Pataliputra simmered under the weight of summer, the great city carved in golden stone and bathed in the scent of marigolds and dust. The air shimmered with heat, and yet within the garden walls of the great Mauryan temple, time held its breath. In that garden of sacred quiet and myth-drenched memories, Devika walked with petals beneath her feet and fire within her chest.
The rituals that once defined her days now felt distant. Her dance, once disciplined like the beat of the priests' drums, had grown fluid, alive. The goddess within her no longer demanded devotion — she demanded truth.
Meera had grown cautious.
"You disappear too often," she said one afternoon, plucking jasmine for the offering tray. "If the priests notice, they'll question your loyalty."
Devika didn't look up. "What if my loyalty lies elsewhere now?"
Meera's fingers froze. "You speak dangerously."
"No," Devika said softly. "I speak honestly. For once."
That evening, when the temple bell chimed thrice, she slipped away. The garden bloomed under moonlight, a sea of shadows and blossoms. She wore red tonight — the color of longing, of risk — her veil hanging loosely over her shoulders like the last thread of tradition she still clung to.
Aarav was already waiting.
He leaned against the pillar of the old garden shrine, a place long abandoned by priests but held sacred by lovers and ghosts. His posture was calm, but his eyes betrayed a storm.
"You're late," he said with mock severity.
She smiled. "You're early."
They stood facing each other for a moment, caught in the gentle violence of unspoken words. Then she moved to him, slow, deliberate, and he held out a hand. When she took it, something inside both of them locked into place — as if the universe had sighed in relief.
"Tell me why you're really here," she asked him as they walked deeper into the trees.
He didn't answer at once. Crickets sang their secrets, and the moonlight made lace of the leaves. Finally, he stopped and turned to her.
"Because I dream of you before I sleep, and think of you when I wake. Because I look at the battlefield and see your face among the banners. Because if I leave for war without seeing you again, I fear I will never return whole."
Devika's breath caught.
He continued, voice lower. "I've never asked for anything, Devika. Not from the gods, not from my father. But I ask this now — for one memory. One night. One truth between us."
She reached up, touched his cheek, her fingers trembling. "And if the gods curse us for it?"
"Then let them."
They wandered to the edge of the pond, where the water reflected the sky so clearly it felt like standing at the edge of two worlds. Aarav knelt and reached into his satchel, pulling out a folded cloth. Carefully, he opened it — revealing a simple wooden necklace, strung with beads carved in the shapes of stars and lotuses.
"I made this when I was younger," he said. "Each bead holds a prayer I never dared to speak. Tonight, I offer them to you."
Devika took the necklace, holding it as if it were a relic. She slipped it over her head. It hung against her throat like destiny.
"Then I offer you something, too," she said.
She reached beneath her sash and drew out a tiny silver bell — the one from her first dance, given to her when she became the temple's chosen. "This belongs to the gods," she whispered. "But I give it to you. For tonight, let the gods be silent."
He took it reverently, and for a moment, neither spoke. Their hands found each other again. They sat beneath the arched fig tree, where moonlight poured like wine, and finally allowed silence to be filled with closeness — her head on his shoulder, his hand tracing idle circles on her palm.
Time melted.
He told her about his first kill — not in battle, but during a hunting trip with his father. How the arrow had struck the deer, and he'd wept when it fell. How his father laughed, called him weak. How he had never wept since — until he saw her dance.
She told him about the girl who once dared to speak her own poetry aloud in the sanctum and was punished with ten days of silence. How she had written verse in the margins of sacred scrolls ever since. How sometimes, when dancing, she forgot who she was — or perhaps finally remembered.
A shooting star crossed the sky.
He turned to her. "What do you want, Devika? If there were no rules, no castes, no temples or palaces?"
She looked at the sky for a long time before answering. "A garden. A quiet place with wild flowers. Your voice in the morning. My name said like it matters."
His lips brushed her forehead. "Then that's what I'll fight for. Not empires. Just you."
But the gods, even in silence, listened.
And the wind carried whispers — of soldiers gathering, of orders signed in blood. Of a prince summoned to the borderlands. Of a temple girl seen too often in shadowed gardens.
The world was beginning to turn against them. But in that moment, all they knew was this: love, once awakened, would not be caged.
Even if destiny watched with sharpened eyes.