At the Malava Islands,
The other four ships that had drifted apart during the storm had made their way back to the Malava islands under Samarth's guidance. They had all endured heavy damages. They had spent all these days repairing them and getting them sea-ready once again.

This time, Annapoorna (Shodasi Devi) was personally setting forth to lead the campaign against Subahu. The inhabitants of the islands did not know what had become of Aparaajitha, Mrithyunjay and the others in the ship. Time was running out. The elite Persian contingents were due to arrive near the intersection where the eastern borders of Ashwakootam and Vijayapuri conjoined in a month's time interval. The plan was to launch an offensive on Subahu's allies rather than taking on Subahu directly.

Samarth informed Annapoorna, "We will set sail in an hour. The winds and tides will be favorable then."

"Amma, kindly reconsider your decision. What if we wait for a few more days for Aparaajitha, Mrithyunjay and the others before setting sail?" Rudra asked.

"No, Rudra. We have waited long enough. Once, years ago somebody said these words to me, 'Shackles.....This cruel world keeps us shackled in iron chains and manacles. And sometimes, it is this beating thing in our bosom and this thing inside our head that keep us shackled. Shackles, whatever the kind, wherever they are, have to go. You see my shackles....and I see yours.' These words set me free. They taught me what freedom truly meant. I am just going to act upon them now."

Rudra and Samarth shook their heads in appreciation and acceptance. Samarth said, "Very profound and true. We have to break free from our shackles wherever they are. May I know who said these words if I am not intruding?"

"Your Rajamata Devasena said these words to me. I wanted to secretly set her also free while I was helping the Kalakeya women and children prisoners of war to escape with Kattappa's help. But she wouldn't go till her son came for her. At that time, her faith and self-belief appeared mad and suicidal to me. But time has proved her right and me wrong", Annapoorna said.

With a sigh, she continued, "She was a truly remarkable lady. There will be no other like her. I don't know about my mother-in-law, Rajamata Sivagami because she was already dead by the time I came as a bride to Mahishmati. But I am told Aparaajitha has a striking resemblance to her in person and persona. Is it true, Samarth?"

"Yes, very much. She is....." He would have elaborated on a comparison between the late grand-matriarch of Mahishmati and Aparaajitha but seeing a lone tear trickle out of the eyes of the mother who stood in front of him at the mention of her child whose whereabouts she knew not, he fell silent.

"I and your former king, Bhallaladeva never saw eye-to-eye on many things. Ever since he got my brother, Prathapa, the Crown Prince of Vijayapuri assassinated with the help of paid mercenaries and assassins, we hated each other to the core", said Shodasi, recollecting the past.

"But I heard it was robbers or wild animals...", Samarth asked out of curiosity.

She scoffed sarcastically, "Yes, I remember. Those were the rumors fed to the world...I remember they even carried out a few executions of poor and innocent tribal folk....and Bhallaladeva went on two extra hunting expeditions to curb the wild animal menace...."

"Was this when you left Mahishmati forever?"

"No, as a matter of fact, I stayed back a few more weeks at the insistence of Bijjaladeva to see if the real culprits would be punished. But in vain. That was when I decided that I would at least try to make a difference to other women like me. I got the Kalakeya women and children prisoners of war to escape. I was permanently banished from Mahishmati and Kattappa was awarded a hundred whiplashes as a punishment. Both of us bore it without any murmur for the sake of the greater good. We thought what we did was a very good and noble idea. But now in hindsight, it doesn't appear to be good any more. Mahishmati and Vijayapuri wouldn't have fallen...My son, Bhadra grew up to be like the man I didn't want him to be...And we ended up creating the monster that Subahu is today", she revealed.
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Flashback of Shodasi Devi:
"How strong is your loyalty to the throne Kattappa?"

"I could give my life for it."

"Then, can you give life to a few unheard women and children by helping them escape?"

"I can't do that! That would be disloyalty."

"Is your loyalty towards the king or kingdom? If it is the king, you will let these women suffer in silence. If it is the kingdom to which you owe your everything, you will help me in getting them to escape. The choice is yours to make."
Flashback ends.
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"No, you are wrong. Neither are you nor Kattappa responsible for any of this. Wrong begets wrong. It is a continuous cycle. What goes up comes down, and what goes down comes up again. All those atrocities against the Kalakeya women and children had to come back in one way or the other. You didn't create Subahu. He was the sum-total of all those wrongs against hapless women and children rebounding upon Mahishmati", Samarth replied.

This former Empress had lost her everything. She had perhaps lost that child whom she fought to protect all these years. Now he truly understood the reason behind her possessiveness and extra-cautious nature where Aparaajitha was concerned. She appeared weary from years of struggle and loss. But her spirit was still unbroken. He continued, "I know none so strong and remarkable as the mother who stands before me."
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At the Mutt,
Subahu realized his mistake only after the words were out of his mouth. He had been his son's hero since he was born. Not being Narasimha's hero any more was something Subahu was not ready to accept in this lifetime or the seven lifetimes after.

Subahu had always been the object of fear and hatred since his childhood. He had never been truly loved by his mother, Kamaroopi who always saw in him the person who perpetrated  physical excesses on her.  As he started growing up, the distance between him and his mother started widening.

Every time he came a bit nearer to her than he usually did, she instinctively flinched and averted her eyes. He had never known what a true motherly embrace meant because his mother never hugged him even when he was a child. She loved and hated him at the same time. He was the last scion of the Kalakeyas. He was born for vengeance, somebody born to avenge her and the other women of their race.

His biological father had been conspicuous by his permanent absence in his life. Even if he had been present in his life, the hatred and poison instilled into his psyche in slow doses, year by year, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second through words, actions, gestures and sometimes mere thoughts, was so great that he would have killed his father with his own hands if Mahendra Baahubali hadn't killed him.

Subahu hadn't been raised by love and for love. He was the progeny born out of a hatred so immense that he hated himself, his face that resembled Bhallaladeva, one part of his lineage that came from Bhallaladeva and Mahishmati. That in part explained his apparent apathy towards Bijjaladeva in his current health condition despite the fact that the old man had helped in his rise to power. Subahu had used and manipulated him when he needed him and later brushed him off like a stray and useless piece of straw on his sleeve.

The only two people who made him feel loved and want to return that love a hundred-fold were his wife, Eiravati and his son, Narasimha. But ever since he assumed kingship, distances had been gradually creeping between him and Eiravati. But he never curbed her opinions or freedom. Though he might not act on her words, he loved to listen to every single rustle or whisper of hers. He would ever be thankful to her for giving him a son like Narasimha on whom he could lavish and spend his entire, unspent and limitless capacity for love.

Subahu coughed before he corrected himself, "I said, I will take care of the things here. You are too young for this." Concocting a plausible explanation on the spot, "I and these soldiers actually came to get him when we received this news while hunting for the rebels."

Shedding a few crocodile tears with great difficulty, "I've requested him a number of times to stay with me. But he was very stubborn and paranoid. He was scared that his loved ones might catch this disease."

Narasimha weakly nodded his head, "Yes, he did not allow me to touch him. He asked me to go away very vehemently." Exhausted both in body and soul by what he had been through, he remarked, "Still......I feel you shouldn't have allowed him to have his own way, Father. Sick people blabber like that sometimes. You shouldn't have taken his words literally."

"Maybe, Son. Maybe", Subahu agreed, with his arms stretched wide apart to receive his young son into their folds. Narasimha ran to his father, shedding copious tears and hiding himself away from the harsh reality that he would never see his great-grandfather again in his father's cool and comforting embrace. Subahu heaved a sigh of relief that his son had apparently let his Freudian slip-of-tongue pass.

But the niggling doubt had lodged itself in one corner of the young mind. At present, it was just a tiny whisper that brushed softly against the walls of his inner consciousness. It hadn't yet gathered the momentum to unseat and dislodge the deep-rooted affection and hero-worship with which he regarded his father.

Just then, one of Subahu's spies made a hasty entry, "Victory unto you, Maharaj Subahu. Aditya Varma has been captured."

Subahu's face exploded with an unseemly expression of joy and satisfaction, "How?"

"Acting on a tip-off from one of Princess Suvarnamekhala's former bodyguards, Mrithyunjay, we surrounded and captured Aditya Varma and his men at one of the ghats of Bhagiradhi. As a mater of fact, this Mrithyunjay personally captured Aditya Varma himself, after we lost a lot of our men in this operation", the man replied.

"This calls for a celebra....." Observing his son, he hastily changed his words, "I mean condolence meeting. We will discuss everything else later."
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At the Royal Court,
Everybody had assembled to pay their final respects to Bijjaladeva and pray for his soul. The preparations were elaborate and the motions were ostentatious. If there was one thing missing in the entire proceedings, it was sincerity. Nobody except young Narasimha seemed to be missing the old man. This entire exercise seemed to be conducted more for his sake than the old man's.

Narasimha sat aloof in one corner of the court room, the cynosure of everyone's attention, but completely dazed, overwhelmed and out-of-sync with his surroundings. Aparaajitha edged closer to him unobserved by anybody else, "You are missing him, aren't you? But just think of it from his perspective. He would have been happier to go than to stay in his present condition."

Narasimha slowly looked up. Recognition dawned on him that she was the very same lady he had knocked down during the chase with the soldiers, "You here...."

Trinetrini, Eiravati's personal companion, performed the formal introductions, "This is Princess Suvarnamekhala from the island kingdom of Suvarnadweepam. She will be our royal guest for a few weeks." Turning towards Aparaajitha, she said, "This is Prince Narasimha, the only son of Maharaj Subahu and Maharani Eiravati and the Crown Prince of Mahishmati."

Narasimha weakly nodded his head and sunk back in his chair without making any general observations about being happy to meet her or how it was their pleasure to play host to her in the kingdom of Mahishmati or express hope that this endeavor would facilitate and strengthen diplomatic relations between both kingdoms. He was in no mood for royal pleasantries and diplomacy.

Aparaajitha did something entirely unexpected at this moment. She gently ruffled his hair with her hands and patted his back before walking off as imperceptibly as she had come. Trinetrini gave a slight smile before observing in a tongue-and-cheek manner to Narasimha, "That's how they greet people in Suvarnadweepam (Cough....Cough...) Or so, I am told."

Aparaajitha's action definitely astonished Narasimha. It was the last thing he had been expecting from a visiting royal dignitary. He thought that she would be offended by his distant behavior. But instead, she chose to express an intimate and affectionate gesture that showed that she understood and empathized with him. Narasimha did not know why, but he felt much better after experiencing this little sign of endearment. It felt much more real and tangible to him than the whole elaborate ceremony at the court.
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Aparaajitha resumed  her seat near Malli. She asked in a whisper, "Any news about Mrithyunjay? Did the men I sent behind him come with any news?

Malli shook her head in the negative, "No, they lost track of him. And why care now for him when you yourself dismissed him?" An exasperated Malli continued, "Appu, you weren't the only one who lost everything years ago. I lost my home, our green fields where I larked in the sunshine the whole day along with my friends. We lost our king too. Ever since that day, our people kept trying to see our lost king in you but you keep disappointing us. Appu, shall I tell you one thing? You are very selfish and self-centered. You think only about yourself, your feelings, your fight, your vengeance. Have you thought about us....what we want? If Mrithyunjay makes a wrong choice now out of desperation, the fault will all be yours. You pushed him to it.

Aparaajitha did not say anything to defend herself. Malli was angry and rightly so. She had repaid years of loyalty and unflinching service with dismissal. There was nothing that could atone for it except the fact that she loved Mrithyunjay too much to sacrifice him at the altar of her personal battle.
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The court herald announced in a loud voice, "Mrithyunjay Varma, former bodyguard of Princess Suvarnamekhala, producing the arrested rebel leader, Aditya Varma and his men at court."

The tremors and shockwaves of this revelation shook Aparaajitha to the core. She kept telling her dazed senses while trying to maintain an outwardly composed stance, "My Mrithyunjay will never betray me like that even though I rejected him. He is a patriot in the first place."

As Mrithyinjay walked in, ruthlessly dragging her uncle, Aditya Varma, Sanga Amma and their men, all of whom were bound by long and heavy iron shackles, the nerves in her throat started twitching uncontrollably. Her head felt as though it would spit into two. It felt as though somebody had punched her in the gut when she was least expecting or prepared for it. Her arms flailed and her thighs gave way. Malli held back and supported Aparaajitha who would have fallen but for her friend and confidante. Aparaajitha kept telling herself, "This isn't real.....This isn't...."
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Author's Note:
Dear friends and readers, what do you think about the latest development in the story? Do you think Mrithyunjay must have betrayed Aparaajitha and got Aditya Varma and the others arrested in retaliation for his dismissal? What do you think about Subahu's and Shodasi's backstories? Is Subahu's hatred against the people of Mahishmati justified? Were Shodasi and Kattappa wrong in getting the prisoners of war escape? If you liked what you read, please support, vote and comment on this story.