Krishna leaned forward now, and something almost fierce entered his voice — not anger, but urgency, the way a man speaks when he sees his friend about to throw away the rarest thing in the world without realizing what it is.

"Do you know," he said, "how many warriors live their entire lives waiting for what stands in front of you right now?"

Arjuna did not answer. His jaw was clenched, his eyes fixed on the ground between his feet.

"I will tell you," Krishna said. "Thousands. Tens of thousands. Warriors who train from boyhood, who wake before dawn to practice with the sword and the bow and the mace, who sharpen their discipline year after year after year — and never once in their lives does a truly righteous cause find them. They fight border skirmishes. They defend trade routes. They grow old and die having never stood at the center of something that mattered. They would have given everything for a battle like this one."

He swept his hand toward the field.

"This war did not come because you went looking for it. You did not choose this. Your family was cheated, your wife was humiliated, your kingdom was stolen, every attempt at peace was thrown back in your face. This battle arrived at your door the way the monsoon arrives — not because you called it, but because it was time. And for a Kshatriya, a righteous war that comes unsought is the rarest gift the world can offer. It is an open gate."

Krishna pointed skyward, and for a moment Arjuna imagined he could see it — a gate in the bright haze above the field, massive, carved with lotuses and lions, standing open and waiting, light pouring through.

"Other men must search their whole lives for a chance to serve dharma so completely. The chance came to you. It walked to your chariot and stood here, asking to be met."

The wind picked up, snapping the Pandava banners eastward. The white horses tossed their manes.

"Will you turn it away?"