The sky was still, for the first time in hours.
Above the cragged peaks of Brahmavarta, clouds circled slow and golden, no longer wrathful, merely watching. The air was warm, touched with the faint scent of rain not yet fallen.
Devavrata sat on a stone smoothed by centuries of wind, his chest rising with steady breath. The glyph of the Vāyavyastra still pulsed faintly in the air behind him, spiraling slowly like a drifting feather.
Parashurama sat across from him, cross-legged, arms resting atop his knees, axe resting beside him like an old companion. His eyes were distant but not cold.
"You're still breathing," the sage said, with the shadow of a smile.
Devavrata let out a faint huff. "I was starting to wonder if I'd forgotten how."
Parashurama chuckled—genuinely this time.
"The wind does that. Makes you question what's yours and what was never yours to begin with. Identity is a slippery thing when you're being peeled by the sky."
Devavrata nodded. "It didn't just ask. It tore. Like it was looking for something I hadn't found yet."
"It was," Parashurama said, tone lighter than the moment deserved. "That's how truth hunts. Quietly. Until it isn't."
Parashurama sat beside him, eyes gleaming.
"You called it," the master said. "And it came."
"I didn't just call it," Devavrata replied. "I let it take me apart. And I am still here."
The sage smiled—a rare, grim thing.
"Then you are ready for the storm yet to come. But know this—truth is the loneliest Astra of all."
Devavrata nodded slowly.
There was silence for a time. Not awkward—just earned.
Birds chirped far off. Somewhere, a brook murmured. Brahmavarta felt... almost kind.
Devavrata tilted his head, studying his teacher. "How many have passed these trials?"
"More than you'd expect," Parashurama answered.
Then, after a beat—
"Fewer than you'd hope."
A thoughtful pause. Devavrata glanced down at his hands. The calluses. The tremors. The weight of power not fully understood.
"You knew what the wind would ask," he said. "You always know."
Parashurama didn't deny it.
"Yes."
"And yet you let me go unprepared."
The sage's smile sharpened—not cruelly, but like a blade shown to someone ready to wield it.
"If I prepared you, it wouldn't be your truth you found in there. It would be mine."
Devavrata exhaled.
"Is that what being a master means? Watching your student bleed in silence?"
Parashurama's eyes crinkled at the corners.
"No. It means knowing the wounds they must take to survive what comes after."
There was a long, slow blink from Devavrata.
"And what's coming, Master?"
For a moment, Parashurama said nothing.
The wind tugged gently at the corners of his cloak. His eyes, fierce as the ocean, drifted toward the west.
Toward lands not yet burned.
Toward kings not yet cursed.
Toward a war not yet born.
"A time," he said slowly, "when dharma itself will go blind."
"When brother will cut brother, not only for greed—but also for the love warped by pride."
"When truth will wear armor, and lies will sit on thrones."
"And in the heart of it… will stand a man who remembers the river. And every oath he ever made."
Devavrata's gaze narrowed. "Me."
Parashurama met his eyes.
"You will be the dam against a flood you cannot stop."
"You will give everything. And they will only remember your silence, not your sacrifice."
A silence followed—heavy but sacred.
Devavrata's fingers curled into fists, then loosened.
"If that is my fate, I will not turn from it."
Parashurama's laugh was low, but real. "Of course you won't. That's why the wind let you live."