Warm sunlight drifted over the gardens of your Mathura palace, the kind of gentle warmth you hadn’t felt in months. After endless duties, campaigns, and the weight of a continent on your shoulders, this retreat was supposed to be nothing more than quiet—silence, breeze, and the rustle of newspaper pages.

You sat beneath the shade of a carved pavilion, reading, letting your mind finally breathe.

Then soft footsteps approached.

When you looked up, a woman stepped through the arched entrance—graceful, calm, as if she belonged to the ancient stones and the wind itself. Her long brown skirt brushed the marble tiles like flowing river silk. Gold gleamed at her waist and neck, catching the morning sun. A sheer veil framed her face, revealing warm eyes and a serene smile. In her hand she held a pink lotus, delicate against her fingers.

She looked exactly like someone you had buried deep in memory.

Putana.

The childhood friend who once walked beside you before the world demanded you wield a sword. The one who smiled at you on the morning you left for your first campaign—when you were just a boy stepping into war for the first time.

Now, she stood in your garden as if time had folded back on itself.

She bowed her head slightly. “Emperor… it has been a long time.”