She was unable to keep looking at the animalistic shimmer in his orbs, and she glimpsed away. The warning bells in her mind, always telling her to ask less and prod less, went off to become a cacophonous jingle of an out-of-tune string of melody that caused a headache, and she held her head in her hands, shut her eyes, and tried drowning the words of caution her sixth sense was sending her way. The primal need to know more about him, his lineage, his family, the curse, Suryagarh, and his extended relatives was too raw and too potent for anything else to matter. Not even her best friend's name flashing on the screen of the vibrating device in her hands. "The boyfriend was killed because... because he dared to fall in love with a princess?"

"Not at all." He languorously stood up and stretched his arms, the coolness from earlier returning to his countenance. "He was killed because he dared to fall in love with a particular princess. He dared steal what belonged to the prince. His death sentence was signed the moment he laid his eyes on the girl."

She pursed her lips, but before she could ask any more of the numerous questions running hither and thither in her mind, she saw a servant rush up to the living room and tidy it, sweeping the broken shards of the showpiece and discarding them in the plastic bag he was carrying. Another woman clad in a well-pleated yellow saree sauntered to the living area with a tray full of snacks and tea in her hands, and Shreya realized it was already four in the evening.

Once the servants were out of earshot after placing the tray on the table, along with the crumpled newspaper Aarush had earlier flung, she glanced at the prince but was taken aback because of the zeal in his gaze as he peered at her. Heated but soft. Restless but calm. Agitated but serene. So very delicious!

She groaned at the strange thought and muttered under her breath, "Shreya Awasthy! Get your mind out of the sewer."

"Did you say something, Princess?"

She flashed a vibrant smile at him and twirled the bracelet around her wrist. "Who is Elder Woman?"

He grinned. "Shouldn't the question be 'What is Elder Woman?'?"

The air of nonchalance with which he posed the question coerced her into believing she had made a mistake again. "Oh right. What is Elder Woman?" Until realization sank, and she groaned and whined. "Mr. Chauhan!" she cried. "Aren't you mean!"

He chortled. "Elder Woman is a title. Given to the eldest daughter of the family." He gestured at the tray on the centre table. "Tea? Suryagarh's tea is very famous. You should try."

She was not very fond of the beverage, but because he was finally answering some queries, she wished to prolong the conversation. So, she picked up a teacup and glimpsed at him with a smile. But she was unsettled instantly, and knots formed inside her stomach. The way he was still gazing at her with those impassioned eyes almost as if she was a priceless and exquisite piece of art, she forgot how to breathe for a moment. "Elder Woman belongs to which family?"

A genuine and affable smile formed on his lips. "You and your never-ending questions." He picked up a cup of tea for himself. "Just a family we know. Family friends, if you may."

She sipped from the cup and marvelled at the medley of the flavours of ginger and cardamom playing on her tongue. He was not wrong. This beverage deserved to be famous. The headache throbbing at the back of her head was instantaneously sated, and she felt alive and fresh again. "Did your head priest call you back?"

"Did you see me receive any calls in the last hour of your incessant yapping?"

Her mouth hung open. "When did I yap? You were the one talking and getting angry at me for no reason and flinging stuff around and breaking stuff and screaming at me and not telling me anything and—"

"Talk, Miss Awasthy." He snickered. "Don't blabber."

She scowled at him. "You want me to talk less because she talked less?" She didn't give him the chance to respond and huffed. "Say whatever you want, Princey. I am not Meera. I am me. Shreya. And I am fiercely proud of myself." She flipped her hair. "And I am glad I am nothing like Meera. I am confident about myself, and I am not fragile. I am not made of glass to crumble under pressure. I am very, very tough to crack." 

"Hmmm." The smile didn't vanish from his lips, and he began sipping from his cup, wondering how she was the stark opposite of Princess Meera. Shreya Awasthy was way too expressive. He had already noticed how she puckered her lips from time to time, scrunched her nose when something wasn't to her liking, widened her eyes when she appreciated something, and giggled when she was even slightly joyous. Just a wide variety of emotions she displayed without inhibition.

However, her attention was no longer on him as her eyes fell on the headline printed on the newspaper, the ruffled and crumpled sheet sprawled across the table and alerting her. Her brows creased, and she snatched the print, her eyes darting back and forth on the information on the page and her lips parting wider and wider with each passing second.

He caught the action on her part. "What happened?"

Her gaze full of accusation landed on him. "You were the one gobbling up everything in this very newspaper in the morning. Why did you not tell me?"

He frowned. "Tell you what?"

"This!" She flashed the page in front of his eyes. "Girls disappearing from Suryagarh. Mysteriously."

He didn't need to read through the article to comprehend what she was insinuating. "I guess I missed it," he mumbled.

She clicked her tongue and commenced perusing the write-up from the daily print. Aloud. "In yet another case of mysterious disappearance from the quaint town of Suryagarh, a 21-year-old girl went missing two days ago. A student of the local college, majoring in Botany, was reportedly returning from the college campus at 3 pm local time. She was last seen hailing a rickshaw for herself after which she was nowhere to be found. She didn't return home, and the family lodged an FIR once she failed to receive their calls or respond to their messages by the end of the evening. The police began investigating the case yesterday morning, and they have already inspected the CCTV recordings in the market where she was last seen. We have gathered extensive information about the video recordings, according to which, one of the cameras did capture her alighting the rickshaw at 3:15 pm and paying the driver. Then she could be seen walking down the lane.

"In a strange twist of fate, she could not be seen anywhere in any of the successive cameras. The police are of the opinion that the girl vanished within a span of a second, and they are unable to trace her due to a blind spot. The criminal has used the said blind spot intentionally to their advantage. It shows that (s)he was aware of the lapse beforehand and committed the crime accordingly.

"This is just another case in a series of such cases, occurring periodically in the city. According to the local myths, as well as police records, girls have been going missing for the last..."

When she didn't continue reading any further, he glimpsed at her to find the shock and hysteria marring her features. The meagre shudder passing through her body and the feeble trembling of her lips was enough tell-tale. "Go ahead."

His solemn voice brought her out of the reverie she was in, and she read aloud whatever had her discombobulated. "According to the local myths, as well as police records, girls have been going missing for the last for the last hundred and fifty years. The local myths also suggest that the disappearances are as old as four hundred and fifty years. Anecdotes and fables have been communicated through the generations, carried by word of mouth. The girls who go missing are usually eighteen to twenty-one years old, are in good health, and are in excellent social standing. The girls are usually scholar students, with the one who vanished recently aspiring to become a professor at the university, having earned distinction in her exams, and hoping to graduate in the next few months. Going by the pattern, this might be a repeat of the instances that have taken place before.

"If so, the police are of the opinion that the girl might never be recovered despite their best efforts. After all, this is a regular occurrence in the town, happening once every three months, and the cases lodged as early as 1939 are still unresolved. Much to the chagrin of the local authorities, the girl might forever remain undetected and... unfound." She took a sharp breath. "Unfound!"

He hummed. "Again."

She gulped hard. "You knew about this?"

He stood up from the couch and peeked at his smartwatch. "Yes." He seized the print from her and read through the article for himself. "I need to go out for a bit."

"Is this one of the numerous fables surrounding Suryagarh that no one discusses but is true?"

"Hmmm."

"And where are you going now?" She pouted. "Don't leave me alone. I get bored."

"I need to discuss this case with the Inspector." He frowned at his watch again. "Adya should've been back by now. This girl!" he muttered. "I will have to call her security team and check on her as well. Miss Awasthy," he smiled at her, "I can't take you where I am going. So, I am leaving Balwant Singh here to take care of you. Let him know if you need anything, and if you need food to evade crankiness at any point," he gestured towards the door to the kitchen behind the dining table, "our chefs are available 24 x 7 at your service."

She huffed. "I am not always hungry, okay!"

He couldn't fight the grin anymore. "Take care. I will be back soon." He veered and was about to leave when her words halted his progress.

"Wait! I need to talk to you."

He turned around and quirked his brows at her.

"You nearly killed the poor guy this morning." She crossed her arms across her chest. "In a fit of rage, you almost choked him. Agreed, he made a mistake, but you were brutal with him. Unwarranted it was. Where did the 'rules and rules' guy go, huh?"

Unwittingly, he chuckled. "Rules are rules, yes, and I make the damn rules here. This is my city."

She gasped. "Princey!"

He sniggered. "This morning, I was... blinded by rage. I shouldn't have acted on my impulse. He is one of my most trusted men. He is... he is family."

"Precisely."

"And rules are rules, yes, definitely, and should be ardently followed. But only until the other party believes in the same. Rules cannot be rules if they cross the line first with dubious intentions in their mind."

She could again not understand a single word coming out of his mouth. Riddles they were, and she wished to ask him more but resisted the urge. Her tone became sweeter, and her gaze softened. "I get it that you are feeling helpless because of the precarious situation you are in, but you need to calm down. You cannot let anger and resentment guide you. A serene mind is what you need to sail through. Do you understand?"

His smile faltered, and he could hear the gentle murmurs, the soft giggles, the stern admonishment, and her affable voice. At a great distance. Unattainable. He would have to go back in time to savour every second of those decadent moments from a spring long gone. A sense of deja vu overwhelmed him, and he plunged back in time. Three centuries back...

She glowered at him, occasionally flashing her eyes at the way he continued paying attention to his sword, sharpening the blade, and disregarding her. "I am talking to you."

"I know," he said. "And I am choosing to ignore you."

She scowled at him. "I heard what happened today."

He feigned innocence. "What happened?"

She narrowed her eyes at the naivety he was faking. "You nearly killed him."

"And how did you know?"

"Word travels," she hissed.

He chuckled. "Did my little brother gossip again?"

She pursed her lips. "All that man did was—"

"Steal from me." His attention went back to his sabre as he touched the pointed blade to gauge the potency of the weapon. "Nobody steals from me. If he needed to fend for his family, he could've asked me. I would have emptied the coffers to feed him and his family. Stealing is not tolerated in Suryagarh. Especially not under my watch. It's called," he flicked her nose, "maintaining law and order. Rules are rules, Princess. He dared break them with the dubious intention of stealing. If left unattended, someone else could've followed his footsteps. Then someone else. And someone else. Until the entire state becomes an anarchy."

She rubbed her crimson nose. "Always hurting me, you mean Prince!"

He snickered.

"At least your younger brother has a heart. You are a heartless man. You scared and scarred that commoner." She crossed her arms across her chest, huffing and puffing. "Your brother is two years younger than you but is much more mature and much more responsible than you are. His Highness should have made him the next monarch in training instead of you."

His brows shot up in amusement, and he peered at her, figuring out the faint traces of the pink tint on her cheeks that wouldn't go away no matter what he did. Even in his dreams and illusions, that pink tint remained too intact, irking him, bothering him. "If it troubles you so much, why don't you ask my father to crown my younger brother the king? My father listens to every word that comes out of the garbage can you call a mouth, and that too with rapt attention."

She was annoyed, and she looked away. "All the time teasing me," she mumbled, fiddling with the ends of her dupatta.

He peeked at the profile—the gorgeous, breathtaking, alluring, enchanting profile only she could have. The only woman so flawless to have graced the Earth.

When her anger simmered down, she puckered her lips at him. "This temper is of no use," she murmured. "You need to control it. It's so unbecoming of a prospective king. You cannot let anger and resentment guide you. A serene mind is what you need to sail through. Do you understand?"

"Aarush?"

He blinked his eyes to get rid of the stupor he was in and finally took note of the girl standing in front of him and snapping her fingers. Moistening his parched lips with his tongue, glimpsing away, he mumbled, "I will be back soon."

"How soon?"

The innocence in her voice tugged at something in his heart, and he was unable to understand why he was smiling in such a ridiculous fashion. "Soon."

She quirked her brows at him and forwarded her pinky finger to him. "Promise?"

He peeked at the finger hovering so close to his little finger before looking into her eyes. The depth. The compassion. The warmth. The affection. His little finger curled around her pinky without his permission. "Promise."

***

The local police station was at a fifteen-minute driving distance from the palace premises, and Aarush was in no mood for company that evening. So, he chose to take a car and drive down to the police station by himself. As he parked the vehicle and clambered out of it, the constables and the commoners bowed in front of him, greeted him, and looked up to him with utmost reverence and adoration. The kind and gentle smile—the faux professional one—was etched on his features as he acknowledged those who nearly touched his feet as he prevented them from doing so with a shake of his head or those who had their palms joined in supplication at his appearance in the public.

The respect with which they gazed at him spoke volumes about the kind of affection they held for the prince. It had been decades since the royal family of Suryagarh held any political power, but never had the Chauhans shied away from the erstwhile stately duties and responsibilities of helping the citizens in whichever way they could. The Chauhans had always treated the commoners as their extended family and placed the concern of the public in high regard, thereby making the people of Suryagarh subservient to each and every member of the family and fiercely loyal to the throne despite living in a democracy.

As Aarush entered the precinct and took off the sunglasses, tucking them in the breast pocket of his pinstriped jacket, the Inspector noticed the eminent man enter and rose up from the chair behind his desk with a wide smile on his features.

"Your Highness," Inspector Veer Singh bowed, "what brings you here? You could've called me, and I would have been at the fort in a jiffy."

Aarush waved his hands in dismissal. "Not important." He assumed the seat. "The missing girl. What's the progress?"

Veer remained standing out of respect for the young man. "No trace of her, Your Highness." He sighed profoundly. "One moment she was there. The next moment she was not. Vanished into thin air. Just like the other girls did."

"A blind spot in the CCTV cameras, huh?"

"Not a blind spot." Veer chuckled humorlessly. "We issued that statement not to raise panic in the masses. The belief that a gang of serial kidnappers has been on the loose for over a century is much better than what we deem is the truth."

Aarush declined the glass of water a constable was offering to him. "So, what exactly happened?"

Veer snapped his fingers at one of his subordinates. "How about I show you?"

As the two of them strolled into the small storeroom on the side, Aarush came across a large number of computer screens and monitors blinking in front of him, perched on the tables and desks with experts clicking away on the keyboards to investigate high-profile cases using technological advancements implemented in the police force.

Veer asked the rest of the experts and deputies to leave the room, and all of them complied without delay, exiting after paying their respects to the crowned prince. Once everyone was out of earshot, Veer pushed away the chair in front of the desk and began surfing through the files saved on the cloud, filtering them by dates and location of crime. Landing at a particular one, he double-clicked the file and allowed the video to play on full screen.

Aarush leaned closer to the screen in the partially illumined room, not blinking his eyes for even a moment lest he miss something crucial. But he needn't be so cautious, for the evidence was speaking for itself. His eyes widened, and there was no room for doubt in his mind anymore. "It's him."

"Yes, sir," Veer said. "It's indeed him."

"The man," Aarush scoffed, "responsible for everything gone wrong in the last..." Huffing, he turned towards Veer. "I need backup forces ready in the next few days. I want his cronies nabbed."

"And..." Veer shivered due to the fury in the royal's voice. "And what about this man?"

"This man," Aarush smirked, "shall be dealt with the Chauhan way. After all, family matters shall remain... within the family."

***

Author's Note:

I am on a roll today, yes I am. Probably chapter 12 can also be up and ready today. I will try. ☺️☺️☺️