The scene rearranged itself in his mind. This was not devotion. This was neglect.
Something tightened in his chest. Then tightened further.
A doctor pushed through the crowd.
Abhinav moved back at once. He lowered the glass and eased his arm away. “Hold her.”
The woman beside Lakshmi Devi stepped in at once, supporting her from behind.
The doctor took one look at the woman, then at the shaded corridor, the loosened dupatta, the glass of water beside her. His gaze moved to Abhinav, quick and assessing, before he knelt.
“Good,” he murmured.
He checked her pulse, her breathing, her eyes. “How long was she in the sun?”
“Around an hour,” someone answered.
“Did she lose consciousness?”
“Yes.” Abhinav’s reply came firm.
The doctor nodded. “Heat exhaustion. Not heatstroke.”
Relief moved through the small group.
He adjusted her position, lifting her shoulders a little. “Keep her in the shade. No standing for a while. Get her something light once she stabilises.”
He pressed another damp cloth on her forehead and watched, then eased back. “She’ll be fine.”
The tension loosened.
For a few seconds, nothing changed.
Then her fingers moved. Her eyelids fluttered, her breath catching once before settling. She frowned faintly.
Her eyes opened.
At first, her gaze did not settle. It moved past the corridor, past the people around her, as though she had not fully returned yet. The haze cleared in parts. The light. The stone under her. Voices making sense.
Then her gaze found him and stayed. Recognition came without doubt.
“Thakur Sa,” she whispered.
It hit him clean and sudden.
He stilled.
The title had been his for months, placed on him after his father’s death. A name he carried because he had to, not because he accepted it.
He was not the Thakur. Not the guardian or protector. Not the head of anything.
Because it had never meant anything to him.
It belonged to a place, a life he had already chosen to leave.
But in her voice… there was no formality.
Only faith.
