Royal Vs Rebel (Royal #2: Book 1)

12

yeh shaam, meri Maa ke naam ❤️

-• the golden cage •-

[October 19, 2006]

When Sara returns home that evening, she isn't the same woman she had left as this morning. That Sara had nothing to look forward to, that Sara had lost everything, had nothing more to gain, and she had made amends with her life. She had made the decision to stay by her husband's side as his trophy wife, to spend the rest of her life in a loveless marriage and die as an unloved woman. But it came crashing down in a matter of seconds. And all it took for her was to meet the right person.

Virat Rajawat.

He's alive.

The man who had always looked at the kids of their family with affection, the man who had his son and wife taken away from him mercilessly, the man who had been ruined and left in shambles, the man she actually considered her family. He's still alive. She still has a family.

Thus, as soon as her feet touched the handcrafted gold marbled floors, she wanted nothing but to turn around and leave. Veer Mahal had always been a golden cage, and she had never fought against its jaded walls, never tried to cross its threshold. Broken wings don't flutter to change fates, take a flight, and fly unbound, they flutter to shed off the remaining feathers, to fight a losing battle.

So why is she feeling this indescribable need to take off with those broken wings? How far is she willing to go with them? How high will she be able to fly with them? She knows it'd be a fool's choice to find out, but she had been sane many times, she wanted to become a fool at least once in her life.

She can't stay in this golden cage anymore. She can't wait for a golden hour to strike and change her life around. She has to do it on her own. She has to go out there and become who she had left outside this palace when she first came here.

Sara strokes the picture in her hand. Avani had the brightest smile. It shone in the dark as the rarest constellation of the stars. And they had stolen it. They had stolen Sara's light, leaving her forever stranded in the dark. She can't stay here anymore. Avani doesn't deserve to be forgotten so easily, she doesn't deserve to be let go of with injustice.

She straightens the curled corners of the picture, sniffling softly as the countless memories hit. Every moment spent with Avani was Sara's most profound memory. How could it not be when she was the only person in her life teaching her the meaning of love?

"You know something, Sara," the faint voice in her memories had once asked, her long, deft fingers skillfully knitting the threads into the softest sweater for the unborn in her stomach. "When I first learned of my pregnancy, I was slightly paranoid."

"Why?"

"I've never been a mother before."Avani had smiled giddily.

Sara chuckled. "Liar. The very moment our Miss taught us the definition of mother, you were the first person to come to my mind. And that was when I was only five years old."

Brimming with tears, the eyes of gold had gazed at her so fondly Sara felt touched in her soul.

"It's so unfair that blood relationships get the privilege of a title sometimes they are not even worthy of. If I were to change what's set in stone by our society, I'd call you my mother always. You deserve that title more than anyone else. So do not be afraid of this new phase," Sara had touched the little swell on Avani's stomach tenderly. "You had been ready for it since you were ten."

Avani had dropped the knitting materials aside and pulled her little sister in her arms.

Tears rolled down their eyes,