Meanwhile, Karna continued to walk.
The palace corridors remained eerily silent.
Bodies lay scattered everywhere, slumped against pillars, sprawled across marble floors, collapsed beside half-open doors. Soldiers who once strutted with pride now slept like children. Servants lay with trays still in their hands. Even the palace lamps burned for no one, their flames flickering softly as if confused by the absence of sound.
Karna walked through it all without hesitation.
His steps were steady, his eyes alert.
He had already dealt with Kamsa. The tyrant was chained like a beast beneath the palace. But Karna knew the real king of Mathura was not Kamsa. The throne belonged to Ugrasena, the rightful ruler who had been humiliated, imprisoned, and erased from his own kingdom.
Karna could not leave without finding him.
He began inspecting the underground prison chambers one by one. The deeper he went, the colder the air became. The walls grew damp. The torches burned more weakly, and their shadows seemed to stretch unnaturally long. The smell of old stone and mold filled his lungs, mixing with the faint scent of iron.
Cells lined both sides of the corridor.
Most of them were filled.
Some held prisoners were chained to walls. Some men collapsed on the floor. Some held women curled up in corners. Some held nothing but broken bowls and rotting straw.
All of them were unconscious because of his Sammohanastra.
Karna's gaze sharpened with every cell he passed.
None of these people looked like kings.
None of them carried the aura of a man who once ruled Mathura.
He kept walking.
Then he stopped.
One particular cell stood out.
It did not have ordinary iron bars like the others. Instead, a strange barrier shimmered faintly across its entrance, like invisible glass catching torchlight. Dark symbols were etched into the stone around the doorway. The air in front of it felt heavy, thick with demonic arts, as if the very space had been poisoned by black rituals.
Karna narrowed his eyes.
His instincts sharpened immediately.
"Is this where Ugrasena is imprisoned?" he wondered.
Karna raised his hand.
Suryateja appeared in his grip.
The sword's blade blazed with solar fire, its light cutting through the dim corridor like dawn breaking inside a cave. The divine heat made the demonic barrier tremble slightly, as if it recognized something far beyond its own power.
Karna didn't waste time and swung i.
The blade sliced through the barrier as if it were thin cloth.
There was no explosion, no resistance, no struggle. The demonic protection split apart and dissolved into smoke, vanishing instantly as though it had never existed. The dark symbols on the stone walls flickered, then faded into nothing.
Karna stepped forward into the chamber.
But in the next moment, he froze in his footsteps. "What?"
This was not a prison cell.
It looked like a room.
A proper room, almost like a royal chamber hidden underground.
There was a bed with clean sheets. There were decorative curtains. Scrolls were stacked neatly on shelves. Some were open on a table, as if someone had been reading before sleep. A small oil lamp sat beside the bed. There were ornaments on the walls, and even the floor looked cleaner than the palace corridors above.
And on the bed lay a woman.
Young.
Beautiful.
Her skin was pale under the torchlight, her long hair spread like silk across the pillow. She wore royal clothes, fine fabric embroidered with patterns that looked too expensive to belong in a prison. Even in sleep, she looked like someone untouched by hardship.
Karna's brows furrowed.
This was not what he expected.
He stepped closer cautiously.
Just as he did, the woman stirred.
Her eyelids fluttered, and then she sat up suddenly.
Karna's hand tightened around Suryateja, his body instantly alert.
But the woman did not scream.
She did not panic.
There was no fear in her eyes.
She looked at him calmly, her gaze steady and clear, as if she had been expecting him all along. Her face remained composed, neither smiling nor frowning.
Then she spoke, her voice soft but confident.
"I have never seen any man other than my father enter this chamber," she said evenly. "I'm certain that a radiant man like you cannot be my brother, nor a soldier serving a tyrant like my father."
Her eyes flickered briefly to the sword in his hand.
"And seeing that you destroyed the barrier," she continued, "it means you are strong."
Her gaze shifted again, noticing the divine earrings on Karna's ears, the glow of his weapon, the way the torchlight itself seemed to respect him.
"Those earrings," she said thoughtfully. "And that sword. They seem divine."
She paused, her expression unchanged. "Did you kill my father, O stranger?" she asked.
Then she tilted her head slightly, almost as if reconsidering. "No… that is not possible."
Her eyes narrowed faintly, as if she was solving a puzzle in her mind.
"Did my father perhaps lose the war and flee away?" she asked calmly.
Karna stared at her, surprised.
Not because she was awake, but because of the way she spoke. Her words were calm, filled with quiet analogy, as if she were not a prisoner at all but a scholar sitting in a royal library. There was a strange clarity in her eyes, a glow that reminded Karna of sages who had spent years in meditation.
A wise mind.
An enlightened mind.
It didn't match the setting.
Karna took a slow step forward, his voice steady. "You said… father," he asked. "Did you mean King Ugrasena?"
He paused.
"Or did you mean Kamsa?"
Before the woman could answer, footsteps approached.
Mrinalini entered the chamber, having finally caught up. The moment she stepped inside, she stopped sharply, her eyes widening at the strange sight. She looked around the room, the decorations, the scrolls, the bed, and then her gaze fell on the woman in royal attire.
The chamber was too clean.
Too peaceful.
Too wrong for a prison.
The woman turned her calm gaze toward them both.
"My father is Maharaj Kamsa," she replied smoothly. "And I am the granddaughter of Maharaj Jarasandha."
Mrinalini's eyes widened further. "How is that possible?" she blurted out, unable to hide her shock.
The woman did not react to the surprise. She spoke as if she had told this story many times in her own mind.
"When my mother was pregnant," she said, "my father received a prophecy that his child would become the reason for his death."
Her voice remained steady, almost detached.
"But two children were born that day. I was named Sumedha, and my brother was named Vitraketu."
Karna's eyes narrowed slightly.
Mrinalini's breath caught.
The woman continued. "My father did not know who would become his kaal," she said. "At first, he wanted to kill both of us. But when he tried to kill me, apparently, he was stopped by the gods. They told him he could not kill me. Because in my past life, I attained a boon for my next life."
Her eyes lifted again, and there was something unsettling in the stillness of her gaze.
"A boon that no man, woman, deva, asura, bird, or animal can kill me."
The words hung in the air.
Mrinalini's expression tightened, a chill creeping up her spine.
Sumedha continued, her tone unchanged.
"Believing that I was his kaal," she said, "and that he could not kill me, my father imprisoned me here for life."
She looked around the chamber, as if it were merely another part of her body.
"I was raised here," she said. "I have never stepped out of this cell."
She paused, then added quietly.
"The maids taught me about the outside world. Since I have nothing else to do, I can only accumulate more and more knowledge all my life."