Shakuni raised his brows at the lack of hostility in Sahadev’s voice. A graceful loser. That was rare indeed. Or is the game still on?

Sahadev read his thoughts. ‘Civility is the only route to coexistence, Lord Shakuni. Unless you have a better way to deal with the fallout of your actions?’

‘I do.’ Shakuni flashed his broken smile. ‘But I am too pretty for prison. Any luck finding Krishna’s body?’

‘No, My Lord. But the body count is high…and most of them burnt beyond recognition. I am headed to the source of that jade pillar of flame. Coming?’

Shakuni was impressed. No signs of hesitation. No fear. A worthy adversary. ‘Certainly,’ Shakuni replied. ‘Try and keep up with my pace.’

They walked past the ruins of the Keep to where the Senate House used to be. Where the grand building of democracy had once stood in white magnificence, there was an enormous, gaping hole, lined with shredded plaster, broken beams and dangling frames. Dust still showered into the yawning maw below. The earth itself shuddered with remembered terror. Neither spoke a word.

The only spot not smoking into strings of green-black ghosts was fifty paces down. It glistened like a lake of water. Is that a crater? Shakuni wondered as Sahadev helped him navigate the slope. A hollowed mound stood in a green circle, a strange blackened tree at its centre. Shakuni had never witnessed such a conflagration, not from any Mathuran munition. If Krishna had found a way to create a munition of such power, Shakuni dreaded the implication of such an invention. But if he had, why had he not used it on the Greeks, when they were still outside the gates?

He squinted at the blackened mass in the centre, so deformed it could scarcely be called a tree. Then his eyes narrowed. The Daevas take me! Hastily, he stepped back, his weak leg protesting. It wasn’t a tree! It was a man, a tall man! The body was an incinerated ruin, burned beyond recognition. It was still steaming. The hands were outstretched, holding a sword with a ruby-studded crosspiece, the steel still glinting.

Sahadev joined Shakuni, studying the body as they inched closer. Stray green waves of fire, like candle flames, were still alight on parts of his body. The corpse’s hands were stretched in a pose of attack. Whatever had happened had not allowed him to complete his swing.

Shakuni felt numb. He withdrew a kerchief and mopped the sweat from his face. ‘I know him…’ No one forgot an Assyrian blade, and he’d seen the fool brandish it more times at the swayamvar than he wished to remember. ‘Kalyavan.’

‘There are tracks here…’ Sahadev murmured, unfazed by Shakuni’s revelation.