Sands Of Time - a timeless love saga

Chapter 77

Veer closed his eyes. "No," he said. "No. Mohan never betrayed Radhika."

She stood up abruptly. The words she had carried for lifetimes rose to the surface, sharp and unrelenting. "Do you remember what you said? 'Is it done yet? How long do we have to wait?' And also... 'Finish it soon. I am running out of patience. I don't want any shadow of evil lingering around this palace as I get married. You heard me, Panditji?'" Her voice broke slightly on the last line. "You were right there, Mohan. Right beside me. While I was burning in that coffin. While Agninath was killing me alive. You let it happen. You wanted to marry Avantika! You—" She stopped. Her breath came out ragged.

Veer looked at her. The weight of it sat on his face clearly, and he didn't try to push it away. "I was under a spell," he said. "I swear to you... I didn't mean any of it. And I fought my way back. I came for you, Radhika. You didn't die in that coffin." He held her gaze. "I promise you... you didn't die there."

Aastha stared at him. She stumbled slightly with the shock of it. Veer caught her, steadied her, and reached for the towel from the bedside table. He wrapped it carefully around her bleeding hand, tying it firmly as she stood there still processing his words.

"Yudhisthira and I had been investigating the witch for some time," he continued, his voice careful and even. "The strange occurrences at Rudragarh, all of it. The only way to prove your innocence... to prove you hadn't killed your grandmother Rani Ma, that you weren't the witch... was to find real evidence. During our investigation we gathered witness accounts, testimonials, everything we could find. We also discovered letters. Letters written by a southern princess who had been obsessed with Raja Ratan Singh, who had even taken her own life because of it. The letters were addressed to a daayan from the Aravalli hills. I needed them translated, and at that moment, Avantika was the only one I thought could do it."

He looked away briefly. A quiet, humourless sound escaped him. "I should have suspected her. I should have known that if the witch wasn't you, it had to be Avantika. But I gave her the benefit of the doubt. I wanted to be sure before I accused her." He shook his head. "That was my mistake. And it fell too heavily on all of us. However, I and Yudhisthira had cracked the case open.. the letters were our evidence.. we finally knew who the culprit was... But I still made a grave mistake. I thought I could solve this smartly, bring justice to whatever Radhika went through... so I went in search of Avantika.. The moment I went to her, the moment I told her what we had discovered... I was trapped inside my own head. Everything I did after that was under her control. Every word I said in that room, about finishing it, about not wanting evil near the palace... that was Avantika speaking through me. That's why you believed I betrayed you."

He stopped. Took a breath. "After being born again, my memories of that time didn't come back cleanly," he said. "When I first understood I was Mohan, it arrived in fragments. Random pieces. Sometimes I would recall killing Avantika. Sometimes the things I did under the spell. Some of it was so blurred it left me in pieces just trying to put it together." He glanced at her. "But after watching you dance at Prem Mahal... after everything that followed... it all came back. Every corner of it. Slowly, completely."

He steadied himself. "Let me tell you... how Mohan and Radhika died..."

***

Rudragarh, 1816

"I will come for you again, Mohan! I will destroy you! I will kill you! I promise you, I will!" Radhika's voice tore through the chamber before the flames and smoke swallowed it whole.

Mohan felt the words hit him somewhere deep, even through the fog of the spell, even through the haze Avantika had wrapped around his mind, Radhika's voice reached something in him. He looked at Avantika standing before him, her expression soft and wounded and entirely false.