The Blazing Heiress

38|| Camaraderie of falling night

A/N: Thank you so much for your feedback on your last chapter. I took some time to reread the last few chapters of TBH and realized where I was going wrong. I spent my time the last few weeks understanding the proper pacing of the book <3

Also, I have relocated the diary entry from the last chapter and added it here. When I reread the last chapter, I realized I had dumped so many things in the chapter without adding seamless transitions between the scenes. The diary entry felt like a disjointed connection.

And I apologise for the inconvenience caused. The diary entry remains the same with only a few words altered here and there. Those who've read it in the last chapter, please feel free to skip it.

This chapter was originally scheduled to be published two weeks ago. But, my house was undergoing renovations, and I found myself spending the majority of my time cleaning dust off my keyboards rather than writing. To make up for my absence, here's an extra-long chapter. Happy Reading <3

─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────

"Yet from pain can come wisdom, from fear can come courage, from suffering can come strength—if we have the virtue of resilience." —Eric Grietens.

─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────

Avni blinked, the spell of the past dispersing like a thin mist scattering and vaporising in the morning light. Brown eyes stared at the young man, a volley of questions swirling within.

"Three years back, two men brought a battered woman to the hospital after she had an unfortunate slip down a cliff. They left before the surgery ended because they were needed elsewhere that night," Viransh said wistfully. "And the next day they come back to inquire the receptionist about the woman only to discover she didn't make it out alive."

Her eyebrows snapped together, and she stared mutely at him, delicate lines of her throat rattling with strange comprehension and anticipation.

"Tell me, Avni," A hint of sorrow laced in his tenor. "How's that possible when that woman stands right before me, alive and breathing?"

Sparks of realization glinted in her anguished eyes, a broken whisper falling off her lips. "It was you."

He nodded, the walls of his heart trembling.

The ground beneath her feet slid, threatening to bring her down to her knees as the transcendent revelation unfolded before her. "It was you who saved me all those years ago," her soft words echoed in the hollow dusk, shock on her face morphing into recognition.

Curbing a powerful desire to wrap her in his embrace, he requested an answer to a question that had been assailing his conscience for weeks. "Why would your family fabricate your death to me?" he halted, struggling to find the right words. "How could they?"

A tearful constriction rose to her throat as she looked away from her boyfriend. Ashamed to meet his gaze, she briefly pivoted her attention to the ground. She knew the answer, but the cruelty it bore sent thousand sharp knives spearing into her chest.

"Avni?" he urged cautiously.

She glanced at him again, her eyes stripped off their usual shutters, unleashing a glimpse of a shattered soul. With a scathing breath of nonchalance, she uttered, "To fortify their reputation before the media could hoof on the buzz of a miserable, weak, prodigal heiress ending up her life in a theatrical gusto just because she was incapable of enduring a little bit of pain."

"B-but it was an accident," he gainsaid.

"Was it?" she inquired, uncertainty seeping into her tone. "Or was it not?"