Unveiling Destiny

7: Shadows Unveiled

The weight of secrecy lingered in the air as Rudransh, fueled by an unsettling intuition, decided to confront his family about Shivanya's mysterious absence. From the moment he came back, no one spoke about Shivanya not even his brother and sisters to tease him. But he didn't dwell on it and concentrated on his business completely thinking that when the time came they would ask him but they clearly didn't.

Rudransh: "There's something you're all hiding. Where is Shivanya? Why the evasive glances and the silent tears?"

His mother, her gaze faltering, struggled to find words.Maa: "Shivanya... it's a painful chapter we'd rather forget."

Rudransh, growing impatient, addressed his grandmother directly knowing she would break the ice. Rudransh: "Dadi, I demand the truth. What happened to Shivanya?"

Grandmother, maintaining an unyielding demeanour: "Shivanya Ranawat is no longer a part of this tale. Her chapter concluded long ago."The room tightened with an unspoken tension as Rudransh pressed for answers.Rudransh: "Enough with the cryptic words. Tell me the truth."His grandmother, her eyes revealing the weight of a concealed truth, spoke with calculated coldness.Grandmother: "Shivanya died four years ago, Rudransh. She was kidnapped, endured unspeakable horrors, and her life was brutally taken from her. We kept this from you to protect you."

A deafening silence enveloped the room, shattered only by Rudransh's anguished roar. The echoes of his disbelief reverberated through the palace.

Rudransh, in a fit of rage: "No! This can't be true! You're all lying!"His mother, tears streaming down her face, struggled to articulate the heartbreaking reality.Maa: "It was a nightmare, Rudra. We searched for her, and when we found her... she was gone."

Rudransh's world shattered, a tempest of emotions tearing through the carefully constructed façade of control. In an outburst of despair, he overturned a table, the clatter resonating like a requiem.

Rudransh, voice laced with anguish: "How could you hide this from me? Shivanya, my queen. Who gave the right to you all to hide this from me?... ANSWER ME..."

Grandmother, unyielding: "It was for your own good. The burden of such knowledge could break even the strongest."

Rudransh, seething with anger and grief, locked eyes with his grandmother.Rudransh: "I don't believe you. You've robbed me of the truth, of a chance to mourn, and now you all stand there, unremorseful. I don't believe you... I don't believe any of you... I will dig up all the things that happened in my absence... ALL OF THEM FOR MY QUEEN..."

His family, paralyzed by the eruption of suppressed pain, witnessed Rudransh's unravelling. The palace walls, once a sanctuary, bore witness to the shattered fragments of a truth untold.

In the aftermath of the revelations, Rudransh stood at the precipice of an emotional abyss, his convictions shattered, and his trust obliterated. The grandeur of the palace is now cloaked in shadows cast by the skeletons of the past.The veil of secrecy lifted, but in its wake, it left behind a family torn between the duty to protect and the consequence of deception. Rudransh, now grappling with the harsh reality, faced a profound choice- to rebuild the fragments of his shattered world or succumb to the darkness within.