Aradhya ||Indian historical fiction||

04| TROUBLE AT YOUR DOORSTEP.

"People are going to despise you, Amar. What would you do that?" Aradhya grumbled while believing Amar's intentions to wed her. Amar laid a hand on her shoulder and stopped her bickering.

"I don't see why people would hate me. I am marrying royalty after all. Your people only care about their sufficiency, Aradhya." Amar believably said.

Aradhya was shaking to the core when she heard Amar announce her name in the court. The whole court seemed somewhat okay with the fact. Guess they just wanted an alliance with the Dharini kingdom. By what ways? Any of them.

Though Aradhya felt the same about Amar, she never really pictured marrying a prince. Now that, Aagneya with his acceptance was ready to wed the two was really a display of his desperation. Aradhya still felt like none of it was real. She was all but sad.

"Why?," Aradhya asked, "why do you want to marry me?"

"Maybe because I need a capable queen beside me, not an avaricious diva."

"No seriously, Amar. Why?"

"...You may see me as a friend but I feel deeply about you. You are one of my greatest friends from when I was seven. And I'd rather spend my life with a person who understands me than someone who just wants to be a king."

Aradhya looked touched. Amar smirked inwardly. His devious plan was already in process. He was already winning. He wasn't planning an alliance with Shiladhika but rather a plan to ambush Aagneya.
. . . .

Through all his facade, Aagneya cared deeply for his daughter. He played the members of the royal council into thinking that Aradhya meant nothing to him. She was his daughter from the woman he loved the most in the world. He wouldn't let opinions make him loathe his daughter. He sure failed to show affection but the one who rather witnessed his love for Aradhya was Maharani Aadrika.

Aadrika looked at her king from the distance, willingly taking part in arrangements in the wedding. She had come across instances where she was there with Aagneya at times when he hated himself for treating Aradhya the way he did. Aadrika bounced her child on her hip and placed a peck at his temple.

"Go back to sleep, Abhik. I've got things to do, you know."
. . . .

Aradhya sat on the merely raised wooden seat at a gallery of the palace. Everyone had smiles stitched to their faces. They didn't want to give Amar the wrong impression.

Aradhya paid no mind to what happened around her. Her eyes fixed on nothing. Her face was moist with Haldi and her hands and legs were warm from the sunlight that shone through the open walls of Shiladhika. The light made her face glow. Her murky brown eyes were of so much emotion. She sat there with a pastel yellow draped around her frame.

She wondered if it was really happening with no idea as to what actually was happening. She believed in Amar way too much to be fazed. She believed all that Amar said. After all, he was the one who saved her from a fall.

-Little Aradhya stood on the bannister of a high floor of the palace, contemplating a fall. She was just openly abused and insulted by Tamasvini and Chaya. Her eyes were overly blurry while she tried her hardest to hold on to the wall nearby. She didn't really think about why she wanted to fall or possibly die while she for sure knew that no one would be utterly devastated at her mishap. Aradhya opened her eyes while her tears rolled down and took in the sight of the kingdom that seemed so beautiful and yet was so pitiful.

She let go of the wall beside her and left sweat stains on the wall while she wiped them against her little green drape. She closed her eyes bidding farewell to the place. She took a step forward and leaned in to embrace the rocky floor a good eighteen feet below. But all that she felt was a strong grip around her waist pulling her back with surreal pace and a carpeted floor of the palace of Shiladhika. She looked at her person and stared only into his eyes ignoring the little bruises on his face. Though the prince was young he seemed to look older than her. A couple of years older.-