Chapter 1: Forbidden Glances Under the Moon
The sound of automatic gunfire and crumbling ruins echoed through the Royal Suite. Amartya lay sprawled on a mound of silk cushions, his fingers a blur on the DualSense controller. On the massive screen, Nathan Drake dodged bullets with a quippy one-liner.
“Yes! Take that, you mercenary trash,” Amartya muttered, a grin spreading across his face. The balcony doors were open, letting in the scent of night-blooming jasmine from the gardens far below, a stark contrast to the digital chaos he commanded.
The grand doors to his suite swung open without ceremony. He didn’t pause the game.
“I’m literally about to find El Dorado. This is a historically significant moment,” he announced, not taking his eyes off the screen.
“A historically significant moment for you to put on a shirt, perhaps,” his brother’s voice, warm but firm, cut through the cinematic score. King Dev entered, followed by Queen Rukmini. Dev looked every bit the ruler in a crisp linen kurta, but his eyes held a familiar, tired amusement. Rukmini’s gaze went straight to the empty porcelain bowl that had once held almonds, now tipped over beside a controller.
“Your highness, the fate of the nation rests on your ability to not get crushed by that rolling ball,” Rukmini said, her voice laced with the dry, affectionate humor she reserved for him. She perched on the arm of a plush sofa. “We need to talk. Pause it.”
With a dramatic sigh that he made sure they could hear, Amartya jabbed the pause button. The sudden silence was filled with the distant chirp of crickets. He sat up, running a hand through his hair.“Fine. Interrupt my pilgrimage. What’s the emergency? Did the Finance Minister finally burst a blood vessel over my new horses?”
“Horses are a discussion for another day,” Dev said, sitting across from him. “We have a situation. An urgent one. In Kabul.”
Amartya’s playful demeanor evaporated. He set the controller down. “Kabul? What’s happened?”
“Nothing catastrophic. Yet,” Rukmini supplied. “It’s diplomatic. The new interim government is hosting a series of strategic dialogues—regional security, trade corridors, water rights. It’s a delicate dance. The kind of event where showing up is half the battle, and the other half is not saying the wrong thing to the wrong warlord over tea.”
“And you need me to… send a nice fruit basket?” Amartya asked, though he already knew.
“We need you to go,” Dev said simply. “To lead our delegation.”
Amartya blinked. He looked from his brother’s grave face to Rukmini’s gentle but unwavering one.“Me? Dev, you’re joking. I’m the backup singer, not the lead act.You go. You’re the king. They need to see the crown.”
“I cannot,” Dev said, the weight of the realm in his tone. “The Parliament is on the brink of passing the new agriculture reforms. My presence here is non-negotiable. Rukmini’s oversight is critical for the final negotiations. Every vote counts. If I leave now, the bill dies. And this Kabul summit cannot be ignored. Our absence would be read as indifference, or worse, weakness. It has to be you, brother.”
Amartya stood up, pacing towards the balcony. The night air was cool. He could see the lights of New Delhi sprawling into the distance, a kingdom he understood only in the abstract, through state dinners and sanitized reports. Kabul was a different beast altogether. Real, raw, and riddled with pitfalls. “I play cricket with ambassadors’ sons. I charm visiting dignitaries at cocktail parties. I don’t do ‘strategic dialogues on regional security.’ I’d probably try to broker a peace deal over a game of FIFA.”
“Your charm is precisely why you’re perfect for this,” Rukmini said, joining him at the balcony’s edge. Her voice softened. “It’s not about reciting policy papers, Amartya. It’s about presence. About looking a man in the eye and making him feel heard. About showing that India isn’t just sending a bureaucrat, but a piece of its heart. Your brother’s heart. They know you represent him. That’s power.”
He leaned on the railing, the cool marble beneath his palms. “I don’t know the first thing about their internal politics. Who’s who. What not to say.”
“Which is why you will be briefed. Extensively,” Dev said, coming to stand beside him. “But the core of it is human. It always is. You have an instinct for that.”
Amartya was quiet for a long moment. He watched a peacock strut across a moonlit lawn below. The thought of the ceremony, the stifling meetings, the pressure of every word being analyzed—it made his skin itch. He wanted to say no. He had a perfect, comfortable ‘no’ ready on his tongue. He could list a dozen duties here that needed his attention, all of them less terrifying.
Then he glanced at his brother. He saw the subtle lines of stress around Dev’s eyes, the way his shoulders carried a physical weight. He thought of Rukmini, who had bandaged his scraped knees as a boy and soothed his adolescent dramatics, who never asked for anything for herself.
His comfortable ‘no’ turned to ash in his mouth.
“Fine,” he said, the word pulled out of him. “But you owe me. And it’s a big one. I’m thinking a private island. Or at least a faster internet connection for this suite.”
Dev’s stern expression melted into a look of profound relief. He clasped Amartya’s shoulder. “A private island might be in the budget if you don’t start a war.”
“Details,” Amartya said, waving a hand, already feeling the dread and a strange, sharp thread of excitement mix in his gut. “So, who am I not supposed to offend? Give me the highlights.”
Rukmini gestured them back inside. She settled into a chair, her posture shifting into what Amartya privately called her ‘general mode’. “The key relationship will be with the host, the Acting Chief of State, Zahir Khan. A former Northern Alliance commander. Tough, pragmatic, skeptical of outsiders but not inherently hostile. He values strength, but also respect. Do not patronize him.”
“Noted. No pats on the back for the former mujahideen.”
“Precisely,” Rukmini continued, a faint smile touching her lips. “More importantly, you must connect with his family. It’s a cultural foot in the door. He has a younger brother, Tariq, who handles a lot of the business interests. Slick, well-educated in London, possibly more dangerous because he understands our world. But the one you must pay particular attention to is the daughter, Zahira.”
Amartya raised an eyebrow. “Daughter?”
“Zahira Khan. She’s twenty-two. Western-educated as well, but she stayed. She runs a network of women’s health clinics and literacy programs across three provinces. She’s arguably more influential on the ground than her father or uncle in certain circles. The people, especially women, revere her. The old guard tolerates her because of her results and her name. She is the future there, Amartya. Or she could be, if the future is allowed to happen.”
He let that sink in. A woman running NGOs in that landscape. That took a kind of steel he couldn’t imagine.
“So be nice to the princess,” he said.
Rukmini’s gaze sharpened.“No. Do not think of her that way. She is not a ‘princess’ to be charmingly handled. She is a pivotal political actor. If you treat her as anything less, she will see right through you, and so will her father. Engage with her on her work. Ask intelligent questions.Listen. That’s all. Your usual… approaches will not work. They will likely backfire, spectacularly.”
Amartya felt a flicker of irritation, then curiosity. He was used to people being impressed by his title, by his ease. The idea of someone being not just unimpressed, but actively skeptical, was new. “What’s she like?”
“From the reports? Fierce. Impatient.Brilliant. She has no time for pomp or pretense. She’s seen too much.” Rukmini leaned forward. “She is the key to making this more than a photo opportunity. If you can earn her respect, even a little, it will open doors her father keeps locked.”
Dev checked his watch. “Your briefing with the foreign secretary and security detail is in two hours. Pack light, but formally. And Amartya?”
“Yeah?”
“Trust your instincts. But for God’s sake, think before you speak. This isn’t a PlayStation game. There are no respawns.”
Amartya looked back at the paused screen, at Nathan Drake frozen mid-leap over a chasm. The fantasy was over. The chasm in front of him was real. He nodded, a slow, determined pull of his head.
“Alright,” he said, his voice quieter, losing its playful edge. “Let’s go save the world. Or at least not wreck it before breakfast.”
As his brother and sister-in-law left, the heavy doors closing with a soft thud, Amartya didn’t return to his game. He walked back out to the balcony, the controller forgotten. The jasmine scent was suddenly cloying. The lights of the city looked different now—not just his home, but a place he was leaving to step into a darker, sharper unknown. The name echoed in his mind, a challenge and a question all at once.
Zahira.