" Your Highness.... you called me ?? " said Shamdev as he appeared on my order.

"Yes .... the message I'd asked to send , is it delivered??"

"Yes ... your highness. I sent my men right on that day itself." He said sincerely.

"What happened to you there" I asked him while noticing his bandage on his arm

" Oh!! nothing just a slight cut while practicing" he said

" take care of that properly...... " I said to him being concerned as he is one of the most loyal and trusted man in this kingdom.

" Well then get our troops ready for the journey...... we will head tomorrow itself..... it's been long since I have last seen her ." I said holding my hands together behind my back while looking out in the space in my lawn.

" Very well your highness. " said he obediently.

" She wanted to come visit here but that much journey will not be favourable for her and I cannot be that busy that I cannot even take a little time out to meet her." I said being thoughtful.

"Right.. Your highness. "

" You may go now. " I said politely.

Here the 'She' I am talking about is My sweet and lovely Dhai Ma ( Dhai ma is a midwife or a nurse-mother). After my parents demise she is the most respectful person in my life right now.

Ever since I have lost my mother, Dhai ma has always been there and taken care of me in my childhood and always loved me as her own. I too love and respect her more like my mother. She doesn't keep well these days due to her growing age so I don't want her to travel all over here to see me .

I have many a times insisted her to stay here for good but she wants to be in ashram ( a Gods place or a place where a group of Hindus live together away from the rest of society, or a place where Hindus can go in order to pray) as she find it peaceful living there in her old age and for which I cannot force her much.

"Your Highness....." Shamdev spoke bringing me back from my thoughts not realising that he was still standing here.

I asked " You still here. Is there anything you want to talk about?? "

"Yes my lord .... it's about the slave of yours ...." He said

" Slave.... ?? Who are you talking about??" I couldn't understand what was he talking .

"That Shaktinand's daughter.." I looked at him as he said with his eyes reflecting disgust and hatred

" What is it ? " I went curious.

" Your highness I dare say you might want to restrain your slave's freedom a little bit ..." he said

"What do you mean by that ??" I narrowed my eyes.

"She's been visiting the forest too much these days." he said informing.

" Oh !! that ..She was just following my orders. " I said casually but still the the curiosity lurked in my mind.

"I am sure your highness, you orders does not include, meeting someone in the forest secretly..... the slave of yours is meeting someone there ..... a masked soldier from our palace...... I wanted to catch him red handed but I thought that before taking any step it will be better to enlighten you about this matter."

I was covered with cold sweat and felt uneasy after listening to him. How the hell he came to know about this .... ?? But anyway Thank God he didn't take any step of his own or else everything would have ended being messed up.

Trying to calm myself and act normal I said

"Good you informed me about this before doing anything.... I will look into the matter ....."

After knowing about this I was sure that it will be no longer be free and safe to meet her in the forest. I guess that's the end of Shourya, the masked man and a friend of Nandini.

" Pardon me your highness but at the fist place she shouldn't be roaming in the palace freely, after all, a daughter of a leech always remains a leech." He spat in hatred.

hearing this I lost my cool

" SHAMDEV !! ... " I thundered at him aloud.

I couldn't take a single more word against her honour. Has it been somebody else I would have chopped off his tongue but just because its Shamdev, I somehow controlled my temper but I could still feel my blood boiling for disrespecting her.

Hearing my loud voice and witnessing fire in my eyes Shamdev understood that he has crossed his limit .

" I am sorry your highness.... I didn't mean to offend you. The troops will be ready tomorrow ." Giveing me a little bow Shamdev walked off.

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It's a valley where we are travelling from. My chariot and my troops are going through the narrow path where the right side is covered with steep high landforms like mountains and the left side goes down from the surface meeting a water body below.

In the front , Shamdev leading the way with my troops while Nandini and I sitting in the chariot pulled by the four strong horses and a small troop following the chariot behind us. Left open side seemed to be dangerous yet full of beautiful view.

I noticed that she seemed a little delighted by this outing, obviously both of us in silence, not talking to each other like always but I kept stealing glances at her when she was lost in sight seeing. This time I did not give her any bizzare jobs like fanning me unlike last time while travelling to Surya Pratap palace.

Everything was just going nice and smooth..... but suddenly I could sense something approaching, like too many of something heavy running towards us along with some loud noise like ... elephants make. Soon I the heard loud screamings of my men from the back. And within no time something poweful hit our chariot with huge force jerking both of us inside it .

We looked curiously at each other while tightly holding our seats and the walls of the chariot. My men started running away everywhere.

"What's going on ?" Said Nandini with her eyes broad being worried and clueless.

Before I could answer her. There was again a bang on the chariot giving it a major push bringing it very near to the edge. Our chariot was not an open roof, it was covered all over only with an entrance gap streatched from its roof to bottom.

To our right ,We saw more than ten wild elephants running and pushing everything on their way creating a huge chaos as if they have gone mad or pissed because of some reason .

I couldn't understand what is to be done in this situation. Looking out we both saw elephants stomping and crushing over my men mercilessly making my eyes go wide. Nandini tightly squeezed shut her eyes who was unable to take the brutal killing of my men.

The wind was filled with angry roars of the elephants and screaming of my men in pain.

Everything was happening so fast that before we could process anything , we again got hit . This time the hit was so powerful that the chariot got off the surface, tilting towards the left loosely leaning down making both of us shift to the same side.

Again, a forceful hit and Nandini lost her hold from the chariot and went straight out of the wagon ... watching her fall out.

I yelled in horror " NOOOO....."

and caught her hand in a blink. She was screaming in fear of falling down.

" aaaaaahhh "

"I got you..." I said to her but more to myself while taking quick and short breaths from my mouth. Watching her fall I felt my soul almost being ripped off my body.

The current position of the chariot was making it difficult for me to maintain my own balanced posture while holding Nandini's hand.

" Noooooo ..... please don't leave my hand.... " Nandini screamed looking up at me while hanging still holding my hand.

" I'll pull you up " I said in hoarsed voice

My throat went dry as I was breathing hard , my sweat started to drip from my forehead down to my jaws, my heart was pumping almost hitting

into my ribcage relentlessly but the elephants didn't seemed to go any calmer or easy on us and this time once again the unsteadily chariot received another major hit and I too lost my unsteady balance and fell off along with Nandini.

We both fell on the slanting landform resulting us to roll down in speed . Rolling and rolling we kept on going down, there was nothing to hold on for support to make it stop. Nandini was rolling along with me so I somehow managed to grab her and embraced her close to me making a cage of my body around her's so that she gets less hurt.

Rolling in this speed I didn't know where we would end to but all I prayed for right now was.. both of our survival.

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Waking up I tried opening my eyes which was almost impossible for me to do so as the intense sunrays almost piercing my eyes even through my closed lids, still slowly I opened my eyes.

Coming back to my senses I felt sharp and tremendous jabbing pain on every inch of my body. I closed my eyes and touched the back of my neck as a groan escaped my lips. I realised that I fainted during the fall, I tried to get up to sit and realised that my crown was missing.

While attempting to sit up I found Nandini lying beside me with her eyes shut closed. Watching her like that I almost lost my sanity out of panic and stretched my hand and shook her shoulder calling out her name.

" Nandini... Nandini? " no response. I called her again.

" Nandini.... Nandini " and there she was, slowly struggling to open up her eyes while I sighed a breath of relief.

Fluttering her lashes she looked at me with her half opened eyes due to an extreme sunrays hitting her vision. She moaned in pain as I could very well understand what her body was going through right now. I noticed many cuts and bruises on her head and some visible parts of her body.

Like I did earlier, she too tried to sit up with lot of efforts for which I helped her a bit holding up her shoulders.

" We fell ..." she said almost in whisper, recollecting her memory while placeing her palm on her other hand due to pain

" are we dead ??" She asked innocently.

"Noh !! not yet " I snorted a little. " but You are hurt... " I said looking all over her body helplessly.

"And So are you ." She too noticed my injuries....

" I guess you got more hurt than me. " she said looking concerned.

"Where are we ?? " she asked looking randomly around.

" Somewhere down in the valley, beside that river " I too looked around and saw a long narrow river, a little distance away from us .

" Looking at the position of our shadows..... I think Its late in the afternoon now ..... we should move and find a safe place .....soon its going to be dark ." I said taking charge.

She hummed as a reply to me while I stood up inspite of so much of pain.

She too tried to get up but before she could even move her leg, she screamed in pain like her heart was ripped out of her chest. I had no idea about the cause of her pain. She instantly placed her hand on her left leg and it took no long for me to notice her left feet was twisted a bit ..... it looked like it got a little dislocated. She kept on screaming in pain .

Earlier when she woke up, she must not have noticed about it because she didn't move her legs until now.

" My leg .... Aah !! .... my leg ahh... aaahh " she cried in agony.

" .... let me see " I said while sitting down and taking her feet placeing on my thigh. The pain was driving her crazy.

" I will not be able to walk.... you.... you should go." She said Still crying in pain.

"And what ?? leave you here?? .... to scare off poor animals here ?? ...... not happening. " I said making a straight face, and tried an attempt to distract her with my sarcasm which she clearly failed to notice due to her tremendous pain.

"But.. I swear... I cannot walk even a bit ..... oh God !! its paining so much... Aaah !! "

Looking at the condition of her leg I very well knew what was to be done and I have to do it in blink and what I am about to do Nandini will never allow me to do it if she stays focused on her leg.

"It will be okay.... " I assured her.

Then suddenly

" Hey ..... look.. a bird.... " I quickly looked away and pointed out in a random direction and to which she too looked at same and that's when I took her distraction as an opportunity and in a one swift motion I twisted her feet back to its position.

Experiencing an excruciating pain like that due to a sudden twist , Nandini screamed in her highest pitch possible but soon taking some quick breaths she noticed her dislocated feet was now back to normal and soon she was on her feets. We were on to our way to find a safe place , a shelter for an approaching dark, we didn't speak much as we both were too exhausted but still were dragging ourselves somehow.

Together we wandered quite a far. We drank from the clean flowing water stream and ate some berries which were fallen from the trees but my main mission was to find a place to spend in dark as we were in an unknown woods.

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After walking for long and searching for a shelter we finally found a cave.

I wanted to go in it but it wouldn't be wise to go inside a dark cave without any light even though I still have my sword along with me.

Staying out I started to light up the fire with he help of dry rocks for my self made torch. It took like ever to light up the fire as I had done this.... like once in my life that too, many years ago and in palace, everyday its done by my servants. Nandini helped me with supplying dry sticks for the same. It was already dark when I finally was able to light it on.

I glanced at Nandini she was looking damn tired but the fact was that even I was damn tired too. We really needed some rest. I have to admit that inspite of being a Princess, who was generally pampered and kept in an utmost care , Nandini was cooperating and dealing with this tough situation like a grown up and Inspite of being visibly tried yet she never complained about anything .

The time when I embraced her body while falling, as to protect from getting much hurt, I wasn't really worried about me as all I wanted was , her to be safe.

Lightning up the handmade torch by me , I pulled out my sword and went inside the cave to check for its safety.

The cave was all empty and it felt warm inside. Due to the presence of light some bats flew past my head but rest all was good to go. Ofcourse I cannot expect it to be prim and proper but still its the best I have found it as a shelter so far.

🧚‍♀️ : What do you think about this chapter.... was it good or boring ?? Let me know in your COMMENT box.. Till then happy reading 🌷❤📚

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