It was done. The Emperor had barred the path himself.

Not with anger. That would have been easier. He had done it with a cold, terrifying calm. "You chose your dharma over your pati ," Akbar had said, his voice devoid of its usual thunder. "Then let your kingdom be your fortress, and let me be a stranger within my own palace."

Akbar’s jaw tightened. "Then she is where she wishes to be. A wife who does not trust her husband has no place in his bed."

Slowly, deliberately, he picked up a quill. He did not write an order. He wrote a single line on a small parchment: "The chains were forged by fear, not by justice. Come to the garden at dawn."