To Love A Murderer | ✔

03 | Shringaara and Strange Meetings

He stood and gestured to her to follow him in the stunned silence. Untying the ropes that had bound her, she rubbed at her wrists automatically and followed her Lord through a side door, sparing not a single glance towards the men in the room.

The world faded to shadow, as she followed him, the sole light illuminating her path appearing to be from his mortal raiment.

Suddenly, he stopped before a door, and turned to her. All without saying a word, he gestured to the door and she complied with his unspoken order.

She turned back a second later, a question on her lips, but there was nothing but the quickly fading light that gave way to darkness. He must have left her.

Lilavati turned again, fumbling through the room with her sense of touch alone, and once she came upon something that seemed like a bed, she sank against the frame with a soft thud. There was not a single light in the room, neither the light from SuryaDeva's radiance nor a burning flame.

Her raven tresses curled about her as she brought her knees to her head, curling within herself. Her mind wandered alone in the darkness, an expanse with no limits. But no matter how hard she tried, Lilavati could not avoid her thoughts turning to her latest misdeed.

Her breath hitched.

She had killed someone. Again.

She had deprived a wife of her husband, children of their father; his family of their only source of income and the man of his ability to live.

Her eyes were dry as she shut them, bringing her head to rest against her knees. Lilavati sent a quick prayer up to the Devas that the man may find his rest and healing, and another chance at a human life when she snatched away his current one so easily.

A tiny voice in the back of her head argued: You killed him because he was spouting the foulest words about your Lord. That is a crime that cannot be forgiven.

But it is not my fate to decide the fates of others. I am but a mere mortal. I have overstepped my boundaries.

The room which seemed heavily dark and oppressive just a moment ago, lightened just a bit as though in approval. She knew and understood very well that her sins were something heavy and that it would be beyond her current life to even begin to atone for them.

She simply sighed and buried her face deeper into her knees, her thoughts again wandering the countless universes.

~

Lilavati was startled awake by the light that flooded the room, her hand instinctively reaching for her dagger but then she belatedly realised that she had been stripped of all her weapons when she had been imprisoned.

The curtains were being drawn open, and women scurried across the room, in preparation for something. She wanted to stand up and ask questions—preferably with a dagger in her hand and one of the women with fearful eyes under her—but she remained still, as the fire that was her Lord pressed against her mind and into her memory.

She was alive only because he had spared her.

Again.

She could not defile his kindness so soon.

Lilavati then stood up, and all movement ceased. The handmaidens, she realised quite late, remained transfixed to their positions, the only movement in the room their nervous eyes darting to look at each other and her.

"What is going on?" she demanded, internally wincing at the way her voice ran dry.

"We beg your pardon, lady. We have been assigned to do your shringaara for tonight."