Love Across Time

Eight Three

Trigger Warning: This chapter depicts violence. Please proceed with caution if you are sensitive to such content.

-𝓗𝓮𝓻 𝓟𝓵𝓮𝓪-

Aanya's gaze raked across the room, a maelstrom of emotions churning within her. There sat Arjun, a picture of utter defeat where once stood a warrior of legend. His slumped posture mirrored the shattered state of their hopes. Bheem, Nakul, and Sahadeva, gone. Gambled away in a cruel twist of fate that left a hollow ache in her chest, a physical manifestation of her grief. Finally, her eyes landed on Yudhishthira. His face, etched with despair, was a reflection of the hollowness that had consumed her soul.

"Stop this game, right now!" Her voice, a desperate plea laced with the icy edge of authority, ripped through the suffocating silence.

Heads swiveled in unison, a collective gasp escaping their lips. Duryodhana and Shakuni, faces flushed with the arrogance of victory, were the first to react. Duryodhana's sneer deepened, venom dripping from his every word. "Who do you think you are, barging in here uninvited?"

A fire ignited in Aanya's eyes, consuming the tendrils of fear that had threatened to engulf her.  "And who do you think you are," she countered, her voice rising in a crescendo of defiance, "to reduce people to mere pawns in your twisted game? Draupadi is not a possession to be wagered away on a whim!" Her eyes darted to Yudhishthira, the unspoken plea hanging heavy in the air.

A gasp resonated through the hall, the audacity of her words echoing like a thunderclap. It was a challenge to the very foundation of this rigged game, a rebellion against the cruel fate laid out before them. Duryodhana bristled, his face contorting with a rage so potent it felt tangible. Shakuni, however, a flicker of unease flickering across his serpent-like features, remained silent, his ever-present smirk faltering for the first time.

Aanya refused to be cowed. With each determined stride down the steps, she defied the odds stacked against them. The game was rigged, the path ahead treacherous, but she wouldn't surrender without a fight. Her voice, an unwavering command that resonated through the hall, demanded justice and redemption. "Stop this game immediately!" she bellowed, her fists clenched into defiant balls, channeling every ounce of her being into the plea.

A wave of emotion surged through the assembled participants as they looked upon her. Her very presence seemed to shift the tide of power, the balance of destiny hanging in the air. Aanya locked eyes with Duryodhana, her gaze a consuming inferno that threatened to burn through the tapestry of their reality. In its depths flickered the embers of a defiant spirit, a flame that transcended time and space. A surge of tears welled up in Aanya's eyes as she met Arjun's gaze.

"I said stop this game," Aanya reiterated, her voice a whipcrack that sliced through the oppressive silence. Her unwavering stare fixated on Duryodhana, conveying a resolve that chilled the air in the opulent chamber.

Duryodhana, his face flushed with the arrogance of a victor, blinked in surprise. His eyes narrowed, boring into Aanya with a cold intensity that mirrored hers. A ripple of disquietude fanned outwards, a tremor felt by all present as the court held its collective breath. The tension in the air thickened, transforming into a suffocating shroud that threatened to steal the very breath from their lungs. In that charged moment, time seemed to distort, stretching into an eternity where the world held its breath, suspended by Aanya's unwavering determination.

"You barge in here and demand an end to the game?" Duryodhan's voice, laced with a thinly veiled mockery, reverberated through the hall. Arrogance still clung to his words, but a flicker of unease, a tremor of something akin to fear, betrayed itself in his narrowed eyes. This unexpected challenge, this defiance from a woman had unsettled him.