Bhallaladeva's spear had struck with the fury of a jealous god. Steel ripped through flesh, and the mighty Bahubali had fallen—not with a cry, but with silence, like a lion struck in his prime. The forest swallowed his body, blood pooling beneath the roots of an ancient fig tree. Word spread like wildfire: the people's champion was dead.
But destiny is not written in wounds.
Hidden from the world, deep within the folds of the wild, a woman bent beside his broken frame. Her veil was tattered, her hands trembling but steady. She was the mother of Devasena, once Queen of Kundali—now a widow in spirit, a warrior in heart. With herbs gathered under moonlight and prayers whispered to the wind, she bound his wounds, cooled his fever, and waited… waited for the lion to wake.
Meanwhile, the world burned.
Bhallaladeva, now a self-crowned god of ruin, unleashed his vengeance on the Kundali Kingdom. Towers fell. Statues crumbled. Scrolls of history were turned to ash. The streets once golden with celebration now ran dark with sorrow. His soldiers spared none. The innocent fell alongside the brave. Temples were desecrated. The palace gates—once guarded by the finest warriors—were torn down and left to rot like broken teeth.
But the fire did not consume all.
The King and Queen of Kundali, bruised and bloodied, escaped through a secret tunnel carved beneath the throne room—a passage whispered of only in bedtime tales. The tunnel led them into the wilds, where beasts roamed and hope was thinner than smoke. There, in a humble shelter stitched together with sticks, leaves, and royalty's last breath, they made camp.
For three days, they did not speak.
The Queen, still draped in the tatters of her silken sari, whispered mantras with cracked lips. The King, though stripped of crown and court, still held posture like a monarch. He kept watch by night, sword across his lap, staring at stars that once shone above a thriving kingdom.
Then came the hunger.
No fruits. No grain. No game near the camp. The wind carried only the sound of the enemy marching, the jungle watching, and their stomachs groaning.
And so, five stepped forward.
Veer, once Bahubali's own guard, whose spear had defended the prince in battles past. His loyalty burned hotter than the sun.
Tanuja, daughter of a fallen chieftain, her arrows crafted from sorrow, her aim sharpened by rage.
Jai, a temple servant turned scout, whose quiet steps carried him farther than most dared go.
Ravi, born in the foothills, who could track even a snake's shadow in moonlight.
Arka, the silent one—his eyes empty, his presence eerie. The elders said he was born during an eclipse and could hear the whispers of fate.
They vanished into the forest like mist.
Hours passed. The jungle, thick with fog and thorns, swallowed them. Every rustle became a threat. The hunt for a boar turned into a trial of survival. Then, just beyond the ravine where the vines drooped heavy and the rocks whispered of old blood, they saw him.
A shape—half-man, half-myth—lying beneath a shroud of ferns and blood-soaked earth.
Bahubali.
Eyes closed. Breath shallow. Skin pale.
But alive.
Tears welled in Veer's eyes. Tanuja dropped to her knees. They had not found food, but they had found something far greater: hope.
With reverence, they carried him, wrapped in cloth and faith, back to the shelter. When the Queen of Kundali laid eyes upon him, she gasped. The King took a knee—not in worship, but in relief. The flame had not died.
Devasena's mother held his hand, kneeling by his side. Her face, hardened by war, cracked with gentle emotion
The Mother of Devasena knelt beside him, a dagger in one hand, a prayer in the other.
"The world thinks you dead, son," she whispered. "But you are the fire that was never meant to die."