The Cursed Princess of Suryagarh: Book 1

34. Nature finds balance

The distant echoes of the screeches and shrill cries cautioned Aarush. He was still roaming the galleries on the second floor in a bid to penetrate through the darkness and reach Meera's chambers, but the distinct screams weren't from an unknown stranger. He was well aware of who it was, and he quickened his pace when traipsing up the narrow and steep stairs. Meandering through the corridors in absolute darkness, he dared not call her name out loud, for he was certain she was struggling to either keep herself free from the clutches of the immortal or to seek freedom from him after being captured. In any case, he needed to be stealthy to discover her. He had promised not a single scratch would come up on her, yet there were gashes on her body with blood spurting out of them, according to Radha, and Aarush loathed himself for the trauma caused to the girl.

"Squeamish," he mumbled under his breath as he silently trudged down the alley to the antechamber of Meera's room. "She must be squeamish."

However, even without any source of illumination and from a considerable distance beyond the tapered gallery, he could tell that the complete stillness and deafening silence from the antechamber narrated a starkly different tale. Radha had told him that she was concealed inside Meera's chambers, but with the immortal on the loose too, anything could happen at any time. And the worst had indeed transpired. He was not left with any qualms anymore. The wide-open door to the room and the absence of another soul in the vicinity confirmed his suspicions. The squeals and yells from a few minutes ago were because Adhyayan got to Shreya before he could.

Another bout of extreme self-deprecation and hatred ran through his body, and he doubled up his speed to get back to the courtyard so that the next course of action could be formulated. He would never permit Shreya Awasthy to leave the mortal world via the similar pyre on which Meera was burned. He refused to live through the same tale of agony and remorse that the prince had to experience in the wake of his stupidity of not listening to Meera and not protecting her when she needed him the most. Aarush Chauhan was going to right the wrongs done by the cruel prince.

However, the moment he was in the entrance chamber of Agni Bhawan, the drop in the temperature and the reverberations of the immortal's voice against the walls told him the story way before he perceived the scene with his own eyes. Everything happened in front of him in an agonizingly slow fashion. He willed to sprint down the width of the entrance chamber so that he could descend the steps and tug the girl closer to safety, but in the low illumination of the moon and the azure-hued irrediscence imbuing the surroundings, he could see the numerous scrapes and cuts on her face, the tears of anguish glistening on her cheeks, the blood trickling down her temples, her semi-closed eyes, the way in which she wheezed and panted, the manner in which she cried when Adhyayan pulled her hair.

And everything seemed to come to a standstill for him as, for the first time in two decades, dread filled him up. The faster he tried to rush across, the slower time moved for him until a mighty roar left his mouth and he leapt ahead only to grapple in the emptiness of air since the girl had vanished from the bottom of the stairs before he could grab her and secure her.

"No!"

He stared at his empty palms with shock imprinted in his soul, and his eyes widened in utter puzzlement. He could swear his rough fingers had brushed against the smooth and soft expanse of her forearms, but the liquid drops of crimson painting the tips of his skin sickened him. His furious gaze darted over the spot as he disregarded his sister rushing up to him and shaking him up, telling him that the immortal had kidnapped the girl while tears choked her up too. He was trying to make sense of the words Jagdish was uttering, telling him and the two other shocked people that Radha was hobbling down the steps of Agni Bhawan and would figure everything out soon. However, all the words and phrases and sentences were too jumbled for his muddled brain.