---
The reeds parted before him as if afraid.
Karna stepped through them barefoot, dust clinging to his ankles. A small satchel bounced on his hip—filled with rice cakes, butter, and a pinch of turmeric wrapped in cloth. He held a lotus stem in his hand, already wilting from the journey.
Ganga's bend appeared before him.
Quiet.
Golden.
Still.
She was waiting. Of course she was.
She always stood there, as though she never left—draped in blue, her feet on the water like a forgotten statue the river refused to erode.
"You've grown," she said softly, without moving her lips.
Karna knelt and placed the offerings at the base of her feet.
"I'm not supposed to come often," he muttered.
"I know," she said.
"But I don't care."
"I know that too."
He looked up.
Her face hadn't changed, not since the first time he'd wandered to her banks as a weeping child. Not since she'd bandaged his skinned knees with water. Not since he first asked, "Are you a queen?"
"I brought this," Karna said, holding up the lotus. "From near the fields. It bloomed sideways. Like it was ashamed."
Ganga smiled. "Those are the most honest flowers."
Then Karna saw the boy—quiet, standing behind Ganga, half-shadowed.
Agasthya.
He was different now. Taller. Silent still. But his eyes had grown sharper.
"Hey," Karna said, waving awkwardly. "Do you talk yet?"
Agasthya didn't answer. He tilted his head.
Ganga looked back at the younger child. "He listens more than most kings do in a lifetime."
"Still weird," Karna muttered, but with a grin.
He walked past Ganga and dropped into the soft sand beside Agasthya.
"I dreamt I had armor last night," Karna said suddenly, as if it had been waiting behind his teeth all morning. "Golden. It wrapped around me like light. But when I woke up, I was still just a charioteer's boy."
Agasthya blinked. Then, slowly, sat beside him.
"People call me Suryaputra sometimes," Karna added, bitterly. "Because I never burn in the sun. Not even when I stand in it for hours. I thought it meant something once."
He picked up a pebble and threw it into the river. It skipped three times.
"But it means nothing. I'm still Radha's son. And that means no bow, no sword, no name."
Agasthya tilted his head again.
"I don't want to be a prince," Karna muttered. "I just… want to stand. With a blade. And not be told to kneel."
Agasthya reached out and placed his small hand on Karna's forearm.
It was the first time he'd touched someone outside Ganga.
Karna blinked. "What was that for?"
Agasthya didn't reply.
But something shimmered in the air.
A wind that didn't touch trees.
A heat that made no sound.
Far off, beneath the surface of the water, Ganga closed her eyes.
She knew it had begun.
---
The two boys wandered the shoreline.
Karna chattered, half to himself. Agasthya walked silently beside him, occasionally crouching to examine broken shells or watch the path of ants.
"You ever wonder why no one cries when you leave?" Karna asked suddenly. "Radha cries when I return. Not when I go. It's like she's more afraid of what I bring home than what I might become."
Agasthya stopped.
Something moved in the reeds.
Karna didn't notice. He kept talking, eyes on the water.
"I don't blame her. Sometimes I look in the mirror and I don't see… me. Just someone waiting to burn."
The reeds shivered again.
A faint hiss.
Agasthya turned.
Behind them, half-buried in the grass, a long black serpent coiled—drawn by the warmth of two divine-adjacent souls.
It reared silently.
Agasthya didn't flinch.
But Karna saw his gaze, followed it—
—and in a blink, threw a pebble with a snap of his wrist.
It hit the snake square between the eyes.
The creature flinched, turned, and slithered away into the shadows.
Karna's breath caught.
"I didn't mean to hit it," he muttered. "I just…"
He looked down at his hand.
A faint warmth pulsed in his palm.
Agasthya felt the ripple through the world.
Something had changed.
> [SYSTEM NOTIFICATION:]
[FATE DEVIATION DETECTED — KARNA'S COURSE BRIEFLY ALTERED]
[REWARD UNLOCKED — MEMORY SHARD ACQUIRED]
Agasthya staggered.
Karna grabbed him instinctively. "Hey—what's wrong?"
But Agasthya didn't answer.
His vision went white.
---
He stood in a temple with no name.
Columns of black glass. A sky of roiling stars.
Two figures argued in the center—one clad in light, the other draped in smoke.
"You cannot bind him," said the light.
"You cannot predict him," replied the smoke.
Agasthya stepped forward.
They did not see him.
He was a memory in a room not meant to remember.
The smoky figure turned—and for a heartbeat, Agasthya saw his own face reflected in the void.
"You are what they buried," the voice whispered. "And still, you return."
---
He gasped.
Back in the present.
Ganga stood before him, hand resting lightly on his crown.
She said nothing.
Only hummed a note.
Low.
Old.
Full of grief.
Karna looked between them. "Did something happen?"
Agasthya, still trembling, looked up at him—and for the first time, truly saw him.
Not just a boy with golden skin.
But a pivot.
A fixed point in the epic.
One whose story must one day be broken.
He didn't speak.
But something in his gaze promised: I will not let them bury you.
Not again.
---