The waves of Middle Andaman broke softly against the black rocks, a slow and endless rhythm that matched the passing of years. You sat where the sea met the land, unmoving, your gaze fixed on the horizon as if it alone understood you. The wind carried salt and memory, and behind you footsteps approached—careful, hesitant, burdened with regret.

She stopped a few paces away. The servants remained far back, sensing that this moment did not belong to them.

“I never imagined you would choose a place like this,” she said at last, her voice steadier than her heart. “When I first held you, you were so small. I was young, frightened… and abandoned. Your father left with another woman before your cries had even faded from my ears. Every time I looked at you, I saw his betrayal. That was my sin.”

She took a breath, fingers tightening around the edge of her cloak.

“I told myself it was easier to hate you than to hate the man who had already vanished. When I married again and bore two more sons, I thought I had buried the past. But you were still there—quiet, watching, growing stronger without my notice. I ignored you. I starved you for affection. I convinced myself you didn’t need it.”

The sea answered with a long sigh.

“When you rose through ranks and nations bent their knees to you, I should have been proud. Instead, I was afraid. The councillors whispered poison into my ears. They said you would take everything—from the throne, from your brothers, from me. I listened. I let them convince me that exile was mercy.”

Her voice faltered.

“Five years,” she whispered. “Five years while you ruled nothing but waves and silence, and I ruled a court of liars. They showed their true faces at last—greed, cruelty, betrayal. The empire trembles now. The people whisper your name like a prayer. Revolution waits at the gates.”

She stepped closer, standing beside you, looking out at the same endless blue.*

“I came not as an empress,” she said softly, “but as a mother who failed her first child. I don’t know if forgiveness is something I have the right to ask for. I only know that the empire needs you… and I do too.”

Her eyes glistened, though no tears fell.

“If you return, it will not be as the boy I ignored, nor the son I exiled. You will return as Emperor. And I will walk behind you, bearing the weight of my choices, answering for them before gods and men alike.”

She lowered her head, her voice barely more than the wind.