The cave behind the waterfall was a silent, frozen cathedral. Water roared outside—a permanent thunder—but inside, the air was still and cold. Shruti sat on a smooth stone, the last embers of her small fire painting dancing shadows on the walls. Chandra lay curled at her left, a pool of living shadow, her silver-embered fur rising and falling with slow breaths. Surya sprawled on her right, his head on his paws, golden eyes half-lidded but watching the entrance.
"You're still bleeding a little," Chandra murmured, her voice a low hum in Shruti's mind.
Shruti glanced at her shoulder. The punctures were shallow, already scabbed over with a faint, frost-kissed film. "It's nothing. It'll be gone by morning."
"Should have bitten the fish instead," Surya grumbled, not opening his eyes. "Tastier. Less bony."
"You are impossible," Chandra sighed, the sound like wind through ashes. "He has the tactical sense of a confused squirrel."
"I am a magnificent predator!"
"You are a magnificent idiot who got his paws stuck in ice-vines."
Surya lifted his head, a mock snarl on his lips. "That was a strategic feint! To lull her into a false sense of security!"
"It lulled you into a prone position for me to sit on."
Shruti watched them, a faint, unfamiliar sensation tugging at the corner of her mouth. It felt strange on her face. "You two… haven't changed at all."
Both panthers went still, their bickering forgotten. They looked at her, their fiery eyes softening.
"You have," Chandra said quietly. "You were smaller then. Softer. Your laughter used to bounce off the palace ice gardens."
A memory pierced the numb fog in Shruti's mind—sharp and sudden. The ice gardens. The training courtyard at dawn.
"You remember the gardens?" Surya asked, shifting to sit up, his interest piqued.
"I… yes." The words felt thick. "I remember the frost-blade drills. Before the sun rose."
"You hated them," Chandra purred, a knowing rumble. "You wanted to sleep. You said the ice was 'mean' so early."
A short, quiet laugh escaped Shruti. It sounded foreign to her own ears. "I did say that." She looked at her hands—calloused now, but smaller then. "My mother would just… look at me. That look. No words needed."
"And then you would pick up the sword," Surya said, his tail giving a single, slow swish. "And you would swing it like you were trying to murder the morning itself."
"I wasn't that bad."
"You were," both panthers said in unison.
Shruti blinked. Then she laughed again—a real one, short and surprised. The sound echoed softly in the cave. They remember me. Not the heir, not the weapon. Just me. The girl who hated dawn.
"There was that one time," Surya began, his voice taking on a storytelling cadence, "with the butterflies."
Shruti's smile froze. "Oh, no. Don't."
"What butterflies?" Chandra asked, tilting her head.
"The summer migration," Surya continued, undeterred, golden eyes gleaming. "The ice-moth butterflies. A whole cloud of them, blue and silver, came through the training ground. Like a piece of the sky had fallen."
I remember. The air was full of them. Like living snowflakes. My tiny practice sword felt so heavy in my hands.
"She just… stopped," Surya chuffed. "Fully stopped mid-form. Sword dangling. Mouth open. Her instructor—that stern man with the scar—was shouting something about focus. But she was gone. Lost in a sky of wings."
"What did you do?" Chandra pressed, nudging Shruti's hand with her cool nose.
"I tried to catch one," Shruti whispered, the admission pulled from her. She looked into the fire, seeing not flames but shimmering wings. "I dropped my sword. It clattered on the ice. Everyone went quiet."
"The instructor was so red," Surya laughed. "He started marching toward her, spitting about discipline and destiny."
"And then?" Chandra asked.
"Then my father arrived." Shruti's voice softened. "He saw the sword on the ground. He saw me, standing in a swirl of butterflies, utterly enchanted. He held up a hand. Silenced the instructor."
He didn't look angry. He looked… curious. He watched me, a little girl forgetting the world for a handful of fragile, beautiful things.
"What did the king do?" Chandra asked.
"He walked over. Very slowly. The butterflies parted around him. He knelt, picked up my practice sword, and held it out to me." Shruti swallowed. "He said, 'A ruler who cannot see beauty cannot protect it. The form can wait. Watch them. Remember this moment.' Then he sat on a bench and watched them with me. Until they all flew away."
The cave fell silent, save for the eternal waterfall. The memory hung in the air, delicate as the butterflies it held.
It was the last time the world felt soft, Shruti thought. Before the drills became deadly, before the politics became poison, before I learned what our frost was really for.
"That," Chandra said after a long moment, "sounds like the king we knew."
"He was softer with you," Surya agreed, without his usual teasing. "Different."
Shruti didn't trust herself to speak. She nodded, focusing on the feeling of Chandra's fur under her fingers.
"We can help, you know," Surya said, breaking the gentle silence. "Not just with fighting. We know this jungle. The hidden springs where the water is sweet. The fruit that doesn't poison. The trails the Prana-eaters avoid."
"We can hunt for you," Chandra offered. "Bring you food that will mend your ribs, not just fill your stomach. We can keep watch while you sleep the deep sleep you need."
"We can be your warmth," Surya added, pressing his side against her leg. His fur was hot, like a stone baked in the sun. "This cave is cold. Your frost is sleeping. We won't let the chill take you."
The offers were simple. Profound. They were offers of survival, of companionship, of a shared burden. Shruti looked from one fierce, loyal face to the other, feeling something in her chest crack and reform. Not Prana. Something quieter. A ledger of debts, written in frost and fire, waiting to be collected.
"Thank you," she said, the words barely a whisper.
---
Far from the humid, whispering jungle, a fortress of black ice rose from a dead volcano. The air at its peak was thin enough to make mortals weep blood. Inside, a throne room of absolute darkness pulsed with a cold that had no source.
The Forbidden Prince sat at its center, his mask of oil-black metal reflecting nothing. The chamber was designed to strip identity—no light, no sound, no vibration. Only him, and the void he commanded.
He could feel it. Faintly. A ripple in the world's cold currents. A signature that had screamed a debt and then gone quiet. Not gone. Hidden. Sleeping.
Not yet, she had said before tearing the diary. Not yet dead.
He had felt her father's death—a different silence, sudden and absolute. He had felt the Frost Matriarch's final breath, a crystallized command. But Shruti Baghel's signature had oscillated. A heartbeat every ninety seconds. A question mark pulsing from the east.
Where are you actually hiding, Shruti Baghel?
A hesitant knock rattled the obsidian door. A tiny, terrified sound.
He did not turn. The room's temperature dropped sharply.
A voice, muffled and shaking, came through the metal. "M-My lord? Maharaj Agnihotri demands your presence."
The Prince's head tilted a fraction. The darkness around him flickered, like a shadow disturbed.
The servant tried again, more desperate. "Regarding the… the personal guard you deployed. For the search."
A long, heavy silence followed. The servant outside likely felt his heart turn to ice in his chest.
Finally, a frustrated, weary sigh leaked from the room. "Tell him I'm coming."
"My lord, please—he is insistent."
The Prince stood. The darkness swirled around him like a cloak. "Then he can wait in the fire-pit he calls a throne room and roast until I arrive."
Footsteps scurried away, grateful.
The Prince moved to the window, a slit in the stone. He looked out at a night sky choked with clouds. No moon. No stars. Just the distant pulse of a frost-signature that shouldn't exist.
"Personal interest," he repeated to the empty night, his tone unreadable. He turned from the window, the darkness swirling as he moved toward the door. The hunt was an order now. Not just his own.
The game had just become official.
He mounted his horse—a stallion of smoke and cinders—and launched into the night, fire trailing behind, smoke billowing ahead.
Shruti Baghel, he thought as the wind howled past. Let's begin the search.
The countdown had just gained its hunter.