Chapter 9 The Private Bargain #4
The blade wavered with her doubts. Before she could move away, however, Veer caught her wrists and wrenched her arms back, frog-marched her toward a tree and then slammed her against it. With a twist of his arm, he locked her in a hold and started applying pressure.
Chandra gasped in pain as he crushed her wrists, forcing her to drop the twin knives.
“Time to answer a few of my questions, Princess,” he said pleasantly, although anger swirled inside him. Why was he surprised by this attack? This was the princess of Amaravathi, his wife, the one who’d decided she would rather be a widow than stay married to him.
“Was this your plan all along? To lure me here with a ruse and have me mauled by your tiger? You’d call it an accident, and I doubt anyone would question it.”
A frown marred her smooth forehead, dotted with sweat. “What nonsense are you talking about? I’d no idea you were coming here today,” she said, panting with exertion, still trying to free herself from his punishing grip.
“Why should I believe that?” he asked, but as he peered into her eyes, he saw no guile.
“Because if I really wished to kill you,” she said with clenched teeth, “I would’ve planned it better than a chance encounter with a wild animal. I didn’t even know you were coming to meet me!”
She struggled against him and Veer unwillingly noticed that though she was taller than average, she still reached only his chin. She may be well versed in martial arts, going by the tone of her muscles, but she was still every inch a woman, with a woman’s bewitching curves and soft skin.
“Lack of an opportunity didn’t stop you before, Princess,” he accused. Although Veer said that, he was finding it hard to believe this was premeditated. It smacked of desperation. And it was fear he saw in her eyes, not hate.
Fear of the kind of magic that controlled minds and will.
Dusk fell with the suddenness of a veil covering a woman’s face. The moon rose above the horizon, peeking from behind the clouds. Residual moisture in the air coalesced on the petals and leaves of the plants, giving them a diamond brilliance against the velvety shadows.
They were still locked in a struggle.
A drop of perspiration slid from her temple to the hollow of her neck where a pulse beat madly against her skin. The fragrance of jasmine rose from the bruised petals in her hair, mixing with the smell of freshly tilled earth, and underneath that, her woman’s scent, heady and voluptuous.
Veer gritted his teeth. Would she ever stop having an effect on him? Seven years seemed to have changed nothing.
“Have you met someone who controlled others before? That was an oddly specific question you had,” he asked, intrigued to know more despite the tense situation.
“Yes! Now you know why I went for my knives. If you’re someone like that, then you know I have to act fast or I may never get the opportunity,” she said, panting from the effort to free herself.
He mulled over her answer. “If I had that ability, Princess, I wouldn’t need to ‘ask’ for help again. I’d make you do whatever I wanted.” He paused a beat, and then spoke, testing her. “Make you feel what I wish.”
Chandra stilled, momentarily halting her struggle. “No,” she said, a hard certainty in her tone. “That’s not how it works. You can control only my physical actions. But my thoughts would be my own.”
Veer released her abruptly. She moved away as far as she could get from him and massaged her wrists, eyes lowered.
What she just said was true, and it was something only a person who had experienced that sort of mind control would know.
In all his life, he had met only one person who had that ability, and he was dead. Veer felt strange, like he was at the edge of a precipice, looking down at an endless fall. “Who was this person, Princess?” he asked softly.
“If you are asking me that question, then you already suspect the answer,” she said curtly.
“Virat used his powers on you? I refuse to believe that. He couldn’t have done that. Not without me knowing about it. His magic is such a taboo thing we took measures to hide it. To make sure he didn’t use it inadvertently or recklessly. You’re lying.”
“I don’t care,” said Chandra. “You’ll always choose to believe what’s convenient for you to believe, anyway!”
A beat of silence registered as he went over her words. “What’s that supposed to mean, Princess?” he asked quietly.
“It doesn’t matter anymore. What’s done is done. All I want is to finish this quest and get my requests fulfilled. I neither need nor want anything else from you.”
She walked away from him and crouched by the tiger. “Release him. He’ll not harm you. I’ve known him since he was a cub.”
Veer read the truth of that statement in the tiger’s brain and retreated his control.
He stared at her hands as she ran it through the tiger’s fur. Purple bruises were already forming around her wrists. Veer felt vaguely unsatisfied with their encounter, despite getting what he wanted.
There were secrets surrounding the princess, and his gut told him he wouldn’t like them.
There were many times since their marriage that Veer wished he’d made any other choice than Chandrasena. But Veer was stubborn and once he’d made his decision, he stuck to it till the bitter end.
After all these years trying to suppress the memories of his past, Veer found he couldn’t hold them back; not now when he was in this cursed place again.
He still remembered the day he had decided on an ill-advised, hasty plan to meet the princesses of Amaravathi, an incident that her father, King Chandraketu, himself was partially responsible for.
* * *
Veer wasn’t supposed to meet them in person. It was forbidden for unmarried women to be seen that way, especially if they were royalty. A stupid superstition that caused complicated procedures, thought Veer, thankful that Rajgarh didn’t have such stringent practices.
The emissaries on both sides had scratched their heads, trying to circumvent this particular custom, since King Bheesmala had insisted that his son at least know who he’d be marrying.
It was finally decided that Amaravathi would provide the portraits of the seven princesses instead, so Veer could make his choice.
And yet, the ones that were delivered to him were a blackened mess, deliberately burned to obscure the features.
Veer was in no hurry to name his choice, but he couldn’t let Amaravathi’s king get away with such a gross insult. He had stared at the burned portraits for a long time, grinding his teeth while his friends tried to commiserate with his fate.
“Cheer up,” said Virat, slapping Veer on the back. “I’ve heard that they’re all very beautiful. You could roll a dice and pick someone by their birth order.”
“They could be as pretty as one of the divine nymphs or ugly as a sow, and I still would feel no different.” Veer scowled, picking up the soot from one of the portraits and rubbing it between his fingers. The smell of camphor oil told him exactly how they managed to burn them in strategic spots.
“I can certainly see why your father wants this alliance, Veer,” said Shota. “This war has already lasted longer than we predicted. A lot of people in the army are home sick.”
“If that’s supposed to make me feel better, you’re not helping at all.” Veer tried in vain to wipe the soot from his fingers on a pristine cloth, but the stubborn stain seemed to have seeped into the upper layers of his skin
“I’m not your nursemaid or your personal courtesan to lift your mood. I’m just pointing out the many advantages—” said Shota, sounding a little miffed.
“Forget Shota, Veer,” said Virat, interrupting Shota’s monologue. “I’ve heard there’s a grove of magical trees deep in the forest, just south of here. The locals here call it the Navari Woods. I want to pay a visit. Do you want to come with me?”
“Don’t you have better things to do than that stuff, Virat?” said an annoyed Shota. “At least stop dragging Veer into it.”
“Veer can answer for himself. He doesn’t need you as his mouthpiece,” retorted Virat before turning to Veer once again. “So, what do you say? I heard there’s even a chance the seven princesses of Amaravathi may visit the place. You may get to see them in person.”
Veer regarded Virat with interest, a plan forming in his mind. “Tell me more.”
* * *
That was the last time Veer remembered seeing Virat excited about something.
Afterward, he seemed to disappear for days on end, reappearing occasionally to reassure he hadn’t died somewhere.
He had been happy on Veer’s marriage day.
Though other things had preoccupied Veer’s brain, he remembered his friend’s beaming face and heartfelt congratulations.
Remembering that made it even more gut-wrenching to see his pale face that night, eyes wide in frozen terror as he lay dead in Amaravathi’s gardens.
Veer had found his wife crouched over him, digging out her short dagger from his friend’s stomach, her white saree sprayed with blood.
Her impassive face hadn’t cracked even when it took several men to stop him from reaching for her throat.
Veer was no stranger to the rusty smell of blood, but that day the thick scent of it had made him gag. He didn’t remember the scream of rage that left his throat, but he was told by Shota and others that he was like a raging wild beast that day.
The next few days after that had passed in a haze and not until he had left Amaravathi borders far behind, did Veer feel like himself, enough to grieve the death of his dearest friend.
In a way, Virat’s death was his fault, because the choice to choose his wife was left to him and instead of listening to good counsel, he had chosen Chandrasena. And others paid the price for it.
So what if it turned out she encountered Virat before his death? She was still the person who stuck the killing blow with a knife.
“For once, I agree with you in principle, Princess. I’ve no more desire to rehash the past than you,” he said. “We leave in three days. Be prepared.”