From the goat trail that ran beyond Mathura into the dry hills, the Three Sisters looked daunting. Or rather, the Iron Curfew, for Draupadi could not see the other two walls from where she was. Above her, the wind was a living thing, howling around them like a hound. Around her, serving girls stood in well trained silence, holding a fluttering silk awning over her head. Beside her, Storm helped herself to a small withered brown apple. In the distance, Satyabhama, in leather shirt and breeches, sewn with bronze scales, and a two-handed greatsword slung across her back in a leather sheath, stood frowning down at the pass.

The sun had not set but the stars were already in the sky. They seemed brighter here. ‘The stars and the sky look so beautiful,’ Draupadi said with a sigh.

‘I hate the sun, the stars and the sky, all of it.’ Storm spat out a seed. She had grown chatty ever since they had stepped out of the palanquin. ‘Stars remind me I have to camp out tonight…sleep on the cold, hard ground. The sky reminds me of the only window I had in the well where my father left me when I disobeyed him.’

Draupadi looked at her. Storm’s hair was beautiful in a wild rugged way. Trinkets decorated a lone braid at the back. Dirt smeared her face but failed to hide the powdering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She has suffered so much pain, abused by her own father. Women are cursed to suffer, thought Draupadi. None can change that…not with complaints, or prayers, or revolution. But one can spit at life and dare it to hurt you more. Draupadi pondered over the likes of Satyabhama, Storm and the other Silver Wolves. Women who had taken charge of their destinies, women fighting their fate. A losing battle perhaps, but a fight nonetheless. Why couldn’t she be more like them? Because I am a coward.