Royal Rivalry of Love.

A tragedy strikes.

Devesh saw the dead body of King Aanandaswarup lying in the southern garden. The same snake that was after the princess had now killed the king. 

He quickly yelled out for the soldiers and the news was hastily given to Adhrit, who was sleeping. Devesh's heart sank, Such unsuspicious event before marriage. 

Adhrit came rushing down and the dead body was picked up by the soldiers and bought to a room upstairs.

Aanandini had already removed her jewelries, as she was about to sleep soon. While, Dhara was already asleep.

The news was given to her by a sevak. At first, she couldn't believe him and got angry. She said that she would behead him if it was a lie. But she knew, his eyes were telling the truth as he wasn't scared of the threat, instead, he looked worried and tensed.

"Dhara!" She exclaimed. She started to push Dhara to wake her up but she didn't. She had drifted into the sleep void.

Not being able to comprehend what was happening around her, she ran out of the room. Yelling and screaming, she entered the place where her father was kept. 

"No...No...NO!" She kept repeating the no's while grasping tightly to her father's hand. Adhrit was standing next to her, with his hand on her shoulder, trying to comfort her but he knew she couldn't feel calm. It wasn't possible. His father was no longer alive too and Adhrit didn't step out of his room for a whole week. He was only 17 at that time and he felt like killing himself at that moment.

The letters were sent out to the sons of the king and his wives. It was sent to everyone. The fate of such a mighty king was only to let him die due to a snake venom?

The king's body was kept separately, out of sight. It was nighttime, so they couldn't do the death rites and rituals yet, They had to wait till the sun was up. Till then, the sons would come too, with the three wives he had. 

Only his brother, the father of Princess Dhara wouldn't possibly be able to join the death ceremony of his dearest brother, the one who had loved so much that on multiple occasions, he was ready to sacrifice his life for him. His kingdom was too far away and it would take him five days to come there. He would come, obviously. But late. Very late.

Aanandini was sitting at the temple, dressed in white, it was 3:49 am now, she had been sitting there right after seeing her father. She wasn't praying to Shree Vishnu. In fact, she had blown out all the diyas and the pujaghar was dark for the first time. 

"Rajkumari, your five step brothers have arrived" A sevika informed her. After getting no reply, she continued, "Your mothers are here too."

In reply, she plainly said, "Tell them, their sister is drenched in grief. They should only meet me, if they want me to yell and cry at them."

Before the sevika could go. Aanandini stopped her and asked, "When will Chacha and Chachi come?" She said it with teary eyes. She was missing them. She wanted to hug them. After her father, these two were the only people she truly loved. Not her brothers and not her mothers. Her real mother wasn't even alive. Her step-mothers, on the other hand, were cruel and mean to her always. It was always Chachi Indu who acted like a mother. Which was also the reason why she favored Dhara over her two step sisters and Dhara's younger brothers, Aaryan, Bhaskar and Chandra over her five step brothers, who had treated her like trash since the beginning.

Dhara finally woke up from her sleep and called for a dasi  but no one came. In midst of chaos and tragedy, people have forgotten to wake Dhara up and inform her.

Finally after seven minutes, someone entered the room. It was Adhrit.

"Dhara...." his voice sounded low and his head was down. "Your bade pitashri...."