The Mughal Princess (Completed)

19.

VOTE - 220

"Gone ? What do you mean by gone." The loud voice made a shiver run down Gehna's spine.

"I tried to stop him Abeer, but the other man, he ... he pushed me in the bathroom and locked me in." Gehna covered.

"You. You knew about this didn't you. You planned all of this. You did." Abeer roared pointing an accusing finger towards Aditya.
"I thought you were a friend."

Aditya watched silently. All voices mute to his ear. He watched them move with a comically slow speed, like he was on a psychedelic trip.

"No. No he didn't know." Gehna said at once. "I had asked Jhumri to call for him but-."

"Lies all lies."

"Abeer. Enough." It was Meera who had silenced her son. "Now is not the time to play the blame game. What now? What do we do."

"I kill him or he kills me ." Abeer seethed.

"Stop it." Meera said sharply giving her son a pointed look. "You hid the truth from me, you shouldn't have, I would have never agreed my daughter to marry a man who knows of no honour. But now that we are stranded here, the question is where do we go from here ?"

"We can call off the wedding." Aaryan suggested.

"Mrunal is getting married too, do not forget that." Noor replied. "It wouldn't be fair to her."

"What will tell the people ? First we announce her marriage three days before the wedding day and now we are calling it off." Abeers sat on the chair raking his fingers through his hair in frustration.

"What will we tell Maheen." Gehna said defeated a fresh set of tears poured out of her eyes.

"What do we do now Hadi. We have no solution to this..this problem, my daughter, she is going to be devastated, she'll .. oh Shivji what wrong have I done !" Meera let out a cry.

"Raghukul reet sada chali aayee, Praan jayee par vachan na jayee." Aditya muttered under his breath.
(It's a moto of the clan of Raghu which states that one may loose his life but not go back on their words.)

"What?" Abeer grumbled.

"I promised you. Promised you honour for Maheen, I promised your justice, I promised you that she will be the daughter-in-law of the clan of Raghu, I still stand by it. She can still be a part of the Raghukul." Aditya said his eyes on the floor. "The choice is yours Abeer, this or I give you my life without a fight." He lifted his eyes to meet Abeer's .

•••

Maheen sat in her yellow lehenga. She had absolutely hated the colour on her but today, even yellow made her feel happy.

Wearing the special set of red bangles meant to be worn on the wedding by by the bride, sitting in front of the mirror she thought about how her life was going to change after today.

Although everything was moving at an extremely fast pace, she was excited for the adventure she was going to embark with Dev. Her heart pinched thinking about the fact that after today the walls of the Agra palace wouldn't be her home but she looked forward to see the golden walls of Awadh she had heard so much about.

"I'm scared Mrunal didi." Maheen said rubbing kohl under her eyes.

"I am too Mahi." Mrunal replied. "It's normal to be scared at this moment I guess."

"What if they don't like me ?"

"Who won't ?"

"Dev's family. His mother, sister, his grumpy brother and that -."