Chapter 24: Chapter 24: The Weight of Choices

The night air carried the scent of blooming jasmine, thick and heavy in the stillness of the garden. The palace was quiet, save for the distant sounds of the guards shifting at their posts and the faint murmur of voices in the halls. Rhea moved carefully along the stone pathways, her sandals barely making a sound against the ground.

She had not planned to seek him out, but fate had led her here—just as it always did when her thoughts refused to settle.

Bhishma sat beneath the great banyan tree, his posture as straight as ever, as if even in solitude, he remained bound to his role. His silver-streaked hair was neatly tied back, his face unreadable in the dim light of the torches lining the courtyard. Even now, when the weight of Hastinapura should have long since bowed his shoulders, he carried himself with the same unshaken dignity he always had.

Rhea hesitated before stepping forward. No matter how much she questioned him, no matter how much she struggled with his choices, she knew better than to forget who he was.

She lowered her head slightly in respect before speaking. “Pitamah.”

Bhishma turned his gaze toward her, his expression calm, composed. “It is late,” he observed. “What troubles you?”

Rhea sat on the stone bench a few steps away, her hands resting in her lap. “Nothing more than what troubles us all.”

There was a flicker of something in Bhishma’s gaze—a quiet acknowledgment.

For a long moment, silence stretched between them.

Rhea studied him, as she always had. The man who had shaped Hastinapura. The man who had given up everything for it. The man who now stood in judgment of a king who had done much the same.

“May I ask something, Pitamah?” she said finally.

Bhishma gave a slight nod. “You may.”

“You gave up your right to the throne so that your father could marry the woman he loved.” She spoke carefully, respectfully. “You made that choice, and you never looked back. You upheld it with pride, knowing it was a sacrifice made for the good of the kingdom.”

His expression did not change. “It was my duty.”

Rhea exhaled softly. “And yet, when Maharaj Dhritarashtra favors his son over the kingdom, you call him unrighteous.”

For the first time, Bhishma did not respond immediately.

Rhea lowered her gaze, her voice quieter now. “Forgive me if I have spoken out of turn. But I struggle to understand. You placed your father’s happiness above the kingdom, and you call it duty. Dhritarashtra places his son above the kingdom, and you call it weakness.” She paused, choosing her next words carefully. “Is love for a father different from love for a son?”

Bhishma’s hands, which had been resting calmly on his lap, curled slightly. It was a small movement, almost imperceptible, but Rhea saw it.

“Dhritarashtra’s choices are guided by attachment,” Bhishma said at last, his voice steady. “A king must not let personal love cloud his judgment.”

Rhea looked at him, meeting his gaze. “But was it not love that guided yours?”

His jaw tensed slightly, and for a moment, she wondered if she had overstepped. But Bhishma was not a man who responded with anger. His discipline, his control, was absolute.

“My choice was made for the greater good,” he said finally.

Rhea nodded slowly. “And you believe Maharaj Dhritarashtra does not think the same?”

Silence.

Bhishma did not answer, and in that silence, Rhea found something she had not expected. A hesitation. A crack in the unwavering certainty he carried like armor.

She did not press further. She had already said too much.

Instead, she stood, smoothing the folds of her sari. “I did not mean to question your wisdom, Pitamah,” she said respectfully. “Only to understand it.”

Bhishma looked at her then, his expression unreadable, yet there was something softer in his gaze than before.

“You speak boldly, child,” he said, though there was no reprimand in his tone. “But questions do not shake the truth.”

Rhea lowered her head again, this time not just out of respect, but out of something else. A quiet understanding.

She may never change Bhishma’s mind, just as no one could change Dhritarashtra’s. But for the first time, she wondered if Bhishma had ever truly questioned his own past—or if he, too, had been shaped by a love he refused to see as a weakness.

As she walked away, she did not feel victorious. There was no triumph in making a man who had never doubted himself hesitate, even for a breath.

There was only the quiet truth that, in the end, every ruler, every warrior, every father and son—

Was simply trying to do what they thought was right.