Devaki didn't stand at first.
She just reached out with shaking hands.
Both sons were here—alive, real, taller than her dreams had allowed.
Krishna stood still, his lips trembling.
He'd faced death gods, storms, demon kings.
But in this small stone cell, before a woman whose voice he remembered only as a warm hum in a nightmare, he broke.
His knees hit the floor.
He folded forward into her arms.
Agasthya followed.
Not as smoothly.
Not with ceremony.
He stepped closer like a blade dulled by use, unsure if it could still cut.
Then Devaki reached with both arms.
And Agasthya collapsed into her like a wave finding shore.
Both boys buried their faces in her lap.
And she cradled them, one arm around each.
Her hair fell over them like a curtain.
And she wept.
"I prayed I would see you," she whispered. "Not in a dream. Not in death. Just once. I didn't dare ask the gods. I didn't think I deserved it."
Vasudeva knelt behind her, both hands over his mouth, tears streaming freely.
"I failed you both," he whispered. "I failed all eight."
Krishna looked up.
"No," he said, voice cracked. "You did what you had to. You made sure we'd live."
Vasudeva reached out and touched his face, and Krishna's breath hitched again.
"You were my first son," Devaki whispered to Krishna. "And my last hope."
Then she turned to Agasthya.
"And you—" she cupped his face, thumbs brushing tears from his eyes, "—you were not supposed to exist. But that didn't matter. You were mine the moment I felt you move. The moment I lost you. And you are mine now."
Agasthya closed his eyes.
He should have said something.
But instead—
> [MEMORY SHARD UNLOCKED: "The Dead Sky War"]
[Memory Initiating…]
---
Flames.
Smoke.
Mountains cracked in half by will alone.
He stood in the center of a battlefield, surrounded by corpses not of men—but of asuras, devas, rishis, serpents, rakshasas, machines of the stars.
His robes were torn.
His body unburnt.
His blade was not in his hand—it was his hand.
He moved through them like fate.
Unstoppable.
Unchanged.
But every time he killed, his eyes dimmed.
He remembered the count:
113,209 slain.
And none remembered who he was.
Because the war was never written.
Because he wasn't meant to survive it.
And yet—he did.
---
He gasped.
Devaki held his face steady. "What did you see?"
Agasthya shook his head.
"I… fought. So many. Gods. Demons. Everything."
"Did you win?" Vasudeva asked gently.
Agasthya nodded. "No one touched me."
"But?" Krishna asked softly.
Agasthya looked up at him.
"I wasn't alive when it ended. Just… awake."
Krishna swallowed hard.
"That's not war," he said. "That's punishment."
Devaki pressed her forehead to Agasthya's.
"You don't have to fight like that anymore," she whispered. "You're not alone. Not anymore."
And for the first time—
Agasthya believed it.
---