Chapter 1: The Fire Between Us

The forest during exile was merciless.

The trees stood like silent watchers, unmoved by the cold that bit into skin and bone. Snow blanketed the earth, and the firewood burned low. Even the stars seemed colder here, far from the halls of Hastinapur.

Draupadi sat near the fire, her shawl pulled tightly around her, yet her thoughts colder than the wind.

The fire that had once birthed her… felt far away now.

Her pride had been stripped. Her dignity dragged through the court of kings. Her heart, once fierce and unyielding, now pulsed with a quiet ache.

She stared into the dying flames.

Then—

A sound.

A soft cry. Distant. Fragile.

A baby.

Draupadi stilled.

She wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the wind or her own aching memory.

But then—again.

A baby’s cry.

She stood, quietly, and slipped away from the camp, walking barefoot through the snow-covered path, drawn by a voice so small it barely pierced the night—but it pulled at something ancient inside her.

---

By the stream, half-covered in frozen cloth, lay the infant.

No one else around. No footprints.

Just the child, crying into the silence.

Draupadi knelt slowly. Her hands trembled as she lifted the baby from the stones.

The moment their eyes met, the crying stopped.

Two dark eyes looked up at her—not with the emptiness of newborn confusion, but with something far older.

Recognition.

As though this child knew her.

Draupadi pressed the baby against her chest, shielding her from the wind, heart pounding.

> "Who would abandon you like this…?" she whispered, her voice breaking.

"Or perhaps… you weren’t abandoned. Perhaps… you were sent."

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That night, she returned to the cave carrying the baby, her face pale, her eyes burning quietly.

The others looked up in surprise.

Bhima stood first. "Krishnaa? You found a child?"

Draupadi didn’t answer at first. She sat by the fire, wrapped the baby in soft cloth, and held her gently in her arms.

> “I found her by the stream,” she said quietly. “No sign of her parents. No sign of how she got there. Just… her.”

Yudhishthir stepped forward, troubled. “And you brought her back?”

“I couldn’t leave her there,” she whispered. “She was freezing. Crying. Alone. And… she looked at me.”

“Looked at you?”

Draupadi nodded.

> “Like she had always known me.”

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Later that night, as the baby slept beside her, Draupadi whispered into the dark,

> “Maybe the gods took everything from me. But maybe… they gave me something back.”

She kissed the baby’s forehead.

> “You are not born of my womb. But you are born of something I had forgotten—hope. From this night onward, you are mine.”

She named her Agnika—child of fire.

And though she did not know it yet, the girl in her arms was no ordinary child.

She had lived before.

She had loved this world before.

And she had come back… for her.

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