Chapter 4 What Stains, Stays
Even beauty, if it lingers too long, becomes a liability.
- Vritant Vardhan
The palace smelt of too many orchids. Imported ones.
Even the flowers had passports now.
Fitting, for a wedding where half the guest list could trigger an election.
The knock wasn't gentle.
It came in threes - persistent, theatrical, like everything Aryan did.
Vritant opened his eyes without moving. The ceiling was hand-painted, floral, and entirely too bright for a man who hadn't slept more than four hours.
Knock knock knock.
Another pause. Then-
"Vritaaant," came Aryan's voice, muffled and shamelessly cheerful. "Don't make me ask hotel security to break the door. It'll be such bad PR."
Vritant exhaled slowly. That was the problem with cousins raised on red carpets - they thought doors were just decor.
He finally swung his legs off the bed, letting the cold marble bite back. A gust of Udaipur morning air pushed through the curtains - heavy with lake scent, perfume, and noise building from the lower courtyards. The wedding had begun breathing.
He opened the door.
Aryan stood barefoot, shirtless, and holding two espresso cups like peace offerings. "You're welcome," he said.
Vritant didn't take the coffee.
"I'm not awake enough to hate you yet," Vritant said flatly. "You're early."
"It's nine."
"That's a lie."
"It's technically nine-fifteen. And the mehendi's in three hours. And Saanvi asked if you were sulking somewhere. I told her you don't sulk, you just decay in private."
Vritant stared.
He took the espresso with the same caution most people reserved for contracts. He took one sip, said nothing, and let the heat wake up what sleep hadn't.
Outside, the palace was already alive - fabric deliveries, security whispers, drones hovering just low enough to be invisible.
Aryan was looking at himself in the mirror now, adjusting a barely-there stubble. "We've got the mehendi in a few hours. Try not to dress like mourning."
"I'll wear what shuts people up."
"That's not linen."
"That's strategy."
Just then, Aryan's eyes drifted to the far corner of the suite.
He paused. "Oh wow. He's here?"
Curled in the shade beside the carved chaise, Karma slept - black coat glinting faintly in the morning light, tail twitching once in acknowledgment, but not enough to suggest he cared.
Aryan lowered his voice like he was in the presence of royalty. "I didn't even hear him come in."
"You're not supposed to," Vritant said.
"Still terrifying. Still cooler than you."
Karma opened one eye. Assessed Aryan. Decided he wasn't worth the energy, and shut it again.
Vritant smirked faintly into his coffee. "He has taste."
Aryan whistled low. "You bring him to a wedding? What, security or emotional support?"
"Both."
"Figured. He's the only one who gets to bite people and get away with it."
Karma lifted his head just enough to shift position - closer to Vritant now, like gravity had chosen a side.
Aryan watched the silent exchange, then shook his head. "Unbelievable. You and the dog - same personality, same sleep schedule, same death stare."
Vritant finished his espresso. "Unlike you, we don't need a spotlight to exist."
Aryan raised his hands in surrender, grinning. "Fine. Fine. I'm leaving. But if he ends up in the wedding album and I don't, I'm suing."
??? V ? A ???
The palace courtyard had transformed.
Where there had been quiet marble and shadows, now there were canopies of gota, green and gold drapes, slow-turning hand fans, and the smell of celebration wearing too much perfume.
It looked like a scene pulled from a Sanjay Leela Bhansali fever dream - embroidered cushions everywhere, antique swing sets for photo ops, brass urli bowls floating with jasmine and pink rose petals.
Vritant stepped in from the east corridor, Karma padding silently beside him.
A dozen heads turned - instinctive, too rehearsed. Laughter quieted. Anklets stilled.
Some tried not to stare. Others didn't bother.
He could already hear the whispered recalculations.
Karma, majestic and mute, walked like he owned the sandstone tiles. A few guests shifted nervously in their heels. One influencer leaned in, camera raised. "He's so- royal."
Vritant didn't smile. Karma didn't care.
He moved past the crowd, linen-clad and deliberately forgettable, nursing his second coffee. This was the part of diplomacy they didn't teach in elite schools: how to survive a wedding while being a silent political operative.
His mother had told him to blend in. His father had told him not to blink.
So he watched.
Watched the guests arrive in waves - influencers pretending to be royalty, actual royalty pretending not to notice. Ministers. CEOs. Actors who hadn't been relevant in ten years. Everyone trying to be seen by someone who mattered.
Karma settled by one of the stone pillars. Vritant followed.
Everything was loud - the fabrics, the colours, the music, the laughter.
Everything except him.
In the centre of it all, Saanvi sat like she belonged there - draped in lime green silk and sequins, hands already coated in darkening mehendi, grinning like the cameras owed her their batteries.
Next to her, slightly turned away from the chaos, sat Adhrita.
Awkward. Understated.
Like someone had photoshopped her into the scene and forgotten to adjust the saturation.
A single tendril of hair had escaped her bun. Her dupatta kept sliding off one shoulder, and she kept fixing it like it personally offended her. There were three mehendi artists hovering around her - two chatting, one trying to coax her hand forward.
She looked like she was trying to disappear - politely.
Vritant didn't realise he was staring until Karma nudged his leg.
He turned his gaze just as quickly. Control was a habit, not a choice.
"Vritant, poker?" someone called, laughter already spilling from behind a curtain of marigold strings.
He didn't answer - just walked toward them, espresso cup abandoned, Karma trailing like a shadow trained in discretion.
The poker table was tucked into one of the palace's inner courtyards - cooler, quieter, where the sound of dhols melted into the distance and only money spoke loud.
A few groomsmen, two Cabinet sons, and the kind of friends who now wore sherwanis stitched with startup equity sat around polished teakwood.
The cards were crisp. The scotch was older than half the players.
Vritant slid into the seat with the ease of someone who didn't need to bluff - because silence, in the right circles, was threat enough.
"Still ruining careers with that poker face?" one of them joked, half-inebriated, half-insecure.
He didn't reply. Just played.
Four hands in, someone tried to bait him with a casual dig about coalition instability. Another tried to name-drop Shaurya Vardhan like it was a password to relevance. Vritant didn't flinch.
Just then, a bark sliced through the murmured politics and muted shuffling of chips.
Karma.
Vritant's gaze flicked up - only once.
The archways framed the unfolding spectacle like a royal painting gone rogue.
Saanvi was sprinting, squealing with drama.
Behind her, Adhrita - not laughing, not exactly - more like dodging, the kind of composed panic only someone raised in order would carry.
And trailing them, Aryan, waving his arms like a backup dancer with no choreography.
Leading the pack: Karma. Unleashed both literally and spiritually.
Saanvi shrieked, "Vritant! Do something!"
He didn't. Just looked at his cards, unbothered. "He's expressing generational frustration."
Then he caught it - a flicker.
Adhrita had frozen for half a second, eyes wide, heels stuttering. She wasn't playing along. She was actually scared.
And that - for some reason - pulled something taut in his chest.
He stood.
Not rushed. Not flustered. Just enough to remind the table that silence wasn't surrender - it was restraint.
"Carry on," he said, tucking his cards in a neat fold. "Try not to fold before the dog stops chasing dynasties."
As he walked toward the chaos, he whistled once. Sharp. Karma stopped like a soldier obeying a battlefield call.
The dog turned, trotted toward him, tail wagging like it hadn't just incited a royal riot.
Vritant crouched slightly and muttered, "Drama is beneath you."
He looked up - and for a brief second, their eyes met.
Adhrita, still breathless. One hand over her heart. Hair slightly undone. Completely out of place in this carefully choreographed opera.
Saanvi, still panting, hissed at Karma under her breath, "Karma you bitch. I hope you reincarnate as paparazzi."
Karma's ears perked up.
He turned.
Locked eyes.
And bolted.
This time with righteous vengeance.
Saanvi shrieked, "I TAKE IT BACK!"
Adhrita didn't even wait. "Why would you say that?" she muttered, grabbing Saanvi's hand and dragging her backward-
And then-both of them turned.
Automatically.
Ran toward Karma's master.
She wasn't looking.
One second, she was running - breathless, flustered, Karma chasing Saanvi with chaos in his tail. The next - She crashed into something solid.
Someone.
Her hands instinctively shot out - one clutching the front of his kurta, the other gripping the collar just below his neck.
Warm skin. Crisp linen. A stunned heartbeat between them.
And then... stillness.
Her mehendi-smeared palms had left their mark - one handprint across his chest, the other streaked across his collarbone.
Adhrita froze.
Vritant didn't.
He looked down first, at her fingers still fisted in his kurta. Then at the delicate, chaotic stains she'd just gifted him.
His eyes finally met hers - unreadable, razor-edged, but flickering with something reckless beneath. Like recognition, or worse... amusement.
She didn't speak. Those brown eyes - wide, apologetic, and mortified - pleaded in silence.
Vritant tilted his head slightly, catching the tremble in her breath and the way her mehendi-stained hands were still on him - one fisted in the fabric at his chest, the other brushing the side of his neck where heat still lingered.
"Well," he murmured, voice silked in sarcasm, "if claiming territory was the goal, I hear there are easier ways than assault by Mehendi."
Her breath hitched.
"I- I wasn't-" she stammered, words chasing her own embarrassment. "Karma-he- I tripped-"
He glanced sideways at the dog, who now sat at a respectful distance, tongue out and tail wagging like he'd done the country a service.
"Blame the dog," Vritant said dryly. "Bold strategy."
Her face burned. Words tumbled in her head, but none fit the absurdity of this moment - of her palmprint on his collarbone, of his unblinking gaze.
He exhaled, low and clipped.
"I was blending in just fine," he muttered, brushing off invisible chaos from his chest. "Thanks for the spotlight."
And without another glance, he turned and walked away - the mehendi still blooming on his kurta, like she'd written something on him that wouldn't wash off easy.
Karma followed. Of course.
Adhrita stood there - shaken, stained, and terribly aware that she had just left a mark not even politics could explain.
Vritant walked back to his wing without a word. Karma padded beside him, tail thumping like nothing had happened - as if he hadn't just turned a mehendi ceremony into a circus.
The door clicked shut.
"What the hell was that?" Vritant muttered, eyes narrowing. "Wanted to be the baraati or just missed national headlines?"
Karma let out a low, unapologetic huff and flopped dramatically onto the rug like he'd just defended the country.
Vritant didn't press it. He peeled off his kurta and headed to the bathroom, tossing the fabric into the sink like it had betrayed him personally.
Then he saw it.
The mirror didn't lie - her mehendi, painted across his collarbone. A handprint that had no business being this vivid. He turned on the tap. Started scrubbing.
But the stain had settled - that deep, greenish-brown that darkens with time. Her fingers still curved across his skin like memory written in henna.
He kept rubbing.
It didn't help.
He looked at his reflection. Deadpan. Dry.
"Well done, Vritant," he muttered. "Now you're branded like a festive cattle."
Behind him, Karma nosed open the door like a guilty child and sat down, watching.
Vritant didn't even turn. "You know, I used to have dignity. Then I adopted you."
Karma blinked, completely unfazed.
And Vritant stood there, water dripping, skin stained, and the one moment he couldn't wash off still pressed against him.
??? V ? A ???
He changed. White kurta now replaced with something darker - cleaner lines, cooler tone. But the color at his collarbone had stayed. No matter how hard he'd scrubbed, that trace of her - of the moment - refused to fade.
Karma trailed behind him for a few paces, then wisely settled elsewhere as Vritant headed back towards the poker courtyard.
But as he passed the lounge - he paused.
She was sitting alone on the jharokha ledge, hidden behind swathes of yellow and orange genda strings. Barely visible. Probably thought no one could see.
But he did.
Adhrita's head was lowered, her hair falling like a curtain over her face. Her hands were spread out in front of her, staring at them like they were foreign. Broken. Wrong.
The mehendi was smudged - streaked in places, blurred at the edges, as if meaning had melted into mess. Like something sacred had been ruined.
And those eyes - those sharp, warm eyes - now shimmered with quiet, burning tears. Not the kind that sought pity. The kind that came when you were too proud to cry, but couldn't stop yourself.
Vritant stilled.
He didn't move. Didn't speak. Just watched - his fingers curled slightly at his side as if they remembered the clutch of her hand a moment ago.
She didn't know he was there.
And maybe that's why it hit harder.
Because the girl who had shaken her head at wine like it was a foolish temptation - The girl who looked like she never belonged in chaos - Was now trying not to fall apart in the middle of it.
Vritant walked in - measured, silent. No rustle of footsteps, just presence.
He didn't ask if she was okay. That wasn't his language.
Instead, he held out a piece of fabric - her own dupatta, folded neatly like an insult.
She looked up, startled.
Then her eyes narrowed - full of fire and unspoken accusation.
You.
That glare said it louder than words ever could.
You and your chaos. You ruined this.
He raised a brow, mildly amused.
"Ah yes, the infamous dog attack," he said, folding his arms. "Victim count: one kurta, one emotionally traumatised mehendi design, and at least two egos."
Her mouth opened. Closed. Then finally - a small, traitorous laugh slipped out.
Soft. Reluctant. Like it surprised her too.
She wiped her cheek with the back of her mehendi-smeared hand. "My mehendi is ruined."
He didn't respond immediately.
Instead, he reached into his kurta pocket - and pulled out a sleek black deck of cards. Custom-made. Understated. Dangerous.
She looked at it, perplexed. "What... is that?"
He leaned closer, just a little.
"In my world," he said, voice like silk over steel, "ruined hands don't cry. They deal."
And he offered her the deck - not as comfort.
As challenge.
"Pick a card," he said.
She blinked. "What?"
He held the deck out. Calm. Unbothered. "Just pick."
Still sniffling, she pulled one.
He flipped it.
Queen of Hearts.
He raised an eyebrow. "Not bad for someone who just declared war on a kurta."
Her lips twitched. Almost a smile.
Before she could speak, he cut in - voice lower, cooler.
"Let's make a deal."
Her brows arched.
"You win a hand," he said, slipping the deck back into his palm with the ease of a man who'd played too many games. "I convince Karma to issue a public apology."
She narrowed her eyes. "And if I lose?"
"You admit the dog has better instincts than you do."
There was a beat.
Then - quietly, almost dangerously - she said, "Deal."
And as she reached for the cards, Vritant didn't say a word.
But his eyes, unreadable and knowing, had already decided: she wasn't bluffing.
She shuffled like she meant it - no hesitation, no performance. Just methodical hands that looked far too delicate for war but held each card like a secret.
Vritant watched.
Not her hands.
Her face.
Because that's where the real tells were - the way her jaw clenched before the draw, how her lashes lowered like curtains on a stage, how those eyes still held the weight of smeared mehendi and something deeper underneath.
The first hand was dealt.
She played a Two Pair.
He raised with a Straight.
She didn't flinch.
Second round.
She bluffed a Full House. He called it. Beat her with a flush.
No apology from Karma yet.
"You're not bad," he said coolly, sipping from the untouched glass he'd brought just to complete the illusion of ease. "But you blink right after you fold."
She scowled. "I don't."
"You do," he said, placing another card down. "Like a habit you don't know you picked up. Like diplomacy."
Her eyes narrowed, and for a moment, she looked like she wanted to throw the deck at him. Instead, she leaned back, crossed her mehendi-stained arms, and said, "Funny. You talk like someone who knows how to lose."
Vritant's smile was slow. Dangerous.
"Not really," he murmured. "I just know how to wait."
Third hand.
She won it. Barely.
He let her.
She didn't smile. Maybe because she knew.
He leaned in slightly, elbows resting on the low stone table, cards spread between them like a truce that neither believed in.
"I suppose Karma will be issuing his apology tomorrow morning," she said, chin raised in mock victory.
"Oh no," Vritant replied, reaching for his phone. "He'll tweet it tonight. Possibly in three languages. With an edited reel of his crimes."
She laughed again - this time properly.
And that broke something - the tension, the awkwardness, maybe even the moment.
Her laugh was...unrehearsed.
Real.
Unfitting for the palace or the silence she'd wrapped herself in all day.
"I didn't expect..." she began, but stopped.
He raised an eyebrow. "Didn't expect?"
"This," she said vaguely, motioning to the cards, the faint smile still on her lips. "You."
"You thought I'd be worse," he said, not a question.
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Then finally admitted, "I didn't know what to expect."
He didn't say anything. Just looked at her. Really looked.
And something passed in that glance - something unspoken, unreadable, but not unfamiliar.
Then she placed the Queen of Hearts face down on the table. Casual. Final.
He raised an eyebrow.
"Done already?" he asked.
She shrugged, quiet now. "Some hands are better left unplayed."
He almost smiled.
But instead, he just gathered the cards with the same ease he always did - like nothing ever slipped through his fingers.
Just then - the sound of heels. Measured. Merciless.
Vedashree Vardhan.
She didn't need to raise her voice. The silence around her bent on its own.
"Vritant," she said, arms crossed, eyes settling on the cards - and then the faint brown stain on his collarbone. "You're gambling. With the Chief Minister's daughter?"
Adhrita froze, spine straightening. But Vritant? He didn't even blink.
"Don't worry," he said coolly, "she's winning."
Vedashree's eyes narrowed. "That's not a reassurance."
Vritant finally looked up at her, unbothered. "Then allow me to reassure you further. The dog attacked, she ruined kurta, and I figured a card game would be a diplomatic way to avoid a press conference."
Vedashree stared at him.
That long, tired, deeply maternal stare.
The kind that said: You are exhausting. And yet you are mine.
"I expected better," she said - and it landed like a verdict.
He stood slowly, slipping the cards back into their box.
"But we don't always get what we want," he replied.
"I suggest we all remember who we are - before the press does it for us. And you should be more careful. People already think I can't control you."
He didn't flinch. "Then maybe next time, pick a son who obeys better. Oh, wait."
Vedashree sighed - the kind that carried the weight of Parliament and motherhood. "You're impossible."
"And punctual," he added, slipping the cards into his pocket. "Game was scheduled to end at maternal interruption."
A flicker of something passed between them - something old, bitter, unfinished.
Then Vedashree turned away, sharp heels echoing against the marble.
He looked down at the faint brown stain on his collarbone, then at her hands still dusted with mehendi.
"You ruined my kurta. She ruined your game," he said, almost offhand. "At least neither of us cried over it."
He still didn't look at her. But the hit - landed.
Right where her mehendi had smudged.
Soft. Precise.
Cruel.
A ruined kurta, a public scandal narrowly avoided, and yet somehow - he's still the well-behaved twin.
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