Ruthless

↠ Nao ↞

❝And in her smile I see something more beautiful than the stars.❞
Beth Revis

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A FEW DAYS LATER

THE queen passed hoards and hoards of courtiers and handmaidens to reach the golden gates of the library. The doors stood slightly ajar which indicated that someone was in. This confused her since no one comes to the library this deep into the night.

Akira rested her hand against her sword hilt which was placed securely at her waist as she pushed open the doors. The queen cringed slightly at the creaking sound that the doors made as she walked inside the library.

"Who is there?" A voice came from inside at the creaking of the gateway. The sound was easy to locate in the vast library. Akira recognized that voice more quickly than a blink of the eye, that voice had annoyed her too much for her own good since the past few days. 

It belonged to Yuvraj Kartik.

Akira walked past shelves and shelves – all of them filled with any and every book imaginable - and under the huge gold carved ceiling which depicted a myth her baba had told her when she was a child. She made her way to the source of the voice.

The voice had come from the inner sections of the library and she answered back, "It's me."

Her footsteps echoed through the library, blending with the silence quickly as she walked on the marble floor. Akira came to a halt and rested her shoulder against a mahogany book shelf which almost touched the ceiling and she spotted the man holding a thin, worn out book in his hands, his gaze fixated on it as a gentle smile encased his lips.

"What are you doing here so late?" She raised an eyebrow.

His eyes didn't leave the book as he turned the pages delicately, "Reading, of course."

The sovereign propelled herself from the shelf and took a few steps towards him, "And what exactly are you reading?"

He said nothing but rather just silently gestured at the book in his hands. She glanced at the pages he had turned over which were illustrated with silly figures and she scrunched her eyebrows together in confusion and curio, "That's a children's book Yuvraj."

"I know."

She looked up at his face in perplexity, "You're reading a children's story book?"

He tore his gaze away from the words for the first time that evening and looked at her with a small shrug, "Yes"

"I did know that you have the intelligence of a small child but I didn't know you had the same interests as a child." She tried to joke and he simply shrugged, ignoring her comment as if he was too busy reading. 

"So," she tried again, this time with a more sincere tone, "would you tell me why you're reading this book?" 

Kartik ignored her question and instead put forth one of his as his fingers traced the ink on the book, "Have you read it?"

Akira glimpsed at the thin story book which looked sturdy yet worn, "No, never read that book for some reason."

A melancholy happiness clouded his eyes and a sad smile came to life on his face as he just stared at the book, "It reminds me of my mother... she gave this book to me when I was a child. Used to read it to me every night."

His expression looked fazed as if he was re-living moments he couldn't travel back no matter how much he yearned for it and for a moment there the queen could almost feel the days and days she and her father had spent in the library, reading stories and making silly faces at each other, just enjoying the pure bliss before it ended abruptly.