Chapter 1 the silver palace
Bhi
Chapter One: The Silver Palace
My name is sakshi
At least, that is the name everyone calls me.
I am twenty-two years old, a final-year literature student who spends more time lost in books than paying attention to the real world. My friends say I daydream too much. My mother says I live with my head in the clouds. Maybe they are both right.
Because for as long as I can remember, my nights have belonged to another world.
Not ordinary dreams.
Not fleeting fragments that disappear with the morning sun.
These dreams felt real.
Too real.
They came again and again, always carrying the same strange feeling of longing, as though someone was waiting for me just beyond the edge of memory.
Most mornings, I woke with tears I couldn’t explain and a heart that felt impossibly heavy.
I never understood why.
Until the night everything changed.
The first thing I heard was the sound of my anklets.
Soft.
Delicate.
Familiar.
Their silver bells chimed against the marble floor as I ran through endless corridors bathed in moonlight.
No.
Not moonlight.
Everything here was silver.
The walls.
The pillars.
The intricate carvings that stretched across the ceilings.
Even the air itself seemed to shimmer like liquid silver.
Yet I wasn’t afraid.
I should have been.
I had never seen this place before.
At least, that was what I told myself.
But as my bare feet carried me through the palace halls, I knew exactly where I was going.
I knew every turn.
Every staircase.
Every hidden passage.
As though I had walked these halls a thousand times before.
As though I belonged here.
My heart pounded against my chest.
Not from fear.
From anticipation.
I was looking for someone.
I didn’t know who.
Yet every part of me knew he was here.
The palace stretched endlessly around me.
Grand halls opened into silver courtyards.
Moonlit fountains reflected stars that did not belong to any sky I had ever seen.
And still I ran.
Searching.
Waiting.
Yearning.
A strange ache filled my chest, as if I had spent lifetimes looking for someone whose face I had forgotten.
Then I heard a voice.
A single word.
A name.
Not the one I carried in my waking life.
A different name.
A name that felt ancient.
A name that felt like mine.
I stopped.
The world became silent.
Even my anklets ceased their song.
The voice called again.
And my heart broke before I even understood why.
Slowly, I turned.
He was standing beneath a silver archway.
Waiting.
As though he had always known I would come.
For a moment, I could see him clearly.
Every detail.
Every expression.
Every trace of emotion in his eyes.
And yet, even as I looked at him, something deep within me whispered that I would never remember his face once I woke.
The thought terrified me.
He took a step forward.
Then another.
Until only a few feet separated us.
His eyes never left mine.
Neither of us spoke.
We didn’t need to.
It felt as though entire lifetimes had already passed between us.
A thousand conversations.
A thousand promises.
A thousand goodbyes.
And yet this meeting felt like the first and the last all at once.
Tears stung my eyes.
I didn’t know why.
I only knew that seeing him felt like coming home.
The man smiled softly.
A smile filled with love.
And sorrow.
As though he had been waiting far longer than I could imagine.
Then he spoke.
“Ishq karna gunah toh nahi hai, Rani Sahiba…”
The words settled into my heart like they had always belonged there.
My breath caught.
My vision blurred with tears.
He stepped closer.
“Agar hai…”
His voice softened.
“Toh hume apna gunahgaar samajhiye.”
The tears fell before I could stop them.
Not because the words were beautiful.
But because they felt familiar.
As though I had spent years waiting to hear them again.
He reached out and gently touched my hand.
For a brief moment, the entire palace seemed to glow brighter.
Silver light danced across the marble walls.
The air itself trembled.
I wanted to ask him who he was.
I wanted to ask why this place felt like home.
I wanted to ask why my heart knew him when my mind did not.
But before I could speak, he whispered something that made the world stop.
“You are her.”
I stared at him.
Confused.
Breathless.
Lost.
“You are her,” he repeated softly.
“But you do not know it yet.”
The palace began to fade.
The silver light fractured around us.
Panic rose inside me.
“No,” I whispered.
“Please.”
Not yet.
I had only just found him.
The man smiled sadly.
As though he already knew what was about to happen.
Then his final words reached me through the dissolving dream.
don’t forget me
The world shattered into light.
His voice echoed one last time.
“I’ll come find you soon.”
And then I woke up.
