The silence of the ministry's situation room clung to Rajendra like a shroud during the flight back. Huilan sat stiffly beside him, a statue of duty and dread. The General's offer—no, his ultimatum—hung between them, a sword suspended by a single, fraying thread of Rajendra's decision.
He didn't speak. He watched the clouds blur past, his mind a war room. He saw the PLA liaison, a polite, unblinking shadow in every Zashchita command bunker. He saw the Chinese corporation's name on the Dawnlight-7 drilling towers, the wealth of Siberia flowing south on a pipeline of his own making. He saw himself, a viceroy in a kingdom owned by Beijing.
It was efficient. It was survival. It was death by a thousand contracts.
He needed a counter-force. Not an army—he had that, and it wasn't enough. He needed a story so potent it could bend loyalties and create its own reality. He needed faith.
As soon as he landed in Moscow, he sent the summons. Not through the System. Through a coded MAKA channel to Nashik.
Three days later, Swami Suryananda arrived, looking out of place in the grim Moscow winter. The calm of the ashram was gone from his eyes, replaced by a wary, haunted intelligence. He was no longer just a performer; Rajendra's sovereignty had made him a power, and power had aged him.
Rajendra received him not in the safe house, but in a Zashchita office—a clean, functional room that smelled of new paint and old fear. He dispensed with greetings.
"The Chinese want Siberia," Rajendra said, placing a map on the table. "They have offered a partnership. It is a polite word for a takeover."
Suryananda's eyes scanned the map, then Rajendra's face. "And you wish me to… predict a favorable outcome? A diplomatic miracle?"
"No. I need you to build a god."
Suryananda went very still. "Explain."
"The people in these regions," Rajendra said, circling Tatarstan, Chechnya, the resource zones, "they don't hate Zashchita because we are Russian. They hate us because we are another outside master. Moscow, Beijing, Zashchita—all the same to them. Another hand reaching for their land."
He leaned forward, his voice low and intense. "We need to stop being an outsider. We need to become… local providence. A force not of invasion, but of awakening. You will create a new narrative. Not a political one. A theological one."
He slid a folder across the table. Inside were notes, amalgamated by Anya's Silencers: local folk tales, repressed religious practices, symbols of pre-Soviet identity from a dozen ethnic groups.
"You will synthesize it," Rajendra instructed. "The Cult of the Iron Mother. The Shield-Maiden. She is not Russian. She is not Chinese. She is the ancient, fierce spirit of the land itself, awakened to protect her children from the decayed empires that surround them. She provides through her chosen instruments—the practical men who bring food, medicine, order. Zashchita is not an army of occupation. It is the secular arm of the Iron Mother, her tool to enact her will."
Suryananda stared at the notes, his face losing color. "You are asking me to found a religion. To make you… a prophet-king."
"I am asking you to provide a spiritual framework for survival that benefits our mutual sovereignty," Rajendra corrected, his tone merciless. "The people need a reason to accept us that is deeper than a paycheck. They need a covenant. You will write it. You will train local speakers—not from us, from them. You will use their symbols, their music, their pain. The Iron Mother is their fury, given form and purpose. And her purpose is to deal with us."
Suryananda's hands trembled. He had traded fraudulent holiness for real, terrifying influence. Now he was being asked to wield it like a forge-hammer, to shape the soul of a region. "This… this is blasphemy of the deepest kind. It is playing with the sacred fire. To manipulate faith on this scale…"
"Is it any different than what you were doing on a riverbank in Nhava Sheva?" Rajendra's question was a scalpel. "You told stories to move men for money. Now, the stories are bigger. The stakes are higher. The compensation," he added, "will reflect that. Your Foundation's endowment will triple. Your reach will be continental."
It was a bribe and a threat, wrapped in the language of destiny. Suryananda closed his eyes. He saw the serene, dead gardens of Faewild Prime that Rajendra had once described. He saw the alternative: to be a sterile, perfect nothing. Here, he was being offered the chance to be a creator of meaning, however dark its source.
He opened his eyes. The fear was still there, but beneath it glowed a terrifying, fanatical ember. The conman was gone. The High Priest was being born.
"The Iron Mother," he murmured, his voice gaining a resonant depth. "She must have a face. Not a human one. An icon. A shield crossed with a mountain peak. Her colour is the grey of steel and the deep green of the taiga… She does not speak of love. She speaks of strength through unity. Of the purity of the practical." He was already composing, the scholar in him taking over. "The old gods failed. The Soviet god failed. She is the god of what works."
"Good," Rajendra said. He saw the fracture in the man, and he saw it seal itself with a new, harder substance. "Start in Tatarstan. Use the Dawnlight-7 workers. Their grievance is real. Give it a divine target: the 'hollow men' in Moscow and the 'distant dragons' who would buy their birthright. Tell them the Mother has sent her Shield to help them claim it for themselves—with us as their stewards."
As Suryananda left, burning with a dreadful inspiration, Rajendra's secure line buzzed. It was Ganesh, calling from the site office near Dawnlight-7. His voice was grim.
"Bhai. Kapoor-sahib tried the money. It worked with the workers. But there is a local man, Khasan. A former Soviet officer, now a warlord. He controls the roads. He says the oil is the 'blood of his grandfathers.' He does not want dollars. He wants the field. He has… made an example."
"What kind of example?"
"The Zashchita foreman we appointed. Fyodorov's deputy. They found him this morning. Not shot. Not beaten." Ganesh's voice faltered. "He was… flayed. Skin peeled from his back in the shape of a… a dragon. A message, bhai. For the Chinese. And for us."
The fracture wasn't just in Suryananda. It was in the ground beneath them. The Dragon of the East had made his demand. Now, a wolf of the steppes had answered with blood and blade.
Rajendra looked at the map. The General's cold offer. Suryananda's fiery new faith. Khasan's brutal warning. Three forces, converging on the same patch of frozen earth.
He had set out to build a kingdom of reason and contracts. Now, it would be baptized in faith and blood. The Iron Mother was stirring. And her first sacrament would be a war.