Arcania

Chaitra's pov

Chaitra’s POV
    We went towards the outskirts of the city. It was kind of like a forest area. We decided not to go inside the dense forest since Mark had warned us about magical creatures staying here. We started roaming around the huge lake. The cool breeze of the evening was so relaxing. “Isn’t it so peaceful here?” Muktha said. “Yeh, especially after such a long day” Kanchana sighed. I just nodded as I glanced at the surroundings.
    We suddenly heard some noise from the bushes behind. We were scared, especially after that kidnapping incident. We turned back to only find a rabbit coming out of the bushes. We sighed with relief. As I turned front to continue walking, I tripped on my high heels and fell inside the lake. I held my breadth and tried my level best to come up, but it was of no use. I just closed my eyes as the memories of my previous experiences, when I almost drowned, came back. I was terrified. I tried again to move up, but ended up going down instead. I couldn’t control my breath for any longer. I had lost hope of surviving, so I just inhaled for the last time, accepting my death.
    But to my surprise, I didn’t choke, infact I could breath normally underwater. I calmed myself and tried moving around. I could swim easily as I stretched my arms and pushed water behind, like a mermaid. I almost stopped breathing- not out of fear but sheer awe and delight. Wow! Multi-coloured fishes formed different patterns as they zigzagged their way around me. They brushed my hands softly giving a tickling sensation. It felt more magical than I could ever imagine. I could see many corals at the bottom which added to the beauty. Time slowed down as I tried to savour every moment, remembering every detail. I felt like I entered a whole new world, where I could experience freedom and peace.
    Even though I wanted to stay and discover more I didn’t want Muktha and Kanchana to get worried about me. I started moving up by pushing water down slowly. One thing which I learnt from that experience was when we are anxious, we only end up complicating our problems. If I had calmed myself and tried moving up slowly in the beginning, I would have succeeded in the first try itself, but I wouldn’t have discovered my ability. As I popped my head on the surface of water, they both were relieved. Two guards who had come with us helped me to get out of water.
    “Oh god! Are you alright?” Kanchana asked. “Yeh, I’m fine” I said as I sat on a big rock nearby. “Its a miracle that you could come out normally even after staying there for so long” Muktha said. I turned around and checked as the guards left us alone. “Well that’s because I just discovered my power” “What?” they both asked in unison. “Yeh, I can breathe and swim around easily underwater” I said with a grin even though I was shivering because of the cool wind. “Wow, that’s amazing!” Kanchana exclaimed. “I guess it’s time to leave or else you might catch cold” Muktha said and we both agreed. We went back to our Royal carriage.
     As we passed through the garden we saw someone familiar, Raveena. She smiled looking at us and her expression suddenly changed as she looked at my drenched clothes. “Oh my god! What happened? Are you ok?” she asked with a concerned look. “Yeh I’m fine. I just tripped and fell into the lake” I said with a sheepish grin. She would be judging me as a very clumsy queen she had ever seen. “Good that you are safe” she gave a warm smile and we just nodded. “This is Muktha” Kanchana introduced her to Raveena. “Nice to meet you. I'm Raveena, Mask's sister” she shook her hands with Muktha. “Pleasure meeting you” Muktha replied. “I heard that your combat training will start from tomorrow. Good luck for that” she wished. “Thank you” “And remember, I’ll always be there to help you out and clear any of your queries” she said with a serious look. She genuinely wanted to make us feel comfortable here or maybe warning us about the danger awaiting for us. We went back to our room. I took a shower and got dressed. I couldn’t get the image of the underwater beauty out of my mind. I told them about my experience while having dinner and came back to our room to sleep.
An hour passed by, yet I wasn’t able to sleep. I walked to the window and started staring at the view outside. I didn’t know what was keeping me awake, was it because of today’s incident or the combat training from the next day or everything being new and different? Even though we didn’t know how so many things were happening quickly, we were just living in the moment and going with the flow. I just hoped that we wouldn’t regret coming here.
      I grabbed my coat and decided to take a walk in the garden. The security of the whole palace was doubled after the kidnapping incident so I was more confident to roam around alone. The weather was perfect for a walk on sleepless nights. As I was lost in my thoughts I felt a hand on my shoulder. I jerked and turned behind to see Ryan with a surprised look “Don’t worry, it’s just me” I smiled and continued walking next to him. “I thought you would be sleeping early because of the combat training from tomorrow” he asked.
    “Yeh I was supposed to but I’m not feeling like sleeping at all. Maybe because I’m very excited”  he chuckled and nodded in agreement.
   “Yes, I totally understand because I was in your place when I initially came here. Infact I didn’t sleep throughout the night”
   “What? Didn’t you feel tired while training? I mean, it’ll be very tiring generally with proper sleep also”
   “No, I didn’t. But to compensate I slept for straight 12 hours skipping dinner and breakfast. Infact if it wasn’t for training on the next day I would have slept for the whole day”  We started laughing, loud enough for our voices to echo in the nearby hallways of the palace. We suddenly lowered our voices so that we wouldn’t wake others up.
   “So, I heard that you guys went to explore outside of the palace in the morning, how was it? Did you enjoy it?” he asked keenly. “Yes, it was good. We felt refreshed since we went out after so long. We spent more time in the outskirts and it was very peaceful” I replied while recalling the moments. “Next time when you guys go out don’t forget to visit the city for shopping. The city is famous for the unique rose gold ornaments. There are thousands of unique designs so you won’t be disappointed” I nodded and replied “Well, thank you for the idea. We’ll definitely check it out next time. I guess I should go back and try falling asleep in order to wake up early”  “Yes, you need rest because you’ll be more busy from tomorrow. I’ll accompany you till your room” I nodded and we headed towards the corridor.
  The next day, we had to be ready by 9:30 am. We got different outfits for combat training. A high neck full sleeved black top with black pants and long boots. We wore a black armour which covered our bodies till our waist and shoulder caps. Wow! “I’m in love with this outfit!” I exclaimed as I looked myself in the mirror. “Yeh, but it’s kind of suffocating” Kanchana said while wearing her armour. “Yeh but we should get used to it because the training will be there for more than a week” Muktha said as she wore her boots. We agreed with her. Mask hadn’t specifically mentioned the time because it would depend on how quickly we mastered our skills. We came out of our room to find Alisha waiting for us. She lead us to the training fields.
     We had never been to this part of the palace, infact we haven’t discovered many places yet. It was a spacious ground with five big rings drawn separately for fighting. On the right side there was a long table with many weapons. We had to choose one to master it. We saw a tall guy with a similar outfit as ours standing next to the table. He had a serious expression as he greeted us. “Good morning ladies. I'm Lucas and I’ll be your Combat trainer” We introduced ourselves as we shook hands with him. “Pardon me ladies, even though you are the future Queens of Arcania I have to be quite stern during training, because that’s my duty as a trainer” he said. “Yeh we can understand” Muktha said as we glanced at each other. “Okay. So you have to select your weapon now and we'll be starting with the basics today” we nodded and went to choose our weapons.
     Muktha chose a lance which was almost of her height. Kanchana chose a mace which kind of looked heavy but she was fine with holding it. I glanced at the other weapons and finally chose a bow. But I neither found arrows nor a quiver. I asked Lucas about them. “These aren’t ordinary weapons, they are magical ones. This bow doesn’t need any arrows because as you pull the string an arrow will appear. A lance can knock out anyone when you touch them on the head, but that isn’t as easy as you think because a lancer will master defending first while training. And for a mace, it can changes its size based on your command” he answered. “Wow” we all exclaimed as we looked at our weapons.
    I was shooting arrows at the target rings, aiming at the centre yellow ring. Most of them ended up reaching red and blue rings. Lucas was teaching defending techniques for Muktha and Kanchana was busy practising the moves which she learnt earlier. We didn’t realise how quickly time passed since we were so into our training. It was almost 2 pm when he left us for lunch. We removed our armours and went to have lunch in the dining hall. He had just given an hour for lunch, so we had to eat quickly and get back to our training. Even though the training was kind of exhausting, we liked the new experience of mastering a weapon.
    It was almost 6 pm when he gave us permission to go and take rest. “Since it’s the first day I’m leaving you early, but from tomorrow it'll be till 7 pm and you should be here by 9:30 am sharp” he said while crossing arms. We just nodded because we were too tired to say anything also. We dragged ourselves to our room and fell on the bed. We just ate some fruits and slept off because we were too lazy to change our outfit to have dinner. .