Dhruva Nakshathra - The Game of Alliance ✔

T W E N T Y - T H R E E

Sikva, capital city of Kavish

He had many wounds in the past but nothing compared to the burns, it pricked like a thousand needles on his body.

Dhruva sat on the charpoy bed as Viswa applied salve on his reddening arms brought from the arogyalaya. They returned to their temporary abode—Rishi Bhadra's ashram, shortly after being administrated with burns inflicted on Dhruva's arms post Nakshathra's rescue. On their way back to the ashram, the usually quiet streets stayed awake as each one shared the incident happened at the temple in an unsettling state.

The news had spread as rapid as the fire caught on Nakshathra's skirt and so did their concern over the illustrious physician. Each question he heard brough flashes of the moment. The vision of the lady consumed by the rapidly growing flames and her scream of agony etched in his memory. It wasn't just the vision that his mind captured but fear too came along with it. The fear of losing someone he... cared, painfully stabbed him in his chest.

"I'm still unable to phantom what and how did it happen so fast?" Viswa murmured applying the salve gently on Dhruva's mildly burnt chest.

"Me either. Her skirt caught fire so quick as if it had been waiting to be ignited. It flared up in seconds. You know, fire was nowhere nearby neither anyone to cause it to blaze. I saw her standing alone by the steps seconds before the incident." Dhruva was the first to rush to her aid and caught her just before her head hit the steps. The heat of the flame and the impact of the fall had them both rolling down unceremoniously.

"Everything happened and ended just as quick as a blink of an eye. I don't think this is an accident. It cannot be." Viswanathan claimed, shaking his head.

For sure, Dhruva too had the same thought but who would want to harm a physician and why? Why Nakshathra when he had just begun to feel something more for her? He remembered when he saw her at the temple that evening with an old woman. Clad in a bottle green silk saree, her skilfully braided black hair was twisted with a thick strand of jasmine flowers and adorned with a reasonable number of accessories. Nakshathra looked very much like a princess than a physician.

He would certainly not want to believe he was attracted to her only after the subtle makeover from a simple lady to a princess like. That wasn't the moment, I know. Dhruva tried his best to at least get a piece of his memory to rekindle the moment of realisation—futile.

"Do you think she can make it through?" Viswa asked. His words were dipped in uncertainty. It came from what he witnessed at the temple, an almost half burnt lady laid on the ground with his prince knelt next to her, quite broken from within and her friend rushed in with her long shawl for cover.

"She will," Dhruva replied, melancholy.

****----****---****---****

Three days slipped by and each day Dhruva had visitors checking on his recovery. Some of them were his neighbours, Arivu and his mother, the farmer they had helped and even prince Parthiban had dropped by to thank him for his brave attempt to save Nakshathra from the fire and from the possibly a fatal fall.

None of the visitors' questions troubled Viswanathan's mind as much as it did when the prince of Kavish visited them. To add on to it, the behaviour of the city had only enhanced his doubts when a heavy number of soldiers were dispatched to look for trails and clues to find those responsible, arduously. Plus, almost an entire city was restless and agitated. The rigorousness of Sikva had him wonder the relationship between Nakshathra and Kavish.

Is she just an illustrious physician or someone more important to the city?

As Viswa obliviously attended to Dhruva's blistered and charred skin with the salve, they had another visitor knocking their door. "Who now?" Viswa grumbled as he answered the door.