Walls of the heart

The princess and the betrayal

The sun was beginning to drown in gold when the messenger arrived.

The royal gardens were alive with music and laughter, courtiers moving like colors across the marble courtyard. Princess Khushi Gupta stood at the edge of it all — the wind tugging at the loose strands of her hair, her heart beating a rhythm only one man had ever taught it to know.

King Arnav Singh Raizada.

Even the sound of his name was enough to make her smile. Their kingdoms had once been rivals, but alliances had softened the borders — and love, reckless and defiant, had crossed them entirely.

Every secret letter, every fleeting glance across council halls, every midnight promise whispered between duty and desire — it had all felt like something out of legend. And she had believed it. Every word. Every touch. Every look.

Until that evening.

The messenger knelt before her father with trembling hands, presenting a sealed letter with the royal crest of Raizada. The court fell silent.

Khushi had felt it then — the faint ache of something breaking, even before the seal was broken.

"To His Majesty, King Rajendra Singh Gupta," the letter began, "I regret to inform you that the alliance proposal with your daughter, Princess Khushi Gupta, will not proceed. I have no intentions of marriage — not now, nor in the future. The attachment between the princess and myself was... a brief error of judgment."

Gasps filled the hall.

The words blurred as her mother's hand flew to her mouth. Khushi's heart slammed against her ribs, her body frozen in disbelief.

An error of judgment.

Her mind screamed to deny it, to believe there was some mistake, but her soul already knew the truth.

That night, she went to him.
Defying her father's command, Khushi rode through the storm to the Raizada border. The guards hesitated at her presence — a princess drenched in rain, eyes blazing.

He came out to meet her, calm as stone.
King Arnav — the man she had once thought she could read with her heart alone.

"Tell me you didn't mean it," she whispered.
"Tell me this is some cruel misunderstanding."

His gaze held no warmth.

"You were a distraction, Khushi. A moment of... weakness. Nothing more."

For a heartbeat, she couldn't breathe. The rain blurred the tears she refused to shed.

"Then you are a weaker man than I ever imagined, My Lord."

She turned away, her dignity her last defense, the storm swallowing her steps.

By dawn, she returned to the palace changed.
The maids whispered that the princess had not slept, that her chamber still smelled of rain and smoke from the candles she had burned till morning.

In the mirror, her reflection looked older — colder — as if the girl who had believed in love had died in the storm.

She picked up her sword — the one she had once trained with her brother Shyam — and whispered,

"A woman's worth isn't measured by the man who breaks her. It's defined by how she rises after."

The sound of steel cut through the silence, echoing her vow.

From that day on, Princess Khushi Gupta smiled for no one.
She spoke softly but carried an authority that even her father admired and her enemies feared.

Her laughter faded into memory, replaced by a quiet strength that no one dared question.

And though the world saw her as serene and composed, only the walls of her chamber knew the truth — that behind every calm breath was a storm still waiting to break.