The marble throne was cold against Dhritarashtra's back. It was always cold, even in summer, even when the servants draped it with silk cushions and woolen blankets. He shifted his weight and listened. From somewhere deep in the palace, sandalwood incense drifted through the corridors, thick and sweet, the same scent they burned before prayers. But today it could not cover the other smell — the distant, sharp tang of iron and dust that the wind carried from the north. From Kurukshetra.

War drums. He could hear them now, faint as a heartbeat, rolling across the plains. Then came the conch shells — one, then another, then a chorus of them, like the roar of the ocean pressed into a single note. Dhritarashtra gripped the stone armrest until his knuckles ached.

Footsteps echoed in the hall. A servant's voice, trembling: "Your Majesty, Sanjaya has arrived."

"Send him in," said the king. His own voice sounded strange to him — thin, like a thread about to snap.

Dhritarashtra had been born blind. He had never seen the golden pillars of his own court, never seen the faces of his hundred sons. His younger brother Pandu had ruled instead, and when Pandu died, the throne passed to Dhritarashtra — not as a reward, but as a burden. He was meant to hold the kingdom until the children grew up.

But the children had grown. And instead of sharing the kingdom with his brother's five sons, Dhritarashtra had let his own boys steal it. He had watched — no, he had listened — as Duryodhana cheated, schemed, and dragged the family toward war. He had said nothing.

Now those boys stood on opposite sides of a battlefield. The cousins who had once played together in the palace gardens were about to kill each other. And all the blind king could do was sit on his cold throne and ask: "Sanjaya, tell me — what did they do?"

He already knew the answer. He had known it for years. Sometimes not being able to see the truth outside is a reflection of not wanting to see the truth inside. Dhritarashtra's eyes had never worked. But it was his heart that chose to be blind.