My Husband Gave Me the Silent Treatment for Months. I Finally Ignored Him Back, and He Snapped.

Kunti’s voice carried the same measured calm she used to announce dinner, not the dissolution of his life.
“You will marry Subhadra before the next moon.”

Arjun heard the sentence the way a man hears an arrow sink flesh: first the impact, then the delayed burn. He stood in the small council chamber, afternoon light slicing across the maps of Kuru lands pinned to the wall, and felt every border close around his throat.

“Say something,” Kunti prompted.

What he wanted to say was that Draupadi’s laughter still cracked against the inside of his skull at night, that her final words—“You love your pride more than you ever loved me”—were carved on the back of his teeth. Instead he swallowed the taste of iron and asked, “Why Subhadra?”

“Because the Yadavas require a gesture of unity and you require a wife who will not shame us further.” She folded her hands, gold bangles clicking like shackles. “The scandal with Panchal’s princess ends the moment you take Subhadra’s hand.”

He almost laughed. Scandal. As if betrayal could be scrubbed clean by exchanging garlands.

Outside the latticed window the palace bustled with preparations that had clearly begun days ago—bolts of silk carried past the doorway, priests measuring rice for auspicious symbols, servants whispering about which jewels the new bride might wear. They had decided for him, then waited only for the courtesy of telling him.

Kunti added, softer, “She has always held affection for you.”

Affection. The word felt obscene. He remembered Subhadra at fourteen following him through the gardens, asking if the stories of his archery were true; he had ruffled her hair like a child and walked away. Now that child was to be his punishment, a daily reminder stitched into his bed-sheets.

The wedding took place in the small rose court usually reserved for oath-takings. No drums, no dancing—Kunti wanted solemnity, not celebration. Subhadra arrived veiled in crimson so deep it looked wet. Through the gauze he saw the curve of her smile, steady, practiced. He stared over her head at the ceremonial fire, letting the smoke sting his eyes until they watered. When the priest asked him to repeat the vows, his tongue moved automatically, binding himself to a woman whose hand felt like a stone in his.

Only once did their eyes meet: just before the final circuit of the fire she lifted her gaze, searching his face for some sign of welcome. He looked away first, fixing on the blackened bricks, and felt her fingers slacken inside his grip.

The feast afterward blurred into clatter and distant music. He drank enough wine to dull the edges, not enough to erase the picture of Draupadi walking out of the assembly hall, braid snapping like a whip. When the guests finally released them, he entered the marriage chamber already unbelting his sword, its weight more familiar than the woman standing beside the bed.

Subhadra spoke his name, barely a whisper.

He set the blade on the windowsill, lay down fully clothed on the far edge of the mattress, and turned his face to the wall.

The lamp burned low, throwing long shadows across the carved sandalwood panels. He listened to her undress: bangles sliding over wrists, the whisper of silk pooling at her feet. Each sound was deliberate, careful, as if she feared waking a sleeping animal. When the mattress dipped under her weight he felt the vibration travel through his own ribs. She settled at the opposite edge, leaving a cold trench of embroidered counterpane between them wide enough for three more bodies.

Minutes passed, measured by the drip of oil in the lamp. He kept his breathing shallow, eyes fixed on the grain of the wall where moonlight painted a pale stripe. Behind him her hair released the faint scent of crushed jasmine; he had always liked that smell, and the recognition needled him. She shifted once, drawing up the light blanket, then stilled.

A sigh—so soft he almost missed it—brushed the air. Not relief, not sorrow, only exhaustion. The sound entered his ear and traveled straight to the base of his spine, where it lodged like a splinter. He pictured her lying on her back, staring at the canopy, palms open at her sides, waiting for something he would never offer. The image pleased him in a dull, aching way; if he could not wound Draupadi with silence, he could at least wound the woman who had been offered up as consolation.

He waited for her to speak again, to plead or question, but the chamber remained quiet except for the distant bark of a night watchman. The quiet grew thick, pressing against his eardrums until he thought it might burst them. Still he gave her nothing—no movement, no acknowledgment that another person shared the room. Power, he discovered, could be measured in withheld syllables.

When the lamp finally guttered out, darkness erased the furniture, the wedding garlands slung over a chair, the copper tray of auspicious rice now cold. In that darkness he felt her presence more acutely: the warmth rising from her skin, the measured rise and fall of her breathing. He imagined her eyes open, reflecting the faint starlight that leaked through the lattice, watching the rigid line of his back. Let her look. Let her understand exactly what she had married.

Sleep did not come. His shoulder began to throb where it pressed against the hard mattress, but he refused to shift. Sometime before dawn he heard her turn onto her side, facing away, the smallest surrender. Only then did he allow himself to close his eyes, the silence he had forged settling over them both like a blade laid between their bodies.

He rose before the sun, when the corridors still smelled of extinguished lamps, and walked to the archery field barefoot so the gravel would bite his soles awake. The servants found him there at dawn, shirtless, forearms bleeding from the bowstring’s kiss, quiver empty. They brought fresh arrows; he sent them all into the same palm-width circle until the center of the target shredded and fell out. Then he moved the mark farther and started again.

When the heat grew unbearable he switched to sword work, drilling with the palace guards until their wrists cramped and they begged leave to fetch water. He fought two at a time, then three, sweat stinging his eyes, lungs burning, the clang of steel the only conversation he could tolerate. If he pushed hard enough, the memory of Draupadi’s voice lost its shape; if he kept moving, he did not have to notice the way Subhadra’s gaze tracked him from the balcony where she came to dry her hair.

He returned to their chamber only after the torches were lowered, muscles trembling, mind scraped clean. The door would be unlatched, a single lamp burning low. On the first night he saw the flowers—white star-blooms floating in a bronze bowl—and walked past them to the washing stand. By the fourth night the petals browned at the edges; by the seventh they were gone, the water clouded, and still he said nothing. When the bowl disappeared he felt a small, mean triumph, as if he had won a round of combat.

Meals arrived on a tray: rice molded into a crescent, lentils glossy with ghee, fish steamed in banana leaf. He ate standing at the window, looking out at the practice yard, chewing mechanically. If the food was cold he did not notice; taste was another thing he had decided to forgo. The next morning the untouched portions were gone, replaced by fresh portions he would also let cool. He never saw her carry the tray, yet the rhythm never faltered—warm food, cold food, disappearance—like a rite performed for an idol that refused to bless the worshipper.

One afternoon he found his hunting tunic folded at the foot of the bed, the tear beneath the right sleeve closed with thread so fine he had to angle the lamp to see it. He ran a thumb over the neat stitches, felt something twist in his chest, and ripped the seam open again with one jerk. The next day the tunic was gone entirely; he wore an older one and told himself the scratch of homespun against his skin was preferable to gratitude.

She never spoke first. When he entered she would look up from her scroll or her spinning, acknowledge him with the smallest dip of her chin, then return to her task. Her silence was different from his: patient, deliberate, a wall built brick by brick while he watched from the other side. Sometimes he caught himself studying the line of her shoulder, the way her hair kinked where she had twisted it while bathing, and he would wrench his gaze away as if she had burned him.

Weeks passed this way—targets replaced, blades sharpened, muscles growing hard as the calluses on his palms. In the hush before sleep he listened to her breathing, steady and even, and wondered how long she could keep it so calm. He told himself the answer did not matter; he had already learned to live inside the space her absence created, and it was large enough to hold every arrow he would ever shoot.