The raspy, breezy murmur was full of angst, and it resonated in the entire hall despite the feeble chattering of tourists wafting from the floor below. Shockwaves rippled throughout her body, and she was rendered a panting, sweating mess. Her quivering lips tried to comment on the situation, and her uncertain gaze darted between the portrait and the man. He was busy ardently peering at the woman in the painting, smiling from time to time, and paid no attention to the nervousness ruling the heart of the young girl adjacent to him.

"Mr. Chauhan," she could swear her heart was on the verge of coming out of her chest, "why does she look like me?"

"Like you?" He chortled, his eyes raking the portrait on the wall. "Princess Meera is identical to you."

She gasped in horror and attempted to make out the finer details of the illustration. It was definitely antiquated, for the edges of the laminated sheet were slightly torn and faded. The colours that were once vibrant had lost their sheen, and the creases and folds across narrated the age of the sketch. However, Aarush was right, wasn't he? Princess Meera, a princess alive three hundred years ago, was a spitting image of Shreya Awasthy from the 21st century. The same forehead, the same manner in which Shreya parted her hair in the middle, the bouncy, wavy texture of the locks, the identical set of arched and shaped brows, the bow-shaped ample lips, the high cheekbones, the plump cheeks, and the fair skin. Down to every single detail, Shreya and Meera were duplicates of one another. Even the colour of their eyes and the pink tint on their cheeks. Anticipation gnawed at her heart. "Why?"

Again the same gravelly whisper that echoed in his ears. Finally tearing his gaze off Meera's glimmering eyes, he focused his attention on the dumbfounded and stunned girl alongside him. "Confused?"

She craned her neck towards him and scowled heavily. "You think?" Before he got the chance to respond, her eyes went around the hall. "Where is the camera? You are pulling my leg right now. Is this getting shot on camera? Where is it?" She twirled at the spot. "Where is the damned camera?" When she received no response from him, she chose to glare at him. His attention was fixated on his fingers as he peeked at them with mild disinterest. "Mr. Chauhan, this is not a good time to pull pranks on me. I am officially miffed, and I can't believe this is the way you treat your guests. If it's about the long email, you could've just ignored it and moved on instead of doing what you are doing right now. It's so disrespectful."

"Apologies if you felt disrespected."

She was furthermore irked by his clipped response. "Thanks for everything. Goodbye!"

She was about to walk away, irritated and annoyed with the man she found charming and handsome only moments ago, for she couldn't believe someone of Aarush's stature could pull such a cheap stunt on one of the guests at the resort. For God's sake, he was a prince and a well-renowned one at that. However, when he spoke up, she was coerced into halting in her steps.

"This is not a prank, Miss Awasthy. It's indeed a three-hundred-year-old painting preserved and handed down from our ancestors. She's Princess Meera. Not many are aware of the portrait since this portion of the museum is off-limits to regular visitors, so you might not have come across this image ever before, but that's indeed... Meera."

She didn't know if it was the tenderness in his cadence or the weight of his words, but she surely wheeled around and retraced her steps back to him. Incredulity and disbelief dripped from every breath she took and every movement she made in front of him. "That's not possible." She gulped to moisten her parched throat. "Two people, separated by centuries, cannot look identical to one another."

He went back to gazing at the portrait. Reverence, adoration, respect, admiration, a twinge of ache, a sprinkle of disappointment, and a dash of melancholy flitted across his features in quick succession to each other.

She was getting more and more discombobulated due to his silence. There were a thousand questions running through her mind at an accelerated speed, and the thrumming of her heart indicated well that she was overthinking, ready to yell and shriek, but she somehow controlled the sudden impulse. "Mr. Chauhan?"

Once she urged him to speak, he said, "Do you believe in reincarnation, Princess?"

She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, unsure where this conversation was headed. Choosing to answer his query nevertheless, she said, "I have read about it in some journals and articles. Reincarnation is the transmigration of the non-physical essence of a living being into a different physical form or body after the biological death of the previous body."

He finally took the liberty to peek at her. Mirth twinkled in his eyes yet again. So did the teasing glint. "You quoted Wikipedia word by word, didn't you?"

She pursed her lips and glanced away out of mortification, twiddling her bracelet. "I was... I... I remembered."

"Do you or do you not believe in reincarnation? I am not asking for a bookish definition, Miss Awasthy. What do you believe in?"

The crispness in his tone prompted her to rack her brain and formulate an answer. "I don't. These are myths and fables used to narrate stories to show that in the battle of good versus evil, the former always wins. No matter how many lives it takes for that to transpire. Does not mean it has a grain of truth in it."

He nodded and accepted her response silently.

Once the tense moment of quietude stretched for more than necessary, she was forced to break it. "Do you think I resemble her because of this reincarnation belief you have?"

With an air of nonchalance, he said, "I don't think that." When she had just heaved a sigh of relief, he shrugged. "I know it. You are mostly certainly a reincarnation of Meera."

Defeaning silence landed between them all over again. The occasional chatter from the tourists wafted up to them sporadically along with the mellifluous twittering of birds at a distance. However, all other sounds faded away once the duo began staring at each other, each challenging the other to bow down, each declaring wordlessly that their belief was accurate and the other had an erroneous knowledge about the secrets of life.

It was she who was unable to hold his gaze any longer. Not only had her eyes watered but she also felt a blush creeping up her neck. Looking away, she shook her head. "I don't buy that. It's utter bullshit. You are lying, Mr. Chauhan, and I don't appreciate it. Just because I look like her!"

"That's not the only reason behind my conviction. Looking like Princess Meera is one thing, but we are certain you carry her essence too."

"Essence?" She scoffed. "What am I? A piece of cake carrying some random essence from a dried fruit?"

He didn't let the derision deter him. "Essence... soul... spirit. You carry her spirit within yourself, and we know so because..."

She quirked her brows at him. "Because?"

"We just know."

"We? Who are this 'we'?"

He let out a shallow breath, finally exhibiting some signs of impatience as he tapped his feet on the floor. "We... we are the Protectors."

"Protectors of what?"

He waited for a moment, cast a quick glance at her, and looked away. "I can't tell you that."

Irked she was because it seemed like he was refusing to divulge any imperative knowledge when she was dying to know what he meant by everything he was uttering. Not that she would display the eagerness in front of him. Instead, she chose to peek out of the solo window on the wall behind him. The well-kept lawns outside were perceptible, and the greenery captured her attention. A slight zephyr was moving in via the aperture, and the locks of her hair flew in all directions, beating the summer heat, purposing to drown her in all the myths and anecdotes the place had to offer. Didn't she visit the place to learn all about the fables and stories lacing every wall, every bannister, every stone of the fort?

"We need your help, Princess."

"Don't call me that." Probably it came out ruder than she intended, for he frowned at her, and she perceived it out of the corners of her eyes.

Taking a sharp breath, he said, "We need your help, Miss Awasthy."

She crossed her arms in front of her. "With?"

"With breaking the curse. You are the only one who can do that."

She was surprised at the hints of desperation in his tonality, and she tore her gaze away from the pristine lawns, permitting her eyes to roam every nook and cranny of the hall before they landed on him. His expressions were neutral. So was his demeanour. "Which curse?"

"The..." He rolled his lips inward and deliberated for a moment. "The curse on the princesses of the kingdom. It is a half-a-millennia-old curse that can be broken only if you help us."

She let out a derisive laugh. "Do you take me to be a five-year-old who believes in all this fantasy crap? Curse! 500 years old! Reincarnation! Utter crap!"

"Crap?" he yelled. He had lost the remnant dregs of patience, and anger crept through his senses. "You call this crap. This is life and death, Miss Awasthy. Our princesses die each time before they get to turn twenty-one. And you are calling this crap."

That was when she recollected details of the curse she had read in a blog, believing it to be a ploy to keep the female population to a minimum. Thinning her lips into a line, she muttered, "It's five hundred years old?"

He went back to exuding an aura of calm and indifference. "Ours is an ancient bloodline. We can trace our ancestry up to 900 years ago. We are one of the few royal families who held onto power for the most part of this brutal millennia-old history. When the monarchy was abolished post-independence, we retained a wide area of our fort premises. Agni Bhawan—the old palace—was converted to a UNESCO World Heritage site while my family and I continued to live in the new palace. The resort and my home are my private property. We still live there, and so does the curse. Kingdoms rose and kingdoms fell, but the curse continues to haunt us and the girls in my family for the last five hundred years."

Her head had begun spinning at the truckload of information she was at the receiving end of, but she managed to keep standing on her feet by clenching her fists and staring at her fingers. "Hmmm."

"You are the key to breaking the curse, Miss Awasthy, because Meera was the key to breaking the curse. As you carry her essence, her spirit, you automatically qualify to help us break it and rid the princesses of this horrific affliction. Once and for all."

She gripped the nearby antique table to steady herself, for she was surely going to faint if she were to learn of one more aspect of this complicated conversation.

He was by her side before she could sense it. "Are you okay?" he said. Concern was evident in his tonality. "Do you need water?"

She gulped and shook her head. "I am fine," she muttered.

"If you need water—"

"I said I am fine," she snapped and glowered at him. More so when he attempted to hold her hand and provide her with some support.

Recanting his hands with a faint smile on his face, he took a step back. "We will go have lunch now."

"I am not hungry," she shrieked and tugged at her hair in frustration. "I am fine, and I don't need water. I don't need food. I just need... need..."

"You need food." He chuckled. "You are indeed famished, and that is making you cranky."

She gasped when she realized how true his words were. As if on cue, her stomach rumbled, and she was forced into admitting that she was starving. Her mother always told her how pangs of hunger made her moody and grumpy, but she was dumbfounded when he gleaned the same about her within an hour of meeting her. She scowled at him when heat crept up her neck at the embarrassment. "I need food."

He gestured at her to exit the hall.

She looked him once over, stomped her foot, and began rushing to the staircase, missing the momentary flicker of jubilance crossing his features before he masked it with his usual facade of detachment.

***

The regal spread in front of her had already calmed her senses before she put the first morsel of food into her mouth. He had promised to take her on a culinary journey across Rajasthan from the comfort of the restaurant, and he delivered on it quite well, much to her chagrin. The food was scrumptious, the flavours were authentic, and the aroma was dazzling, overwhelming her olfactory ducts and rendering her incapable of thinking about Meera or the curse.

Ranging from local cuisines native to Suryagarh and dishes from across the state that had a historic mnemonic attached to them, a multitude of speciality recipes were sitting in front of her as she gobbled down one thing after the other. She occasionally peeked at him out of confusion, for he was only sipping from a tumbler of a mint mojito he had ordered for himself but was not eating a single thing. Instead, his attention was solely on the mist gathered around the ceramic chalice due to the chilliness of the liquid inside. A nearly indiscernible smile played on his lips throughout, and she chose to speak to him only when her anger and her hunger had simmered down.

Patting her mouth with a cloth napkin, she said, "What if I say I don't believe in any of the nonsense you are spouting?"

His jaws clenched, and he sent a cold stare her way.

She didn't know if he was infuriated or not, for he didn't utter a single word in response, but the way his gaze didn't waver was surely sending tingles down her spine. The problem was these were not the nice ones with sunshine and butterflies. It was cold and mean. Looking away, she said, "If I am indeed the key to... breaking the curse, what would you need from me? I... I am here on a trip for only five days or so. I can't be here any longer than that."

"And you wouldn't need to." His tone was as polite as ever. "We just need you to find one thing for us."

"And what is that?"

"An artefact. An ancient one. Five hundred years old, to be precise."

"And where shall I find it?"

He heaved a profound sigh. "Alas! The clandestine location of the artefact is lost in the depths of time. Only Meera knew. She knew where it lies."

"Then how am I supposed to find it?"

"Well, you and she had different bodies but the same spirit— the same essence. Memories can be tapped via a simple blood ritual."

Alarm bells rang in her mind at the mere mention of the two words. Blood. Ritual. A fleeting image crossed her mind, that of a demon crouching down to her level as she flailed and wept on the ground, banging her palms against the floor of a dark room while he—the demon with the face of Aarush Chauhan—sucked every drop of blood from her body via the arteries on her neck. She snapped out of the horrifying illusion when he cleared his throat.

"I am no demon, I assure you."

Surprised she was again, and she grimaced at him. "What?"

"Blood ritual," he said, "is for tapping your memories from a past life. I am not a vampire who needs to drink someone's blood to survive."

She had to bite her cheeks and purse her lips to prevent herself from sniggering at his quip. She was nearly successful too, but she ended up giggling when he leaned his spine on the chair. His amused expression didn't go unnoticed by her, and she hid her mouth behind her palms. "I am listening, but..."

"But?"

"I need... need..."

He cocked his brows at her. "More food?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "No." Glimpsing at the empty containers and plates that were full of copious amounts of food only moments ago, she ducked her head down in mortification and twiddled with her bracelet. "I need time."

"Of course," he mumbled, taking a swig from his drink. "You have until dinner."

"I need more time than until dinner," she said, enunciating every word.

"I lack time, Miss Awasthy." He drummed his fingers on his thighs after crossing his legs. "I only have a few days before I absolutely need your help in breaking the curse. I would request you consider this to be a high-priority ask. As I said, you have until dinner to think about all the information I have heaped on you."

The finality in his otherwise gentle tone made it clear that he wasn't going to argue any further. So, she dropped her fork on the plate with a resounding clang, picked up the tumbler of chilled water from the table, tipped the contents down her throat, and wiped her mouth with the cloth napkin. "I need to go back to my room. I... I am tired. I need rest."

"Sure." He took his phone out. "I will ask someone to escort you back to your room."

"I can go by myself." She sprang to her feet. "Have a good day, Mr. Chauhan."

Without waiting for his response, she darted out of the restaurant, went past the swimming pool, rushed down the hall to arrive near the elevators, repeatedly pressed the call button, and impatiently tapped her feet until the car reached. She almost slid and toppled over in her haste to get inside the elevator, and once the two panes of the door chimed shut, she heaved a breath of relief. Panting and clutching onto her wildly beating heart, she leaned her back against the mirrors embellishing the vehicle as it took her upward to the eleventh floor. A jumbled morass of questions and the damned realization of being in actual peril caught up with her before the elevator could halt at her floor.

She was no longer feeling anything except for a sense of dread and utter terror. She barely managed to keep standing on her two feet and sprinted down the length of the corridor before fumbling with the keyfob. It took her immense resilience to control her emotions, and the shivering hands led to the keyfob slipping off her moistened palms. She hunkered down to pick it up and noticed the drops of tears mingled with sweat falling on the mat at the entrance.

Gasping and wheezing, she managed to stand upright, scanned the keycard on the machine, threw the door open, and locked it behind her. Once in the safety of the room, she was unable to contain herself. Her spine hit the door and she collapsed on her knees. A dam of emotions broke inside of her, most of which could be attributed to feeling lonely and getting encapsulated by God knows what cult Aarush Chauhan was a part of.

Tears jogged down her cheeks, and she sobbed, ruing the moment she decided to set off on a journey full of solitude to a place she knew nothing about, and that too without informing her parents. Banging her palms on the floor, repeatedly wiping the moisture on her cheeks, and tugging at her hair out of frustration, she nearly missed Taylor Swift crooning about the loss of love.

When she took note of the source of the song, she hurriedly took her phone out of the small pouch she was carrying. A sigh of relief coursed throughout her body, and a coolness played on her skin. She was fine. She could be saved. With her hands shaking, she slid the green button on the screen and put the phone on speaker.

"Did you reach Mumbai fine? You didn't text me."

"Ar-Ar... Aryan!" She let out a desperate whimper before wailing. "Please save me."

***

Author's Note:

Oops! Sounds like a cult to me!

Just a heads up, I will be updating directly next Sunday and not in the middle of the week because... work 🤧😭.