*Transmigration complete*
She should've died.
The last thing Meher remembered was the wind—her own scream swept into it. She'd taken the fall, certain, stupidly certain, that the sky would not lie.
When Meher came to her senses, she was no longer falling.
She was kneeling.
A bird that had collided with air. Neck snapped mid-flight. The body still moving, still remembering the sky, but no sky beneath it anymore.
Her forehead touched cold stone. The smell of wet limestone threaded into her breath—the kind of temple-slab cold she remembered from those brief monsoon mornings of touching thar. Childhood mornings. A desert land that sometimes, in mercy or mistake, held rain for just a second. The ground would clutch at heaven's tears, but the sun always came like Ravana in his flying chariot, wheels blazing, stealing them back.
This was the only memory of home that did not make her retch.
This one, she could keep.
The rest were like stones pressing into her throat.
"Are you deaf, girl? Or are you stupid?"
A woman's voice, sharp enough to draw blood if she wanted. But there was something behind it—concern, maybe. Or exhaustion pretending to be cruelty. Meher kept still. Breathing through her mouth. Stone against skin. Her body was here but her mind was running circles, caught between a circle of blurry thoughts and a heavy head like a state of worst hangover.
"I said, get up. This isn't the place to sleep unless you want Dushala to punish you with the purification task of the entire north wing"
The clink of bangles. Bare feet scuffing stone. A silver toe-ring flashed near her nose, catching the hallway's oil-lamp light like a second moon.
'so, it wasn't a dream?'
Meher lifted her face, slow. Her lips were dry, her mouth a nest of cotton. Above her: a woman leaning close, eyes rimmed in kajal, sweat glinting under her nose-ring. She wasn't beautiful but she was bright. Like heat rising off summer stone. A person Meher never encountered before.
"You're not dead," the woman said. "So act like it."
Meher blinked again. She wanted to ask—Are you sure?
But her tongue didn't trust itself.
"This is real, you know," the woman added, squinting at her like she was trying to solve a puzzle. "You're not in a playhouse. You're not some noble girl pretending to faint for drama." Her eyes narrowed further. "Unless you're mad. Are you mad?"
Meher wanted to say yes.
She wanted to say, I cut my wrist a while ago, or maybe it was centuries that i had gained concious now. So yes, I might be mad.
But her lips chose something safer. Silence.
"You smell like sandal," the woman muttered, nose wrinkling. "But you're sweating like a goat. Are you new here?"
Meher's throat worked, cracked open, let out sound.
"I… I don't know."
This was real. Too real to belong in the realm she once existed in, a setup of theater houses or exceptional film sets, or for commoners like her... one can simply imagine Ramayana's theatrical glory—every Vijay Dashmi's retelling of the war between good and evil that ended with a fire arrow peircing through the nabhi of that enormous livesize statue of the infamous king of lanka, ravana, the abductor of devi sita, almost as high as a 3 storybuilding.
"You don't know?" The woman laughed, a sharp sound that bounced off the stone walls and died. "Every girl knows if she's new."
'Except for this girl who had just woken up as if from amnesia'
however, this was probably a torture to be jolt awake in a strange surrounding like this, a freckle of past, or rather a bedtime story her grandma happily read.
Meher tried again. Her eyes slipped down to her own hands—smaller, thinner than they should be. Her sari was turmeric-yellow, rough cotton, bitten at the hem like a stray cat had played with it. Draped between her legs, knotted at the back—Paithani style. Village girl's sari, not the silk her old body might have worn to weddings or funerals.
"Comeon, atleast do tell your name or, you don't know that much too?" scoffed the jolly maiden,
However, Inside Meher's mind, the system whispered:
Soul Overlay Complete
**Identity: Vaidehi – lower maidservant of Hastinapur's Northern Wing.**
**Role: To serve Devi Gandhari.**
**Existence: Peripheral fate holder.**
"A fate at the periphery—just one nudge, and doomed. Nothing new' a bitter feeling danced over her chest, somehow transmigration might have been a blessing (for most fictional characters in those transmigration novels) but isn't it a curse...a sin written in her blood.
"Hey...are you possessed by some demon?"
"My name," she said, "is Vaidehi."
The woman scoffed. Her bangles clattered as she adjusted her braid.
"Vaidehi? What a joke." Her mouth twisted. "A maid named after Sita? That's rich...and felt a rather abrupt, no?"
Meher's lips twitched. "It's not rich," she whispered. "It's a tragedy...a joke of fate"
"Oh?" The woman's eyebrow lifted. "You think you're clever?"
"No," Meher said. Her voice was soft but steady now, like a river moving under ice. "I think I'm cursed."
*Trigger warning*, the system flashed a warning in red. 'words like cursed, transmigrated, self-harm, die, from future and also disclosing the upcoming events in chain may lead to restart of the karmic system and, hence everyone shall return to the initial point of transmigration'
an endless loop of suffering, she thought and a bitter grin rose to her rosy lips, 'what a perfect punishment for the one who seeks death'
The woman studied her, eyes narrowing to slits. "You're not from the Northern Wing, are you?"
"I don't know."
"Well, you are now." The woman reached out, grabbed Meher's wrist—not cruelly, but firmly. "You belong to Gandhari Devi's group of dasis. That means you belong to me."
Meher swallowed, feeling the pulse under her skin. Belong. What a word. Like silk thread tightened around the throat.
The system pinged again, calm and cruel as ever, a dread to the ears-
*Congratulations*
First Acquaintance established! *
An acquaintance? her stomach lurched on that thought, in the life she had spent in an modern era, she had many acquaintances- connected through blood or by parasitic bonds.
'Meher you are the only one for me' 'you are my only friend' these acquaintance have always been sweet talkers, too good to be true, however now that she foresee their actions again, it was always clear, she was the host- a well of trauma, loneliness and wealth, easy target for anyone to manipulate and derive their desires like lice and ticks,
such selfish insects!
however, this...was unlike all, it was warm, something she feared might burn her if she reached out to touch it.
"From now on, You are one of mine"
yet, in this cold palace of her existance, this woman had appeared like a forbidden fire, meher was ready to burn herself for the sake of warmth, a stupidity that she did like to repeat.
"What's your name?" she asked, surprising herself.
The woman blinked, then smirked, lips curving like a blade.
"I'm called Chitra," she said. "And you'll call me Highmaid. Unless you want the back of my hand."
Meher bowed her head.
"I don't want anything," she said.
"Good," Chitra replied. Her fingers let go of Meher's wrist but hovered in the air like she was tempted to grab her again. "That's the safest way to live here. Don't want. Don't ask. Don't look."
Meher tried not to look, but her eyes were stubborn. They caught the corridor: pillars carved with divine courts, Yaksha faces sneering from the corners, lotus motifs cracked by time but still trying to bloom.
The walls whispered of camphor and guggul smoke. Underneath: a thin, metallic thread of blood, washed but not forgotten.
Her feet scraped against basalt. Not marble. Basalt—the kind of stone used in Satara palaces, in Pandharpur temples. Stone for chores, for bruises, for footsteps that no one counts.
Peacocks cried outside in the courtyard, their voices jagged like broken shells.
Chitra's voice cut through again. "Keep walking, girl. Gandhari Devi doesn't wait."
Meher followed, body moving but mind staying behind.
"Do you know what happened to the last girl who kept the queen waiting?" Chitra's tone was light, but her eyes were sharp.
"No," Meher said.
"She's not here anymore," Chitra replied, mouth curling and disgust rose within the little blendy heart of meher,
"What happened to her?"
"She looked too long at the wrong face. A prince's face." Chitra shrugged. "Her body was found in the kitchen fires the next morning. Some say she jumped. Some say she was pushed."
Meher said nothing. Her breath folded itself into silence.
"I don't like girls who get themselves killed," Chitra said. Her bangles clinked as she walked faster. "So don't do it."
Meher thought of the silver shining piece of mirror, edged with a peak like mount everest. The mirror still reflected her loathsome face just moment before death took her in it's arm. The blood curling like red silk, a river of blood and for a blink of moment, she felt the state of euphoria. a forever safe heavens.
Too late.
The hallway stretched ahead, oil lamps trembling in their niches. Mandalas drawn by exhausted hands peeled at the edges of the walls.
"I can't die" Meher whispered with hopelessness and her fingers mindlessly circled around her viens which bled to free her.
Chitra looked back over her shoulder, her eyes catching the last flicker of lamplight.
"No one plans to die, girl. Death doesn't need an invitation."
They kept walking.
Their feet left no mark, but Meher felt each step carve itself somewhere—
in her bones, in the air, in the unfinished sentence of her life.
"I wasn't meant to live in my world," she whispered, mostly to herself. "and...now im force to exist in yours"
Chitra glanced at her again, eyebrow arched.
"What did you say?"
"Nothing," Meher lied.
But the words stayed, curling under her tongue like bitter betel leaf.
I wasn't meant to live in my world.
Now I'm stuck in this one, a world of total choas.
And she wasn't sure which ache was worse.
.
..
...
By the time they reached the queen's chamber, Meher's feet had stopped pretending to be hers.
They were just things.
Slabs of meat pressing against basalt.
She moved forward because the world asked her to, and the world was not in the mood for negotiation.
The room swallowed them whole.
A curtain of deer-hide parted.
Inside: darkness swelled like a living thing.
Oil lamps flickered in bowls of ghee, their light low, controlled.
A kind of blindness, by design.
Someone—maybe the queen herself—had commanded the sun to stay out of this room.
"Bow," Chitra whispered.
Meher's knees obeyed before her mind could catch up.
Her forehead met the stone again.
Funny, she thought.
First position: kneeling.
Last position: probably the same.
The smell of sandal and old silk filled her mouth.
Something else, too. Guggul smoke. Copper coins.
And a sweetness that had no name. The sweetness of closed eyes.
"You've brought someone, Chitra" a voice said. Soft. Wrapped in cotton but sharp underneath.
It cut through Meher's skull like a line of poetry she wasn't ready for.
"Yes, Devi, it's the last of the lot" Chitra replied.
The queen's voice didn't rise.
Didn't fall.
"What is her name?"
Meher's throat closed.
Her mind panicked for the wrong reasons.
What if I say Meher? What if the system resets again?
She tasted the word loop like blood under her tongue.
"Vaidehi," she whispered.
A pause.
A pause so long it made the air heavier.
"Ah," said Gandhari.
The syllable soft but loaded. Like she could see through the name, see through her skin, all the way to her first sin.
"Vaidehi," the queen repeated. Her lips curved around the sound.
"The one who walked the forest. The one who waited."
Waited for what?
Meher wanted to ask.
But she already knew the answer, 'Devi must be probably wondering the same...a Goddess name for a lowly maid, was always unlike' but what can she do...The system named her
"Come closer," Gandhari said.
Chitra nudged her forward, and Meher's hands obeyed the crawl. Palms flat against basalt. Knees scraping cloth.
Closer.
"I cannot see you," Gandhari whispered.
Her eyes were covered, bound tight with silk—the voluntary blindness.
A woman who tied darkness over her face so the world would match her husband's lack of sight.
A kind of love, or a kind of punishment.
Meher couldn't tell the difference.
"But I can hear your breathing," Gandhari said. "I can hear how afraid you are."
Meher's lips parted.
She wanted to say, It's not fear. It's exhaustion.
She wanted to say, I've already died once today, Devi. What's one more version of me curling up to rot?
But she said nothing.
"You must be wondering why you're here," Gandhari continued, voice like warm milk laced with poison.
Meher's breath stalled.
Her eyes searched the folds of the queen's sari.
There—threads of gold embroidery coiled like serpents near the hem.
"I need a new maid," Gandhari said softly.
"Someone who knows how to hold silence. Not everyone does."
Hold silence?
Meher almost laughed.
Her silence wasn't something she held.
It was something that had already swallowed her whole.
The system chimed in her mind, faint but steady.
One nail may be avoided before the sun dives into the pink sky.
"What will you have me do, Devi?" Meher's voice came out low, cracked, like a hand-me-down.
"You'll guide me," Gandhari said.
A blink.
Guide?
The blind queen wants to be guided by someone who can't even stand up straight?
"You will read to me," Gandhari added.
"Not words on scrolls. I have no use for those."
Her fingers twitched over her lap, nails tapping silk.
"I want you to read the cracks."
Meher's mouth went dry.
Her heart folded into itself like wet cloth.
"The cracks?" she whispered.
"Yes," Gandhari said.
"In the walls. In the stone. In the fate of this house. "
Her blindfold fluttered slightly as she breathed.
"I need someone to tell me when the cracks deepen."
Meher's hands trembled.
What the queen was asking for wasn't service.
It was witnessing.
She was being asked to watch the empire break—
and give a daily report.
"I…" Meher swallowed hard. "I don't know if I can."
"You can," Gandhari said. "Because you're not from here."
Meher's stomach turned.
How does she know?
Gandhari's mouth curved into the smallest, cruelest smile.
"I know what a foreign soul smells like."
The air pulsed around them.
Meher wanted to bolt.
She wanted to claw the sky open with her nails and leap out of this life. "where are you from, vaidehi?" Asked the queen with curiosity,
"Devi, this humble maid is from...dwarika" she answered in a hurry, the only name of the other place she remembered from the legendary tale, the city of lord krishna.
"Dwarika?" The old queen whose red veil stick up under a luxurious handband decorated with rare gem, stones and metal crackled in bafflement, " This may explain the sandy scent though it's strange for I can not smell sea on you."
meher was dumbstruck... A shekhawat is birthed from the desert sand where they build not only their fortress but also a line of blood which rared through her body once 'This Devi is extraordinarily, it's as if she can test the people's origin from just a scent.'
"In any case...I believe as an outsider you will particular bring all the news unfiltered, without any b
"Do you accept?" Gandhari asked.
Her hands were still. Her lips poised like a sculpture's.
Meher could have said no.
"say yes!!" chitra whispered with furrowed brow, and meher knew there was no no, "I accept, my ladyship"
Her own voice startled her—soft, like someone else's mouth had borrowed her breath.
The blind queen smiled again.
This time it was almost gentle.
"Good," Gandhari said.
"Then this blind one must be leaning over you from now on"
And somewhere deep in the hollow of Meher's chest—
a clock she hadn't wound in years began ticking as the system whispered in her ear.
Quest accepted.
Observe the cracks. Report before dusk. Do not alter the event chain unless instructed. Non-compliance will reset the loop.
Of course.
Karmic, naturally.