Jai's grip on Gauri's arm was firm but not forceful as he led her away from the barricade outside Malhar's wing. She was shaking with anger, her eyes swollen with unshed tears and helplessness. She turned back again and again, glancing toward the shut doors, hoping for some miracle that would open them. But they stayed closed—solid, heavy, unforgiving—just like Malhar.

"Gauri," Jai said softly, but his voice cut through the noise in her mind like a knife, "I know this hurts. But you have to understand—Malhar loves Janhvi."

His words made her halt mid-step. She turned to him, eyes blazing, her chest heaving with disbelief. "You think that's supposed to make this better?" she whispered, her voice taut with restrained fury. "That just because he loves her, this... all of this becomes justified?"

"No," Jai admitted, steady. "But it does mean that no one will protect her better than him. Not you. Not me. Not even Abhinav. If there's anyone in this palace who would give his life for her—it's him."

Gauri let out a short, bitter laugh. "I'm not worried about Janhvi's body, Jai," she said. "We both know Malhar would carry even his enemy to safety if it were a matter of duty. Janhvi's safe in that chamber. But it's not about safety, it's not even about love—it's about what he's done to her mind, to her dignity. About the way he stormed in and dragged her out of her own wedding like she was an object, like she belonged to him and no one else had a say in it."

Jai looked away, ashamed.

Gauri took a breath, her voice softening but only slightly. "She's a woman, Jai. She's not a trophy for wars, or a statue to be displayed in the halls of the victorious. He's shattered the only thing she'd begun to build for herself after everything—self-worth. And you don't heal that with guards and chambers and whispered declarations of love. That kind of wound festers."

They walked in silence for a moment, the only sound their footsteps echoing in the vast corridor lit by flickering oil lamps. The palace felt heavier now, like its walls carried the weight of everything unsaid, everything broken.

Then Gauri paused. "Take me to Abhinav dada."

Jai turned to her, puzzled. "Why?"

"Because he was wronged too," she said plainly. "Because he stood at the mandap with hope in his eyes, in front of gods and people—and Malhar stole that moment from him. I may not feel anything for Abhinav dada or Damini kaki, but what happened was cruel. And they deserve more than silence."

Jai's brow furrowed. "You're really going to apologise... on Malhar's behalf?"

"No," Gauri said. "I'm going to apologise as a human being. Something Malhar forgot how to be tonight."

Jai nodded slowly, watching the sharp pain in her soften into something steadier—resolve.

"Abhinav's rooms are in the east wing," he said quietly. "Come. I'll take you."

And the two of them turned down the corridor, their footsteps slow but sure, walking toward yet another heart that had been shattered by a man who believed his love gave him rights over everyone else's lives.

The corridor to the east wing stretched long and shadowed, lit only by wall-mounted oil lamps that flickered in rhythm with their footsteps. Gauri walked in silence, the echo of Malhar's rage and Janhvi's collapse still loud in her ears. Jai walked beside her, his gaze occasionally flickering toward her, as if words hovered at the edge of his mouth, unsure if they deserved to be spoken.

After a long pause, Jai broke the silence. "Gauri," he began, voice low but sincere, "I'm sorry."

She turned to him, eyes steady but tired. "For what?"

"For everything. For what he did to Janhvi, for what you were made to witness. And most of all... for what he did to you."

Gauri blinked, startled. She had braced herself for sympathy for Janhvi, not herself.

"You were supposed to be his queen," Jai continued gently. "And yet, he didn't even offer you the dignity of a conversation. He turned his back on the promise, the bond—whatever it was meant to be. You didn't deserve that."

Gauri stopped walking. She looked up at him, her face unreadable at first, until a tired, ironic smile curved her lips. "You're right," she said. "He wronged me. He humiliated me. And yet..."

She took a breath, eyes gazing somewhere distant.

"In all that he's destroyed, he's also... freed me."

Jai looked at her, waiting.

"There was never love between us," she admitted quietly. "Not the kind a woman should feel for the man she's to marry. There was loyalty. Admiration. Respect, even. But love?" Her voice faltered. "I think I mistook reverence for love."

She turned to him again. "Malhar was never mine. He was never going to be. And maybe, by doing what he did, as cruel as it was, he saved me from a lifetime of being second to a woman he could never let go of. I would've been queen in name and shadow in truth."

She sighed. "So, no. I'm not heartbroken. But I am..." she struggled for the word, "...disillusioned."

"I understand," Jai said softly.

"I'm not mourning a lost lover," Gauri added. "But I'm mourning the man I thought he was. The honour I thought he carried. The integrity I respected."

She paused again, letting the weight of her own words settle.

"But Janhvi," she continued, her voice growing sharper, "what he did to her... that wound won't bleed on the skin. That wound will live in her soul. And for that—there is no forgiveness. Not today."

They resumed walking, the rhythm of their steps slower now.

"I'll still apologise to Abhinav dada," she said finally, as if speaking to herself. "Not for Malhar. Not anymore. But because someone should."

Jai nodded, humbled. "You've always had more courage than any of us, Gauri."

She didn't respond. Her expression said everything. Strength wasn't a choice tonight—it was all she had left.

The east wing of the palace was colder, quieter. Jai and Gauri's steps echoed in tandem down the corridor, their destination nearing with a weight that pulled heavier with each footfall. As they approached the end of the hallway, the heavy wooden door to Abhinav's chamber stood half open. A faint light spilled out onto the marble floor, accompanied by the sharp shatter of something breaking inside—glass, perhaps. Or porcelain.

Gauri reached forward, instinctively moving to push the door open, but Jai caught her wrist gently, holding her back. His eyes flicked toward the narrow gap in the door where the sound of voices filtered through, low and jagged.

Inside, Abhinav's voice cracked like thunder.

"They should've killed him. They should have killed him when he was a boy," he spat, his voice shaking with rage. "He was never supposed to live long enough to take that throne. That empire should have been mine. Not his."

"Abhinav, please—calm down," Damini's voice followed, hushed and frantic. "You'll wake the entire wing."

The crash of a vase against the stone wall echoed like a war cry.

Inside the chamber, the flickering lantern light revealed Abhinav pacing like a caged predator, his hair disheveled, his breath ragged with rage. Damini stood near the dressing table, her hands tightly clenched, helpless against her son's fury.

"You want me to calm down?" Abhinav barked, spinning on her. "After what happened out there? After he dragged her out of the mandap in front of the whole court like she was his whore?!"

"Abhinav—"

"I should have killed him the day I first held a sword," he seethed, grabbing a goblet and flinging it across the room. It shattered against the carved wall with a sickening crack. "I should have ended him when we were boys. That throne was mine, that bloodline was mine. I was born to wear that crown, Aai. Not him."

Damini tried to soothe him, but her voice trembled. "You still have your pride. You still have your name—"

"My name means nothing in a world where Malhar breathes." Abhinav turned to her, his voice low and venomous now. "You know what burns most? That after everything we planned... after all of it—he still won."

The silence between them pulsed with unspoken truths.

Outside, in the corridor cloaked in shadow, Gauri and Jai stood rooted. Gauri's breath caught in her throat as Abhinav's next words slid out like poisoned daggers.

"Everything. Every word you whispered into kaki saheb's ear. Every moment you pretended to care about Janhvi. That whole charade of sainthood—convincing Nanda kaki that marrying Janhvi to me would restore her honor—that was all me." He pounded his chest. "That was my plan. My mind. I played every one of them like pawns on a board."

Damini hesitated. "I did what you asked, because I believed—"

"No," he hissed, pointing a trembling finger at her. "You did it because you owe me. You let him live, let them raise him like a king while you and I lived in the shadows. And this—" he gestured wildly to the room, the discarded turban,—"this was the only way I could win something back. I could've taken her from him. The only thing Malhar ever loved."

His voice dropped, deadly and guttural.

Damini tried again, her tone softer now, worn with years of bearing her son's pain. "You still have me. We will find another way. We always do we'll get Jahnvi back."

"I didn't love her, Aai!" Abhinav snapped, bitter laughter lacing his words. "I never loved Janhvi. I never even wanted her. I only wanted him to lose her. I only wanted to take something from him that he'd never get back. Because Malhar... Malhar took everything from me. And now—" he choked out a growl, "this was the only chance I had to wound him. To take what he wanted. To make him bleed."

Another silence.

Then a whisper of shuffling steps, a hint of breath caught behind the door.

Inside, neither of them noticed. Abhinav stood in the center of the room, chest heaving, face contorted with years of hate finally poured out.

Outside, Gauri pressed her hand over her lips, tears springing to her eyes—not from sadness, but from pure, hollow shock. Jai stood beside her, jaw clenched tight, barely able to believe what they'd just heard.

"Jai..." she whispered, her voice raw. "He never even wanted her."

"No," Jai said coldly. "He just wanted to use her to break Malhar."

Gauri looked up at him, fury beginning to glow in her eyes. "We have to tell her. Janhvi needs to know the truth."

"She will," Jai replied, pulling her gently away from the door. "But not tonight. Tonight, she needs to survive what he's already done."

And without another word, they turned from the darkness of that doorway, from the ugliness within it, leaving behind the stench of betrayal and the wreckage of a crownless man's vengeance.

AN: He is not so innocent and naive after all.
Little minx

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