapped sideways, spots of light bursting across my vision. The hall gasped as if one throat shared one breath.
"You worm from the lower wards," the prince spat, striking me again, this time in the gut. "We raise you, train you, feed you, and this is how you repay us? By poisoning my sister at her own ceremony?"
Blood filled my mouth, thick and metallic. I tried to speak, to say anything that might sound like truth, but all that came out was a wet choke.
"Enough," the king said.
The single word fell from the dais like a slab of iron. The prince froze, fist still half-raised, chest heaving.
"Father—" he began.
"I said enough." The king stepped down from the dais, his cloak whispering over the marble. Up close, the weight of years and grief sat heavy on his shoulders, but his eyes were still as terrible and bright as a star seen from too near. "If you break him now, we will never know how deep this rot goes."
He looked at me. In that gaze was a galaxy's worth of judgment.
"Boy," he said quietly, "whether you are the mastermind or a pawn, you stood by while my child fell. You touched the place where her life was taken from her cup." His voice roughened. "One daughter lies in a bed that will not let her wake. The other barely breathes because of you." He straightened. "Guards. Court. Now."
The prince released me with a shove. I crumpled to the floor, my limbs shaking. Rough hands seized my arms, hauling me up.
As they dragged me past the old butler, his eyes met mine for the briefest second.
There was no kindness there now.
Only cold, satisfied calculation.
"You," I whispered hoarsely. "Why? I only helped you."
His lips barely moved.
"Exactly," he murmured, so softly that only I could hear. "You were perfect. Forgettable. A shadow. No one questions a shadow until it moves in the wrong direction."
I didn't understand. Terror left little room for thought. All I knew was that they were pulling me away from light, toward darker corridors.
The king walked ahead, the prince beside him, fists clenched so tightly his knuckles had gone bloodless.
"If Akshara had not been near the healers' wing..." the prince's voice shook. "If they had been even a moment later—"
"She still might not wake," the king said, his tone flat. "We know nothing yet. Only that poison has touched what little hope this world had left me."
Akshara. So that was the princess's name.
We entered the high courtroom: a vast, domed chamber whose ceiling was painted with the Empire's founding, heroes frozen in strokes of gold and blue. Today, none of that mattered. The benches were already filling with nobles and officials who had been summoned in haste. The air itself seemed to hum with accusation.
I was shoved to my knees in the centre of the circular floor. Invisible wards sealed around me with a faint crackle, prickling against my skin.
The king took his place on the central throne of judgment. To his right, the prince stood, shoulders rigid. To his left, an empty chair remained unclaimed—the chair once meant for the king's elder daughter, now lying in her silent, corrupted sleep.
"We convene under emergency statute," an officer announced, his voice echoing. "Suspected crime: attempted regicide by poisoning Her Imperial Highness, Princess Akshara. Accused: Karan, indentured butler in service to Baroness Elira, currently attached to the royal staff for the coming-of-age ceremony."
My name sounded strange in this place, like it belonged to someone else.
"Karan," the king said. "Look at me."
I forced my eyes up.
"Did you touch my daughter's goblet after it had been cleared and sanctified by the royal staff?"
"Yes, Your Majesty," I said. Truth was all I had left. "But only to polish and place it as I was instructed. I did nothing else. I swear it on whatever life I have."
A flicker of something—pain, anger, perhaps even tired pity—crossed his face.
"And who instructed you?"
My throat tightened.
All eyes swung toward the old butler as I spoke his name.
He stepped forward, bowing deeply. "Your Majesty, I did ask for his assistance—in my presence and under my supervision. But I left only for a moment when called away, and in that brief absence—"
"Liar!" I cried. "You were gone long! You told me to finish everything! You said—"
Pain lanced through me as the wards flared, reacting to my attempt to surge forward.
"The accused will remain still," the officer barked.
From the benches, hushed voices rose.
"From the lower wards, they said—"
"Those shadows always bring filth with them—"
"To poison at a royal ceremony, no less—"
The words washed over me like ash.
"Duke Solar if you would," the king ordered.
A figure stepped into the circle from the line of nobles, Without a word, he extended his hands. Lines of pale light flowed from his fingers, coiling around the shattered remnants of the goblet now preserved within a stasis field at the side of the chamber.
I watched, numb, as the light thickened, then split: one strand sliding toward where the old butler stood, the other slithering like a living thing toward me.
The strand touched my chest.
It burned.The face of the duke distorted in a frown momentarily but returned to its usual stoicness
I screamed as visions flooded my mind—not memories, but impressions: my hands holding the goblet, a faint haze clinging to the rim like invisible smoke, the echo of someone else's intent dragging itself along my bones.
"My power strongly repels the lie and asserts its dominance, its most strong reaction is getting from the accused, my lord" said the duke
The hall erupted in confused whispers.
"What did you find?" the king demanded.
"My power is burning the accused from inside, so that means the accused is lying, but-" replied the duke
"But?" king's eyes narrowed
"I am not so sure because when I used it I got a very weird feeling like I momentarily lost connection to my power" the duke said.
"So what should we do now?" the king asked
"Even then that is proved that the old butler is saying the truth and accused is lying, so the judgement is up to you your majesty" said the duke while bowing.
"Hmm, you may return to your place" the dismissed
There was a long, tense silence.
Finally, the king exhaled, a sound like a man laying down a sword.
"By the law of the Empire," he said, "attempted regicide by poisoning is punishable by death. But in consideration of your age, your lack of known resources, and the possibility that you are being used by a hand we cannot yet see, I will stay your execution." His gaze hardened. "Instead, you are sentenced to Narak."
The word fell like a stone into a still lake.
Everyone flinched.
Even the prince's eyes widened.
"Father... Narak?" he whispered. "For a boy?"
"If he is a pawn, Narak will break him and whatever truths he holds will seep out," the king said. "If he is more than a pawn, Narak will keep him from reaching for us again. Either way, he will not walk beneath our sky as a free man."
He looked down at me one last time.
"Karan, son of no recorded line," he pronounced, each word sealed with the weight of law, "you are hereby stripped of all privileges of service and cast out of the Capital. You will be consigned to Narak, prison of the Empire, until such time as death or destiny releases you."
My legs went numb.
Narak.
I had heard the name only in whispered rumours shared by kitchen boys over dying coals. A prison carved into the bones of a dead starfield. A place where the Empire sent the worst criminals that it could not kill and the secrets it could not afford to keep.
"Take him," the king ordered.
The wards dropped. Chains clamped around my wrists and ankles with cruel efficiency. As the guards pulled me up, the prince stepped closer, staring down at me.
"If she dies," he said softly, every word a knife, "I will come to Narak myself. And I will make sure you feel every moment of it."
I could not answer. There was no breath left to shape words.
As they dragged me from the courtroom, I looked back only once.
The old butler stood near the far pillar, his posture humble, his head bowed.
But beneath his lowered lashes, his eyes glittered.
With triumph.