Aishwarya ~ The Prince's Brown Bride

1 ~ The New Beginning

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Aishwarya POV

"Ab aap Bai-sa ki maang me sindoor bhariye,"

"Now fill the vermillion in the partition of her hair,"

I heard the voice of the priest exclaiming to him.

Silent tears were rolling down my tears that no one could see because of the long veil I was wearing. My whole body was shivering like anything. It had been a whole week since I have eaten properly, slept peacefully or done anything to my heart's content.

I closed my eyes to calm down my trembling lips when I felt him pulling my veil just a little up only to touch my forehead. My whole body turned numb and my eyes closed with my head low, when I felt his hand touching the centre of my hairline, adding the vermillion to the partition of my hair.

This was it.

"Now, I announce you both husband and wife,"

I became his. In a single moment, just in a snap of fingers my whole life, world, everything changed. 

So drastically as if someone has fallen from the height of a mountain and ended right into the depth of the river flowing down, just in a snap of fingers. And, no one could explain the moments of the snap of fingers, when that someone slipped from the mountain and touched the bed of the river. No one could explain that turbulence, that storm, that feeling. No One.

I got married to a person, I had never known, never heard of and never even seen. Whole my life I craved love, crave something better, longed for feeling important and this was it. My hope died here, my wanting to be ended here, my craving burned here and I ended here.

Everything was finished when my father married me off to a complete stranger man for the sake of the betterment of people. I was just a pawn of the political Chaturanga (chess). 

"Now, you both must stand up and take the blessings of the elder,"

The priest said and I felt the person sitting beside that had become my husband now standing up. I was feeling frozen.

All the voices, all the visuals of my childhood and everything was blurring my teary vision.

Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder and a sweet girlish voice saying.

"Aishwarya, stand up,"

I blinked and more tears fell from my eyes. I shakily stood up and looked at my dupatta tied with his.

I was now his wife, his half, his.

And, I did not even know who he was.

All I knew was that his name was Ranvijay Dev Singh and he was the Prince of Suryagarh with which my father had recently established a peace treaty and given me as a token of a strong relationship with the Kingdom.

With my shaky steps and weak knees, I walked towards my father first. He placed his hand on my head and said.

"God Bless you,"

I knew that the words were just a mere formality.

I was never a good girl for him, never the girl he wanted. I did not know what was wrong with me, what had been wrong with me my whole life. 

Though, he was the only one I had even if his behaviour had always been cold towards me.

"Congratulations, Bhaisa,"

I heard a few faded noises of congratulations, giggling, happiness and a wave of dreamland. But, inside my heart, only ashes were left.

Never in my thought, I thought that my father would arrange for me with a stranger for a political alliance.