THE CONQUEROR'S CAPTIVE

BACK TO THE DUNGEONS

Surabhi's POV

"I love you, Surabhi"

I stood in front of him not knowing how to react. He looked back at me with tears in his eyes while mine welled up in no time. He loved me. He said he was in love with me. We could not remove our eyes from each other while the only thought in my head was how wrong it was. 

"Bhargava!", his mother called making him tear his gaze away from me. He too looked like he was in utter shock because of his sudden confession. They were at a good distance from us and hadn't heard what he had just said to me. He walked away from me while still looking at me. I kept looking at him as his parents pulled him into a hug with tear filled eyes. Janaki and Radhika too hugged them making them laugh through the tears. I looked at them and a happy smile took over my face. I was happy he finally got the warmth of his family. He slowly turned back to look at me over his shoulder and his look begged me to not leave him and join him. But the burning scars on my skin told me how broken I was and how I would never fit into his perfect family. 

I turned around and ran away not knowing where to go. But I knew that I had to get away from him to think straight. I only realized where I was when I saw the dungeons I stayed in for four years from a distance. In all the months after the death of the previous king, I hadn't visited there even once fearing what would happen if I relived those hurtful memories. I strode towards the dungeons and placed my hand on the rusting iron bars of the front gate. I opened the lock of the gate and walked in. The place was exactly as I remembered it while walking out of it many months ago. My steps did not halt until I had reached the farthest cell where I was let to rot. I looked at the cell while my hands were on the rusting, bent bars that I used to try to break until I finally gave up. 

I opened the old rusting gate and the familiar screeching brought back some cold memories. I stepped inside and took a deep breath. The rock that I used to sleep on was still there. It was covered in dust and dead insects. I blew on it and looked around for a while. That place was my home for so many years and I hadn't even seen it properly. Constant pain and depression had blinded my eyes from letting me see anything else. The little ray of sun falling from the little gaps from the rock reminded me of how rain water would seep in through them and keep me up all night. I saw the chains that used to be tied around me all the time, biting through my skin, making me weak by each passing day. I picked them up and felt grateful for being free from them.

I suddenly heard footsteps behind me but I knew who it was. I heard him step inside the cell and pant loudly. "Surabhi, listen to me-", I dropped the chains to turned around and held up my hand. Tears were flowing down my face as I talked, "I thought you were only joking when you spoke about our wedding all these months. But I should have known you never joke around about anything. You, like most men, speak exactly what you think without judging if it is right or not before the words leave your tongue". He panted as I continued.

"How could you possibly fall in love with me, Maharaj? How could you even like the idea of being with someone like me? I am not a princess anymore. I was a prisoner. I used to live here and take all the beating until you relieved me from that torment. I am broken beyond repair. I was used in a game where I was just another pawn. You heard Mrinalini that night. My life is not what it used to be and will never be the same. Do you really want to be with someone so miserable?", he looked right into my eyes and said, "Yes, Surabhi. I want to be with you in spite of all that. I fell for you even when I knew how broken you were. I fell in love with you even when I knew you had given up hope on being someone's lover. Not because of pity. Because you are the only one who make it feel like it is normal to be broken".

"You speak as if you are the only person who has gone through a lot. Well, wake up dear, because you are not the only one who's life was reduced to nothing. The four years you spent here, in this dungeon, I spent the exact same torture, outside. Just because I said something against him, that bastard had started to torture me day and night. I would be in the Gurukul learning something and someone would come running to me to say that Janaki was in trouble. I would go running back to her to see some creepy man talking to her while she looked scared as hell. You have no idea how many times I have saved her from how many men like that. You have no idea how many times I was beaten up and left to die god-knows-where. My father would be threatened everyday in the temple he works at. I lived through all that and one day, I snapped".