Please be warned that this chapter delves deeper into the potentially triggering themes of the previous chapter, including mentions rape, abuse, suicide, and murder. None of these will occur on the page, but the topics will be discussed. Please read with caution 💜

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Tauram let out a shaky breath. It trembled through the room, skittering against the walls, scraping against the window. At his ankles, Lundas purred before draping himself over his booted feet. "I feel like I should know this even though I don't want to."

Princess Kerani nodded, squeezing her eyes closed with the pain of a secret being contained while it struggled to break free. "And I should tell you even though I can hardly bear to speak about it, even after all these years."

Esmera took Tauram's hand. He clasped her palm between his even as his eyes never left his sister.

Where Princess Kerani sat on the pastel blue and purple covers of her bed, she was out of Esmera's reach. She'd have taken her hand too if she could. It was the least Esmera could do if she was about to relive Tauram and Princess Kerani's pain with them.

Princess Kerani opened her eyes. "You remember how Danshan felt about rules, don't you?"

"He couldn't stand them, whether they were mine, Āmā's, or the laws of the land." Tauram gave that wry smile Esmera had been so drawn to when they first met, but now it only broke her heart.

Esmera would be amused by the idea of a prince who refused to follow the rules of his mother, the queen, if she wasn't so sure that his defiance didn't end well for him.

"He didn't care much for Ruagu's rules either." Princess Kerani lowered her eyes to her lap, blinking furiously.

Ekta nuzzled her cheek, but she didn't seem to notice in the consuming hold of her turmoil.

Tauram clutched Esmera's hand tighter, fear widening his eyes.

Princess Kerani let out a breath, keeping her gaze on her gleaming, oval-shaped nails that ran along the golden embroidery edging her robe. "Ruagu and Ghallia were married a few days after you were banished. It was very festive for the wedding of a usurper and a captive bride, I must say." A muscle twitched at the edge of the princess's jaw, and Esmera found herself wondering what she wasn't telling them about the woman who was now the Queen of Milatanur.

If Ghallia wasn't the woman Esmera had thought she was from their single meeting, she certainly wasn't the one Tauram had loved. The prince gave no sign that was on his mind, only watched his little sister as she continued her story.

"Ruagu and Ghallia were happy for about three months before he got bored. His eyes started wandering. Soon, so did his hands." Princess Kerani swallowed. "Namesha and I were both trapped in the palace with nowhere to go. The difference was, I was a child, and she was a woman."

Tauram must've gotten the same meaning Esmera had from the princess's words. He stared at her, speechless, eyes wide.

Princess Kerani squeezed her eyes closed. She curled into herself as if to escape from her words, but there would be none of that. "Ruagu took her as his mistress first. I think she was in a lot of pain, but she never told me anything about it. She was always laughing with me and playing as we used to, or as close as we could get given that we were prisoners in our home. She must've told Danshan more about what was going on between her and Ruagu." The princess's lip trembled.

Esmera hadn't needed the princess to spell it out for her. The cruelty of her own life had given her more than enough atrocious possibilities to contemplate, but she would've never wished any of them on the princesses. All the same, she would've preferred that Princess Kerani hadn't confirmed her suspicions. She had wanted to be wrong, and if the princess hadn't proved her right, she could've pretended to herself that she was.

"As much as Danshan despised Ruagu's rules, he tried so hard to follow them, to protect himself and us from our captor now that you, Āmā, and Bubā were all gone and we had no one else...but one day, he tried to kill Ruagu. Stupid boy." She shook her head, tears shining in her eyes as she opened them. "He should've known nobody kills Ruagu. No one had managed to do it in centuries. Ruagu murdered him in front of us with his disgusting, deadly touch. It was a punishment to Danshan and a warning to us." Princess Kerani's tears coursed over her cheeks.

Ekta twittered her sympathy, fluttering down from Princess Kerani's shoulder to the hands resting on her lap.

"Kerani..." Tauram squeezed Esmera's hand before he released it and stood from his chair, going over to his sister and taking her slender, quivering form into his arms. "I'm so sorry."

Now the princess was sobbing into Tauram's tunic, not the young woman she was when he returned to her but the child she had been when he had left her behind. Even so, the indistinct consolations Tauram murmured couldn't comfort her as they might've once. Lundas purred, rubbing himself against her silk-covered legs, but she didn't seem to notice him.

"Namesha's situation worsened after that. I suppose it was a twisted part of Ruagu's revenge. Danshan's defiance belonged to all of us. Didī didn't tell me much about what Ruagu did to her, not even since she...they told me it was a suicide, but I thought Ruagu killed her or perhaps Ghallia was involved. That witch could never handle his obsession with Namesha or me." Kerani's jaw tensed as she pulled away, looking at Tauram and then at Esmera as if just remembering she was there. Her eyes returned to her brother, wide and glistening. "Ghallia was Ruagu's beautiful queen, the ousted prince's betrothed...but we were princesses by blood, nothing more than trophies for him to prove to this monarchy and the land that he was the ultimate ruler."

It sounded to Esmera as if Ghallia was also a mere trophy to King Ruagu rather than a life partner, just as Tauram had been an opportunity instead of a friend. Had the usurper king ever seen anyone as a person, as more than an object? Would he ever?

"Did Namesha tell you the truth?" There was so much pain constricting Tauram's voice, hardening his eyes, but Esmera also recognised the intention in his words.

He wanted to know who he needed to make pay for Namesha's death. No, not wanted. Needed, the way the land needed the sun to melt the snow into water that would give it life.

"Namesha promised she wouldn't leave me, not after you and Danshan"—Princess Kerani's voice cracked— "but they drove her to the point that she couldn't live with herself anymore. Ruagu used her but he couldn't even pretend to care about her. Ghallia got her own back by humiliating her every chance she got. Didī used to cry herself to sleep, you know. I always heard her, but she pretend not to hear me when I asked her about it." The princess sniffled.

Her familiar gave a mournful chirp to commiserate.

"I wish she hadn't shut me out. I was young, but I could've helped her hold her demons at bay, even destroy them for good. Perhaps then she'd be alive now." Princess Kerani's shoulders sagged with the same dejection, the same blame Esmera saw shadow Tauram's eyes during his rare quiet moments.

"Well, at least you're not alone anymore." Tauram kissed Princess Kerani's head. "I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere until I wring every drop of blood Ruagu owes me from his veins."

His words sent shivers through Esmera. She had never his voice so hard, as cold as the frosty breeze that danced through the mountains every morning.

Esmera saw the shimmer of tears in his eyes, and that reminded her that even though his voice and his words belonged to someone else—a prince who didn't lose his throne, who wouldn't let any slight go unanswered—he was still the Tauram she knew.

Princess Kerani hugged her brother tighter.

Tauram pulled away, his eyes flitting about her face. "Did Ruagu hurt you?"

Princess Kerani looked down, taking a moment to weigh her words. She, like Esmera, must know that they would only fuel Tauram's vengeance, send his fury blazing out of control.

"I learnt to stop fighting him. I couldn't change what he wanted with me, but I had to survive it for the sake of our bloodline." Princess Kerani looked up at her brother, the only surviving Morghis ruler. "Ruagu was much kinder to me than he was to Namesha. I think he learnt from his mistakes with her. He didn't lock me up the same way. I'm allowed to leave the palace, but only with him. He was the one who picked me and Yana off the streets when Ghallia banished us.

The queen" —the inflexion in the princess's voice suggested that she used the title sarcastically— "doesn't want my daughter to associate with her children, so Ruagu arranged for Yana to have lessons like the other princess and prince. He has been generous for a captor, and I take what I can get."

The princess's answer gave Esmera some comfort that her circumstances weren't as dire as they could've been, but it didn't give Tauram the reassurance he had been hoping for.

He shook his head, agitated. "You shouldn't have had to. You're a princess, Kerani. You should've been married to a good, respectable man and ruled one of the corners of the land when you came of age, but now Ruagu has ruined you." His mourning for the future his sister might've had darkened his dismayed eyes.

"Hope is not yet lost, Tauram." Princess Kerani gave him a weak smile. "Do you remember that young duke from eastern Milatanur?"

Tauram brightened into his familiar self as he raised his eyebrows. "The child I caught you kissing by the fountain in the courtyard when you were twelve?"

"I can't believe you still remember that." Princess Kerani looked down, self-conscious, as mortified as Esmera might've been at such a memory.

"I can't believe you thought I would forget it." Tauram pinched her cheek.

She squealed, pushing him away and giggling like she must've done when she was a child and he tortured her as older brothers did.

Tauram cocked his head, serious again, and as keen as Esmera to know what Princess Kerani was leading them towards. "What about him?"

The princess clasped her hands in her lap, a demure picture of royalty once again. "I see him whenever we have balls. He hasn't married yet."

"Oh?" Tauram blinked.

Esmera didn't have the numbers, but she tried to do the math. If the duke was at least Princess Kerani's age, he'd be in his twenties now, at least, certainly old enough to be married in a kingdom where an infant could be promised as a future bride to a child prince.

There had to be a reason the duke hadn't married yet, and Esmera had some idea what it was from the way the princess's eyes shone.

"He said that he's waiting for me."

Esmera's heart swelled with joy. A happy ending awaited Princess Kerani, and it was the least she deserved after the lonely years of trauma she had endured. It gave Esmera hope that peace, safety, and love weren't out of her reach either.

She knew that it wasn't when she looked at Tauram. She had known peace from their night-time conversations accompanied by candles. She had known safety from his embrace when he took her into his arms before they went spiralling into space and arrived elsewhere in Milatanur. She loved the little things about him, like the small smirk he wore when he teased her, even the frown he wore when he was questioning something.

Tauram didn't buy into the fairy tale as quickly as Esmera and Princess Kerani did. "What about Yana?"

"Shazil has said that he's happy to take care of both of us." The princess gave a small smile.

"And are you sure about him?"

"I am." Princess Kerani took Tauram's hands in hers. "He asked for my hand when I turned eighteen, but Ruagu refused. Shazil hasn't been able to wear him down since, but he wants to keep trying. I told him that it's ridiculous, that he should marry and move on with his life because I'm never going to be free of Ruagu...but now that you're here, perhaps there is a chance for us after all." She smiled.

The soft glow in her eyes, in her skin, in her being were as beautiful and hopeful as a precious sunrise dawning upon the earth.

"I will make this chance for you," said Tauram, his voice firm, certain about their mission for the first time since Jilhari had issued her ultimatum in his lounge. "And I know I can do it with Esmera beside me." He held a hand out to her.

Esmera stood and went to him. She had never felt as complete as she did when he pulled her close to him, even as she looked between him and his sister and realised that she had never had such a great task before her either.

Even so, she would conquer it. She had too much at stake, and so did everyone she had met since she arrived in Milatanur. And she would do it because she wasn't alone.

"King Ruagu has never seen a team like us. We'll be in the palace with the Finnaaz weapon at his throat before he even realises we're in Milatanur." Esmera squeezed Tauram's hand.

"I do not doubt that we will be." Tauram grinned at her despite the pain gleaming in his eyes.

The blood in their pasts would continue to bind them until they had washed it all away, leaving space for whatever bloomed between them to take its place. Esmera looked forward to a day where only a quiet future lay ahead, no battles, no answers, no closure, just endless years of laughter, painting, and singing beside the piano.

Princess Kerani looked between them, beaming through the frail hope in her eyes. "Tauram, I like this one."

"I like her too." Tauram's eyes wandered down to Esmera's mouth.

Her breath caught at the memory of the last time he had done that. It had ended with a kiss in his studio, and his paint-smudged fingers tracing swirls over her arms, but now, his gaze only landed on the gold-filigreed clock on Princess Kerani's dressing table.

"I hadn't realised it was so late. We should be going. The last thing I want is for Ruagu to catch me and Esmera here."

The women understood the direness in Tauram's words as well as he did, rising to their feet with him.

"Of course." Princess Kerani took both his hands in hers. In the straightness of her posture was the same defiance she had displayed the day Esmera first saw her in Parnakshi. "Kill him for me, Tauram. He is my daughter's father, but he is also my family's murderer."

"There would be no greater pleasure to me." His voice was cool, a killer's blade, but then he looked at Esmera. His eyes were as gentle and tortured as ever because they had two families to avenge now.

Tauram took Esmera's hand. She didn't start when they turned invisible, by now used to the power he possessed even though she would've never been able to contemplate anything like it just a few days previously.

With Ekta hovering at her shoulder, Princess Kerani slid her curtains apart and threw her windows open as silent as the night that stared down at her.

Esmera held fast to his hand until they had returned to the moonlit night outside with Lundas at their feet and Jammas in Esmera's hair, both invisible as well.

They stayed close together, freezing mid-step when they noticed two silhouettes occupying the pavilion not too far away from them, one male with muscled shoulders and the other female with a sari flowing down her frame. It was raised a few steps into the air, holding the couple up to the sky as it contrasted them with the night.