She had failed.

Under the weeping willow, her knees buried in the rust-colored dirt, dampened by two silver droplets, Savitri knew that she'd failed.

A cold breeze, like a distant, fading kiss, sliced her cheek so daintily and yet she was sure she felt a sting. An ethereal glow encompassed her and the tree, meant to be calming and compassionate, but it confined Savitri, suffocating her so that her complexion faded into the very blue color that painted Dharmaraja's bullish frame.

How foolish was I? The bitter words permeated the dreary concave forming within Savitri's numb mind. To ignore a prophecy so strong and allow myself to be spellbound. A moment of stubbornness has cost my love, all foolish love.

Dharmaraja fixed her with an impenetrable stare, his eyes so bleak it was as though he'd grown indifferent to pain.

"It is time, Savitri." There was a gentle roughness to his tone, and yet, it was also detached and eerily calm. Savitri decided that she couldn't expect anything less of Dharmaraja, the esteemed God of Death, who overlooked millions of deaths daily, but it didn't soothe the unbearable convulsions of her soul. His voice did little to shake her even as pebbles clattered at her sides. Savitri's world was already collapsing into itself and she couldn't recognize the effect his baritone-like rasp held on her environment.

Lifting her head, she unflinchingly met the wispy blue eyes that contained an immeasurable amount of pity. It made her shackles rise. Had he shown even a glimpse of sadness, perhaps compassion, there was a possibility that the roar of her blood would diminish. But despite his patience, the God remained standing tall, his gaze lowering on Savitri as though she were a mere commoner.

Her lips parted, as if to speak again, to fix her mistake while she still was swept up in the same breath, but no words came out. All she could do was stare silently; eyes wider than the dark earrings that dangled from Dharmaraja's blueish-gray ears as his lips broke out into a deep sigh. Two white fangs were displayed to Savitri, and a blue tongue.

The tongue that devoured the souls.

"I'm sorry, Savitri." Dharmaraja's voice was so deep that it made the ground under her knees rumble, alerting her to the matter at hand. There was no doubt that he wasn't sorry, even if the glowing aura encompassing him dimmed with every step toward her. A flash of gold sparked on his fingers, manifesting a silvery noose.

Savitri stood with haste, but kept her hands flat together, still revering the heavy set God.

"No, I made a mistake," she said calmly, hiding her fear underneath her tongue and hoping that it would soak back into her skin and not into her words. "For my last wish, I wish to have children with Satyavan."

As if he heard her, the lifeless, glimmering blue silhouette of Satyavan's body convulsed on Dharmaraj's shoulder. Savitri's hopes lept, but Dharmaraj didn't seem perturbed. He lifted his shoulder, bouncing Satyavan's body. Immediately, the convulsions stopped, and Satyavan returned to being lifeless.

"This is of no pleasure to me, Savitri." Dharmaraj murmured, briefly observing the shimmering being hanging from his shoulder. "I admire your resilience. We are nearing a celestial gate and you have yet to relinquish your husband. Your devotion has pleased me, and I have given you three chances to ask for whatever you wish, except for Satyavan's return."

"Dharmaraja–"

"One." He held a finger large enough to wrap around Savitri's neck. "You requested for your father-in-law's sight to be returned, and it shall be. Two." Another digit rose. "You asked for his kingdom to return under his rule, and it shall be. However." His eyes darkened like a shadow of night eclipsing the sun. "You used your last wish to ask for a hundred children."

"Yes!" Savitri's chest ached. "A hundred children with my husband. There is no other man I wish for, Dharmaraja."

"I understand, but your last wish has already been granted," he replied, and there was a lifelessness to him that made Savitri's spine shiver. The last ounces of pity he held for her vanished, and if she looked closely enough, she was certain she caught a flicker of irritation. "There is nothing more I can do for you apart from leaving you to live here, where you belong."

He gazed at the dead body in Savitri's lap, his visage a mirror of impassiveness as he watched the doe-eyed girl stroke her husband's curly locks. He had done his job. There was nothing to be felt. "You were told of Satyavan's curse. Perhaps if you had listened to the words of Narada Muni, you wouldn't be in the position that you are in today."

Narada Muni. The most dutiful disciple of Lord Vishnu. Savitri's chest stuttered as the sage's words resurfaced in her mind, exploding like a burst of powerful, haunting, deadly magic born from an asura's hand.

You're making a grave mistake to marry a forest boy, Princess Savitri, the wise sage had said. Satyavan will die within a year of your marriage. If his death is a fate you can accept, then cherish him, love him, and one day, mourn him.

No..."No!" Savitri's fingers curled into Satyavan's springy locks, its dark tendrils curling around the pale skin of her motionless husband. "There are so many more things you can do for me, Dharmaraj. Please, I beg of you, return my husband to me. We have so much left to cherish together."

Dharmaraja shook his head. "I cannot disrupt the course of life and death, Savitri. You may return with him when your time comes to an end, but I cannot give Satyavan back to you, not when he needs to fulfil the desires of the curse."

"I have never cared about Satyavan's curse," Savitri said calmly. "I was born into royalty, Lord Dharmaraj, and it is a bigger curse than being with a man unfairly destined to such a short life."

A memory ingrained itself within her mind, a lost page from her childhood, fuzzy with unwilling recollection. There was a young girl that Savitri knew too well to feel anything past misery, gazing out of palace windows where men and boys wielded shields and weaponry that she could not even begin to fathom. Locked in her gilded cage, she was resigned to gazing from afar, then past them, to the mysteries that Shalwa Woods held.

"Marrying Satyavan changed nothing about my life apart from the clothes I wore and the house I lived in," she continued, her voice shaky as her thoughts were intercepted by memories of her first days in the woods, free at last from the shackles of society and the disapproval of her father.

"And yet, you spent the last three days without food," Dharmaraj noted in an equally calm voice. "You knew that your husband's days were numbered, but instead of spending any time with him, you chose to fast and meditate?"

"I was praying for his life," Savitri defended. "Satyavan understood that."

"Maybe he did," Dharmaraj agreed. "But were you really praying for his life?"

"What do you mean?"

There was a pause, then something within Dharmaraja's stoic facade cracked. He put a hand on his stomach and laughed, his head tossed back, his shoulders shaking violently. The trees swayed around them, as if laughing with him, and the grass blades sifted against each other and made gentle clapping sounds, cheering the amused display.

"Why are you laughing?" Savitri demanded, her voice cracking. "Is my misery amusing, Lord Dharmaraja? Please, do not amuse yourself with my plight, for you know nothing of the hardship I have endured as a daughter and wife. I cannot lose this life, Lord Dharmaraja. I cannot lose Satyavan."

His hoarse laughter subsided at her desperate plea and his eyes glowed with what seemed to be an apology, but his grip on Satyavan's shimmering soul tightened imperceptibly.

"You are young, Savitri, and you have much to learn," he said at last. Once again, he gazed at Satyavan's lifeless body, then with the noose in his right hand, he touched the exiled prince's soul. Savitri could only watch in horror as her husband's soul disappeared in a crackle of bright white light.

"You are a very devoted and pious woman, I will give that to you," he continued. "And I do not laugh at your plight, rather your naivety. What you have endured is a life wrought with hardship and insatiable war, something no human being is deserving of. But your husband must come with me now. It is his time, and you must accept that."

"No, I will not accept it." Fury brimmed over her eyes in the guise of hot, salty droplets. Her bangles jingled as she wiped them away. "Satyavan is my husband, Lord Dharmaraja. He is not your property. You cannot just take him away from me when our life has hardly started!"

"You were warned," Dharmaraja repeated as he turned. "By your father and by Narada Muni. I cannot blame you for who you fell in love with, however, you made your choice. And now you must pay the price for that choice."

"Wait!"

But Dharmaraj didn't wait for her, unlike before. He stamped a large, sandaled foot on the ground and a fissure tore the earth.

Savitri watched, paralyzed by horror, as steps rose from the earth. She tried to move, but something seemed to be holding her back. It was as if the air had wrapped itself around her, trapping her in an invisible chain, emboldened by the roots and branches of the gnarled trees behind her.

No! A soundless cry, a plea, a whisper, breached her lungs but couldn't escape. No, please, no! She fought fruitlessly against nature, but its strength was unyielding. The smoke rising from the fissure intoxicated her, blurring her vision so that her throat grew hot and tight.

With every step that Dharmaraja took, each stone slab behind him vanished, and once his head had disappeared from view, the fissure slammed shut, leaving only a scar on the scalp of the earth. Not even a pause followed when birds resumed their singing. The leaves and grass continued their dance. The wind whispered unsaid secrets. Everything went on as normal.

But for Savitri, her world was far from normal.

Speaking to a God was not something new to her. Her father had been blessed (although, she assumed that given, would be the proper term) with her from the Sun God, Savitr. But he had been offered a life to lock within gold confines, not take one away to the dismal depths of damnation.

Savitri didn't know how long it took, but when she was finally able to move once again, the first thing she did was rush to the spot where Dharmaraj had been standing. Desperation racked her body like a disease, jerking her limbs like a man gone mental. She knelt on the ground and tried to pry the crack open, but even as soon as she had touched the damp, soft dirt, she knew that it would be useless. There was no way she'd be able to open the earth. Satyavan had left with Dharmaraja, and on earth, his body was soulless – dead.

Calm down, Savitri, calm down, she told herself, effectively pushing away the tears that threatened to consume her. Her heart thumped with uncertainty in her chest, as if gravitating between stilling or racing.

"This isn't the end." She spoke to no-one in particular. "I have to get him back. I will get him back. I'm a maharani, we don't accept failure." Tossing a glance around her surroundings, Savitri's resolve faltered when the forest enclosed her. The wind hissed, weaving through the dense canopy of leaves like the thread of fate, snapping above a dark, narrow path that opened upon Savitri's gaze.

"Where am I?" The part of the forest that they were in was new to Savitri. She'd have to retrace Satyavan's steps to be able to go home to her in-laws, but nothing in her body moved in the right direction. Wherever she stepped, she was one inch closer to Satyavan's graying body.

A strong urge to cradle her dead husband washed over her like a calming tide, but Savitri felt it was cruel to feel calm. Nevertheless, she ignored the log piles that she and Satyavan were supposed to be receiving and sat beside his body. She pulled his head back into her lap and stroked his cold forehead, pushing away strands of hair from his face that were coated with a damp sweat from when he was alive, breathing but just barely moving.

"Oh, Satyavan..." She didn't know what to say or how to start. So many things wanted to come out of her mouth, but when she parted her lips to speak, nothing but a small wail came out; a sob akin to the blow of a conch during the start of a battle, warning of the tears that were coming again.

"No, I will not cry." She brushed her eyes and tucked away the strands of wavy locks that spilled over her face. Gazing at Satyavan, a bubbling mixture of determination and fury spilled out of the trembling fragments that her heart tried to reconstruct and into her bloodstream, fueling her spirit. "I promise, Satyavan, you'll come back. We'll be together again."

Satyavan remained quiet, but Savitri had already made up her mind, whether he approved of it or not. She stood up and dragged Satyavan to a small, shaded area underneath a large tree and collected the logs that they had cut down together. Peering one last time at him, she made a resolve in her head that the next time she saw her husband, she'd see him alive, and with that in mind she turned her head away and prepared for the journey back to her in-laws home.

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Hey guys!

I hope you enjoyed this first chapter! What do you think so far? I think there's a spelling error in Savitri's name somewhere, but like I said in the note, this is a first draft, so it will be cleared in the edits!

- Sunny