While growing up, Anusha had stuck by her mother's side through thick and thin. When the Queen had been arrested on account of murder of the King, Anusha had followed her mother behind the bars. She was just five, and had no one else that accepted her as family. Eleven years later, she was back in the cell, to make her brother meet his biological mother at her deathbed. Both the times, she was reluctant to be locked underground, yet she hadn't felt her decision to be wrong.

But agreeing to stand again under similar damp, muddied walls and roof, reeking of blood and bodies, with her complete volition, seemed to be the wrong move.

The last time she had been in a dungeon, her brother's sword had missed her throat by hair-breath. She had been thankful to Rudra, her fiance, to have saved her from dying in such a desolate place. But now she wished her brother hadn't been interrupted, for her mother would be disappointed to find her daughter ending up in a dungeon again, but this time stuffed with men sedated out of their wits.

"Wouldn't the Head officer be angry?" Amira stood behind Anusha, her whisper directed at the six men mingling with the captors they had amassed. They were police men, yet not among ones who had escorted them to the place. They were the Lord's personal men, sanctioned by the city to keep him safe. Ashok saw many people who didn't believe in the Lords, or their customs and teachings. Among them, many held contempt against these robe-wearing ministers who thought of themselves to be messengers from the heavens. A small percentage of the non-conformists were violent, and for that reason, the mayor had allowed the sole Lord of the city to have guards of his own.

"We don't answer to him" a man twice her age followed, taking off the cuffs from a lanky, disheveled prisoner and pushing him with a jerk. The prisoner fell with a stagger onto another, a groan leaving those who were impacted with the sudden force.

Anusha and Amira gasped at their manhandling as if the men were a sack of filth. "Don't treat them so harshly" Anusha admonished them, keeping her tone low as the dungeon could easily amplify even the faintest of sounds. "They are not criminals." she chided the officer who threw her a disgusted look.

She had been informed in length, how the police and Lord Hariaksha had collaborated on the plan, to imprison the Vardhana settlers prone to conflicts and known to be miscreants for the time being while the royals enjoy their stay in the city. They had said it to be an action against any major chaos during the royal meeting, but Anusha knew their agendas.

The police hated the Vardhana troops that the traders brought with them, and Lord Hariaksha wanted to take credit for the peaceful conduct of the markets in hope for a promotion to a more central city to settle in. Yet none had managed to come up with a plan that didn't involve endangering the very city whose peaceful existence fueled their desires.

"But they wouldn't mind this, or even remember," another man from the corner joked as he picked and threw a limp body onto a heap of hay while his three other accomplices shared a grin marking their sweat-ridden faces. "The concoction worked perfectly the last time".

Last time? When? Where?

"It only works if we keep them unhurt you idiot" Amira snapped at the men who resumed their work, but the grin couldn't be removed from their faces.

"You gave them my drugs?" Anusha asked as Amira shifted back hearing the accusation.

"You had been the one to allow Your Highness" she said, surprised. "Don't you remember? A batch was given away to treat the prisoners."

"That was to treat the prisoners of their pain.. Not sedate them to keep them imprisoned like cattles!" Anusha shouted as her voice echoed around the dungeon. But the men only laughed.

They were enjoying too much, despite their actions that warranted a death sentence if caught.

"I am sure Miss Princess won't hold a grudge. Once you sell a product, you cannot dictate how the customer wishes to use it" A voice came from behind the two women through the dark, "don't you agree, Your Highness?" the man at the end of the dungeon who sat and observed the works of the others stated, his silhouette being the only thing visible in the dungeon. "If it's any consolation, we did use your other concoctions to heal them.. But they didn't seem to work".

"Because you keep hurting them" Anusha snapped at the man, stomping towards him with her handkerchief pressed firmly against her nose. The dungeons smelled like everything she had grown disgusted of, poison and death. "Plus the sedatives and medicines need to be used cautiously.. Even I don't know what will happen if they were to be given simultaneously"

"Well then consider it a gift from us Your Highness, your personal batch of humans for experiments".

"Isn't this a direct violation of your Lordship oath?" Amira intervened as she saw Anusha go dumbstruck with the Lord's suggestion.

"What's done is done" The man, Lord Hariaksha, rose from the dilapidated, rust laden stool kept just outside the bars that separated them from the inmates. "We miscalculated how much of the drug we would need to keep these men under control. So all I ask is for more to be supplied-"

"No" Anusha interjected sharply, "There's no way I am participating in this disgusting crime."

"Is that so?" Lord Hariaksha exhaled and let his tone become grave, "Then I should remind you Princess, you had been participating since the day we planned this. In fact, you're the pioneer of this whole system"

"What did you just say to me?" Anusha sneered.

"If word goes out, not only me, but everyone in this dungeon will be executed, even the ones in cuffs. The crown wouldn't want the Vardhanas to know what is happening with their workers in Ashok. Nor would your brother or your fiance be able to save you like they had before. Plus I could very possibly erase my name out of this whole fiasco, including my men. But it is your drug in their veins. Nothing can erase your involvement with this case Princess."

"How dare you-"

"If this goes out, your Highness" he bent down to meet his gaze with Anusha's flaming eyes, "Suryakshi will be treated as a terrorist nation, and the treaty would be unleashed to erase it from its existence. And everything, all of the destruction and death will be blamed on you. Is that what you want to happen? To carry an even worse stain on your name than you already do?"

Stain. Anusha looked at the man's steely gaze that held the glimmer of contempt like every other Lord. Nothing made her cower more than the eyes that told her everything she was afraid of. Had her mother not brought her home, had her mother not loved her to shield her from the arrows, none of this would be happening. 

The Kingdom was in chaos because of her mother's death, and she was the reason for it. She couldn't bear to be the root of more destruction.

"Do you think we can keep this a secret? When you have jailed around fifty men without any prior thinking?" Amira questioned.

"It's only thirty eight men!" One of the soldiers said from behind the bars who was busy pricking the prisoners with sedatives. "How many times do we need to give them the drug?"

"SHUT UP!" Amira snarled at the laughing men. They reminded Anusha of the noble borns who laughed watching the soldier's rip each other apart in the arenas. 

"Keep your voice down!" Lord Hariaksha admonished her, "it's still early".

The sky had coloured itself a darker hue by the time Anusha had reached the dungeon situated below the desolate building where the fire had taken place. The archival administration had left it as is, not daring to repair the two storied structure as superstitions hung in the thick air surrounding it. But carriages and people had to pass by it to enter the main lanes of the city still, and thus any voice coming from underground could attract trouble. Especially when the dungeon built below was kept a secret from everyone.

"The numbers are still too much to hide Lord Hariaksha" Anusha whispered, "The meeting is tomorrow and only the heavens know how long they will stay. It would be a miracle if we are able to keep them alive here for a day or two. Who'll manage the food? Who'll manage the water? We cannot have people coming and going without attracting suspicion." 

"Then I'll have to ask for a real drug this time.." he scratched his chin slowly, "A poison perhaps? It's easier hiding dead bodies anyways".

A deathly silence followed. And then a scoff. "Is this really the plan you came up with at the end of all the proceedings? After all the tales of the Lords' intelligence, is this all you could conjure up with?" Amira said.

 Anusha too remained flabbergasted as her mind comprehended the words. If there was any rule to the Lordship, it was to cater to life. Was he even a real Lord? "Have you forsaken every bit of humanity in you?"

Lord Hariaksha took threatening steps towards Anusha while she backtracked, observing the intensity of his gaze. Amira swiftly covered her, coming between the two and towering over the Lord's frame. "Don't even try Lord Hariaksha. Your title wouldn't save you from my sword".

His gaze redirected to the taller woman, still carrying the same hostility. "Where was your mistress when the Suryakshi soldiers lost their lives to the conflict by Mayabazaar? When Noble Ekagrah's troops had stained the lanes with our men's blood?" He gritted his teeth, driving his face forwards to meet Amira's gaze. "It had been me who lit their pyres and prayed for their souls. It had been me who saw the Vardhana men smirking at their demise. All while Her Highness stayed cooped up in her royal lounge that doesn't even belong to her. How she remains so pale to her own people's suffering.. I would never know. But alas, Queen Ahankara's blood doesn't run through her.."

Amira's dominant hand was fisted by her side as Anusha had warned her against her temper with her sword. But that didn't stop the woman from raising her left hand, fisting it and making sure the punch landed just by the Lord's nose to ensure a crooked tip. Using her right would have detached it altogether, and Anusha had strictly warned her against bloodshed.

"AMIRA! Enough!" Anusha held back her bodyguard, although grateful that the resounding echo of the assault had snatched away the dirty grins from the six men.

"You filth-" Lord Hariaksha held his jaw and winced, the blood staining his white mask. Anusha watched as the man opened the white piece of cloth in a hurry to stop the bleeding - which she had thought to be just a cut - as a tooth fell out of his mouth into his shaking hands.

Anusha gasped at the sheer assault, but it was to be expected from an apprentice of her fiance. Brute strength was what they revered, the barracks were their place of worship and their arms were the offering to their deity of power. To let go of an opportunity of devotion was beyond blasphemy for them. And for Amira, a first generation female warrior among the ranks, it was important to show that she was as capable of violence as her male peers. Especially when she was stuck babysitting Anusha, the princess who fit all the ideals of a woman that Amira didn't, except an inkling to chaos.

"A befitting reply" Amira prided herself on the damaged face of the young Lord, "you shouldn't be scared of such a man, Your Highness. He's too weak. And scared."

Anusha's eyes darted between the two, the man draped in white clutching his distorted jaw and the woman whose grin was eerily similar to the men dragging the limp Vardhanas. The dungeon echoed the sounds of silence and the gurgling noise of carts and crowd over it, for none of it's inhabitants dared to speak till it was clear that none of the violence would reach them. The six men stood still among the prisoners lying at their feet, saliva dripping from their paralysed mouths. No one had yet stopped for so long so as to comprehend the situation Anusha was scared about, but the silence made them reconsider.

They really were in trouble. And for reasons much worse than they let Anusha know. 

***

They were late for the officer's meeting at the end of the day. Anusha knew nothing could stop the smell from raising suspicions, so she needed to change before presenting herself before Sir Khidir. All the dungeons smelled the same, for they all witnessed the same atrocities.

"We aren't allowed in yet" said a woman working alongside Anusha as a fellow Supervisor, a pout apparent on her aged face. She was second to Sir Aditya, both in age and command, but she mingled more with the new comers. She was silly to a fault, but Anusha knew she wanted to belong to a side. She could never join the Head officers, her age and gender wouldn't have been an obstacle if not for her education that got hampered due to an early marriage, so she tried to join the rest of the team. But could only garner rejection.

That made the two of them. The outcasts of the job. 

"And we are supposed to wait by the doors?" Anusha looked around to see other members of her team lazing by the corridor, a few admiring the lamps and the others the carpet. The scribes were missing though. And they were the most fun. 

"We haven't got any orders" the woman said, "I don't think we are even needed here. They just made us turn up for formalities and nothing more."

Anusha pushed her ear to the door, the thick Oak planks with intricate inscriptions pressing into her pinna. But no sound. Somehow, everything inside was completely inaudible to eavesdroppers. Ashok was known being a city of eavesdroppers, so it wasn't a surprise that they made the meeting hall fullproof against them. 

But it meant the real mischief was going on someplace else. As they said, Harder the challenge sweeter the reward.

"I am bored to death Anusha" the woman sighed, sliding down the door that had no guards protecting it. The people had locked it from the inside, which meant that it was a meeting between like minded people, with no possible betrayers. No one in their right mind would agree to a meeting with more than three people without any guards waiting to break up a fight.

"Let's find the Trimurti" Anusha said, "they've hopefully found a way to listen in"

"NO" the woman shut down the idea, "I am NOT walking into a lion's den again. Everytime we save ourselves at the last moment. That kind of thrill is not made for my bad hip."

"Oh come on Charitra Di, it would be fun" Anusha crouched down to her knees to face Charitra who already had a troubled expression etched on it. She was weak to persuasion, especially to mischief. "And you're lying about your hip. I have seen you run faster than those three monkeys at the sound of Sir Aditya's cane"

In a dramatic sigh, Charitra agrees, pushing herself to stand back up. Anusha laughed at the sudden approval to find the three eavesdropping scribes, but they needed some kind of activity to pass the time. Moreover, Anusha knew who they were going to discuss in the meeting. Her sudden disappearance would be brought into notice, but more than that, Lord Hariaksha's words had stuck in her mind.

Noble Ekagrah was not just a random coincidence that had put the young Lord off, it was a year old strife between the two. And worse, Anusha had a hunch about the Vardhana prisoners being the same traders for whom the bloodshed had happened a few months ago. Lord Hariaksha wasn't a fool like Amira had taunted him, nor was he someone violent. He could be cruel, just like every Lord she had met, but they abhorred death. Only revenge could have made him reach beyond his limitations, and Anusha needed to find it to be true before handing out more sedatives to the man who was spiraling down into worse situations. 

He was ready to kill the men he had captured. A commoner would have been released with a threat to stay mum about the dungeon, but the Lord feared such a frail precaution. This meant, noble Ekagrah needed just word of mouth to launch another attack on Suryakshi troops and destroy the city. 

And if that were true, Anusha would have to - without a choice of even feeling guilty - hand over her drugs to Lord Hariaksha. For peace. For her mother's legacy. For the city she had come to love, and to avoid being a bad omen yet again.