Chapter 47-Dont Leave Me
The physician asked Vinaya to leave the room.
She refused.
"Your Highness—"
"No."
"We need space."
"Then I will stand in the corner."
"Vinaya."
Ranveer's hand touched her shoulder.
She turned on him.
"No."
Her voice broke.
"I am not leaving him."
Ranveer's expression softened.
"Then stay."
So she stayed.
She watched physicians clean the wound at Vikram's temple.
Watched them examine his ribs.
Watched them bind his injured shoulder.
Every time someone touched him and he did not react, terror climbed higher inside her.
He should complain.
Vikram complained about everything when injured.
He hated physicians.
He hated medicinal pastes.
He once argued for twenty minutes because a healer told him he could not ride for three days.
This silence was wrong.
By evening, King Amarendra and Queen Lakshmidevi arrived.
Lakshmidevi saw her eldest son unconscious and stopped in the doorway.
"Oh, my child."
Amarendra caught her hand.
Vinaya looked away.
She knew what it was to stand beside the bed of a child and beg for one more breath.
She would not wish it upon anyone.
Not even for a moment.
Night fell.
Everyone eventually left except Vinaya.
Vikram remained unconscious.
She sat beside him holding his hand.
"You are an idiot."
Nothing.
"You could have pushed me without standing there like a fool."
Silence.
"You are supposed to be a trained warrior."
Her voice trembled.
"Apparently not a very clever one."
She waited.
Nothing.
Vinaya's eyes filled.
"Wake up and argue with me."
She touched his fingers.
"Tell me I am ungrateful."
Nothing.
"Tell me you saved my life."
Her voice broke.
"Boast about it for the next twenty years if you want."
Twenty years.
The words lodged in her chest.
She wanted twenty years.
The realization came quietly.
Then all at once.
She wanted Vikram annoying her over breakfast.
She wanted his ridiculous flowers.
His books.
His questions.
His footsteps outside her door.
She wanted him beside her at council.
She wanted to grow old enough to complain that he snored.
She wanted to tell him when his beard turned grey.
She wanted to watch him become king.
She wanted—
Him.
Not because he was Ganga's father.
Not because he had saved her.
Not because he was her husband.
Vikram.
The flawed, stubborn, sometimes infuriating man who had finally learned to see her.
And somewhere along the way, Vinaya had begun seeing him too.
Not Priya's grieving widower.
Not the cruel husband she had married.
Not the guilty father kneeling beside Ganga's belongings.
The man he had chosen to become.
Vinaya lowered her forehead onto his hand.
"Don't leave me."
Tears fell.
"Please."
The words were horribly familiar.
Once, in drunken confusion, he had begged her not to leave because he believed she was Priya.
Now Vinaya understood the terror behind them.
"I know I said I didn't believe you."
Her shoulders shook.
"I know I said it was guilt."
She looked at his still face.
"Maybe part of me needed to believe that."
Because if Vikram didn't truly love her, she did not have to risk loving him.
She had already loved Ganga.
And Ganga had died.
Love meant giving fate something else to take.
Vinaya had been afraid.
"I am so tired of being afraid."
She touched his cheek.
"You were right."
A sob escaped.
"I hate admitting that."
Still nothing.
She laughed through her tears.
"You would enjoy this so much if you were awake."
Vinaya leaned closer.
"Please wake up so I can tell you I was wrong properly."
His breathing remained slow.
She pressed her lips to his knuckles.
"I don't know when it happened."
Her voice became a whisper.
"Maybe in Ganga's garden."
She swallowed.
"Maybe when you stood beside me at council."
Another tear fell.
"Maybe there wasn't one moment."
She looked at him.
"But it happened."
The words she had refused to believe from him were suddenly terrifyingly simple when they belonged to her.
"I love you."
Silence.
Vinaya closed her eyes.
"I love you, Vikram."
His fingers moved beneath hers.
So faintly she almost imagined it.
Vinaya lifted her head.
"Vikram?"
Nothing.
But beneath his closed eyelids—
something shifted.