The Prince Who Became Their Queen

Chapter 6: The First Mask

The dose came at dawn.

Kiran mixed the ancient Rasayana with dark herbs. His hands trembled as he offered the cup. “Drink slowly, my prince,” he whispered. “It begins in the mind.”

Surya drank. Within minutes the world tilted, soft and unsteady, like the first swallow of strong wine on an empty stomach. His thoughts frayed at the edges. Exhaustion pulled him under.

He dreamed of breasts swelling on his chest, of a voice that was not his own. Servants bowed and called him Princess. Every mirror showed Chandrika instead of Surya. He tried to shout that they were wrong, but the voice that answered was soft and unmistakably hers. He woke tangled in the sheets, heart hammering, an embarrassing hardness between his legs. He closed his eyes in silent frustration and pulled the blanket over himself.

That evening he finally woke fully.

He spread his fingers. They looked the same. Somehow that disappointed him. He hated himself for the thought. A faint scar crossed one knuckle. He rubbed it with his thumb and could not remember how he had gotten it. The idea that even his scars might one day belong to someone else’s body made his stomach turn.

He found Kiran alone in the abandoned practice yard, attempting the sword forms they had shared since childhood. The blade looked heavier in his hands. His wrists tired faster. Halfway through the kata he stopped, furious, and threw the sword into the sand.

“I trained twenty years to become captain.”

Kiran bent to pick it up and missed the hilt. For a heartbeat they both stared. Neither mentioned that he had never missed before. He laughed, bitter and quiet.

“Now I struggle to lift the blade.”

He did not notice Surya watching. It was the first time Surya understood that Kiran was losing something too.

Three days passed in a haze of fever dreams and half-remembered mirrors.

The Rasayana’s work was no longer only in the mind.
By the third morning her chest had begun to ache with a deep, unfamiliar tenderness. The skin felt tighter, warmer. When she accidentally brushed against the bedsheet, a sharp, startling sensation shot through her — not quite pain, not quite pleasure. She pressed her palm flat against the area and felt a soft, yielding fullness that had not been there before. Something real was beginning to grow , sensitive and insistent.
She snatched her hand away as if burned.

On the morning of the portrait sitting his voice cracked on the first word — higher, almost musical — before he forced it back down.

The two eunuchs led him into the private bathing chamber. Steam curled thick with rose and sandalwood. No one else was permitted inside. Surya’s pulse was already too fast. He had faced ambushes with steadier hands.

The older eunuch worked with calm efficiency. His touch stayed clinical as he rubbed scented paste across Surya’s skin and scraped it away with a dull blade. New, unnaturally smooth flesh emerged underneath. The younger one was gentler. His dark eyes met Surya’s with quiet understanding, as if he had guided many men through this particular hell before.

Surya kept his jaw locked as they removed every trace of body hair from his chest, arms, legs, and finally his groin. Each stroke of the blade left his skin smooth and newly vulnerable. He waited for rage. It did not come. Only a hollow, exhausted acceptance settled in its place.

*This is happening,* he thought. *And part of me has already stopped fighting it.*

He focused on the ceiling. Someone had carved tiny lotus petals into the stone decades ago. He counted them. Anything to keep from thinking about the hands working over his body. By the time he reached sixty-three he had lost count.

The water was hotter than he expected. He hissed. The older eunuch apologized automatically.

“Too warm?”

Surya almost snapped back. Instead he only nodded. Somehow that frightened him more.

As they dried him, the younger eunuch’s hands moved with utmost care. Surya felt only a cold, hollow dread — until his body answered without permission. His cock thickened and rose against his stomach. He looked away. The older eunuch politely pretended not to notice. The kindness hurt more than mockery would have.

“Your Highness,” the younger eunuch murmured, voice gentle, “we cannot tuck you properly when you are like this. Please permit us.”

Surya wanted to refuse. He wanted to shove them away and cling to whatever masculinity he still had left. Instead he stood frozen.

The younger eunuch sank to his knees. Warm heat closed over the head of his cock. Soft lips stretched around him, tongue swirling underneath with careful, devoted skill. Shame crashed through Surya so hard his vision blurred — and still his hips jerked forward. His cock throbbed, leaking onto the eunuch’s tongue while the wet sounds echoed off the stone walls.

Behind him the older eunuch’s hands steadied his waist, then slipped lower to roll and tease his balls with practiced patience. Surya’s mind screamed. His body answered anyway. One moment he wanted to push them away. The next he was pushing his hips forward, chasing more of that wicked tongue. His thighs trembled. Sweat beaded on his newly smooth skin.

Kiran stood half-hidden behind a carved pillar. Her eyes were wide, lips parted. There was no smirk. Only a complicated, painful hunger mixed with grief. One hand had pressed hard against her own lap without her noticing. She did not look away. She could not.

The eunuchs switched with practiced ease. The older one took Surya’s cock into his mouth now — slower, deeper, far more experienced. He sucked with long, luxurious pulls while the younger one stroked the wet, throbbing shaft with both hands, twisting his grip just right. The sounds grew filthier, louder. Surya’s head fell back. He was embarrassed beyond words, cheeks burning crimson, yet the pleasure was undeniable — deep, building, consuming. The Rasayana had breached his last psychological defenses. He was no longer merely enduring this. His altered mind was beginning to lean into it, to crave the dominant touch that was rewriting him from the inside out.

He lasted longer the second time. When release finally tore through him it hit like a breaking wave. Surya groaned loudly, hips bucking as he spilled deep into the older eunuch’s mouth. The man kept sucking, swallowing every drop, while the younger one stroked him through the aftershocks until he was completely soft and oversensitive.

They cleaned him tenderly with warm, scented cloths, as if he were something fragile. His spent cock twitched one final time under the cloth, sending a last helpless aftershock through him. He felt the first stirrings of something deeper — a phantom ache where his body was already beginning to crave fullness instead of release.

Only then did they begin the binding.

One eunuch carefully pulled his spent manhood back between his legs while the other wrapped long, soft cotton strips tightly around his hips and groin until everything was flat and smooth. The pressure was strange, confining, and — worst of all — quietly satisfying. Surya’s face burned.

Artificial breasts of layered cotton were placed against his chest and bound in place. A firm corset cinched his waist, forcing a curve that did not belong to him. When the deep blue silk sari was finally draped around his body, the fabric settled against his newly smooth skin like a claim. Bangles were slid onto his wrists. The cool weight of them felt like another kind of chain.

Finally, the makeup.

The older eunuch opened a small wooden box filled with powders, brushes, and lip color. Surya stared at them as if they were surgical instruments.

“…Which one first?”

“The eyebrows,” the eunuch replied. “People always notice the eyebrows.”

When Surya looked into the mirror, a beautiful young woman stared back — graceful, delicate, and terrifyingly convincing.

He stared. Then frowned.

“…Your eyeliner is uneven.”

One eunuch blinked. “Your Highness?”

Surya sighed. “If I’m pretending to be my sister… it should at least be symmetrical.”

The realization hit him halfway through the sentence. He had just criticized his own makeup. He quietly looked away. No one spoke.

The instinct to smash the mirror rose inside him. He stared for so long that he no longer knew whether he hated the face in the mirror or feared how easily he already recognised it as his own.

Instead he picked up the lip color himself. His hand shook only once before he drew the first line across his lips.

“My sister always smudged the left side,” he said quietly.

Leela, who had entered without him noticing, looked up. “…She did.”

He deliberately copied the tiny imperfection. Nobody corrected it.

“If they must see Chandrika,” he whispered, “they will see the best lie I can create.”

The older eunuch moved behind her with a wide-toothed comb and a small pot of fragrant oil. He worked the oil through her hair with patient fingers, then began pinning and twisting. What had once been a simple warrior’s knot was slowly transformed into a soft, elegant arrangement — loose curls framed her face while the rest was gathered into a low, graceful bun at the nape of her neck, secured with two delicate gold pins. A few strands were left deliberately free to brush her cheeks.
When he finished, he stepped back.
“The princess always wore it this way for formal portraits,” he said quietly.
Surya stared at the reflection. The hairstyle softened every remaining hard line of his face. It made the lie complete.

The name no longer belonged only to his sister. It was beginning to claim him.

A soft knock broke the silence. The eunuchs bowed and stepped aside.

King Dev entered first and stopped as if he had been punched. His mouth opened, closed, then opened again. The king who never showed weakness just stood there, eyes wide, breathing shallow.

Queen Leela came in right behind him. She made a small, broken sound and rushed forward, pulling Chandrika into a tight hug, one hand cradling the back of her head like she was still a little girl. “My boy…” she whispered, voice cracking. Tears soaked into the silk. “Look at you. Just… look at you.”

Mahaveer lingered in the doorway, staring. The usual smirk was gone. His jaw worked silently as he took in the sari, the bangles, the painted lips, the unmistakable shape of the body underneath. He rubbed a hand over his scarred face and let out a rough breath.

“Fuck,” he muttered. He stepped closer, hesitant for once, and put a heavy hand on Chandrika’s shoulder. The touch was awkward but gentle. “You really went through with it.” His voice came out thicker than usual. “You look… hell, you look just like her. I don’t even know what to say to you right now.”

Kiran stayed quiet in the corner, eyes wet, watching the family finally see what they had demanded.

Leela did not let go. She only held on tighter, crying softly against her daughter’s hair.

The portrait sitting took place the next afternoon in the east-facing gallery, where the light was softest.
Three court painters had been summoned. The eldest, a thin man with ink-stained fingers and a permanent squint, directed the others in near silence. The second was younger, sharp-eyed, already sketching compositions on a wax tablet. The third, a woman who usually painted temple murals, handled the colours — grinding pigments of deep indigo, vermilion, and gold leaf into small shell dishes.
They had been told only that the princess must be captured from three angles in full royal regalia, as King Viran had demanded.
Chandrika stood on a low wooden platform draped in white cloth. The deep blue silk sari felt heavier under their collective gaze. The artificial curves of her bound chest rose and fell too quickly. Every time the eldest painter asked her to turn her head or lower her chin, a hot flush crawled up her throat.
“Left shoulder slightly forward, Princess,” the eldest murmured. “Eyes soft… yes. As if you are listening to distant music.”
She tried. The pose felt elegant and false at the same time. The gold bangles chimed whenever she adjusted her hands in her lap. The long earrings brushed her neck. She kept her gaze lowered, lashes casting faint shadows on her cheeks, because meeting the painters’ eyes made the shyness worse — a tight, fluttering feeling she had never known as Surya.
Kiran stood just behind the painters, silent, making sure the pallu draped correctly and that no strand of hair escaped the new elegant bun.
They worked for nearly three hours. Charcoal sketches first, then light washes of colour, then the careful building of shadow and gold. Chandrika’s back ached from holding the pose. Sweat gathered at the small of her back beneath the silk. Yet when the eldest painter finally set down his brush and stepped back, there was a long, satisfied silence.
“It is done,” he said quietly. “And it is good.”
The three finished portraits showed a graceful young woman of striking beauty — luminous skin, kohl-lined eyes that seemed both modest and knowing, the soft curve of breast and waist beneath royal blue silk. No one looking at them would ever doubt she was Princess Chandrika.
That same evening, three messenger hawks were released from the highest tower, each carrying a carefully rolled miniature version of one portrait, sealed with the royal mark of Mahanagar.
Two days later the hawks reached Jaynagar.
King Viran unrolled the first portrait in the privacy of his chambers. He studied it for a long time. Then the second. Then the third. A slow, genuine smile spread across his weathered face. He traced the painted line of her cheek with one rough thumb.
“She is more than they promised,” he said to his silent attendant. “Tell the ministers the wedding preparations are to be doubled. I want no delays.”
He kept the portraits on the low table beside his bed that night, still looking at them when the lamps burned low.

That night, after the palace had quieted, Kiran slipped into the chambers. They had already changed her for the night. Instead of the heavy formal sari, she now wore a soft, pale sleeping dress of thin muslin — the kind Chandrika had always favoured. It was cut looser than anything Surya had ever worn, yet it clung in unexpected places: the gentle swell of the bound chest, the new curve of hip, the long line of bare thigh where the fabric split. The sleeves kept slipping off one shoulder. Every time she moved, the cool cloth whispered against skin that still felt too sensitive, too exposed.
Kiran’s eyes lingered on it for a moment before she sat on the edge of the bed.

She took Chandrika’s trembling hands in hers.

“You don’t have to perform tonight,” Kiran said quietly. “Just breathe.”

She pulled her close — not with hunger at first, but with the same steady presence she had once carried on the battlefield. Slowly, carefully, she untied the night dress and let it pool at Chandrika’s feet. Her hands explored the bound chest and tucked groin with reverent care, unwrapping the cotton strips as if uncovering something sacred and wounded.

When Chandrika was bare, Kiran guided her down to the bed. “Feel how soft you are now.” She poured warm oil over the new breasts, massaging until Chandrika whimpered, nipples hardening under skilled fingers. Kiran’s mouth followed, sucking gently while her hand slipped between newly smooth thighs, teasing the sensitive flesh that had been hidden all day.

Chandrika’s hips bucked as Kiran freed her growing cock and took it into her mouth, tongue swirling with devotion. The pleasure was overwhelming — sharper, sweeter, and somehow more intimate than anything the eunuchs had given. When release came it was accompanied by the first true tears of acceptance.

Kiran crawled up her body and kissed her deeply. “You are mine to protect… and to pleasure.”

They fell asleep tangled together, the first night of many.