"Then we continue what we're doing. And the truth keeps spreading, unmanaged, uncontrolled, until the weight of it breaks through the dam on its own."
The council voted. Thirty-one for the counter-offer. Six for rejection. Three for acceptance.
Democracy. Messy. Magnificent.
I carried the counter-offer to Amaravati. Not in person this time — through Dhara, who delivered it to Indra's chamberlain with the particular formality of a military officer presenting a diplomatic communiqué.
Indra's response came in three days. Two words:
"Discuss terms."
The negotiations took two weeks. They were conducted in a neutral village — a trading post equidistant from Amaravati and Patala — with Kritya representing the Remnant and Indra's chief advisor, a shrewd old diplomat named Brihaspati, representing the throne.
I sat in on every session. The details were complex — venue selection, participant lists, security arrangements, the format of the historical presentations, the media protocols (the Deva realms had a sophisticated communication network, and the Summit would be broadcast via mantric relay to every major settlement).
But the core issue was simple: how much truth?
Brihaspati wanted limits. Certain topics off the table — the Churning specifically, and the destruction of Tripura, and anything relating to Indra's personal actions during the wars. "The king's reputation is the stability of the state. Undermine one, you undermine both."
Kritya wanted no limits. "You don't get to curate the truth. That's how we got here."
The compromise — like all compromises — satisfied no one and was therefore probably fair. The Summit would present the full Asura archive, unedited. But it would be accompanied by the Deva True Record — the private archive that every king read, now to be made public for the first time. Both accounts, side by side. Both civilisations showing their hands.
"The True Record contains things that are... unflattering to the Deva side," Brihaspati said. "Things the king has known and the people have not."
"That's the point," Kritya said.
"It could destabilise the realm."
"Or it could rebuild it on something real."
Brihaspati looked at her with the particular expression of a diplomat who's met his match. "You remind me of your father."
"You knew my father?"
"I negotiated with him. Before the war. He was the only Asura leader who believed negotiation was possible." He paused. "He was wrong, at the time. But I've spent thirty years wondering if he was wrong about negotiation, or if we were wrong to stop listening."
The agreement was signed. The Summit of Truth would be held in thirty days, at the ancient site of Prayag — the confluence of the rivers, sacred to both civilisations, the place where Deva and Asura mythologies both agreed that creation began.
A place of beginnings. An appropriate place, perhaps, for a new one.
