Chapter Eight: The Court

## Chapter Eight: The Court

Raja Tejas summoned her on the third morning.

The summons arrived via a guard . a young man with a face that suggested he'd rather be anywhere else than delivering messages to the woman who looked like a ghost. He stood at her door, recited the summons in formal Chhaya Lok Hindi, and left before Tara could ask questions.

"Woh tumhe judge karega," Dhruv said. He was leaning against the corridor wall outside her room, arms crossed, the posture of a man who had been waiting for this and who was not pleased about it. "Baap — Raja Tejas ; woh pehle observe karta hai. Phir decide karta hai. Tumhare baare mein usne teen din observe kiya hai. Ab decision aayega."

"Kya decision?"

"Ki tum yahan reh sakti ho ya nahin."

The darbaar was fuller than Tara's first visit — courtiers lined the walls, and at the dais, Raja Tejas sat with the same contained stillness, flanked by advisors whose faces were carefully neutral. To his left stood a woman Tara hadn't seen before.

Revati.

She knew it the way you know a predator : not by logic but by the body's ancient wiring, the amygdala firing before the prefrontal cortex had time to construct a reason. The woman was tall, dark-haired, dressed in robes of deep indigo that moved like water. Her face was beautiful in the way that weapons are beautiful — precision-engineered, every feature serving a purpose, nothing wasted. Her eyes were dark, and when they found Tara, they performed a calculation so quick and so complete that Tara felt it like a physical scan , assessed, measured, categorised, filed.

"Brightkin." Raja Tejas's voice filled the hall without strain. "Tum teen din se Shringa Durg mein ho. Maine tumhe observe kiya hai. Ab main tumse seedha baat karunga."

"Ji, Rajaji."

"Meri bahu — Neerja . do saal pehle maari gayi. Uska qatil abhi tak nahin pakda gaya. Tum uski pratiroop ho — uski Brightkin. Tumhare aane se ; baatein uthti hain. Sawalaat uthte hain. Kuch log kehte hain ki tumhara aana achha hai. Kuch log kehte hain ki khatrnak hai."

His eyes moved, briefly, to Revati. The movement was so slight that Tara almost missed it — a king's version of pointing a finger, done with the subtlety of decades of court politics.

"Main tumse poochna chahta hoon," Raja Tejas continued. "Tum yahan kyun aayi ho?"

The question was simple. The answer was not. Tara considered the political version : the careful, diplomatic response that a mythology professor who'd read enough Arthashastra to know how courts worked would craft. Then she discarded it.

"Main apne boyfriend ko dhundhne aayi thi," she said. "Mujhe pata chala ki woh yahan hai. Phir mujhe pata chala ki meri pratiroop — Neerja , ki hatya hui. Aur phir mujhe pata chala ki mujhme woh shakti hai jo Neerja mein thi."

"Naagon se baat karne ki shakti."

"Haan."

The hall murmured. The sound was the sound of a court processing information that was simultaneously expected and alarming — the frequency of people who had suspected something and were now having their suspicion confirmed.

"Aur tumhara iraada?" the king asked.

"Neerja ke qatil ka pata lagana. Saboot ikattha karna. Court ke saamne pesh karna."

The murmur became a wave. Revati's face didn't change . the calculation continued behind those dark eyes, but the expression remained fixed, this specific stillness of a predator that has been spotted and is deciding whether to flee or strike.

"Yeh ek bada dawa hai," Raja Tejas said. "Tum ek Brightlander ho. Is duniya ki nahin. Tumhara yahan koi adhikaar nahin — koi rank nahin, koi position nahin. Tum kaise investigation karogi?"

"Neerja ke journals hain. Usne sab document kiya tha. Main woh journals padh rahi hoon. Aur Takshak ; Naag lord — mere saath hai."

The mention of Takshak produced a different reaction. Not murmur : silence. The deep, held-breath silence of people who understood that a Naga lord's allegiance was not a small thing, was not a political manoeuvre, was the intervention of a creature whose power predated the fort and the kingdom and the concept of human governance itself.

"Takshak tumhara saathi hai?" Raja Tejas's composure cracked — just barely, a hairline fracture in the kingly stillness. "Usne tumhe choose kiya?"

"Haan."

The king looked at her for a long moment. Then he looked at Revati. The look between them was layered , a conversation conducted in glances, the language that powerful people used when words were too public and silence was too ambiguous.

"Theek hai," Raja Tejas said. "Teen mahine. Main tumhe teen mahine deta hoon. Tum investigation karo. Saboot laao. Agar teen mahine mein tum apna case pesh nahin kar sakti — toh tum Brightlands wapas jaogi. Permanently."

"Aur agar main case pesh kar sakti hoon?"

"Toh nyaay hoga. Chhaya Lok ka kanoon . chahe qatil kahin ka bhi ho, chahe kitna bhi powerful ho — nyaay karta hai."

Tara looked at Revati. The woman's face was still fixed ; the beautiful, weapon-precision face holding its calculation — but something had shifted behind the eyes. Not fear. Not yet. But the awareness that the game had changed, that a variable had been introduced that she hadn't accounted for, and that the variable looked exactly like the woman she had : allegedly — already eliminated once.

"Teen mahine," Tara said. "Enough."

She turned and walked out of the darbaar. Behind her, the court erupted , voices rising, the murmur becoming a roar, that specific sound of power recalculating itself.

Dhruv fell into step beside her in the corridor.

"Tumne abhi poore court ke saamne Revati ko challenge kiya," he said. His voice was neutral but his eyes were not — the forge-fire behind them was burning, bright and hot.

"Maine court ke saamne sach bola."

"Same thing. Yahan court mein sach bolna . woh challenge se zyada khatrnak hota hai." He paused. "Main tumhare saath hoon. Tum jaanti ho."

She looked at him. The man who was identical to Lakshman and nothing like him. The forge-scarred hands. The fire behind the eyes. The brother who had left this world rather than accept its expectations and who had come back for a woman he barely knew, because she had asked, and because asking was enough.

"Jaanti hoon," she said.