Please vote and comment if you all want next chapter soon, it encourages me so much.

This one was particularly difficult to write but I am very satisfied with how it turned out. I hope you all enjoy it too!

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"It is under the glamour and affluence of royalty,
the rarest silks and jewels
that lie the most gruesome rugs and the dirtiest secrets."

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"Our dear cousin is being surprisingly warm" A man looked unnerved at his companion.

"I know him well, he is a snake, he will make us like him so much that we wrap him around our arm and then he shall attack." The other man said firmly. He knew his friend very well.

"What if he attacks before we even realise, what if we realise the damage he does too late?" Arjun said again frantically.

"That sounds like something he would do. I am ashamed of ever being his friend." Karn gripped the bed extremely hard causing shrivels of broken pieces to fall down. The few pieces that break first before the whole tower comes crumbling down, the calm before the storm, the one that goes unnoticed.

"It is not your fault, you were indebted-" Karna cut arjun off.

"Indebted! Indebted you say? It was my foolishness in all senses, I thought he was my friend, but I was just a vassal of his, only of use till I did what he wanted." He said pulling fistfuls of his hair.

"Do you know? When I found out I was your brother, I was shattered. The life I strived for, the goals I aimed for, the hopes I struggled to for, everything could have already been mine. It was already mine, if not for maa. Every time I was humiliated, every time I was undermined I reminded myself that my talents would carve an identity for me. After years of toiling day and night, giving my blood sweat and tears for archery, the only thing I got was ridicule and humiliation. Then, in m darkest days, Duryodhana stood for me, he faced those blank faces and inflated egos. He gave me an equal status to them. The only happy moments I had then were with him. I considered him my friend, my best friend. Then the truth came out, he dropped me like a dead fly. I still remember that day vividly. I ran to his room, in hope of finding something stable in my ricocheting life. But he, he, told me I was just dirt on his feet. He said that all I ever was, was because of him, that I had no identity of my own. He humiliated me, I stood and heard it. But then, he called mother a prostitute and humiliated his own father. That got to me. He hurled insults at me which I cannot repeat as I left from there after placing my crown at his feet." Karna broke off and looked at arjun who looked stunned.

He had never disclosed anything about his relationship with duryodhana, in hope and resect that he had not really become the monster everyone thought him to be. But alas! Karna was wrong.

"Bhaiya- You never told us all this. We would rampage Hastinapur and avenge-" arjun started but karna cut him off "In my web of indebt, I failed to see that to him all I was, was dust at his feet. Just don't tell any of this to anyone." Arjun gestured behind them where yudhishthira, bheem, nakul and Sahadev were standing behind there.

"This doesn't change how much we respect and love you Bhaiya, he trapped you like he trapped all of us." Nakul smiled wetly.

"We all have scars, don't we? Those who leave them don't matter but rather those who draw stars around them." Yudhishthira smiled faintly remembering when he disclosed the deepest of his to Draupadi. (chapter- Insecurities)

"It is under the glamour and affluence of royalty, the rarest silks and jewels that lie the most gruesome rugs and the dirtiest secrets." Sahadev whispered softly.

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That night the finest wine flowed, the food was exceptional and there was not an unfriendly word from any of the Kauravas. Instead, they seemed delighted their cousins had come and anxious to please them.

Duryodhana sat next to Bheema and insisted on filling his glass and heaping his plate with food. But Bheema remembered the day at the river. He only ate when Duryodhana served himself from the same dishes.

It was a grand feast. The singers were in superb voice and the dancers inspired. Yudhishtira thought his prayers were answered and, surely, this was the beginning of a warm new alliance.

The only thing he had to do was look for his sister now. Was she here or not? Maybe not, maybe their suspicions were wrong.

The kaunteyas slept contentedly that night in the luxurious apartments in Pandu's old palace. Duryodhana had excused himself to his chambers before everyone else.

The kaunteyas failed to realise that this all was a façade behind which lay the most gruesome event to ever take place in history and that night was just the starting.

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A hunter. A prey.

A draught. A river.

A sinner. A beauty.

A warrior. A warrioress.

A man in long golden robes entered the room and locked the door behind him. He kept a covered tray on the table before turning to face her with an evil glint in his eyes. She sat over there clutching a urumi in front of her. She was a warrior whose prowess could not be underestimated. Yet everyone has their weaknesses.

"That urumi shall not help, you are trapped in a man's best cage. His bedroom " He purred slowly as he tried to lower it and unveil her face but only a deep gash graced his hand from her expertise with urumi.

"Don't try to fight. You know what I can do. You are my servant girl." He said as his eyes contracted to slits of evil. Of pure evil.

"I heard that the Samrat and his family are in this horrible palace." She said firmly shutting her eyes avoiding his gaze as he cupped her cheek.

"Yes, they are." He murmured distracted by her beautiful features.

"I wanted to kill you, but you are just too beautiful to be killed off, what a waste of beauty it would be if I killed you just like that." He whispered as blood draining from the gash on his head fell on her face and she smiled. She loved watching her enemies bleed, even if trapped in a room for months, but she could break away from the room, it was the secrets of her he held that kept her trapped there.

"You disgust me." She said as she pushed his hand away only for him to grab her wrist.

"I disgust you, but, they, they don't even look for you. Have they found you? When you are in the very same palace, did your family make any effort to look for their little ray of sunshine, did they Dhriti?" He smirked as she gasped hearing that and dropped her urumi.

Taking advantage of her momentary distraction he fumbled with her blouse and undid it and she clasped her hand over there and slapped him hard.

"Don't you dare!" She yelled ferociously and tried to get up but the shackles held her down.

"Just because they forgot I exist doesn't mean I can't fight for myself. The secrets I was ashamed of, the ones that held me here were only because I did not want them to know. But they don't care!" She whispered dangerously as the man pushed her down again glad to see she had dropped her urumi and forced himself on her.

"Dhriti, I know you are angry, I knew you would be so I brought you a consolation." He purred trying to lure her as she struggled under him.

"I don't want anything from you!" she yelled again as he put a forced arm on her and his eyes shone with pure evil.

Whatever he had, could be no good, could it?

"I said, I said, I said that I want nothing from you, you filthy pervert!" She pushed his hand away , bit it and looked at him ferociously. He roared as loud as thunder and carried lightening in the strike of his cruelty, but what was his thunder and lightning in front of a fearless girl who carried entire storms and hurricanes at her fingertips.

"You are a witch, a beautiful one mind you." He said as he pulled her hand away form her cleavage and stared at it greedily She covered it with her blouse as quickly as she could.

"Yes I am, I am the blood of witches you thoughts were dead!" She said as he got up angrily and whipped her.

A sharp pain rang through her body as she bit her lip to succumb her scream. The pain was all consuming and blinding.

Then she felt few heavy things thrown at her feet. Fighting through the pain, she opened her eyes and gasped at the sight that lay before her. It took her time to comprehend it but when it finally made sense, the entire world felt like it collapsed and the ground from her feet pulled away.

"It cant be! You could not have done this duryodhana" She yelled again.

She felt a sudden surge of hatred towards duryodhana surge through her.Stagnant water becomes dirty, stinky, disease-ridden, poisonous, deadly; that was the hate she felt for him.

In front of her lay the severed heads of her brothers, Karna, Bheem, Arjun, Nakul , Sahadev, and the last one, the one she was closest to, Yudhishthira.

They were mangled but unmistakeably theirs.

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Will the dice game happen now that their heads lay there in front of her?

Did you like the revelation of how karna and duryodhana's frienship ended? I remember telling one reader when he/she asked how suddenly karna was on the pandavas side, that the story will be delved into later.

I tried to build a little in this chapter, how was it?

How the scene of duryodhana and dhriti?

I am in love with this line I wrote- It is under the glamour and affluence of royalty, the rarest silks and jewels that lie the most gruesome rugs and the dirtiest secrets.

What was the best part?

What was the worst part?

Please vote and comment if you all want next chapter soon, it encourages me so much.