The knock was soft—almost hesitant. A servant stood on the threshold, his eyes lowered, hands folded with reverent tension.

"Hukum sa ne aapko bulaya hai, Rani Sa. Abhi ke abhi." She flinched.

(The king called you, queen. Immediately."

The title wrapped around her like unfamiliar silk—delicate but suffocating. Rani Sa. A name meant for queens with sindoor in their hair and bangles that sang in gold, not for a woman who bore no red, no vermilion, no fire—only the silence of ashes.

The words were gentle, but they echoed like a verdict. She only nodded. What else could she do? The king had summoned her.

Could a widow refuse a command?

She stood from the window seat, where the roses danced quietly in the afternoon wind. For a fleeting moment, she let her fingers graze the petals—red as spilled secrets, too vivid for her pale world. Each bloom looked like a wound she dared not name.

Her steps were soundless. The ivory folds of her sari whispered around her ankles like forgotten prayers. Her bare feet kissed the cold palace floor, tracing a path through echoing corridors that still smelled of war and sandalwood. The silence pressed in, broken only by the murmurs of oil lamps and the hush of old stone.

The palace rose around her like a fable long faded, a monument to lineage and legend. The walls bore scenes of triumph, of kings bathed in glory, queens carved in gold—none like her. There were no widows among the frescoes, only radiant consorts and goddesses untouched by grief.

She walked past them all.

And still, she moved forward. Not as a queen. Not as a prisoner.

But as a woman with nothing left to lose.

She had seen him only from a distance since their arrival—his back, tall and unyielding; his voice echoing down halls like a storm contained in syllables; the shadow of his crown cast long across the marble.

The man who had brought her here was not the man who had once walked through fire just to bleed.

The throne chamber doors opened slowly, parting like clouds before a storm. Every eye turned.

There were gasps. Whispers like rusted swords drawn in secrecy.

A widow draped in moonlight white, unadorned and untouched, walked into a room meant for crowns and crimson.

She did not bow.

She did not smile.

She simply looked ahead—at the man who had dared to defy centuries for her.

Rudraksh Rajvansh. The man who painted his canvas with blood, but brought her home in white.

And she? She was the metaphor the room couldn't bear.

Colorless grace.

A bloom in mourning.

The ghost of spring.

She wore her silence like armor. She carried her sorrow like regalia.

And yet, she stood. Still. Silent.

Let them look.

Let them burn.

She would not lower her gaze.

Not when the man who summoned her never asked her to.

The air was still.

All eyes followed her as she stepped into the throne chamber, veiled in silence and clothed in white.

Rudraksh sat on the lion-backed throne like a storm held in human form. But when his eyes found her, his entire frame softened. For the first time in weeks, the battlefield inside him quieted.

He stood.

"Aage aayiye, Rani Sa," he said.

Come forward, my queen

Her feet obeyed before her mind could process the weight of his words. Rani Sa. Again. Her lashes lowered, gaze pinned to the marble floor as if lifting her eyes would ignite another war.

"Dekhiye inhe," Rudraksh said, his voice both command and plea. "Kya main chahta hoon ki meri rani mujhse nazar churaye inke samne?"

Look at them, he had said. How could she not? He wanted her to be his queen. Not hidden. Not forgotten. Not a shadow.

His voice rang again, this time with fire. "Kya keh rahi thi Maa aap? Ki in par sirf safed jachta hai?"

You were saying, Mother, that only white suits her?

The court stiffened. Murmurs shivered along stone columns. She trembled. She didn't refute Rajmata's words.

Why would she?

That's what they had all told her since the day her husband was lit to ash—that a woman like her must now wear silence and white as her identity. Her colour was shame. Her light extinguished. She agreed because it was safer than hope.

Rudraksh stepped down from the dais.

Behind him, remnants of celebration still lingered. Trays of powdered colours—red, yellow, pink, golden—left from the war's victory rites. No one had dared touch them after he declared the true prize of the war wasn't land or gold—but the queen he had brought home.

The air had turned from festivity to funeral.

But now—

He strode to the thaalas.

He dipped his hands into the colours like a man reaching into fire. Fistfuls of brightness, of everything she had been denied.

Then, in one breathless moment, he turned.

And he threw them.

Red. Yellow. Pink. Gold.

All at once, the colours burst against her white sari like a festival exploding in defiance. Her silence bled into saffron, her grief drowned in rose.

The court gasped.

And she—

She didn't move.

Colour dripped down her shoulder, her arms, clung to the cotton folds at her waist. It kissed her cheeks. Her forehead. Her trembling lips.

She looked like spring resurrected from winter's grave.

He walked to her, now only inches away.

"Ab toh safed nhi hai na maa?" he asked, his voice low but sharp, like the edge of a blade.

It's not white now, is it?

Surmaya flinched slightly at his words, the weight of them sinking deep into her heart. How could she answer? What was there to say? Her past had been painted in white, and now, standing in front of the court, she felt the raw brushstrokes of that truth pressing against her.

The moment stretched on, the air thick with anticipation, as Rudraksh turned his gaze toward the lavish decorations—the thalas of color set for the celebration of his victory, the war he had fought, the bloodshed that had brought him home.

But now, the celebration felt like a funeral.

In a single, swift motion, Rudraksh grabbed the colors—red, yellow, pink, golden—all of them, and launched them at her. The hues splattered across her white saree, a stark contrast to the purity of the fabric.

This was no ordinary act.

This was his declaration.

His voice rang out, an unspoken promise woven in the madness of the moment "Ab toh safed nhi hai na maa?"

It's not white now, is it?

Her white, untouched life was no longer untouched. She was now painted in the colors of his world.

And in that riot of stolen colours, Surmaya stood motionless, her heart loud in her ears.

She didn't know whether to weep or bloom.

Maybe she could do both.

For the first time since death claimed her past—

Life had touched her skin again.

Rudraksh's voice echoed through the throne room, cutting through the silence with a sharp, finality. His eyes, dark with an intensity that seemed to both challenge and claim, turned to the gathered ministers and courtiers.

"Jashan ki tiyari ki jaye, aapka raja jeet ke aya hai mar ke nahi."

("Let the preparations for the celebration begin, your king has returned victorious, not dead.")

The words hung in the air like the weight of an iron decree. He was not just announcing his victory; he was making it known that he had returned not as a ghost of the past, but as a king, alive and triumphant, with a queen by his side—one who had been forged in silence, wrapped in grief, now clothed in color.

The courtiers shifted uneasily, the tension palpable, but Rudraksh paid them no mind. His gaze remained fixed on Surmaya, her white saree now a canvas for the colors he had thrust upon her. A slow, almost imperceptible smile tugged at the corners of his lips. This was his world, painted with the hues of blood, victory, and a queen whose silence would speak louder than any crown.

Behind him, the grand hall shimmered with the beginnings of celebration, the air suddenly thick with the promise of revelry. A stark contrast to the stillness in Surmaya's eyes.

As the ministers scrambled to prepare, Rudraksh's words resounded once more, almost as an afterthought. "Jashan ka waqt hai. Aur jo jeet kar aaye hain, unke liye safedi ka rang ab bekaar hai."

("It's time for celebration. And for those who have returned victorious, the color of white now holds no value.")

He did not wait for a response. Without another glance at Surmaya, he turned and strode toward the heart of the celebration, leaving behind a room full of whispers, and a widow who, in this world of gold and blood, was to be more than just a shadow of what she had once been.