Chapter 50-The Empty Nursery
At first, they counted months.
Then they stopped.
It was easier that way.
No quiet calculations when Vinaya's cycle was late.
No watching her face across the breakfast table.
No physicians summoned because she had felt unusually tired.
No disappointment carefully disguised as reassurance.
For the first year, everyone told them there was time.
By the second, the court began whispering.
By the third, the whispers became advice.
Herbs.
Prayers.
Pilgrimages.
Physicians.
Astrologers.
Vinaya endured them until one elderly noblewoman cornered her after a temple ceremony and suggested Vikram take another wife.
Vinaya went very still.
Before she could answer, Vikram appeared behind her.
"No."
The woman turned.
"Your Highness, I only meant—"
"I know precisely what you meant."
His voice remained courteous.
That made it more dangerous.
"The succession—"
"Is not your concern."
"But Krishnagiri requires—"
"Enough."
The corridor fell silent.
Vikram moved beside Vinaya.
"My marriage is not a problem for this court to solve."
The woman bowed hastily.
After she left, Vinaya looked at him.
"You frightened her."
"Good."
"You cannot threaten every person who asks about children."
"I can try."
Despite herself, Vinaya smiled.
Vikram took her hand.
But that evening, she noticed he was unusually quiet.
The nursery remained empty.
Not Ganga's nursery.
Neither of them could bear to change that room.
This was another chamber prepared years later, when hope had felt safe enough to acknowledge.
A cradle had been commissioned.
Tiny clothes had been folded into a chest.
Vinaya had chosen pale blue curtains.
Then months became another year.
Eventually, she closed the door.
Vikram never asked her to open it.
They built a life around the absence.
Vinaya established the school she had once dreamed of.
It began with thirty-two girls.
Within three years, there were more than two hundred.
She advised Amarendra regularly.
People who had once described the Crown Princess as plain and timid now waited to hear her speak in council.
Vikram watched her become everything she had once believed she wasn't.
And loved her more for it.
They traveled.
Argued.
Laughed.
Made love.
Visited Ganga's garden.
Celebrated anniversaries.
Mourned birthdays.
Lived.
Their marriage was not empty.
But there was an empty room inside it.
And sometimes, in the middle of the night, Vikram wondered whether he knew why.
It happened after Ganga's birthday.
She would have been five.
Vikram went to the memorial garden alone.
He sat beside the little stone elephant.
Its chipped ear had become softened by rain.
He touched it.
"Five."
He tried to imagine her.
Would she have looked like Vinaya?
Would she have been shy?
Stubborn?
Would she have liked books?
Horses?
Would she have wrapped him around one tiny finger?
Probably.
Vikram smiled.
Then the smile disappeared.
"I am sorry."
He had said those words here hundreds of times.
They never felt sufficient.
His mind returned to the sentence that haunted him most.
Why couldn't the gods have taken you instead?
Vinaya and Ganga.
He had wished them dead.
Then Ganga died.
And no other child had come.
A thought he had fought for years returned.
Punishment.
Vikram lowered his head.
Perhaps there would never be another child.
Perhaps he did not deserve one.
Perhaps the gods had looked at a man who could reject his own daughter and decided he should never be trusted with another.
His shoulders shook.
He covered his face.
He did not hear Vinaya enter the garden.
She had been looking for him.
She stopped beneath the arch.
For several seconds, she simply stared.
Vikram sat beside their daughter's memorial, his face buried in his hands.
Crying.
"Vikram?"
His head lifted.
And from the expression on his face, Vinaya knew immediately that this grief was about more than the child they had lost.