She hadn't cared.
He had watched from a distance. He had memorized the curve of her grin.
She had been unstructured. Unpredictable. Alive.
Now she was here. In the dark. Unafraid.
She held out her hand again.
“Follow me.”
No persuasion. No explanation. Just a simple instruction.
Her voice didn't splinter in his mind the way the others had. It was straight. Direct.
He lowered his hands from his ears.
And followed.
The tunnel scraped her elbows on the way out. Dust clung to her palms.
She didn't complain.
The palace seemed to exhale when they emerged. His mother came to him.
But Bharat didn't go to her first.
He looked back.
At the girl, brushing dust off her skirt, grinning like she had just conquered a kingdom.
He was nine years old. He did not have a word yet for what he felt looking at her.
That evening, the psychiatrist arrived. Spoke gently and recommended expression through art.
Paints were placed in front of him.
He stared at the blank canvas.
Then he painted.
Not the cave. Or the palace. Or the temple.
He painted a muddy girl, laughing in a fountain—wild and unapologetic.
The first time he had ever translated noise into color.
He had painted from memory. The act of recreating her had steadied his breathing and given order to sensation.
Over time, painting became a ritual. And Princess Yamini Gaur became his subject.
No one had ever been inside his studio.
His mother had seen the earliest paintings once, when he was still nine and when the paintings were new. She had stood in the doorway, looked at the canvases, and recognized the girl without being told. But she had said nothing.
After that, the studio remained his alone. Staff cleaned around the door but never entered. Not even his brothers had seen what was inside.
The paintings were not made to be seen. They were made because he had no other way to hold what he couldn't name.
