YEARN

CHAPTER 03

R U D R A N S H

Being the King of a kingdom as enormous as Vibhava was a tedious task. There was always something that required his attention, attention that he couldn't delay if he wanted to keep up the standards that his father had set. As difficult as it was, Rudransh could guarantee that being the oldest sibling in a family as big as theirs was much more difficult.

He sighed when Prithvi slammed the door behind him. His younger brother wasn't a sensitive person. In fact, he was the farthest thing from it. The only thing that got to him was people commenting about how unlucky he was. Or rather, about the misfortune that seemed to follow him everywhere he went.

Rudransh wasn't one to believe in superstitions and he would never hold anything against his brother, but even he had to admit, the streak Prithvi had going was no coincidence. The worst famine that Vibhava had ever faced struck the kingdom the day Prithvi was born. The kingdom faced its deadliest military attack on the day that he had his naming ceremony, losing thousands of soldiers to it.

Their father passed away on his third birthday, sending the whole kingdom into mourning. Veda nearly died of a mysterious illness the first time Prithvi took her outside the palace and Rudransh had a permanent scar on his cheek from the first time he sparred against him. It was bad, to say the least. To add to that, their grandfather had loved him the most of all of his grandchildren, and Prithvi believed that being the favourite of a royal gambler was somehow worse than being unloved.

"You need to apologise too, Veda."

His seventeen-year-old sister looked up, startled at being addressed after the daunting veil of silence settled over them. "He started it."

"It doesn't matter. You took it too far."

She mumbled something but nodded.

His mother didn't say anything to that. She just looked like she wanted to move away from the topic as soon as possible. Rudransh understood why. "Lasya, serve Rudra more rotis. He barely had two."

If his mother knew about his fragile marriage, she wouldn't dare to ask his wife to serve him anything due to fear of poisoning. He turned to his right, only to look at a disgruntled Lasya. She had always looked beautiful and today was no exception. Her restrained anger only succeeded in making her look more exquisite.

Despite what she thought, Rudransh wasn't really angry with her. He couldn't be even if he tried. How could anyone be mad at someone that they had pined after for more than a decade? It was impossible and as pitiful as it sounded, he knew that better than anyone else.

Lasya Singhania-Agnivanshi was born to be Queen. She might not know it, but everyone else around her did. He hid the smile on his face when she threw him a glare for every roti that she served. He wouldn't hesitate to eat a hundred more if she would just keep looking at him.

"Is this enough?" she asked, her voice sharp enough to cut through iron. He nodded, not wanting to agitate her further. Any more and she wouldn't think twice about slapping him with the roti itself.

Her cinnamon eyes were placid as she sat back down, but they were liquid bronze earlier. Rudransh didn't blame her. He would have been furious too. However, he had to keep provoking her if he didn't want her to retreat into the broken shell that he had seen her cower into on the day of the choosing ceremony. That wasn't the Lasya that he knew.

The Lasya that he knew, the real one, had a smile so bright that she outshone the sun. The dimple on her right cheek drew everyone in and it had held Rudransh captive longer than he could remember. Her long hair glowed like perfectly woven silk and her cinnamon eyes, well, they could condemn the strongest of human beings to both heaven and hell.