Married For Three Nights (Complete)

Part 26

Ever has it been that loves knows not it's own depth until the hour of separation.
-Khalil Gibran

"What is it now?" He glared at the gaurd standing outside the door of his chamber. "Forgive me my prince but his majesty has summoned you to his library." Nair looked back where his wife sat on the bed. He wanted to have her in his arms, for now and forever, to murmur the soft words of love near her ears.
To tell her that the last thing that mattered to him was her virginity. 'To heck!' With what the world thought or...his father thought. He loves her beyond her past life and it's ruins. He believed they can have a home here together and he intends to tell this to his father, the king as well even if that would bring the warth of 7 worlds upon him on his father's orders.

He didn't want to leave her alone for one blink, but he left with the promise to be back soon with the messenger.

'After all the king had summoned him.'

~♡♡~

As they passed through the long sunny corridors that lead to his father's study, he tried to speculate how the conversation with his father will go. 'How...and what.'

'His marrige...His wife...or the twin's disobedience.'
But it was beyond his mind that the last things they were going to discuss were about him or his sisters.
The ministers, scholars and the lords stood on either side from where his father sat on a leather chair of his library and Nair could have sworn that it made no difference, perhaps since the man sitting atop it made it either a wooden piece or a golden throne.

There's a rebellion in the southern most part of their empire, a small group of villagers and bandits, the sources said.

"And yet they managed to kill two hundred of our trained soldiers and gaurds, posted near the border and the watch towers." The king thundered.

"Villagers and bandits, my foot!"
"You need to act on your sources because either they are lying or...you have no sources at all and lying to me Lord Dhanush!" The words were barely out of the king' s mouth and the lord flinched.

"Your majesty....I-I..this is the news I recived and it left me confused as well about the massacre of our two hundred precious men."

And right then Nair found his father's unblinking stare straight at him and he knew exactly what it meant.

"I think I know who these rebels are." He strode forward with each and every eye in the room fixed upon him.
"Villagers or petty theives or whatever they want to call themselves, they are no doubt the men of kingdom of Rajkot, our southern neighbours with whom we share our three fourth borders.
If indeed a group of few men killed two hundred of our soldiers, then know this...that they are no common men, but trained assassins."

Silence prevailed in the room and Nair could bet everyone of them were recalling the last threatening words of that mad king and his wife before they left from his wedding.

"And not too long from now they will strike again."

"Then what do you suggest we do your Grace?"
And the plans and plots were laid down, to extract those rebels out of the infamous thick jungles of south along with barring their whole border with tactics that no further attacks can be carried out from anywhere.

It felt nice, Nair realized..He enjoyed the plotting and the thrill that it bought along and he cannot imagine how it will feel, to go even deeper....to jump upon his steed into the southern wilderness and feel the adrenaline rushing through his veins as he chased to kill.
....but it is something he cannot afford to do right now. He must stay here in the palace for the protection of his wife and sisters if nothing else.

"Good night father!" He wished before leaving the almost empty room, expecting no reply in return.
And yet there the king was, smiling broadly, slipping on a cup of wine as he wished him back more gallantly than he ever has in his life.

"Good night son, sleep well."

'Something was terribly wrong!' And Nair was more aware of that fact than his own breathing.
He staggered a few steps back and a few more before his sweaty hands gripped the metal handle of the door and yanked it open and ran as fast as her legs could carry, it was night fall already and no matter how much he tried to deny it Nair already knew in his heart that it was already too late.

His chamber was empty, the garden was empty, Meena's chamber was empty, the corridors were empty, his mother's chamber was empty, the top most chamber of northern tower was empty, the palace gates were empty and the gaurds posted there has no answer to where his wife was.
He needed her and for that he needed answers but when he reached back to his father's study at midnight, it was empty too.

"His majesty has retired for the night and has requested not to be disturbed. " Nair wanted to hit his head on the castle walls then, over and over again.
'I am a foolish little dog.' His father played with him like a pet dog and he followed like a pet dog to do his bidding and bring back the bone.

'Oh! What is he to do? What indeed is he to do?'

~♡♡~

 The sky had started to turn orange, the darkness of the previous night slowly fading as Nair made his way towards his sisters chamber.
Just like any other thing they have identical rooms as well, the twin bedrooms joined by a door in between, but to his further dismay and horror they weren't soundly sleeping as he had expected, instead they were huddled together in the first chamber, the door wide open, many of their hand maidens working away in the dim light of a lone lamp.

'What's happening?' His heart started to drum like a wild caged beast. Clothes and shoes and jweleries and books numerous of them, all of them were being folded and packed away into the large iron trunks.

'No! No! No! Not again!' And then he saw it, his mother sitting beside her girls, her eyes rimmed red, her arms falling around her precious daughters as she wept.

"What did father said now?" He was annoyed, irritated but beyond all he was terrified of being separated from his sisters yet again.

"He said that we are to leave Bundi with the first ray of sun today and never come back, not until he finds us worthy husbands who will beat us like a mince meat whenever we disobey a man elder to us. Something that he should have done from the very start."Maya has shrugged off her mother's arm and stood up. "That's what father told us. That we have to move to Benares while he searches the worthy masters for us."

"And you know what that means elder brother?"

"That means, it's time to say goodbye...because I will never see you again." And he felt his sister's soft arms around his neck but he has no strength left to return that embrace, not anymore!