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Fittings, jewellery trials, hair and makeup sessions, event meetings… Avantika bore it all with her gut growing weaker and weaker. Until…

“Can we reschedule the hair trial, Raje?” Kresha’s hair stylist asked her over the phone. “I have had to undergo an emergency procedure and am at the hospital.”

“Oh, of course. What happened? Do you need anything from us?”

“No, no, it’s good news actually. I am expecting. I had to undergo a…” The rest of her words fell garbled into her ear. Expecting. That means missed periods. She had missed hers, hadn’t she?

“Of course,” Avantika winged it. “Take care and keep Ananya updated with when you can reschedule or if there will be a replacement.”

She immediately switched the call to her period tracker app.

Week 6 — You Might Be Pregnant

The world spun. She glanced around at the palace activity going strong even at this late evening hour. Avantika caught the back of a patio chair and steadied her body.

“Raje?” Ananya came running to her. “Are you fainting?”

“No!” She immediately opened her eyes. “Of course not.”

“You look like you are…”

Avantika’s eyes began to shut. “Shit… Ananya, don’t let anyone know,” she grabbed her hand and squeezed it tight.

“Ok… but what happened?” She helped her into a chair. Avantika sat down, blinked open her eyes and gulped air through her mouth. The coldness in her ears and throat seemed to subside.

“I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything.”

“Kaki Maharaj or anybody cannot know.”

Ananya nodded.

“Promise me, Ananya.”

“I promise, Raje.”

“I need you to go to the medical store.”

————————————————————

Avantika parked the car on a street behind the Palace of Nawanagar.

It wasn’t as heavily guarded as she had expected.

She righted her white duppatta on her white pair of salwar kameez, checking her reflection in the mirror.

In nothing but her lip balm, with her already sunken face and eyes, she looked farthest from a princess, forget a princess from Gwalior.

But she did pass as a citizen in mourning.

She got out of the car, locked it, and followed Google Maps to the public entrance. It was 12.45 pm, the time for their court to end. The sweet spot between the palace accepting entrants and closing gates for commoners. She slipped in like the many mourners in white. Nobody stopped her.

Avantika stared up at the humungous palace rising in the distance as people meandered the long, winding road through the gardens.

There was a metal detector and standard frisking for men and women in separate chambers.

Nothing out of the ordinary. Avantika passed those and walked.

Again, nobody stopped her or asked where she wanted to go.

She pulled open Harsh’s contact and dropped the bomb —

AVANTIKA

Hi Harsh, I am in your palace. Can you come get me?

It wasn’t even a full minute before his message popped up.

HARSH

Where?

She glanced around, and zeroed in on the temple.

AVANTIKA

Dwarkadhish temple

HARSH

Wait there, don't talk to anyone

She pushed herself to the side of the alley outside the temple and waited. Mourners went into the temple, came out, then continued inside the palace, or wherever the left alley went.

“Rawal padhare chhe!” A roar echoed, similar to the one that echoed in her own place when Kaka Maharaj walked out in public.

Her eyes widened even before she saw him.

In a white kurta-pyjama, phone in hand, the other hand behind his back, walking with courtiers and ministers, guards surrounding him.

People cleaved away, folding their hands and bowing their heads.

He met their eyes and nodded. There was nothing in his eyes though. No smile, no sorrow, no grief. Nothing.

He was walking past the alley she was hiding in when his eyes panned over her, then stuttered back.

Their eyes met. His irises flared. She took one step at the sight of that recognition but he looked away, continuing down the alley and turning the corner.

In a blink he was gone, out of her line of sight. Like he had never been.

He was in the middle of his courtiers. Of course he wouldn’t speak to her.

But now he knew she was here. Avantika waited. She waited there for long minutes. The alleyway grew empty. Announcements were made to empty the court and the East Wing. She pushed deeper into the corner of the temple exit, praying nobody would find her before Harsh did.

AVANTIKA

Where ar eyou?!

A tap on her shoulder. She whirled.

“Harsh!” Avantika sighed. “Thank god. Where were you? I need to see him. He passed from here twenty minutes back. He knows I am here…”

Harsh’s hand rose and he offered her a piece of paper. A folded piece of paper.

“What is this? You can text me.”

He pushed it into her hand. Avantika opened the four folds and peered at the two neat sentences in familiar handwriting.

I am telling this to you one final time, I am not available for marriage, family, kids or anything else.

Please don’t waste your time here. Leave. Harsh will take you home.

She swallowed. Read it again. Hated him. Hated herself for what she was about to do. And swallowed her pride again.

“He could write this but not meet me and tell this to my face?” She held the letter up.

Harsh’s impassive face scowled. For some reason she believed that scowl wasn’t for her, but for him. But she also knew he was more loyal to that man than his own shadow. Avantika turned and began to follow the path Samarth had traced with his entourage earlier.

“Eehh!” Harsh ran behind her. “AaHhaaa! Eeee! Huh!”

“You did what you were asked to. I will not leave here without meeting him.”

Unbidden, her tears began to fall. Nowadays they fell at any time they bloody well pleased. Avantika wiped them with the back of her hands like an uncouth girl and kept going, the palace alleys empty.

“Av! Ehh! Aveh!” Harsh ran around and barred her path without touching her, hands outstretched, eyes pleading. He folded his hands together and gestured for her to leave.

“Please, Harsh, please, I need to see him. I need to talk to him. Please…” she broke into a sob.

His face crumpled. “Ok, you go, Go and tell him…” she stopped, pushing tears off her face.

Her eyes filled again and she kept swallowing what little pride gurgled up her throat — “Tell him he made a promise to me too. Tell him he promised me that he would eat sev on poha all his life. Tell him — at least remember your own words. Please, Harsh. Just once. Please, go.”

He shook his head, his eyes screwing small.

“I cannot go away without telling him…”

“Raje?” Avantika whirled at the sound of that moniker from a familiar voice. Giriaj Hukum was striding down the alley, in a sombre white shirt, face screwed in concern.

“What are you doing here like this?”

Harsh panicked and began to gesture for her to come away but she saw the opening — “Hukum, I am here to meet Samarth.”

“Of course, then go in. He will be in the dining room.”

“Can you guide me…”

“Ehh, hea…” Harsh made quick hand gestures to Hukum. His panic was rising. Hukum’s eyebrows furrowed. He listened to Harsh’s full rant, and then his eyes fell to her.

“Raje,” his features relaxed. “You cannot stand here like this. Come with me, I’ll seat you in Chandi Haveli. Wait there.”

She followed Hukum into a spacious hall made of silver accents. He seated her there, then gestured Harsh to the door.

“I will get Samarth for you. Ok?” Hukum reassured her.

Avantika tried to find a smile for him as she nodded.

He turned on his heels and disappeared, Harsh behind him.

Seconds passed. Minutes. Longer minutes.

She wiped her face clean of tears and adjusted her duppatta.

Now that she was seated here like a princess, she would have to right her haggard appearance to look like one.

When longer minutes passed and there was no sign of anybody coming, Avantika stood to her feet.

She walked out of the hall, looking left, then right.

The guard outside the hall saw her but did not question her.

Probably because she had Hukum’s seal of approval.

Avantika set her chin high and walked out into the alley.

“Where is the dining room?” She inquired.

“Straight from here, then take a left, madam.”

“Thank you.”

She went down the alley, her footsteps light even as she held her princess gait. Murmurs made her feet stall. Male murmurs. Harsh was standing by the door but it was open. No guards or citizens around. Nobody. Avantika went closer, hoping Harsh would not be alerted to her footsteps.

“…and if this is your reasoning then, pardon my language, Samarth, it is — bullshit,” Hukum bellowed quietly.

“I have decided this, Hukum.”

“And what about that girl waiting there? Did you ask her? You went and took decisions of your life, involved her in them, made promises. And now? One storm and you alienate her?”

“I will be on the wrong side of her life. I’ll take that.”

“Don’t do this.”

“I cannot give her anything. No marriage, no home, no kingdom, no children.”

“Cannot or will not?”

Silence.

“Which debts are you still paying? Samarth, beta, what are you still trying to prove and to whom?”

“I am fulfilling the promises I made.”

“I will talk to Tara. I will talk to Tara’s parents. You go talk to Ava…”

“I do not want her. Or that life. This is it now, Hukum. I will not leave Sharan or Nawanagar. And I will not bring her to this kingdom.”

“At least talk to her. She has come all this way, hiding in your palace like a commoner. Listen to what she has to say.”

“Nothing she says will change my decision. It will only give her false hope.”

“A king must always listen.”

“Not this time.”

“You will regret this but not be able to repent it. Think carefully before deciding, Samarth.”

“No.”

Avantika waited. Like an unashamed, reprehensible, weak girl, she waited even after listening to all that he had said about her. She waited. And then when no sound was forthcoming, she felt the tick of each second in the wild beats of her heart. It was beating even harder. Beating like a reminder.

And that’s when Avantika finally regrew her spine.

Her feet which had frozen on the spot tingled with heat.

They moved of their own accord, turned and began to stride away from Samarth Sinh Solanki, like they once had a decade ago.

This time they moved, on and on. And even as her hand reached down to touch her belly, holding it firm under the cotton of her kurta, her feet kept moving.