Until now, the great form had shown Arjuna strangers — gods he had only heard of, beings from worlds he had never visited. It was easier, somehow, to be amazed by strangers.

Then the vision shifted, the way a crowd shifts and suddenly you see a face you recognise, and Arjuna's breath caught for an entirely new reason.

There was Duryodhana. And behind him all his brothers, the hundred sons of blind old Dhritarashtra, marching in their bright armour with the great crowds of kings who had come from every corner of the land to fight beside them. Arjuna had quarrelled with these cousins his whole life, but he knew every one of their faces.

And there — Arjuna's throat tightened — was Bhishma. The great-grandfather of them all, the gentle giant who had carried Arjuna on his shoulders when he was small, who had taught him the rules of honour. And Drona, his own archery teacher, the man who had placed Arjuna's first bow in his hands and shown him how to draw it true. And Karna, the charioteer's son, the mighty rival whose skill matched Arjuna's own.

They were not alone. Moving among them, Arjuna saw the chief warriors of his own army too — his friends, his brothers' companions, men who trusted him.

All of them, every single one, friend and foe together, were being drawn toward the great form, the way iron filings turn toward a magnet, the way a crowd is pulled along a road it cannot leave.

Arjuna felt the floor of his certainty give way. The vision was no longer a far-off marvel in the sky. It was filled with the people of his own life — the ones he had grown up with, learned from, loved, feared, and would face tomorrow on the field. And they were all moving in one direction, toward the blazing One who held the whole world in His body.

He kept watching, because he could not look away. What would happen when they reached those mouths?