ABDICATION

71.

She was finding it difficult to hide her injury on neck after being in male's clothes. She knew this could be dangerous coincidence to let her secret out. She look down at her bandaged neck in mirror and cursed the doer. She wasn't very sure if she should go down as Yukt today. The day has been giving her a bad vibes already and she wasn't sure if it was aftermath of being rejected two times or its really instinct that something bad is going to happen.

But what worse could happen now, right? She is already living her worst.

There was a urgent knock on the door and she quickly wrap a scarf around her thin but injured neck. A maid made her way in..

"The king has asked for your sister." The maid words took a little time to register in sanyukta mind. Why would he do that.

"She can't come. She left." Sanyukta lied not sure if this will bring her trouble.

"But the king told me to inform you that he want your sister in royal court today. " The maid urges. Scared a little.

" Tell him that you did your part of work. Now it's on me." She told the maid and the maid left hesitating.

There is no way she is going back to that place as sanyukta. There is no need to bring her out in the court.

Until and unless the king has decided to reveal her secret.

A fear ran in her nerves and she panicked. She remembered how she had test his patience today but she didn't mean to disrespect him. Too scared of why tgr king has been calling her, made her look in mirror at the scared looking man.

***

Everybody was waiting for sanyukta when Yukt arrived in the royal court. The scarf on a cold day didn't made much suspicion as much the absence of sanyukta did.

The king had an unpleasant look on his face when Yukt arrived instead of sanyukta. Others were still waiting for sanyukta to enter in tgr court but only the king knew that only one could arrive.

She took her seat, scrunching her nose at the inchy moustache. Once settled, she waited for someone to say something.

First one was the king.

"It was brave of her to defy the king's order." The king taunted looking at Yukt, expecting an explanation.

"She never got your message. She left early." Yukt answer with deep voice.

It was another man who spoke now, she hadn't seen him ever before.

"We can wait for her to return." The man was little but seem serious. It was hard to predict his age by little crinkles near his eyes.

"She left..... The town." Yukt replied back.

The king's eyes snapped to Yukt for a moment, in a glare. But then he sigh and talk to the new man.

"So as you can see, she might not be here any soon, so can I know what is there to tell that can only be told to her." The king asked the new man.

" What?" It came out from sanyukta mouth without a thought. She covered it up with a cough and then asked..."what's there about my sister?"

"Nobody knows yet. " The king pointed at the new man. " He is a messenger from other town and he have something for sanyukta. He wanted to hand it over to her only." The king informed.

" It was my order to hand it over only to her, your highness." The new man confirmed.

" But now she isn't here." The king put up the facts.

" Then I think I would take my leave." The new man waa hesitant. Maybe afraid of disappointing his master.

That's when Yukt decided to stood up.

"I'm her brother. I can hand it over to her."

The man hesitated. " But my order was to .."

" I'm her brother. You really want to disappoint your ....master..with a failed task. Give it to me and I will give it to my sister when she is back." Yukt step ahead.

" My king won't be pleased if he got to know that.."

Randhir stop him in middle to ask him..." Who's is your king?" His eyes were curious and doubtful.

"Who send you?" This time randhir's voice was loud abd demand a reply.

" I work for the king Aarav." The new man informed and suddenly Yukt wanted to get away from here.

"And what is it that you wanted to give to sanyukta?" Any body could tell he had been hiding his anger in his voice. The way his jaw clenched was so obvious. A glare came in Yukt direction as if it was his fault.

"Give it to me." Yukt said hurriedly. "Whatever it is." He added.

The man dip his hand inside his side bag and bring a rolled up letter out of it.

You have to accept my gift.

Aarav told sanyukta to accept the gift he will send to her. Is it the gift he was talking about?

Randhir was seeing all this too. The letter and it's writer are not pleasing to his heart.

The man think about it for a moment before handing it over to Yukt but before Yukt could wrap his fingers around the letter a loud abd deeo voice said

"Stop." The king didn't look very pleased.

"Read it." The king ordered.

Yukt throat was dry now.

"That would be invading my sister's privacy." Yukt tried to save it.

"don't tell me you wouldn't have read the letter." The king glared Yukt. Yukt eyes snapped to the king and glared back.

"But my order was to ..'

" I said READ IT." King voice boomed in thr silent court.

Yukt prayed for a miracle but the man began to unfold the letter.

"Thank you for the pleasant night. It was an honour for me to spent my night with you and to know about you. I hope you remember the promises we made to each other, and the things I did to you. I'm sure you could still feel my touch on your body. And as for the promise, this is what you have to say 'yes' to. I'm going to invite you, in my kingdom, to join as my first minister. High pay and high status. Way much better than your brother is earning. I noticed you are not treated as you should be, and I can even see you have a potential to be a queen too. So let me secure that place for you too, but that's after you come here to visit so we can complete the conversation we left incomplete last night. And I apologise if I have been rough on you last time. Give me a chance to be gentle again.

Your companion of last night."

Yukt gulped and it made him more anxious. Randhir was about to burst from the first sentence of the letter.  The crowd was freely judging sanyukta' s character on the basis of letter. If only they really knew what happened last night.

Atleast the king know that she wasn't with Aarav for whole night. He will understand right? One look on his face and Yukt knew that he is overthinking it.

"Everybody leave." The king shouted standing up.

" Not you." The king added when the Yukt was first one to move out.