The moon hung high over Aryagarh, casting a cold, silver glow across the palace gardens. Leaves rustled softly, but tension clung to the air like incense smoke. For the first time in years, Vivaan felt something stir — unfamiliar, urgent, and oddly personal.
"Whatever this is," "I will see it through to the end." - He muttered as his jaw clenched with his eyes on the sky
His footsteps, usually light and measured, now carried a weight he could not explain. The memory of the girl — sharp-eyed, graceful, cloaked in moonlight — haunted him. Her presence had stirred something ancient within him, like a melody from a life unlived.
"Some battles are fought with swords, others begin with a glance." - He thought.
Her face remained imprinted on his mind — not just as a memory, but as a question. Who are you? And why do I feel like I've known you forever?
The next morning, Aryagarh buzzed with activity. Servants moved in practiced rhythm, ministers debated the fate of trade routes, and palace women gossiped about the Yuvraj's growing silence. But Vivaan heard none of it.
He walked the halls like a storm in disguise — his black cloak sweeping behind him, face unreadable. He passed the scholars in the royal library, his eyes scanning the guards, the maids, the corners. No sign of her.
She had vanished. Like smoke.
"The ones who leave no footprints, are often the ones you can't forget." - He murmured
That night, long after the last torch had been extinguished and the palace drifted into slumber, Vivaan made a decision. He would find her — not as the Yuvraj, not as the warrior — but as the man who felt an invisible thread tugging at his soul.
The palace gates were sealed at dusk, but Vivaan knew every hidden passage. As a child, he had learned to vanish in plain sight. Now, he used those lessons not for war — but for something stranger. Something softer.
The garden welcomed him with shadows and silence. And then — she was there.
Standing beneath the great banyan tree, the moonlight cloaked her in silver. She did not flinch at his approach. Instead, she turned, as though expecting him.
"You came," - She said. Her voice was calm, steady, like the eye of a storm.
"I didn't have a choice, Not after last night." - Vivaan replied.
"You believe in fate, then?"-She raised an eyebrow. And asked
"I believe in patterns,"- He said.
Her lips twitched — almost a smile as she said, "This one refuses to be ignored. Then perhaps it's not a pattern. Perhaps it's a warning."
"Fate whispers to the warrior," she added, quoting an old verse, "'You cannot withstand the storm.'"
Vivaan stepped closer, eyes locked on hers. "And the warrior whispers back, 'I am the storm.'" She tilted her head, surprised by his words. "So you do read poetry, Your Highness." Vivaan's reply was calm and certain — he read people, not pages, and she was the only one he couldn't seem to decipher. A silence settled between them, not empty but charged, like the pause before a revelation.
When she asked if he truly believed he'd seen her before, his answer came without hesitation — not with his eyes, he said, but with something older, something deeper. Some souls, he whispered, recognized each other by the scars they hid.
She didn't respond immediately, instead studying him not as royalty, but as a puzzle she was tempted to solve. When she challenged the illusion — asking what he'd do if she wasn't who he imagined — his voice softened.
He would stop thinking, and start listening. That made her smile, fleeting and genuine, like sunlight breaking through clouds. "You speak like a poet," she said, her tone laced with irony, "but look like a soldier." Vivaan didn't flinch. "I was trained to be both."
She hesitated, then asked, "And what is it you think connects us?"
"I don't know yet," - he admitted.
"But I need to understand it. This thread... it won't let me go."
Her eyes flickered, storm-gray like his. "Then perhaps it's not a thread," she said, "but a mirror."
Vivaan inhaled slowly and said, "Then show me what it reflects."
"Sometimes, the most dangerous thing you can offer a man like you... is the truth." -She murmured
"And sometimes, that's the only thing that can save him." - He said softly
For a moment, the world paused. Then — as swiftly as she had appeared — the girl stepped back, melting into the shadows.
Vivaan stood alone beneath the banyan tree, heart beating like war drums. The thread was real. And it had only tightened.
"She is not a mystery to be solved, she is a map to something I've forgotten how to find." - He told himself.
He would find her again. Of that, he was certain. But not for answers alone.
For something deeper.
Something true.