The first Vishishtarajya rescue squads came through the shattered section of the Great Wall not long after the Knight disappeared. Stretchers scraped over broken stone while Siddhas carried bundles of bandages, water and medicine through an opening that should never have existed, and Fancy came with them.
She stopped beneath the Wall when the scale of the damage finally became real. From Divyabhawan, the words the Wall has been breached had sounded terrible enough, but no report had prepared her for seeing an entire section simply gone.
Jagged stone rose on either side of the opening while rubble covered the ground beneath it. Beyond the breach, Kurukshetra stretched beneath the evening sky in crimson sand, abandoned weapons and shattered chariots, with bodies scattered farther than Fancy wanted to count.
Dust, blood and the bitter remains of smoke hung in the air. Fancy allowed herself only a moment to take it in before forcing her attention away from the battlefield and toward the survivors.
Her gaze moved quickly from face to face until she found Facade sitting near the broken stone beside Madam Althea. His enormous wings rested heavily behind him, and although he was alive, Fancy’s attention caught immediately on the empty space where Althea’s arm should have been.
Silver threads and spiders still crowded around the stump of her missing arm while the older woman sat pale and exhausted. Farther away, Culpa remained beside Erudite, and both looked as though standing had become something they were doing through stubbornness rather than strength.
Then Fancy saw Peril, and her eyes moved almost immediately to the person beside him. Herald was standing there covered in dust and dried blood, but he was standing.
Fancy was running before she consciously decided to move. Loose fragments of stone shifted beneath her boots as she crossed the space between them and called, "Herald!"
He turned at the sound of his name, exhaustion slowing his reaction. "Fancy?"
She reached him and wrapped both arms around him before he could say anything else. Herald stiffened against her for an instant, clearly caught off guard, but Fancy only tightened her hold.
Her fingers pressed into the dusty fabric across his back while she felt his chest rise and fall against her. Whatever questions she had carried from Divyabhawan could wait because he was breathing, and for those few seconds that was enough.
Fancy pulled away and immediately began checking him properly. Dried blood marked his clothes, dust clung to his hair and skin, and several smaller cuts crossed the parts of him she could see.
Her palms pressed against his chest before he could protest, and soft light spread beneath her hands. Herald glanced down at the glow and said, "I’m fine."
"I know," Fancy replied without looking away from the wounds as the light continued moving through him.
"Then why—"
"Be quiet."
Herald looked at her face and apparently decided against finishing the question. The smaller cuts began closing beneath the glow, including several he had stopped noticing somewhere during Kurukshetra.
Only when the light faded on its own did Fancy remove her hands. She turned toward Peril immediately and said, "You too."
Peril raised both palms before she could touch him. "I didn’t even say anything." This chapter is updated first at g.com.
"You were about to."
"That’s not fair." He glanced toward Herald as Fancy’s hands began glowing again. "She’s scarier than the Knight."
Fancy pressed one luminous palm against his shoulder, and Peril winced. "Ow."
"Good," she said, while the corner of Herald’s mouth finally lifted despite the exhaustion dragging at his face.
Fancy caught the expression, and some of the tension she had carried all the way from Divyabhawan loosened with it. Herald and Peril were alive, and so were Facade, Culpa and Erudite.
Her gaze returned to Althea’s missing arm before drifting across the spaces between the survivors. Too many familiar faces were absent, and too many bodies remained beyond the breach for Fancy to pretend everyone else would eventually walk through it.
A wounded soldier groaned nearby while another rescue Siddha called for a healer farther down the Wall. Fancy looked back at Herald and Peril and said, "I’ll come back," already turning toward the voice, and Herald only nodded.
Fancy hurried toward the wounded man and dropped beside him without asking which kingdom his armour belonged to. Her knees touched the dusty stone as light spread across her hands again.
Around her, Vishishtarajya’s rescue squads moved among everyone who had survived. Stretchers passed through the breach, medicine changed hands, and those still capable of walking helped lift those who could not.
No one stopped to separate the wounded by kingdom. There would be time later to count who had returned and who never would, but for now there were still people breathing.
? DHANARAJYA ?
Night settled over the Kingdom of Wealth without quieting its streets. Golden lanterns burned beneath colourful silk banners while merchants continued calling from stalls crowded with cloth, spices, ornaments and polished stones.
Carts loaded with grain squeezed past arriving caravans, their wooden wheels grinding against the road while porters shouted for people to clear the way. Under ordinary circumstances, that noise meant business was good, but tonight much of it had turned into argument.
News from Kurukshetra had reached Dhanarajya hours earlier, and the consequences followed almost as quickly. At one grain stall, a caravan master shoved a ledger back across the wooden counter and said, "I’m telling you, the southern caravan isn’t leaving tomorrow."
The grain merchant slapped one palm against the wood. "I already paid for transport."
"And I’ll return your coin," the caravan master replied, but the merchant pushed the ledger back toward him.
"I don’t want the coin. I want the grain moved."
The caravan master looked toward the road beyond the market and then back at him. "Then move it yourself. I’m not sending twenty men out while every kingdom is shifting soldiers toward the Wall."
The merchant opened his mouth, but a cart rattling between them forced him back from the counter before he could answer. By the time the wheels passed, the caravan master had already turned toward another customer demanding the same thing. Visit novelping dot com for the full chapter.
Several stalls away, another conversation had become an argument of its own. A merchant waiting for medicine from Kshetrajya insisted the roads were technically still open, while the supplier opposite him asked how long that would remain true.
"How long before soldiers are pulled from the trade routes?" the supplier asked, lowering his voice as people passed. "How long before every caravan needs twice the guards? Who pays for that?"
Neither man needed to answer. Whatever the added danger eventually cost, it would find its way down to the customer.
Across the market, merchants began rewriting prices on wooden boards. Buyers who had ignored sacks of grain that morning suddenly wanted everything still available, while warehouse owners who had been eager to sell discovered reasons to keep their stores locked another night.
Rumours moved faster than the new prices. One merchant claimed Dharmarajya’s archer had defeated the Knight, only for another to scoff while tying a canvas cover across his stall.
"Defeated? I heard the Knight simply left."
"Why would he leave?"
"Who cares? He’s gone."
The merchant beside him stopped fastening the rope and looked over. "For now." That was enough to end the conversation.
Dhanarajya had built its wealth upon movement. Grain, iron, medicine, cloth, livestock and spices crossed its roads before spreading toward other kingdoms, and every delay along those routes touched something else farther down the chain.
A road did not need to disappear to become useless because fear alone could empty it. If caravans stopped, supplies slowed; when supplies slowed, prices rose, and if soldiers were withdrawn from trade routes to reinforce the Great Wall, every remaining journey became more expensive.
Nobody yet knew what Kurukshetra would ultimately cost Dhanarajya. The uncertainty itself was already changing what people were willing to buy, sell and risk.
A hooded man moved through the middle of the market without joining a single argument. Jewels glittered openly beside him, merchants shouted over grain prices and caravan masters debated which roads were still worth taking, yet none of it drew his attention.
He continued until the busiest streets fell behind him. Music softened with the distance, merchants’ voices became a low murmur, and the lantern glow disappeared between the shadows of enormous merchant houses.
The man entered a narrow alley and stopped before the ordinary stone wall at its end. Nothing marked the surface except dust gathered along the mortar, and he stood there long enough for the market noise behind him to fade further.
One hand emerged from beneath his cloak as his fingers formed an ancient mudra. "Om Namah Shivaya."
Golden Sanskrit characters appeared across the stone one after another. A low tremor passed through the alley, followed by the grinding sound of stone moving against stone as part of the wall slowly withdrew.
A staircase descended beneath Dhanarajya, its lower steps disappearing into warm torchlight far below. The hooded man waited until the opening was wide enough before stepping inside without looking back.
Stone shifted behind him and sealed the passage again. Within moments, the alley looked exactly as it had before he arrived, leaving no visible sign of the stairway beneath it.
Several streets away, merchants continued arguing beneath golden lanterns while prices changed and caravans reconsidered roads that had seemed safe only a day earlier. Dhanarajya was already calculating the cost of Kurukshetra, and no one in the market noticed the man who had disappeared beneath their kingdom.