Somadeva, a storyteller from the bygone Common Era in northern India, is resurrected centuries after his death by Isha, a writer who admires him. Somadeva’s spirit has been captured by Isha’s futuristic technology, allowing her to communicate with him. Isha is in love with Somadeva and the stories he wove, and she wants to become a storyteller herself. Somadeva suspects that her desire to collect tales comes from her lack of memory; when she was a child, her personal history was stolen from her and appropriated for entertainment. Now, she seeks stories (especially origin stories) to fill the void. With only a copy of Somadeva’s text as evidence of her past, she travels across the galaxy searching for belonging. Somadeva’s consciousness acts as her advisor as she travels through space, offering her insight and companionship. She often requests stories from him, and so he tells her the tale of the queen he sought to protect with the stories he collected. Somadeva’s writings were conglomerations of folktales that he wove together, and the queen he served treasured his stories. They were an escape for her, a way to forget the coming war and her son’s murderous intent towards the king.

Somadeva also reflects on his travels with Isha. He awakes from one such meditative period and realizes that he has returned to the palace of the queen he served centuries ago. In front of him is a steaming pot, the contents of which Somadeva can taste in his mouth. He is disoriented; he cannot tell if he has immersed himself in his past through telling Isha the story of his queen or if he has somehow mentally traveled forward in time by way of the mind-altering concoction he has consumed at the behest of the queen. She asks him to drink it and prophesize, and even though it worsens the confusion, he complies and drinks again. His consciousness is transported back to Isha’s ship, but he cannot tell if he is speaking to his queen or to Isha. Regardless, he launches into a story about a collective called Inish where inhabitants have complex ideas of self and where individual identities fluidly blend into one another. When he finishes the story, Isha wants to know what became of the queen. Somadeva reveals that the tension between her son and husband came to a head with the son triumphing. The queen, distraught by the loss of her husband, flung herself onto his funeral pyre. Despite relating her demise, Somadeva is acutely aware of the queen’s presence, whether it be real or conjured by narrative. As he contemplates his situation, he begins to think that he is caught in a time loop, present in both places and times, repeating the same stories and searching for the same truths.