THE RULERS OF RISHABHAPRIYA

Pain

Surabhi's POV

No one slept in the palace that night. We saw the doctors helping the two heavily injured men clean their wounds and give advices for the next few days. Jija Ji and the prince of Swarnadhatri had left to their own kingdom and the king of Jynanabhushani had run away after an arguement with my brother in the battlefield. Dheer Bhaiyya's grandparents sat with us while scolding my brother. "A battle for something so petty. If your father was here to see this, Adi, he would have been so disappointed in you", weirdly, Bhaiyya looked at Bhargav and both of them looked on alert as soon as my father's topic was brought up. Again the topic changed to Dharm and Yashaswini being scared and Bhabhi expressed how terrified she was when she found out Bhaiyya was going to the battlefield. 

"You know that I did not start this battle, Aparajitha. The talks of the wedding made me helpless and I had to support the king of Jynanabhushani in his plans", Bhaiyya said as he flinched at the stinging in his shoulder injuries. "But why did they attack so suddenly? A battle has to be set properly and that process is usually time consuming as far as I know. The date, time and place should be decided by both parties. Then, the preparations start and then finally a couple days, battles start. This was all so sudden. One minute they are saying they will come here to see Surabhi and the next they are in the battlefield. Is this some joke to them?", Roop Bhabhi asked. 

"I agree, Bhabhi. I am wondering why Bhaiyya supported him though. He could have just easily refused to help in the battle. I don't know what made the king of the strongest nation so helpless in front of Jynanabhushani", I said. "Surabhi, he is a mad man. He could have done anything to harm us in some or the other way. Adi was also helpless because if he had stayed back without helping him, our trading would have taken a huge hit. We get most of our cotton, raisins, wheat and a few spices from them. And we all know how they can be. And he wanted this battle because, he somehow got to know about you and Maharaj Bhargav and wanted to eliminate all hurdles in his way in making a proper relationship with Ratnagarbha".

"And that hurdle was me", Bhargav said, "But he also wanted to take over Rishabhapriya. I knew that the day he had come to visit us after my coronation. I knew he would be a problem to me someday", he said as an assistant of the doctor placed some leaves on his shoulders to ease the pain in them. I sucked on my teeth and looked away while shifting on my seat unable to see him in pain. "Well, I don't think they will be the same after Maharaj cancelled the battle he wanted to draw so much blood in. We will face changes in trading then", Roop Bhabhi said. I was not happy about how my brother had dealt with everything. He was raised to be a king. I was sure even during the years when I was gone, he had seen a lot of problems but I was also sure he always knew the right way to deal with them. I was disappointed in how he let his heart make decisions this time. 

"I'm sorry, Surabhi. I can only imagine how you might be feeling right now", Adi Bhaiyya whispered. I felt the tears well up in my eyes as I felt a rush of emotions. Roop Bhabhi sitting beside me rubbed my shoulders and I wiped my tears away. "Why were you so reckless, Bhaiyya? Huh? That is all I want to know. You could have just sat down and spoken to me. Do you have any idea how it feels to see you both like this. You both only feel the pain from your injuries. Just imagine my pain. How do you even expect me to choose in between you and him, Bhaiyya? Haven't you fallen in love? Don't you know how that feels? I am very disappointed in you, Bhaiyya. You even agreed to marry me off to some alcoholic just to get revenge from me", he looked at me with a guilty expression. 

I sniffed and turned away from him again, "I can understand your concern about me but I am not a little girl anymore. I was a teenager when I was taken away from you, yes. But I am a grown woman now and you should have listened to how I felt if you really wanted to be the one making decisions for me", I said. It was quiet for a few moments until Bhargav said, "There is no use in hiding it now. She deserves to know", Aparajitha Bhabhi agreed to his words. I looked at them to see what else was hidden from me, "Surabhi, what Dheer said about the trading reason was completely true. That was one of the reasons I helped him. But not because we were going to start a new relationship or something like that. In fact a reply to their last letter was never sent. Moreover, I had no plans on taking that relationship to the next level. I had a plan to drop the proposal right away and before that all this happened", he dismissed the doctor and the other leaving only us royals in there.