"It's impossible! "a voice intruppted his roar. "he's your elder brother! The rightful heir of the kingdom. "He turned around furious. His eyes glowing red and his hands itching to silence that voice forever. "The king would never choose you as his...
Йой! Нажаль, це зображення не відповідає нашим правилам. Щоб продовжити публікацію, будь ласка, видаліть його або завантажте інше.
From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.
-socrates
THE SAME NIGHT
The low howling of the flesh eating predatory creatures of the dark can be clearly heard from where she lay on yet another murky mattresses.
It was an irony indeed that from the ill-fated night two moons ago when she had crossed path with that so called prince for the first time. She had been reduced into but a common maid. Had eaten nothing but stale distasteful cookery, eversince. Sometimes boiled rice with wild beans and now dried chapattis with nothing but chopped onions to pass the days...........and at nights waited her an old flattened mattress, reminding of more unfortunate times when there was nothing but dewy grass on the hard ground to make a bedding for her under the green tarpaulin roof.
It was the outhouse of her own residence or the villa that had been once her residence. 'Unbelievable!' but truth nonetheless!
When she came back here, she knew not how to confront her father. After all that had transpired between them a day ago was clear enough as both- An insinuation and a warning- for her to never head back in this direction, ever again.
But she had no say when Chandra had whisked her away into the wilderness against her consent and now she had no say in it either when fate had kicked her back into yet another puncture.
'What else was she to do? Where else was she to go?' So bending against her own self esteem she had kneeled beside her father's feet in the same soiled wedding attire that she had wore a day before and a day before that too.
And surprisingly her father did not blow a gasket like she had expected him to. There was nothing but a sudden hitch of surprise in his throat while drinking tea when he noticed her at first but there was naught alarming yet. Taking it as a sign of assertion, Devika started to recount the happenings after the attack in order to put it out in front of her father that she wasn't a criminal like he had painted her out as.
But she was barely half-way through her second sentence when her father picked up the cup of tea from the slab once again that he had disposed a few moments before and now his other hand gripped her palm in a tight clasp.
It would be an understatement to say that she was surprised! She was stupefied! 'Oh my dear-dear Lord!'She choked in sudden light of hope. 'had her father really understood her?' That she was nothing but a innocent bystander in this vile game of her own scandalized reputation, much like himself!'
"Oh fathe-" Her words of relief were barely out when she felt the outcome of her father's relative composure until this moment. Now that his boiling outrage came flowing down into her palm as simmering hot tea.
It scorched, it burned and ached like anything as he slowly poured the searing liquid over her soft skin. She cried, she begged and even tried to tore away from his grasp while doing so.
"PLEASE! PL-EAS-EE" But Dev Raichand didn't let go, instead looked straight into her eyes while he did so and stopped not until he had emptied it all in that deliberate leisurely manner before leaning back on his lavish recliner.
Watching with satisfaction as the badly blistered and rouge calloused hand twitched effectively in the worst possible manner inflicting 3rd degree pain.
"It must be unbearable!" He even spoke out softly looking at his daughter. "Dhara- Bring me another cup of tea.....this just went down the drain!"
And Devika hadn't seen him ever since. Hid herself effectively in the servant's quarters with the aid of Dhara, her childhood companion. Although her ego had begged her not to do so and leave the place instantly with the self-respect she had been spared.......with her head held high. But ultimately her sensibility had won over for the time being.
"There are most dangerous predators lurking in the streets in the hope of a prey to feast upon, than those relatively calmer animals in the forest.................And what is more tempting to them than a lone lady in the dark of the night?" Devika wasn't able to refute that chilling explanation from Dhara and had stayed!
But more often than not she was plagued with the question. 'For how long?'
She had cursed the only person to blame for her current miserable conditions, all day long. 'Even wished him dead.' For all the tortures he had inflicted upon her.
The living horror that now filled her life, reducing her into a bleak existence. Stripping her off, of every ounce of hope from her solitary soul that was on the verge of dying a chokingly slow death. "I wish I can see him dying that pitiful end that he deserves....Ughh..." she writhed in agony as the disinfectant touched her burned skin.
'Dear Lord you must not say such things about your husband."Dhara provided in disapproval as she tended to Devika's wounds.
"And you are saying that? YOU?" Devika reconciled her hand in utter fury.
She wasn't able to sleep, could not even close her eyes when her mind was in ten diverse directions all at once. But rest assured, she was sure it wasn't the howling of the wild animals that kept her awake nor was the course uncomfortable bedding the reason of her tossing and turning.
Apart from her aching hand the low sniffles from the other end of the room, kept her wide-awake writhing in a kind of agony that wasn't physical.
Dhara was mourning for her deceased father who had worked here for years and lost his life fighiting against those brutes barely two nights ago.
Devika tried to comfort herself as her own tears knew no bounds. 'Certainly...' she told herself. ' certainly, God isn't dead yet, she would get justice- and so would be the poor princess who had been m-molested and Dhara...and everyone else who had lost their reasons to live because of him!
He is just living on borrowed time with his one foot already down in the grave- chased by the royal troops of Maniteek....It is just a matter of time before he would reach his ultimate end! Now that she had written and posted the letter destined to the king of Maniteek, mapping out the exact directions to reach the encampment of the devil prince.
'tomorrow...' she wiped her tears away. 'When she would wake up and go for a walk in the town, she would hopefully bear the news back of His death in an encounter with the hostile troops.
And she would find peace!
But nothing in the world could have prepared her for the scene that greeted her the next morning. She did not need to go for a walk in the town to receive his news, for he himself all his flesh and blood stood at her door, leaning over a tree with his eternal, exasperating smirk.
