✓ Fearless - Book 1 of The Rajkumari Trilogy

Chapter 13

Chapter 13
____________

Who could it be in the dead of the night? I did tell the maids to distract Roopvalli, but I don't remember asking them to scream.

The trainer and the princess faced each other.

Suruchi cocked her head. We have to go check it out.

Revati raised her eyebrows slightly. Yes, but we can't use the passages,

Suruchi gestured to their dresses. We aren't in fighting attire, so people won't get suspicious.

Revati nodded. Let's go. Quick.

They followed the sounds and reached... the king's chambers? The door was wide open with several maids clinging to each other and sobbing. Two guards lay motionless on the floor, blood seeping out of their slit throats. As Revati looked into their faces they lowered their heads and gestured inside.

She cautiously stepped in, her heart hammering in her ribcage, a sense of dread creeping up her spine. She gasped loudly when she saw her mother kneeling beside her father's figure lying on the floor with the royal sword sticking up from her father's side. She did not bother sparing a glance at her mother's face as her feet led her to the dying man.

Tears escaped her eyes as she kneeled down beside him. She clasped his frail hands in her warm ones. Time seemed to be still as she looked at her father's dying face. She could only subtly see the others shuffle out of the room out of the corner of her eye.

His eyes were crinkled, his face paling with each passing moment, a flickering flame growing dimmer and dimmer. The lines on his forehead told her that he was in pain. But his eyes held peace as if he knew Yama would take him away. And that was what made her heart caved and hollow.

"Why... who?" she asked in a broken whisper.

He smiled weakly. "A traitor of the country. Listen, my child, I will never leave you. I will forever be in your hearts. I have to tell you something-" he stopped abruptly as he coughed out blood, spraying it all over himself, as Revati rubbed his back in concern. She coursed all of her strength into her hands to keep them from becoming a flower in a hurricane.

"I don't have much time-"

"-No!" she cut him off, her face horror-stricken. "Nothing will happen to you father, y-you will live," she told, nodding her head in a jerking motion, trying to convince him, or herself.

"The key-" cough, "-gem, royal sword... protect-" cough, "-hidden. I want... you to rule the kingdom... with your best. Make us... proud-" his hands fell limp in hers. 

Her agonized shout of anguish echoed loudly throughout the palace. She felt like the wind without the clouds, the sea without its tides, the mountains without soil and.. a daughter without her father. She frantically nudged his motionless body in hopes of life somewhere in there. 

No, no. He can't be gone. No. Not so soon, noooo!

"Where is the RajaVaidaya!? Now!" she yelled through her sobs.

"He's here," Suruchi whispered beside her.

"You have to save him, there has to be some way!" she rambled in vain, knowing that it was impossible to bring him back.

The healer shook his head. "I'm sorry, Your Highness." The finality in his tone hit her hard. This was it. Her father was gone. Gone forever.

Revati shook her head helplessly, her lip quivering, unable to speak because of the emotion lodged in her throat. She ran out of the royal chambers and into the middle of the dark courtyard. She sat there and sobbed into her hands, tears streaming down her cheeks.