Chapter 4: Echoes of Rockets
The dreams came before sleep.
Abhinav lay still on the low wooden bed, the linen drawn to his chest, listening to the night breathe around him. Somewhere beyond the palace walls, the sea moved in slow, patient rhythms. Insects sang. Bells marked the passing of hours he did not yet know how to measure.
When he closed his eyes, the darkness did not settle.
It fractured.
Fire tore through the sky.
A column of flame rose from a concrete pad, thunder shaking the air, numbers counting down in a language no one in this century would understand. Ten. Nine. Eight. The roar was physical, crushing his ribs, vibrating through bone.
A rocket climbed—sleek, white, impossibly delicate—clawing its way toward orbit. Telemetry streamed across invisible screens. Applause erupted. Flags waved.
India had reached the stars.
Then the image twisted.
The rocket fell.
Not in failure, but in memory—its triumph dissolving into satellite photographs, into graphs of growth and decay, into headlines that bled together. Progress beside poverty. Brilliance beside neglect. A nation forever almost arriving.
Abhinav's eyes flew open.
He was breathing too fast.
The carved ceiling swam above him, steady and indifferent. No launch pad. No screens. No future.
It was real, his mind insisted. All of it.
He pressed his palms against the mattress, grounding himself in texture and weight. This body—lighter, younger—trembled with an unfamiliar fragility. Sweat cooled on his skin despite the warm air.
Another image forced itself forward.
Maps.
Red lines carved across oceans. Ports circled. Names renamed. Calicut reduced to a footnote. The spice routes severed, rerouted, monopolized. A world reordered not by merit, but by gunpowder and doctrine.
A child's voice echoed through the memory.
"Why are their ships bigger?"
Because history let them be, he wanted to answer. Because no one stopped them early enough.
Abhinav sat up, clutching his head. The memories were not fading relics; they were sharp, intrusive, alive. He realized with a chill that this was not recollection.
It was forecast.
The future pressed against his skull, demanding acknowledgment.
A knock came softly at the door.
"My prince?" a servant whispered. "Are you unwell?"
Abhinav drew a slow breath, forcing his pulse to obey. "I am awake," he said. "That is all."
The servant hesitated, then withdrew.
Alone again, Abhinav stood and crossed to the open lattice window. Moonlight spilled across the floor, silvering the carved stone. Beyond, the sea lay vast and dark, indifferent to human ambition.
He stared at it, thinking of rockets and caravels, of futures that began as ideas and ended as empires.
Foreknowledge is not power, he realized. It is a burden.
Every choice he made would echo forward, branching into possibilities he could not fully control. To act too boldly would invite destruction. To do nothing would invite a fate he already knew.
He thought of the Zamorin's steady gaze. Of Somadeva's probing questions. Of servants whispering prayers in hallways built long before Arjun Menon had ever been born.
This world did not need a savior who shouted.
It needed a mind that waited.
Abhinav closed his eyes once more—not to escape the visions, but to cage them. He imagined placing each memory onto a shelf, labeling it, locking it away until needed. A mental discipline learned in another life, repurposed for survival.
When sleep finally came, it was shallow and watchful.
Above him, unseen and centuries away, rockets still waited to be dreamed.