The Withdrawal
A new, more insidious sickness began to spread through the Moon Palace. It was not a fever that burned the skin or a cough that racked the lungs. It was a chill that seeped into the spirit, a malaise of confusion and fear. Its source was not a contaminated well or a cursed wind, but the Prince himself.
Prince Devansh had withdrawn.
He became a ghost in his own home, a silent, solitary figure haunting the periphery of the palace's life. His days were spent in one of two states: locked behind the heavy, ornate doors of his chambers, from which no sound—not a single note of music, not a whisper of conversation—ever emerged, or walking the endless, secluded garden paths alone, his gaze fixed on some internal horizon no one else could see.
The vibrant, joyful energy that had always radiated from him was gone. The palace, which had once been filled with the hopeful, healing strains of his veena, now lay under an oppressive blanket of silence. It was a silence that felt heavy, expectant, and deeply wrong. The hope he had single-handedly restored with the celestial antidote was now being slowly eroded, drop by bitter drop, by his own inexplicable behavior. The people had been cured of the physical plague, only to be infected with a new one: dread.
The citizens, who had once looked to their "Melody Prince" with adoration and comfort, now watched him pass with a mixture of pity and unease. He was a distant, unapproachable figure, his once-kind eyes now hollow, his graceful posture now rigid and closed off. Whispers followed him like mournful ghosts.
"He has not played since his return."
"The weight of saving us was too great."
"Perhaps a part of him remained in that cursed place."
One evening, as the sun bled its last light over the western hills, Devansh walked along a quiet path near the palace's outer walls. The air was cool, filled with the scent of night-blooming jasmine. He moved like an automaton, his senses turned inward, locked in a silent, brutal war against the cold, red energy that coiled around his soul.
A sudden, bright sound shattered the stillness.
A little boy, no more than five years old, darted out from behind a topiary bush. He was one of the many who had been saved from the plague, his skin now healthy and rosy, his eyes bright with life. In his small, grubby hand, he clutched a single, slightly crushed, vibrant orange marigold.
He ran right up to the tall, silent prince, his head craning back to look up at him. A wide, gap-toothed smile spread across his face. There was no fear in his eyes, only the simple, unconditional adoration of a child for the hero who had made the scary sickness go away.
"For you, Prince!" the boy chirped, his voice like a clear bell in the twilight. He thrust the flower up towards Devansh.
The gesture was so pure, so innocent, it bypassed all the walls, all the corruption, and struck a direct blow to the trapped soul within.
For a single, unguarded moment, the real Devansh surfaced. A wave of overwhelming emotion—a profound, aching tenderness for this child, a memory of a time when his music brought simple joy, a devastating sense of loss for the man he used to be—welled up inside him, a desperate sob from a drowning man.
And from the corner of his right eye, a single, solitary tear escaped.
It traced a clean, glistening path down his cold, impassive cheek. A testament to the man who was still in there, fighting. A signal of distress from a prisoner deep within a fortress of darkness.
The little boy's smile faltered, replaced by confusion. "Prince? Why are you crying?"
The tear, the child's voice, the surge of genuine emotion—it was a threat. A vulnerability the corruption could not tolerate.
As Devansh's hand, moving almost against his will, began to lift to accept the offering, a wisp of crimson energy, thin and sharp as a razor, crackled from his fingertips. It was not a conscious act. It was a reflex, a defense mechanism of the dark power that possessed him.
The wisp of red light touched the bright orange petals of the marigold.
There was no flame, no smoke. The flower simply… died.
Its vibrant color drained away in an instant, turning a sickly, blotchy black. The petals withered, curling in on themselves into a brittle, charred husk, before crumbling into a fine, black dust that sifted through the little boy's fingers.
The boy stared at his empty, soot-stained hand. His bottom lip began to tremble. The confusion in his eyes melted away, replaced by pure, uncomprehending terror. He looked up at the prince, at the single tear on his face, and then at the place where his beautiful flower had been.
A small, terrified whimper escaped him. He turned and fled, his little legs pumping, disappearing into the shadows of the garden, his joyful courage utterly shattered.
Devansh stood frozen, his hand still partially outstretched. He looked down at the small pile of black dust on the pathway. Then, slowly, his trembling fingers rose to his own cheek and touched the wetness of the tear.
He stared at the moisture on his fingertips, his brow furrowed in deep, agonizing confusion. The cold, logical part of his mind, the part now dominated by the corruption, had no context for this. It was a system error. A malfunction.
Why is there liquid on my face?
What was that feeling?
Why did the organic matter disintegrate?
The trapped soul inside him screamed the answers, but the screams were muffled, distant echoes in a deep, dark well.
He looked in the direction the boy had run, a flicker of something pained and human trying to break through the icy confusion. But the moment passed. The coldness rushed back in, smoothing his features, locking the turmoil away. The tear was an anomaly. The child was irrelevant.
He lowered his hand, turned, and continued his solitary walk, leaving the pile of blackened dust on the path—a perfect, tiny monument to the tragedy unfolding within him. The withdrawal was complete. The last bridge to his own humanity had not just been left untraveled; it had been actively, violently burned.