The halls of Hastinapura were alive with murmurs.

The news had spread like wildfire—the Pandavas had returned. With a queen. A queen who was to be shared among five brothers.

It was a scandal. A mystery. A thing that had never been seen before.

And yet, within the walls of Kunti's chambers, there was only silence.

Draupadi stepped inside, her anklets barely making a sound against the marble floors.

Kunti sat by the dimly lit brazier, the glow of the dying embers casting long shadows across her face.

She did not look up.

But she knew.

"You have something to say," Kunti murmured, her voice steady. "Say it."

Draupadi did not answer immediately.

Because where did she even begin?

She had entered this palace with fire in her veins, with questions burning on her tongue.

But now—now, standing here, she saw something she had not noticed before.

Kunti was not the same woman who had stood at the threshold of that hut, blindly commanding her sons to share whatever they had brought home.

She looked older. Wearier.

The weight of that one mistake had settled onto her shoulders, and Draupadi could see it now—the guilt. The regret. The unspoken grief.

"You do not sleep," Draupadi observed quietly.

Kunti exhaled. "No mother sleeps peacefully when she has made a choice that binds her children for life."

Draupadi clenched her jaw.

"It was a mistake," she said. Not as an accusation. Just as truth.

Kunti let out a breath that was almost a laugh.

"Yes," she admitted. "It was."

Silence stretched between them, heavy and unyielding.

Then, finally, Draupadi stepped forward, standing across from her.

"I resented you," she said.

Kunti did not flinch. "I know."

Draupadi's fingers curled into fists. "I thought you had played with my life as if it were a piece on a board. I thought you had—" She stopped herself, exhaling sharply. "I thought you did not care."

At that, Kunti finally looked at her.

Her gaze was dark, tired. But not uncaring. Never uncaring.

"You think I did not care?" she asked, voice quieter now. "Draupadi, do you know what it is to live for your sons and realize, in one moment, that you have ruined them?"

Draupadi stilled.

Kunti leaned back, the brazier's glow reflecting in her eyes.

"My sons had nothing. We had wandered from kingdom to kingdom, surviving on scraps, forced to live in exile because their father's death had made them outcasts in their own home. And then—for the first time in years, Arjuna won something."

Her voice cracked slightly.

"He came home with victory in his hands. And I—I spoke without looking. Without thinking. And in that moment, I destroyed everything he had won."

Draupadi swallowed hard.

She had never considered it from this angle before.

She had thought only of herself—of her loss, her shame, the shock of being bound to five men instead of one.

But Arjuna—he had lost, too.

His prize. His choice. His future.

And Kunti—Kunti had shattered it in a single breath.

"You regret it," Draupadi murmured.

Kunti closed her eyes. "Every day."

Draupadi inhaled deeply.

There had been a time—not long ago—when she would have let that regret consume them both.

When she would have hated Kunti for what she had done.

But now...

Now, Draupadi had made her choice.

She had walked through the fire of public shame and come out unburned.

She had accepted her fate.

Not because of duty. Not because she had no other option.

But because she had chosen to make it her own.

And if she could accept it—then so could Kunti.

"You cannot change the past," Draupadi said. "Neither can I. Neither can they."

Kunti's lips pressed together.

"You have no anger left for me?"

Draupadi considered the question.

"No," she said finally. "Only understanding."

For the first time that night, Kunti smiled.

Faint. Small.

But real.

Draupadi turned to leave—but paused at the doorway.

She glanced back, eyes meeting Kunti's one last time.

"You may have made the mistake," she said, "but it is not a curse. I will not let it be one."

Kunti stared at her.

And as Draupadi stepped into the hallway, leaving the past behind—Kunti let out a breath she had been holding for years.