Hastinapura announced itself with certainty.
Wide roads. High walls. Voices that carried without apology. It was a city that believed order was permanence and lineage was proof enough of righteousness.
Aniruddha felt the flaw the moment he crossed its gates.
Not corruption.
Permission.
The air here did not resist darker intent—it accommodated it. Not openly, not violently, but with practiced ease. Ambition had learned how to speak politely. Pride had learned patience.
Krishna walked beside him, outwardly at ease. To those watching, it was a prince accompanying his kin. To Aniruddha, it was the edge of a blade walked carefully.
"They're not here," Aniruddha murmured. "Not fully."
Krishna did not look surprised. "They rarely are," he replied. "They prefer preparation."
The court glittered with confidence. Duryodhana laughed loudly. Shakuni's eyes missed nothing. Elders spoke of duty while avoiding its cost.
Aniruddha watched without judgment.
He felt it then—a subtle coiling beneath the hall. Not a Rakshasa. Not a Preta.
Something quieter.
Something that fed on entitlement.
That night, while the palace slept, Aniruddha moved alone.
Not hidden.Not hurried.
Unnoticed.
The pull led him beneath the great hall, to spaces built for storage and forgotten purpose. Torches burned low. Stone remembered every footstep ever taken upon it.
There, clinging to the architecture of intention itself, he felt the knot.
Not a being.
An allowance.
It thrived where cruelty was excused by tradition, where power confused itself with inevitability.
Aniruddha did not strike.
He stood.
He denied it reinforcement—not by force, but by presence. He held the space steady, refusing to let the knot tighten around the future it anticipated.
The pressure resisted briefly.
Then it receded.
Not destroyed.
Delayed.
Aniruddha exhaled.
This city could not be cleansed without unmaking the war that must come. Balance demanded restraint even from guardians.
At dawn, he stood beside Krishna on the palace balcony, watching Hastinapura wake.
"The war will still happen," Aniruddha said.
"Yes," Krishna replied.
"But it will not be fed as deeply," Aniruddha continued.
Krishna turned then and looked at him—not as strategist, not as god—but as one who understood restraint better than victory.
"That," Krishna said, "is enough."
Across the courtyard, laughter rose—confident, careless.
Aniruddha watched without anger.
The shadows had found fertile ground here.
But they had also been noticed.
And that, the darkness knew, changed everything.