𝕰𝖒𝖊𝖗𝖌𝖊𝖓𝖈𝖊 | ✔

Chapter 1 : A Hidden Significance.

A huge hall was decorated majestically with various jewels, silken clothes and strings of pearls. Several flowers, emanating their natural essence, decorated the entire hall. The entire hall was glamorously decked up. 

A woman with bright doe-like ocean blue orbs, dressed in silk red garments, adorned with gold jewels, and a matching red veil with a golden tiara, was sitting in the middle throne at an elevated platform. On either side of her sat two more beauties, one dressed in pink and the other in peach. Both were as beautiful as their eldest sister yet could not compare to her innate grace and assured self-confidence, which magnified her alluring beauty.

At the middle of the hall, on a golden throne sat a aged man with slight grey hairs, smiling at all the people in the hall. A swayamvara (self-choice ceremony, in which the bride is allowed to choose among a number of grooms vying for her attention) will be conducted soon in the great hall of the majestic palace of Kashi, which had served as their seat of power for generations of the royal family.

Amba, the eldest of the Kashi Princess, felt disgusted at the smile of the King as she knew it to be fake. Her father had never cared for his daughters, only wanting a son to carry his lineage but to his misfortune he got three daughters instead.

She knew that the self choice ceremony was simply an opportunity for revenge for her father. The entire Bhārata-varṣa (India) was invited in the ceremony except for the mighty kingdom of Hastinapura. 

Kashi had been at bad terms with Hastinapura from the day the marriage of King Kashya's(Amba's father) sister Vatsala's marriage got broken to Devavrata, when he took the vow of celibacy for his step-mother. This was just a way to get back at them, the reason behind arranging the three sisters self-choice ceremony simultaneously.

Amba's sisters - the one wearing pink was Ambika and the one wearing peach was Ambalika. She was the eldest of them. Hence would be the first to choose in this farce of a ceremony whose basic reason was not their happiness and choice but rather revenge.

Amba glanced at King Shalva who was smirking as he glanced at her lustfully, while she averted her gaze not liking the feeling at all. She was not some damsel in distress but she hated when things were pre-decided. She was well aware that among the suitors, King Shalva was almost superior in both reputation and skill. She sighed looking at her jeweled hands wondering what she was supposed to do. Her father wanted her to marry Shalva as he was the son of her father's friend. Her father wanted an alliance with the Kingdom of Saubala. 

She should not be going against her father, but shouldn't her happiness and wish matter too? 

She had known Shalva from childhood but there was no personal quality in him that she actually liked. He was an egoistic person and an able warrior but was not on par with the best out there (the best who won't be attending the self-choice ceremony). He was boastful as well, something she disliked.

She glanced at Ambika and Ambalika, her dearest sisters, both of whom she had nearly raised. Her younger sisters were only a year apart, hence closer in age. She, however, was a decade older to them. When she noticed them looking at her with nervous smiles on their faces, she smiled back hoping to calm them down, although she wasn't stable herself. Fortunately she had learnt the art of not showing her true feelings long ago.  Circumstances had forced her to learn, even though she was an emotional person by nature. Nonetheless, chances of her true emotions slipping by her mask were negligible.

"All respectable Kings and Princes belonging from various Kingdoms of Bhārata-varṣa are welcomed to the self choice ceremony of Princesses of the Kingdom of Kashi. I declare the ceremony to begin." She heard her father announce the ceremony open.