Hastinapura had welcomed its prince with thunderous joy. Trumpets had sounded from the ramparts, conch shells echoed across the Yamuna, and flower petals rained upon his chariot like blessings from the heavens. Courtiers bowed, warriors cheered, and poets wasted no time composing verses that rhymed his name with dharma, valour, and destiny.
But beneath the marble and incense, the palace watched.
The walls, gilded in ancient lotus motifs and inlaid with celestial stones, held more than just the silence of history—they held ears. Eyes too, concealed in shadowed alcoves and veiled behind the lowered lashes of nobles. And behind every courteous greeting, Devavrata sensed an unspoken test. Behind every smile, a measurement. Behind every question, an agenda.
He was not ignorant of this. He had felt it in court—the weight of attention, the meticulous parsing of his words, the thinly veiled envy of princes twice his age and none of his wisdom. And now, in the quiet hours between dawn meditations and dusk rituals, he felt it more keenly.
At sunrise, while other youths slept in velvet chambers, Devavrata stood in the cold courtyards, forging his breath into sword strikes. His cultivation had begun to stabilize at the mid Soul Transformation realm, and under his mother's teachings, he had already glimpsed the swirling Qi of others, the subtle flux of aura around those who hid ambition behind flattery.
But this court was no battlefield. It was more dangerous. It was the queen mother's lingering glance when he addressed the king. It was the whisper of silken robes as a minister passed, muttering praise too easily. It was the half-bow of Prince Vibhraja, who never met his eyes but never missed a council session.
Shantanu, for his part, was radiant in his joy. His son had returned, brilliant and noble, and the court could not help but admire the grace of his speech, the control of his spirit. Shantanu showered him with affection—dining with him personally, presenting him with rare spirit-forged weapons, commissioning new cultivation scrolls for his chambers.
"All of Hastinapura is yours to command, my son," Shantanu said one evening, after a court session where Devavrata had skillfully dissected a trade dispute using both logic and law. "But beware—what is yours may still be desired by others."
Devavrata bowed, offering a smile. "I do not cling to possession, Father. I seek only to deserve it."
Shantanu laughed, proud. "Then you will endure, as the Ganga herself."
With a suitable heir to the throne, The king, for his part, was transformed.
Shantanu—once known as the Ashwattha Tidebreaker, the Sea Lion of the Northern Pass, famed for his cold composure in battle and court alike—now smiled more easily, laughed more often. A quiet warmth had returned to him, one not seen since the days before grief hollowed his eyes.
He sat long in Devavrata's chambers, reclining on cushioned stone benches beneath fragrant incense braziers. There, he recounted tales of his youth: the storming of Asmak fortresses during his Core Formation years, the sacred duels in the Vindhya jungles, the counsel of sages who once guided the Kuru bloodline. His voice grew livelier with each story, his Qi pulsing softly, resonating with the glow of nostalgia.
Other times, he brought no words—only presence. He would arrive unannounced, robes trailing like river mist, and sit upon the carved platform in the lotus garden. There, he would simply watch as Devavrata practiced sword forms, each movement a ripple in the moonlit air, each breath aligned with celestial rhythm. Petals floated with the prince's movements, disturbed not by wind, but by Qi.
Shantanu's gaze never wavered. His eyes, once hollowed by loss, now misted not with sadness, but with awe.
"You are more than I ever hoped," he whispered once, on a quiet night when stars blinked like distant sentinels.
Devavrata had just closed a cultivation cycle, a pearl of condensed spiritual energy blooming in his dantian like a new lotus. His aura pulsed with quiet mastery, just beneath the threshold of Foundation Peak.
He turned and bowed deeply.
"Your guidance is my root, Father." But even as he said it, he held his tongue.
Love, he welcomed. But attachment…
Attachment, he feared.
For Devavrata had learned, in the silence of the spiritual void, that too much weight could unbalance the most stable formation. The bond between father and son, precious as it was, could fracture empires if it pulled too hard, too fast. He saw it already—the courtiers adjusting their bows more steeply when he entered chambers; nobles shifting their allegiance with honeyed eyes; the center of the kingdom slowly tipping toward him.
And power, he knew, recoiled from imbalance.
The Heavenly Dao punished those who grew too bright without shadow to balance them.
He felt it like pressure in his cultivation channels: the watching eyes, the weighing hearts, the silent calculations.
Even Shantanu's love, sincere and long-delayed, became another thread in the vast web of cause and karma.
Still, Devavrata accepted it all—his father's affection, the dangers it invited, and the responsibilities it demanded.
The palace shimmered with light by day, but it whispered in shadows by night.
Wordless servants carried trays with ears sharper than silver. Silken curtains muffled not sound, but secrets. Marble corridors bore echoes that lingered long after footsteps faded.
And Devavrata listened.
The noble clans of Hastinapura—old as the throne itself—had begun to stir. Their ancestors had marched with Shantanu's forefathers, carved treaties in stone, and traded blood for favor. They had not bowed easily to Ganga's vanishing, and now, they bowed even less easily to her son's sudden return.
The elder ministers gathered in the Sandalwood Chamber at twilight, often without the king's knowledge. They cloaked their meetings in mundane pretense—grain policies, trade balances—but Devavrata had spent years beneath a river that whispered truths through current and eddy.
He heard more in what was not said.
The whispers grew louder as he walked through the palace:
"Too young."
"A child raised by a river goddess—what does he know of court politics?"
"Will he bend to counsel, or simply command?"
Some, emboldened by tradition and pride, sought to test him openly.
They burdened him with administrative knots: land disputes drawn over three generations, border taxation conflicts between river tribes, petitions from dissenting cultivators denied entry into the city's sacred grounds. The scrolls came in stacks—delivered by junior scribes too deferential to ask questions and too senior to be dismissed.
Devavrata read each one. He responded not with frustration, but clarity. His replies were efficient, marked with ink formed from lotus pollen and reinforced with Daoist seals of harmony—impossible to forge or contest. He sent one scroll back to a minister with just a single note:
"Justice, unlike power, does not fear transparency."
Then came subtler provocations.
During a royal procession to the Hall of Ancients, a noble of the Kalinga branch intentionally addressed him as "young Devavrata," omitting his princely title before the gathered crowd.
The silence that followed was sharp as a blade.
Devavrata smiled—a calm, unreadable expression—and stepped forward, pausing before the man. He bowed just slightly, so subtly it could not be deemed disrespectful, and said in a voice that carried:
"I thank you for reminding us all of how titles may fade. Only conduct remains eternal."
The noble flushed. No further insult came.
Then the honeyed snares began.
Daughters of respected houses arrived in the Lotus Garden, veiled in courtesy and incense, bringing poems of longing and "accidental" encounters during training hours. Perfumed letters found their way into his meditation chambers. Invitations flowed—from banquets to spiritual retreats, always at estates known for their political reach.
Rare pills for cultivation appeared anonymously in his chambers. So too did silk cloaks embroidered with protective sigils and bracelets from supposed reclusive monks of the Eastern Ridge.
Each offering was refused. Each refusal carried its own message:
He cannot be bought.
Devavrata began his meditations at dawn, seated atop the Pavilion of Nine Winds. With each breath, he drew the spiritual essence of the city into his lungs—not to conquer, but to understand. He trained with glaive and sword until dusk, his qi surging in slow, molten currents. The earth beneath him bore his weight without complaint.
He did not strike at shadows. But he did not ignore them.
Let them whisper. Let them wonder if he was stone or flame. He had been raised not just by a goddess, but by the river.
And the river had taught him this:
Stillness does not mean surrender.
A current unseen is not a current unmade.
The deepest waters do not roar.
But they shape the world.